The Sacrifice (3/3): He is Here

Who says He is not here? Does the Eternal die? Does he who has realized his identity with God die? That would mean the death of God himself? On the contrary Sri Aurobindo is very much here and everywhere. If he were not the world would have gone to blazes long ago. True he is not accessible to the senses. But have we not learnt that the senses do not report Reality but only construct it. Sri Aurobindo is beyond the construct of the senses though he can enter within their limits. The mind does not understand whether he is present or not, one may say or ask? But when did the mind ever understand anything truly. It plays with concepts and builds images of Reality. Sri Aurobindo is beyond these images and percepts and concepts though he can come within their limits if he so wishes and reveal something of himself within the limits of the human mind. But what the mind and the senses do not know, the heart can feel and the soul knows. The only way to know His Presence with certitude is to feel him in the heart where the two-in-one dwell permanently. It is through love, through faith, through devotion and surrender that we can know him and experience something of what and who he really is. He who is inconceivable to the mind, who is beyond knowledge and wisdom can yet be known through the door of love. Did the Mother not reveal in Her experience of April 12-13th 1962 the following:

I was at the Origin – I WAS the Origin. For more than two hours, consciously, here on this bed, I was the Origin. And it was like gusts – like great gusts ending in explosions. And each one of these gusts was a span of the universe.

It was Love in its supreme essence – which has nothing to do with what people normally understand by that word.

And each gust of this essence of Love was dividing and spreading out … but they weren’t forces, it was far beyond the realm of forces. The universe as we know it no longer existed; it was a sort of bizarre illusion, bearing no relation to THAT. There was only the truth of the universe, with those great gusts of colour – they were coloured – great gusts coloured with something that is the essence of colour.

It was stupendous. I lived more than two hours like that, consciously.

And then a Voice was explaining everything to me (not exactly a Voice, but something that was Sri Aurobindo’s origin, like the most recent gust from the Origin). As the experience unfolded, this Voice explained each gust to me, each span of the universe; and then it explained how it all became like this (Mother makes a gesture of reversal): the distortion of the universe. And I was wondering how it was possible, with that Consciousness, that supreme Consciousness, to relate to the present, distorted universe. How to make the connection without losing that Consciousness? A relationship between the two seemed impossible. And that’s when that sort of Voice reminded me of my promise, that I had promised to do the Work on earth and it would be done. “I promised to do the Work and it will be done.”

Conversations with a disciple: April 13th 1962

The power of Silence one still feels in his room is a living testimony that God not only lived in a human body but continues to live upon earth in a divinely human personality with which we can connect and relate with. And the Samadhi where His Presence vibrates with a tremendous intensity, as if His Presence had become the original rhythm and had chosen an earthly spot to manifest the New Creation now. A static Peace and a dynamic pulsation of Ananda is what one feels there at the Samadhi. The Mother reminds us.

If something is not all right and you would like to know the cause, or you want to get rid of a weakness, or get cured, or be cleansed, to have a difficulty removed in order to be purified, — for any answer, come and ask Sri Aurobindo at the Samadhi and you will have the answer. Not only His answer but also His blessings, His compassion, His peace and His illumination. You will be engulfed and seized by His love that is all-powerful. Once you abandon yourself to Him, you will be protected against all mishaps. It is like this — His influence. He reveals Himself to all those who are simple, sincere and humble. He is there, perfectly conscious, and He directs all the activities of the world. When I want to know something, I ask Him, and at once He answers me….

You know, earlier, when He was in His body, people used to say that He was very far, remote and inaccessible to men and that He was not concerned about the affairs of the sadhaks here. It is not quite correct, for indeed He used to spend night after night replying to a heap of letters instead of doing His work of uplifting the world and preparing it for the advent of the Supramental world. …

But now He has universalised Himself, become vast, very intimate and close. There is a bond with everyone, through a nearness and a direct influence so that everyone can have access to Him.

It is formidable. His presence vibrates, concrete, all around the Samadhi. And His influence penetrates and touches the central being and awakens the consciousness to the spiritual life. Even the agnostics, the unbelievers, people of bad-will who come out of curiosity to visit the Samadhi, return amazed by a mysterious alchemy and find an inner peace, because there He showers His peace and His compassion constantly. It is this that bathes them when they pass before Him. It is an unbelievable surcharged activity of His force and His presence.

