Message For United States Of America And Europe

76 - "Europe prides herself on her practical and scientific organisation and efficiency. I am waiting till her organisation is perfect; then a child shall destroy her. "

SRI AUROBINDO

I Think I Thaw Othama

Meanwhile, the American general running the Afghan War, Stanley McChrystal, just shockingly warned that the US risks being beaten by lightly-armed Taliban tribesmen in spite of his 107,000 western soldiers, B1 heavy bombers, F-15’s, F-16’s, F-18’s, Apache and AC-130 gunships, heavy artillery, tanks, radars, killer drones, cluster bombs, white phosphorus, rockets, and space surveillance.

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Kwame Nkrumah

KWAME NKRUMAH

At the time he published Neo-Colonialism, the last Stage of Imperialism, Kwame Nkrumah was the President of Ghana, the first African country to achieve independence from colonial rule. One year later he would be deposed by a military coup that was supported by the American CIA. The name of Nkrumah's book is a variation on Lenin's own study of imperialism written 50 years before and named Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. This is fitting because Nkrumah's contribution remains the best single update on imperialism since Lenin.
Nkrumah explains in great detail how the West, and especially the United States, was responding to the success of national liberation movements, such as the one he led in Ghana, by shifting its tactics from colonialism to neo-colonialism: "Without a qualm it dispenses with its flags" and "claims that it is 'giving' independence to its former subjects, to be followed by 'aid' for their development. Under cover of such phrases, however, it devises innumerable ways to accomplish objetives formerly achieved by naked colonialism."
The neo-colonial powers pursue their actions in the name of the United Nations by using two UN agencies that they established after World War and that they fully control without any pretext of democracy, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund: "Still another neo-colonialist trap on the economic front has come to be known as ‘multilateral aid’ through international organisations: the International Monetary Fund, the Inter-national Bank for Reconstruction and Development (known as the World Bank), the International Finance Corporation and the International Development Association are examples, all, significantly, having U.S. capital as their major backing. These agencies have the habit of forcing would-be borrowers to submit to various offensive conditions, such as supplying information about their economies, submitting their policy and plans to review by the World Bank and accepting agency supervision of their use of loans."
Neo-colonialism provides enormous profits as did colonialism before it. Nkrumah describes how Western monopolies control the prices of commodities by lowering the prices they pay and extracting some $41 billion in profits from 1951 to 1961.. Also they profit from high rates of interest: "while capital worth $30,000 million was exported to some fifty-six developing countries between 1956 and 1962, it is estimated that interest and profit alone extracted on this sum from the debtor countries amounted to more than £15,000 million."
Among the "innumerable ways" of neo-colonialist exploitation, Nkrumah describes the following. "There are conditions which hedge it around: the conclusion of commerce and navigation treaties; agreements for economic co-operation; the right to meddle in internal finances, including currency and foreign exchange, to lower trade barriers in favour of the donor country’s goods and capital; to protect the interests of private investments; determination of how the funds are to be used; forcing the recipient to set up counterpart funds; to supply raw materials to the donor; and use of such funds a majority of it, in fact to buy goods from the donor nation. These conditions apply to industry, commerce, agriculture, shipping and insurance, apart from others which are political and military. So-called ‘invisible trade’ furnishes the Western monopolies with yet another means of economic penetration. Over 90 per cent of world ocean shipping is controlled by me imperialist countries ... As for insurance payments, in 1961 alone these amounted to an unfavourable balance in Asia, Africa and Latin America of some additional $370 million."
As shown by the Nkrumah analysis, Neo-colonial exploitation "operates not only in the economic field, but also in the political, religious, ideological and cultural spheres. "
Detailed descriptions are provided of the infiltration and manipulation of organized labor organizations by agencies of the neo-colonial countries, especially the United States. Although he does not mention this, the largest part of the budget of the major U.S. labor organization for many years was supplied by the CIA for this purpose.
Hollywood is pressed into service. As he vividly describes, "Even the cinema stories of fabulous Hollywood are loaded. One has only to listen to the cheers of an African audience as Hollywood’s heroes slaughter red Indians or Asiatics to understand the effectiveness of this weapon. For, in the developing continents, where the colonialist heritage has left a vast majority still illiterate, even the smallest child gets the message contained in the blood and thunder stories emanating from California. And along with murder and the Wild West goes an incessant barrage of anti-socialist propaganda, in which the trade union man, the revolutionary, or the man of dark skin is generally cast as the villain, while the policeman, the gum-shoe, the Federal agent — in a word, the CIA — type spy is ever the hero. Here, truly, is the ideological under-belly of those political murders which so often use local people as their instruments."
So, too, the mass media is an arm of neo-colonialism. "While Hollywood takes care of fiction, the enormous monopoly press, together with the outflow of slick, clever, expensive magazines, attends to what it chooses to call ‘news. Within separate countries, one or two news agencies control the news handouts, so that a deadly uniformity is achieved, regardless of the number of separate newspapers or magazines; while internationally, the financial preponderance of the United States is felt more and more through its foreign correspondents and offices abroad, as well as through its influence over inter-national capitalist journalism. Under this guise, a flood of anti-liberation propaganda emanates from the capital cities of the West, directed against China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Algeria, Ghana and all countries which hack out their own independent path to freedom. Prejudice is rife. For example, wherever there is armed struggle against the forces of reaction, the nationalists are referred to as rebels, terrorists, or frequently ‘communist terrorists'!"
Religion, too, is distorted and used to support the aims of neo-colonialism. "Following the liberation movement there has been a veritable riptide of religious sects, the overwhelming majority of them American. Typical of these are Jehovah’s Witnesses who recently created trouble in certain developing countries by busily teaching their citizens not to salute the new national flags. ‘Religion’ was too thin to smother the outcry that arose against this activity, and a temporary lull followed. But the number of evangelists continues to grow."
Nkrumah goes on to describe how the U.S. Peace Corps, university professors and programs and the U.S. Information Agency are engaged in the support of neo-colonialism.
In the long run, however, neo-colonialism, like colonialism before it, will be defeated. Nkrumah points out that it has succeeded thus far by the tactic of "divide and rule" and that it will ultimatedly be defeated by the unity of exploited peoples This requires a clear understanding of the issues involved, for which Nkrumah's contribution is essential. As he says, "With the utmost speed, neo-colonialism must be analysed in clear and simple terms for the full mass understanding by the surging organisations of the African peoples. The All-African Trade Union Federation (AATUF) has already made a start in this direction, while the Pan-African Youth Movement, the women, journalists, farmers and others are not far behind. Bolstered with ideological clarity, these organisations, closely linked with the ruling parties where liberatory forces are in power, will prove that neo-colonialism is the symptom of imperialism’s weakness and that it is defeatable. For, when all is said and done, it is the so-called little man, the bent-backed, exploited, malnourished, blood-covered fighter for independence who decides. And he invariably decides for freedom."

