Some Reflections on 17th Nov: Mahasamadhi or Resurrection?

Does the Divine ever come and go? Is He not always here with us, helping and holding us, even carrying us through the stormy isles and turbulent times? True we may not always recognise Him since the storm clouds our vision and we are too busy noticing the turbulence that threatens and not the saving Grace that enters to rescue us. In fact even when all is dark and nothing is seen, even when no help comes and all is lost or so it seems to our outer vision, He is still there holding us as always, smiling at our fuss and absorbing our pain. If only we turn towards Him, we shall see Him even in the darkest hour of our life. Even in Death and disaster, at least what we consider as disaster, we can feel His Presence. But we are habitually turned outwards and assess events by our limited understanding of fortune and fate. Yet often the worst seeming misfortunes are turning points of Destiny when Fate opens a new door towards Him, a door that was tightly locked until now. Then death becomes the soul’s opportunity and disaster the starting point of a New Creation. But what are birth and death but a coming within and stepping out of the range of our finite senses, of That which is Infinite and Immortal?

Was it thus that the events of 17th Nov 1973 unfolded? Surrounded by our blindness, the Bird of Paradise flew past our vision and we could not see. Focussed on our little self and the self of the Body as we experience it, we saw the mighty Phoenix dive into the all-destroying fire but failed to notice Her uprising. We were busy counting the hours and the minutes while She was busy bringing down the Eternal in our midst. The bodily cage gone, it is Her eternal Presence, not just the inner Presence, not even the Supramental Presence on that high plane beyond Time and Timelessness, but Her eternal Presence established in Her New Body that is now here in our midst. It is here, there, everywhere as Her New Body that allows Her the Freedom that the old body did not have. Her action consequently has grown even more powerful and universal.

But how are we to see it, feel it, and even sense it. Well, there are two possible ways, two that go hand in hand, – one is to have faith and with this faith aspire for Her contact. The other is to have sincerity in our aspiration and keep applying the truths of yoga to our daily life, – sleeplessly as the adepts say. We do not need anything else. They have given us the entire roadmap, the details of the journey for each path and curve that humanity may take, – and there are many path towards the New Creation, which have been marked out, opened, made safe for our journey. The steps and stages have all been fixed, even a detailed guidance is available, not only inwardly, – which is always there, but also in Their Word-body. Nothing is left out, nothing missed that we may need in this great and sublimest of adventures. Knowing our needs and the context of Time and Space in which we function, She has created such spaces, like the Ashram, Auroville and many other living centres vibrating with Her Presence, surrounded by Her atmosphere, charged with Her radiant Peace and luminous Joy. Above all we are not left to our own resources. Even though we may not be able to see Her, Their Grace and Help and Consciousness are here to Guide and protect us through the terrible and rough terrains and the smooth slopes of our journey. Most of all Her Love is here to succour and to save, to help and to heal the wounds we endure through the perilous passages of the soul. Nothing is left to Chance nor is anyone left alone. None is abandoned and all can dare and hope, if one has the calling for this tremendous venture. She who was One has become Many in Her infinity.

Indeed it is a Divine venture. So to worry about it, to worry about our own future or the future of the world betrays a lack of trust in Her. We and the world are eventually Divine creations. It is He and He alone who is responsible for it. All that is needed is to trust that He is leading it in His own way. We may not understand it now but if we keep the faith and strive rightly, the understanding will dawn. It has always been known that the Divine ways are not like the human ways. He makes use of everything for His divine Purpose, uses evil for good and fall for a greater rise. Our vision is linear and narrowly focussed on immediate results. His vision is global and, taking into account our entire past, reaches towards the far unseen future. Instead of tying Her down to our limited seeing and understanding we need to grow in Her Vision. We can do it in a number of ways. We can, for example, participate in Her action by offering our will and efforts to Her with an aspiration to serve Her. We can dwell and meditate upon Her luminous words and thereby passing beyond the word grow into the consciousness that is there behind it. Or we may simply love Her, love Her with all our heart and all our being. Then nothing else is needed. All is done for us, the understanding grows and the knowledge is given, the vision and power develop spontaneously as blooms a beautiful Rose from the ordinary soil, or grows a mighty tree out of a tiny seed. Then New Creation blossoms and we see the New World with naked eyes and feel Her mighty and victorious workings in the midst of the battle and the fury of Time. But whatever route we may take, what is needed at all times is to remain open and receptive to Her, calling Her Name to increase our opening, remaining calm and attentive towards Her to increase our receptivity.