When I look at the Samadhi and see what is happening there, I am astonished to find this column of dazzling light vibrating with an energy and a transforming force. It rises like this — (Mother makes an upward movement with the hands) with a splendour and a brilliance like an effusion of light from the length and breadth of the Samadhi. It is the New Light materialising….

It is a sanctified place for meditation and not for gossip. Never to speak — one disturbs the atmosphere. He is there with His glorified body sustaining the entire world in a subtle movement, manifesting gradually His consciousness, partially veiled for the Divine descent.

He is the living assurance of our divine possibility, the promise of the Divinity radiating with the divine Light and divine Power — the progressive march towards the Divine Manifestation. That is why the whole atmosphere is charged with a divine and sublime Peace, you understand? It is He who is there — in the divine body — Himself divinised, the representative of the whole humanity, He who, by His own effort, by His tapasya and by the sadhana that He has done in His body, has made His body glorious. The realisations and the experiences He has had, what He has accumulated in His body by this yogic effort, has charged His body with a transforming power. It is charged — charged dynamically with a force and a light that overflows; it is this that envelops the whole atmosphere. All around, it is His presence. It endures because it is the Supra-mental force and shows no sign of diminishing. It cannot.

It is this that the people absorb when they pass around the Samadhi. Without knowing it, they are bathed by His love and they do not even realise as to why they are mystified when they approach the Samadhi. It is amazing! They are bewildered when they touch the Samadhi because the force that is working all around demolishes their so-called religious sentiments, shatters the emotions clamouring towards the heavens and puts them before a Reality that they do not understand. They are astounded by this extraordinary phenomenon of the Truth that manifests there. Those who are open are touched, and they return to recharge themselves and to imbibe in their being, this Peace that is in the atmosphere. His presence is so concrete and so living — like a conscious Immensity that dominates and charges this atmosphere. I see how it seems to float in evanescent lights and colours, a beauty of unseizable delight, a spirit of purity and an elusive presence, though unsubstantial yet nearly material, carrying a sweetness unknown to the world. It seems to me that a heart that is one-pointed, aspiring ardently for the Divine, if it stands before the Samadhi and desires nothing but His beatitude, will be transported into a region of delight much better and higher than the ecstasy experienced by the all-His eternal presence — at the Samadhi powerful heavens or that the earth has ever known.

His devotees and those who aspire — truly aspire to unite their consciousness with Sri Aurobindo who dominates this place with His formidable presence — find the grandeur of His majestic presence, as concrete as you see me now. And those who wish to communicate with Him find His invariable answer. He is there — all-puissant with all His power and He presides over the New Creation from behind the veil with a sustained insistence and an unbelievable patience, but determined, as is His mode of action, gaining victories one after another, first to change the consciousness of humanity and then to transform it in all its dimensions, knowing well that these resistances and these momentary falls prepare humanity to overcome the obstacles before it, and guiding its mode of action and its attitude by a global movement in the peace of His light. And, above all, this is based on spirituality and not on those so called pseudo-religious movements whose essence is fanaticism, war and unnecessary quarrels. You see the results.… The world is tired of the cruelties of men, — blood flows and violence predominates, we have never seen such terrible devastations. Men have become beasts, even worse than beasts!

… So long as man does not try to change his consciousness … it is an unsurmountable impasse. No one, neither man, nor individuals endowed with extraordinary faculties can do anything or bridge the chasm between the Divine and the adverse forces. It is ignorance which has pushed man into this state.

But do not worry. One who has been given the charge, One who is responsible, works to bring man towards the frontiers of a New World; He uproots the difficulties and the obstacles incessantly, guiding man towards a luminous future. He alone can cure this malady, because he is the Master of our existence. Have confidence and all will be all right. This is perhaps the lowest point that man has reached in the spiral of evolution, in the vicissitudes of his terrestrial existence. But soon, we shall see the light — the hope of a great change — the certitude of His presence which alone can bring down and establish the kingdom of the Divine upon earth. 

Blessings of the Grace, “His Eternal Presence at the Samadhi”

Let us then spend this day and the days to come with this single will, single occupation, single aspiration that may all in us be given to him for his work, in love and with love for him who gave himself so completely for us. Then slowly a little of the understanding will dawn upon us and instead of saying ‘He is no more here, or He has departed’, – the language of ignorance, we shall say, ‘He is here, He is here, he is here’.