neo colonialism

kwame nkrumah

The God Of The Jews And Christians

But I also remember reading The Tradition, before I met Sri Aurobindo (it was like a novel, a serialized romance of the world's creation, but it was very evocative; Théon called it The Tradition). That was where I first learned of the universal Mother's first four emanations, when the Lord delegated his creative power to the Mother. And it was identical to the ancient Indian tradition, but told like a nursery story; anyone could understand - it was an image, like a movie, and very vivid.
So She made her first four emanations. The first was Consciousness and Light (arising from Sachchidananda); the second was Ananda and Love; the third was Life; and Truth was the fourth. Then, so the story goes, conscious of their infinite power, instead of keeping their connection with the supreme Mother and, through Her, with the Supreme, instead of receiving indications for action from Him and doing things in proper order, they were conscious of their own power and each one took off independently to do as he pleased - they had power and they used it. They forgot their Origin. And because of this initial oblivion, Consciousness became unconsciousness, and Light became darkness; Ananda became suffering, Love became hate; Life became Death; and Truth became Falsehood. And they were instantly thrown headlong into what became Matter. According to Théon, the world as we know it is the result of that. And that was the Supreme himself in his first manifestation.
But the story is easy to understand, and quite evocative. On the surface, for intellectuals, it's very childish; but once you have the experience you understand it very well - I understood and felt the thing immediately.
And once the world has become like that, has become the vital world in all its darkness, and they, from this vital world, have created Matter, the supreme Mother sees (laughing) the result of her first four emanations and She turns towards the Supreme in a great entreaty: "Now that this world is in such a dreadful state, it has to be saved! We can't just leave it this way, can we? It has to be saved, the divine consciousness must be given back to it. What to do?" And the Supreme says, "Thrust yourself into a new emanation, an emanation of the ESSENCE of Love, down into the most material Matter." That meant plunging into the earth (the earth had become a symbol and a representation of the whole drama). "Plunge into Matter." So She plunged into Matter, and that became the primordial source of the Divine within material substance. And from there (as is so well described in Savitri), She begins to act as a leaven in Matter, raising it up from within.
And as She plunged into the earth, a second series of emanations was sent forth - the gods - to inhabit the intermediary zones between Sachchidananda and the earth. And these gods (laughing) ... well, great care was taken to make them perfect, so they wouldn't give any trouble! But they are a bit ... a bit too perfect, aren't they? Yes, a bit too perfect: they never make mistakes, they always do exactly as they're told.... In short, rather lacking in initiative. They do have some, but....
In fact, they were not surrendered in the way a psychic being can be, because they had no psychic in them. The psychic being is the result of that descent. Only human beings have it. And that's what makes humanity so superior to the gods. Théon insisted greatly on this: throughout his story, humans are far superior to gods and should not obey them - they should only be in contact with the Supreme in his aspect of perfect Love.
I don't know how to put it.... To me, those gods always seemed ... (not those described in the Puranas, they're different ... well, not so very different!) but the way Théon presented them, they seemed just like a bunch of marshmallows! It's not that they had no power - they had a lot of power, but they lacked that psychic flame.
And to Théon, the God of the Jews and Christians was an Asura. This Asura wanted to be unique; and so he became the most terrible despot imaginable. Anatole France said the same thing (I now know that Anatole France had never read Théon's story, but I can't imagine where he picked this up). It's in The Revolt of the Angels. He says that Satan is the true God and that Jehovah, the "only God," is the monster. And when the angels wanted Satan to become the one and only God, Satan realized he was immediately taking on all Jehovah's failings! So he refused: "Oh, no - thank you very much!" It's a wonderful story, and in exactly the same spirit as what Théon used to say. The very first thing I asked Anatole France (I told you I met him once - mutual friends introduced us), the first thing I asked him was, "Have you ever read The Tradition?" He said no. I explained why I had asked, and he was interested. He said his source was his own imagination. He had caught that idea intuitively...