Yes the old creation will miss Her physical body built in the old way. The mortal senses that conceal more than they reveal will miss the vision of that Glory of Glories who stood in our midst in a little frail body made of earth. It was an act of Her Grace, a sublime sacrifice so that She could move in our midst, come within our grasp, for thus alone could man follow Her steps. But now the purpose of this physical embodiment is over. The Supermind is established firmly upon earth as the leader of evolution next, the seeds of New Creation have been unearthed out of the mud and mire of a fallen and darkened earth-nature in which they were lying waiting for their hour. The earth’s and man’s future is secured and the tide of Time has been decisively turned in the direction of the divine Victory. In short the Work for which She had consented to take up the burden of the flesh is over. The bridge between the old and the new world, for which she had taken this obscure earthly robe, has been built. The deed is done, so to say. Now we shall see Her in Her true body that does not conceal Her Glory. When our consciousness is sufficiently transformed, when our mind and heart grow one with Her, when body and senses, purified with the flame of aspiration are transmuted into wide and supple vessels, or pure and plastic channels of Her light and truth and love, then man shall behold Her again. Such is the destiny bequeathed to earth. The boon is already granted. Her faithful trustee Time will unfold it in each one and in all. Thus shall it be since such is the promise of the Lord.

Hearts touched by thy love shall answer to my call,
Discover the ancient music of the spheres
In the revealing accents of thy voice
And nearer draw to me because thou art:
Enamoured of thy spirit’s loveliness
They shall embrace my body in thy soul,
Hear in thy life the beauty of my laugh,
Know the thrilled bliss with which I made the worlds.
All that thou hast, shall be for others’ bliss,
All that thou art, shall to my hands belong.
I will pour delight from thee as from a jar,
I will whirl thee as my chariot through the ways,
I will use thee as my sword and as my lyre,
I will play on thee my minstrelsies of thought.
And when thou art vibrant with all ecstasy,
And when thou liv’st one spirit with all things,
Then will I spare thee not my living fires,
But make thee a channel for my timeless force.
My hidden presence led thee unknowing on
From thy beginning in earth’s voiceless bosom
Through life and pain and time and will and death,
Through outer shocks and inner silences
Along the mystic roads of Space and Time
To the experience which all Nature hides.
Who hunts and seizes me, my captive grows:

This shalt thou henceforth learn from thy heart-beats.
For ever love, O beautiful slave of God!
O lasso of my rapture’s widening noose,
Become my cord of universal love.
The spirit ensnared by thee force to delight
Of creation’s oneness sweet and fathomless,
Compelled to embrace my myriad unities
And all my endless forms and divine souls.
O Mind, grow full of the eternal peace;
O Word, cry out the immortal litany:
Built is the golden tower, the flame-child born…..
But when the hour of the Divine draws near
The Mighty Mother shall take birth in Time
And God be born into the human clay
In forms made ready by your human lives.
Then shall the Truth supreme be given to men:
There is a being beyond the being of mind,
An Immeasurable cast into many forms,
A miracle of the multitudinous One,
There is a consciousness mind cannot touch,
Its speech cannot utter nor its thought reveal.
It has no home on earth, no centre in man,
Yet is the source of all things thought and done,
The fount of the creation and its works,
It is the origin of all truth here,
The sun-orb of mind’s fragmentary rays,
Infinity’s heaven that spills the rain of God,
The Immense that calls to man to expand the Spirit,
The wide Aim that justifies his narrow attempts,
A channel for the little he tastes of bliss.
Some shall be made the glory’s receptacles
And vehicles of the Eternal’s luminous power.
These are the high forerunners, the heads of Time,
The great deliverers of earth-bound mind,
The high transfigurers of human clay,
The first-born of a new supernal race.
The incarnate dual Power shall open God’s door,
Eternal supermind touch earthly Time.
The superman shall wake in mortal man
And manifest the hidden demigod
Or grow into the God-Light and God-Force
Revealing the secret deity in the cave.

Then shall the earth be touched by the Supreme,
His bright unveiled Transcendence shall illumine
The mind and heart and force the life and act
To interpret his inexpressible mystery
In a heavenly alphabet of Divinity’s signs.

Savitri 701 – 705