THE AGENDA:JANUARY 27TH,1962

Christianity And Jewish religion

The Jews are also out-and-out materialists: you die, well, you die, it's over. Though I haven't quite understood how they reconcile that with their God, who moreover is Unthinkable and must not be named ... but who, seen from the standpoint of a vaster truth, seems (I am not sure), seems to be an Asura. Because it's an almighty and UNIQUE God, foreign to the world - the world (as far as I know) and he are two completely different things.
It's the same with Catholicism. Yet, if I remember correctly, their God created the world with a part of himself, no?
No, no!
No? Is it only man that he pulled out of his rib?
No! It's out of Adam's rib that he pulled man, not out of his own rib!
Aah!
It's out of Adam's rib ...
... that he pulled woman. Aah! ...
No, no, he "created" the world.
Out of nothingness he made the world?
That's right.
Then it's the same problem, the same difficulty. It's quite simply an incomprehension.
And in fact he sent his son to "save the world."
Then his son doesn't belong to the creation?
He is the son of God - not so the others.
He is the ONLY son of God?
Yes, of course!
They've twisted everything. But Adam belonged to the creation, didn't he?
Yes, while Christ isn't human, he is the son.
But he took on a human body.
Yes, but he's the son of God. He isn't a human being become divine, he is a divine being - "the son of God" - who took on a human body.
But that's understood! All Avatars are like that.
Yes, but he's the only one.
It's all twisted.
But the Virgin, in that affair? What happened to her? Because she was a woman, wasn't she?
She was human.
Yes ... because in the story, there's even a moment when Christ says, "What do I have to do with that woman"! But then, the Assumption? ...
(silence)
Of course, those who know understand very well - it's all symbolic.
But for instance, I told you I spoke with the Pope for quite a long time the day of his election, and the conversation was abruptly interrupted by a reaction he had. (It was really a mental conversation we were having: I spoke, he replied, I heard his reply - I don't know whether he was conscious of something ... probably not, but anyway; it wasn't at all a formation of my own mind because I received quite unexpected replies.) But the conversation was interrupted abruptly by a reaction he had when I told him that God is everywhere and in all things; that everything is He; and then a great Force came down into me and I added, "Even when you descend into Hell, He is there too."
Then everything stopped dead.
Since then I've learned that it's part of their teaching: that what is terrible in Hell isn't so much the suffering, but that there is no God there; that it's the only part of the creation in which there is no God - there is no God in Hell. And I asserted that He is there too.
But naturally, from an intellectual point of view, all those things are explained and find their place - man has never thought anything that wasn't the distortion of a truth. That's not the difficulty, it's that for religious people there are certain things they have a DUTY to believe, and to allow the mind to discuss them is a "sin" - so naturally they close themselves and will never be able to make any progress. Whereas the materialists, on the other hand, are on the contrary supposed to know and explain everything - they explain everything rationally. So (Mother laughs), precisely because they explain everything, you can lead them where you want to.
There.
There's nothing to be done with religious people.
No. And it's not good to try either. If they cling to a religion, it means that that religion has helped them somehow or other, has helped something in them which in fact wanted to have a certitude without having to seek for it - to lean on something solid without being responsible for its solidity (someone else is responsible! [Mother laughs]), and to leave their bodies in that way. So to want to pull them out of it shows a lack of compassion - they should just be left where they are. Never do I argue with someone who has a faith - let him keep his faith! And I take great care not to say anything that might shake his faith because it's not good - such people are unable to have another faith.
But with a materialist ... "I don't argue, I accept your point of view; only, you have nothing to say - I've taken my position, take yours. If you are satisfied with what you know, keep it. If it helps you to live, very good.
"But you have no right to blame or criticize me, because I am taking my position on your own basis. Even if all that I imagine is mere imagination, I prefer that imagination to yours." That's all.

AGENDA,SEPTEMBER 7TH,1963

The End Of The Asura

THE END OF THE ASURA

If, as Sri Aurobindo announced, the supramental Power is to enter a realizing phase in 1967 and if, as Mother said, the fate of the present civilization is to be settled in 1967, it is clear that the earth's many latent diseases must come out in the open and find a focus somewhere, as an abscess is the focal point for the disease of the body, our earth body.
There are no "catastrophes." The Supramental is a force of order and harmony. So what may seem to us at first glance to be a catastrophe is bound to actually put things in order, work in every way and every detail towards putting the earth in order.
September/October is generally the month of wars.
There is but one place in the world where the issue is being played out really and symbolically - that is India. That is where, therefore, the disease of the earth must be focused. It is in the order of things that the last Asura should come and die at the feet of the Mother.
But India, supposed to embody the forces of truth, is herself prey to the same Falsehood as is the rest of the earth. The Asura is also in India, perhaps more dangerous there as it is masked behind a veil of false truth.
The awaited conflict will thus have to put the house of the Mother in order to begin with, at the same time as it will put the other houses of the earth in order.
The devil will unmask himself and fall headlong into his own trap.
India's Falsehood will necessarily attract like falsehoods: those of China and of Pakistan. The troubles on Bengal's borders are already preparing the way for China's aggression, and the falsehood of Tashkent has left the wound open in Kashmir. Here India shall receive the blessed blow that will liquidate her untrue government and will give way to a military government that will prepare a more truthful government. Here China shall receive the blow that will free her from her Maoist Asura, while at the same time bringing Russia and America closer together against the common danger. Here Vietnam will lose its two untrue henchmen, in the North and in the South, and will put its own house in order. Here Pakistan will have set its own trap by allying itself with China and will lose its rights over Bengal and the eastern part of India.[[ Bangladesh was born four years later, in December 1971. ]] Left only with its western unit, which cannot be economically self-sufficient, Pakistan will be obliged to form a confederation with India and to understand that its destiny is inseparable from that of India. Here a wiser Russia and a wiser America, and a frightened earth, will become aware that they too must form a confederation of the nations of the earth and that the fate of any one nation is inseparable from that of all the others.
And order will be restored in the house. Man will be able to prepare himself for a vaster adventure.
Ultimately, everyone commits the errors that will help towards the larger triumph of the Truth.
Satprem 24 June 1967

Indian System Of Governance

Disciple : It seems that our old Indian system was the best for us. How could it succeed so well?
Sri Aurobindo : The old Indian system grew out of life, it had room for everything and every interest. There were monarchy, aristocracy, democracy. Every interest was represented in the Government. While in Europe the Western System grew out of the mind. They are led by reason and want to make everything cut and dried without any chance of freedom or variation. If it is democracy, then democracy only. No room for anything else. They cannot be plastic.
India is now trying to imitate the West. Parliamentary Government is not suited to India. But we always take up what the west has thrown off. Sir Akabar wanted to try a new sort of Government with an impartial authority at the head. There, in Hyderabad, the Hindu majority complains that though Mohammedens are in minority they occupy most of the offices in the state. By Sir Akabar's method almost every interest would have been represented in the Government and automatically the Hindus would have come in, but because of their cry of responsible Government the scheme failed. They have a fixed idea in the mind and want to fit everything to it. They can't think for themselves and so take up what the others are throwing off.
Disciple : What is your idea of an ideal Government for India? It is possible in Hyderabad which has a Nizam.
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But how to do the same in an Indian Constitution?
Sri Aurobindo : Sir Akabar's is as good as any. My idea is like what Tagore once wrote. There may be one Rashtrapati at the top with considerable powers so as to secure a continuity of policy and an Assembly representative of the nation. The provinces will contribute to a Federation, united at the top, leaving ample scope to local bodies to make laws according to their local problems. Mussolini started with a fundamental of the Indian System but afterwards began bullying and bluffing other nations for the sake of imperialism. If he had persisted in his original idea, he would have been a great creator.
Disciple : Dr. Bhagwandas suggested that there should be legislators above the age of 40, completely disinterested like the Rishis.
Sri Aurobindo : A chamber of Rishis! That would not be very promising. They will at once begin to quarrel. As they say; Rishis in ancient times could guide kings because they were distributed over various places.
Disciple : His idea is of gathering all great men together.
Sri Aurobindo : And let them quarrel like Kilkeni cats. I suppose. (Said laughing.)
The Congress at the present stage–what is it but a Fascist organization? Gandhi is the dictator like Stalin, I won't say like Hitler. What Gandhi says they accept and even Working Committee follows him. Then it goes to A. I. C. C. which adopts it and then the Congress. There is no opportunity for any difference of opinion except for Socialists who are allowed to differ. Whatever resolutions they pass are obligatory on all the provinces
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whether the resolutions suit the provinces or not. There is no room for any other independent opinion. Every thing is fixed up before and the people are only allowed to talk over it like Stalin's Parliament. When we started the movement we began with the idea of throwing out the Congress oligarchy and open the whole organization to the general mass.
Disciple : Srinivas Ayyanger retired from Congress because of his difference with Gandhi. He objected to Gandhi's giving the movement a religious turn and bringing in religion in Politics.
Sri Aurobindo : He made Charka a religious article of faith and excluded all people from Congress Membership who could not spin. How many believe in his gospel of Charka? Such a tremendous waste of energy, just for the sake of a few annas is most unreasonable.
Disciple : He made that rule perhaps to enforce discipline?
Sri Aurobindo : Discipline is all right but once you centralize you go on centralizing.
Disciple : It failed in agricultural provinces and seems to have succeeded in other places especially where people had no occupation.
Disciple : In Bengal it did not succeed.
Sri Aurobindo : In Bengal it did not. It may be all right as a famine-relief measure. But when it takes the form of an All-India programme it looks absurd. If you form a programme that is suited to the condition of the agricultural people it sounds something reasonable. Give them education, technical training and give them (Fundamentals or Principles of) organization not on political but on business lines. But Gandhi does not want any
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such industrial organization and so comes in with his magical formula "spin, spin, spin." C. R. Das and others could act as a balance against him. It is all a fetish.
Denmark and Ireland organized in the same way. Only now they are going to suffer because other nations are trying to be self-sufficient. I don't believe in that sort of self-sufficiency. For that is against the principles of life. It is not possible for nations to be self-sufficient like that.

EVENING TALKS,27TH DECEMBER1938

Black Stone And Images

Image of Jesus Christ, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Virgin Mary and Durga Maa are also visible on the Holy Black Stone

http://www.theallfaith.com/bs.htm

Beyond Religion And Caste Pride

2 September 1953

“All religions have each the same story to tell. The occasion for its birth is the coming of a great Teacher of the world. He comes and reveals and is the incarnation of a Divine Truth. But men seize upon it, trade upon it, make an almost political organisation out of it. The religion is equipped by them with a government and policy and laws, with its creeds and dogmas, its rules and regulations, its rites and ceremonies all binding upon its adherents, all absolute and inviolable. Like the State, it too administers rewards to the loyal and assigns punishments for those that revolt or go astray, for the heretic and the renegade.

“The first and principal article of these established and formal religions runs always, ‘Mine is the supreme, the only truth, all others are in falsehood or inferior’

“This attitude is natural to the religious mind; but it is just that which makes religion stand in the way of the spiritual life. The articles and dogmas of a religion are mind-made things and, if you cling to them and shut yourself up in a code of life made out for you, you do not know and cannot know the truth of the spirit that lies beyond all codes and dogmas, wide and large and free. When you stop at a religious creed and tie yourself in it, taking it for the only truth in the world, you stop the advance and widening of your inner soul.”

Questions and Answers 1929 (9 June)
If someone follows a religion and has a good capacity, can he go farther and reach identification with the Divine?
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It is impossible.
Religion is always a limitation for the spirit.
If a man has a spiritual life independently of his mental formations and the set limits in which he lives, then this spiritual life makes him, so to say, cross the religious principles and enter something higher. But his consecration must come from within and not be formal. If it comes exclusively from the form, then the limitation is so great that he cannot go farther.
There are people who have necessarily to come out of their religion if they do not want to be halted in their progress. But those who have practically no mental activity, who do not ask themselves any questions, who have only an intense devotion in their heart and an urge to give themselves to something that is infinitely greater, for these it does not matter whether they have a religion or not. It is all the same. But if one is attached to forms, one can never go any farther.
It is difficult to go so far unless the mind is free and dwells in the light. It is one of the fairly indispensable conditions (although not absolutely indispensable). However, there are people who have no mental power and accept any dogma whatever without discussion; they feel that nothing can prevent them from having this inner urge which will put them in contact with the Divine. But generally they do not have a mental life: it is very much restricted.

Do castes have any importance in the spiritual life?

Castes? What has that got to do with spiritual life? Absolutely nothing. It is merely a social organisation, that is all.

It is said that the Brahmins are more advanced for serving the Divine?

They say many things.
Spiritual life does not depend upon these considerations,
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not at all. Certain social virtues depend upon them and solely because there exist in some environments special traditions of education and that some traditions are better than others. But that is all.

As for the question of not mixing blood, it is a subject for discussion. Because, for example, if you take the various kinds of dogs (excuse me, I do not mean to make an unfair comparison), still, the dog belonging to its kind of breed, when great care is taken to keep the type pure, to prevent any mixture, becomes more and more stupid, whilst the street-dog, product of mixed breed and sometimes a horror from the physical point of view it is hideous, made of one kind crossed with another – is generally much superior from the point of view - of intelligence. So even in these cases one cannot say Marriages in small communities, made within the caste, where no mixture is allowed, end usually in a gradual, progressive decline of intelligence in the group. It is not a selection, rather the contrary. New admixtures are always necessary to bring forth new types capable of manifesting progress From the social point of view, this is quite justifiable, and it is very convenient and simple: it gives frames allowing precisely an easier organisation but that is all the worth it has.
But I believe it is the same for the caste as for the country. Each caste is convinced that it alone holds the maximum progress possible! And when you hear people speaking, even those who are outcastes are full of contempt for the others and believe themselves superior.

“One who holds a particular faith, or who has found out some truth, is disposed to think that he alone has found the Truth, whole and entire. This is human nature. A mixture of falsehood seems necessary for human beings to stand on their legs and move on their way. If the vision of the Truth were suddenly given to them they would be crushed under the weight.”

Questions and Answers 1929 (9 June)"

Psychic Presence And Psychic Being And Origins Of Race Superiority

Psychic Presence and Psychic Being –
Real Origin of Race Superiority

"With regard to the evolution upwards, it is more correct to speak of the psychic presence than the psychic being. For it is the psychic presence which little by little becomes the psychic being. In each evolving form there is this presence, but it is not individualised. It is something which is capable of growth and follows the movement of the evolution. It is not a descent of the involution from above. It is formed progressively round the spark of Divine Consciousness which is meant to be the centre of a growing being which becomes the psychic being when it is at last individualised. It is this spark that is permanent and gathers round itself all sorts of elements for the formation of that individuality; the true psychic being is formed only when the psychic personality is fully grown, fully built up, round the eternal divine spark; it attains its culmination, its total fulfilment if and when it unites with a being or personality from above.
Below the human level there is, ordinarily, hardly any individual formation – there is only this presence, more or less. But when, by the growth of the body round the spark of Divine Consciousness, humanity began upon the earth, certain human organisms became in the course of this progressive growth sufficiently perfected, and by their opening and receptivity allowed a junction with certain beings descending from above. This gave rise to a kind of divine humanity, what may be called a race of the élite. If only they had remained by themselves, these people would have continued as a race unique and superhuman. Indeed many races have made claims to be that: the Aryan, the Semitic and the Japanese have all in turn considered themselves the chosen race. But in fact there has been a general levelling of humanity, a lot of intermixture. For there arose the necessity of prolongation of the superior race, which drove it to intermix with the rest of humanity – with animal humanity, that is to say.
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Thus its value was degraded and led to that great Fall which is spoken of in the world's scriptures, the coming out of Paradise, the end of the Golden Age. Indeed it was a loss from the point of view of consciousness, but not from that of material strength, since it was a tremendous gain to ordinary humanity. There were, certainly, some beings who had a very strong will not to mix, who resented losing their superiority; and it is just this that is the real origin of race-pride, race-exclusiveness, and a special caste distinction like that cherished by the Brahmins in India. But at present it cannot be said that there is any portion of mankind which is purely animal: all the races have been touched by the descent from above, and owing to the extensive intermixture the result of the Involution was more widely spread.
Of course one cannot say that every man has got a psychic being, just as one cannot refuse to grant it to every animal. Many animals that have lived near man have some beginnings of it, while so often one comes across people who do not seem to be anything else than brutes. Here, too, there has been a good deal of levelling. But on the whole, the psychic in the true sense starts at the human stage: that is also why the Catholic religion declares that only man has a soul. In man alone there is the possibility of the psychic being growing to its full stature even so far as to be able in the end to join and unite with a descending being, a godhead from above."
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Question & Answers.Volume3

The Unhindu Spirit Of Caste Rigidity

The Unhindu Spirit of Caste Rigidity

"THE Bengalee reports Srijut Bal Gangadhar Tilak to have made a definite pronouncement on the caste system. The prevailing idea of social inequality is working immense evil, says the Nationalist leader of the Deccan . This pronouncement is only natural from an earnest Hindu and a sincere nationalist like Srijut Tilak. The baser ideas underlying the degenerate perversions of the original caste system, the mental attitude which bases them on a false foundation of caste, pride and arrogance, of a divinely ordained superiority depending on the accident of birth, of a fixed and intolerant inequality, are inconsistent with the supreme teaching, the basic spirit of Hinduism which sees the one invariable and indivisible divinity in every individual being. Nationalism is simply the passionate aspiration for the realisation of that Divine Unity in the nation, a unity in which all the component individuals, however various and apparently unequal their functions as political, social or economic factors, are yet really and fundamentally one and equal. In the ideal of Nationalism which India will set before the world, there will be an essential equality between man and man, between caste and caste, between class and class, all being as Mr. Tilak has pointed out different but equal and united parts of the Virat Purusha as realised in the nation. The insistent preaching of our religion and the work of the Indian Nationalist is to bring home to everyone of his countrymen this ideal of their country's religion and philosophy. We are intolerant of autocracy because it is the denial in politics of this essential equality, we object to the modern distortion of the caste system because it is the denial in society of the same essential equality. While we insist on reorganising the nation into a democratic unity politically, we recognise that the same principle of reorganisation ought to and inevitably will assert itself socially; even if, as our opponents choose to imagine, we are desirous of confining its working to politics, our attempts will be
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fruitless, for the principle once realised in politics must inevitably assert itself in society. No monopoly, racial or hereditary, can form part of the Nationalist's scheme of the future, his dream of the day for the advent of which he is striving and struggling.
The caste system was once productive of good, and as a fact has been a necessary phase of human progress through which all the civilisations of the world have had to pass. The autocratic form of Government has similarly had its use in the development of the world's polity, for there was certainly a time when it was the only kind of political organisation that made the preservation of society possible. The Nationalist does not quarrel with the past, but he insists on its transformation, the transformation of individual or class autocracy into the autocracy, self-rule or Swaraj, of the nation and of the fixed, hereditary, anti-democratic caste- organisation into the pliable self-adapting, democratic distribution of function at which socialism aims. In the present absolutism in politics and the present narrow caste-organisation in society he finds a negation of that equality which his religion enjoins. Both must be transformed. The historic problem that the present attitude of Indian Nationalism at once brings to the mind, as to how a caste-governed society could co-exist with a democratic religion and philosophy, we do not propose to consider here today. We only point out that Indian Nationalism must by its inherent tendencies move towards the removal of unreasoning and arbitrary distinctions and inequalities. Ah! he will say, this is exactly what we Englishmen have been telling you all these years. You must get rid of your caste before you can have democracy. There is just a little flaw in this advice of the Anglo-Indian monitors, it puts the cart before the horse, and that is the reason why we have always refused to act upon it.
It does not require much expenditure of thought to find out that the only way to rid the human mind of abuses and superstitions is through a transformation of spirit and not merely of machinery. We must educate every Indian, man; woman and child, in the ideals of our religion and philosophy before we can rationally expect our society to reshape itself in the full and perfect spirit of the Vedantic gospel of equality. We dwell on this common sense idea here at the risk of being guilty of repetition.
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Education on a national scale is an indispensable precondition of our social amelioration. And because such education is impossible except through the aid of state-finance, therefore, even if there were no other reason, the Nationalist must emphasise the immediate, need of political freedom without which Indians cannot obtain the necessary control over their money. So long as we are under an alien bureaucracy, we cannot have the funds needed for the purpose of an adequate national education, and what little education we are given falls far short of the nationalist ideal, being mainly concerned with the fostering of a spirit of sordid contentment with things that be. Apart from the question of the cultivation of those virtues which only come in the wake of liberty, apart from the question of reorganisation of the country, if we were to look into the problem in its purely social aspect, even then we are confronted with the primary need of political emancipation as the condition precedent of further fruitful activity.
The Nationalist has been putting the main stress on the necessity of political freedom almost to the exclusion of the other needs of the nation, not because he is not alive to the vital importance of those needs of economic renovation, of education, of social transformation, but because he knows that in order that his ideal of equality may be brought to its fullest fruition, he must first bring about the political freedom and federation of his country."

Bande Mataram, September 20, 1907

Are Marriages Made In Heaven?

6-3-1926
There was a reference to a "divine marriage" that was to be celebrated at Chandernagore. A letter and a photograph were sent for Sri Aurobindo's approval.
Sri Aurobindo : I refuse to have anything to do with the matter. It is the girl who must choose her husband, and not I.
I can only add that .marriages, generally, are not divine ; and when they are divine no arrangements are necessary."
Disciple : Some people are trying to drag these things into the Supermind ; but they must themselves get into the Supermind before they can drag others into it.
Sri Aurobindo : If they were in the Supramental, then the question would not arise, as they would never try to drag anyone into it.
Disciple : Nowadays Chittagong people have left off writing letters.
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Disciple : Except K who sent an unpaid letter which I refused to accept without asking you.
Sri Aurobindo : You did well. We cannot afford to pay two annas to have the pleasure of reading K's letter. Money is too precious nowadays. (After some time) At times I wonder why at all I thought of bringing down the Supermind into this mass of idiots !
Disciple : Do you think it was an evil day ?
Sri Aurobindo : No ; but wherever you may go, whatever you may do the idiots will be there. You see, when there is a big dinner-party some are invited and they come, others are not invited and yet they come, and others force themselves into the party ! {Laughter)
I am really surprised why these people come to me. If they went to X they can easily find sanction for the "divine marriage" or they can go to Y who is now doing karma !

The Vedic Age

The problem is to find one's soul and unite with the Divine.



But, Mother, was it the same during the Vedic times also?



To find their soul and the Divine? Of course.

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But they did not succeed?



No, Sri Aurobindo says that in the Vedic age they tried to bring the spiritual life into the physical life, but he says that the means they employed, the paths they followed at that time are no longer any good now. Just imagine us before an altar making a Puja!... It won't do now, it is not suitable.



Is their goal and ours the same?



I think so.



In any case, there were several ages in the earth's history in which there was given a kind of example, as a promise, of what would be there one day. These were called the golden ages. But certainly there were times in which a more or less complete representation of what had to be was as though lived out. Only it was just a demonstration, an example, which the world was completely unfit to take up as a realisation.

It was only to say: you see, this is how it will be, but not like this in all its details, like this in essence. And I think it did not last very long. In any case the memory of the thing is very limited, very localised and extremely short. There was an intensity, there was a great beauty in the expression, but it was something as though altogether independent of the whole of terrestrial life: an example... almost an example which is not to be followed, which cannot be followed, and which was always accompanied by a promise: “It will be like this”... a promise which has been repeated in very different words, of the New Earth or the Divine World or a New Creation, etc.

And I think it was perhaps at the beginning... not exactly the beginning of humanity but the beginning of the conscious evolution of humanity towards a realisation. We said last time that for a very long time humanity was very static and as though undergoing a preparation so slow, so invisible that it has taken perhaps millions of years. But these promises and examples

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were like starting-points, like the first push given to begin the evolution of the consciousness towards a higher realisation.

I think the Vedic age was the latest. There were others before it, but of a very short duration.

Something over there?

A question?... Is that all?

Mother, you said that the Vedic age was like a promise. A promise to whom?

To the Earth and men.
They left a kind of oral document of their experience. It was transmitted – and this was the promise.
They used an imaged language. Some people say that it was because they wanted it to be an initiation which would be understood only by the initiates. But it could also be an absolutely spontaneous expression without a precise aim to veil things, but which could not be understood except by those who had the experience. For it is quite obviously something that is not mental, which came spontaneously – as though it sprang from the heart and the aspiration – which was the completely spontaneous expression of an experience or knowledge, and naturally, an expression which was poetic, which had its own rhythm, its own beauty and could be accessible only to those who had an identical experience. So it was veiled of itself, there was no need to add a veil upon it. It is more than likely that it happened like that.
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When one has a true experience which is not the result of a preliminary thought constructing and obtaining the experience by a special effort, when it is a direct and spontaneous experience, an experience that comes from the very intensity of the aspiration, it is spontaneously formulated into words. When it is total and complete enough, it is formulated into words... which are not thought out, which are spontaneous, which come out spontaneously from the consciousness. Well, it is more than likely that the Vedas were like that. But only those who have had the experience, had the same state of consciousness, can understand what it means.
There are those sentences which seem absolutely banal and ordinary, in which things seem to be said in an almost childish way and which are written out or heard and then noted down, like that. Well, when read with an ordinary consciousness, they seem sometimes even altogether banal. But if one has the experience, one sees that there is a power of realisation and a truth of expression which give you the key to the experience itself.
But it seems obvious that the modern equivalent, at present, of the Rishi of the olden days... even his spontaneous Vedic expression will be very different in its formulation. For the terrestrial development and human development change the conditions of expression. The way of saying of those times and the way of saying today cannot be the same; and yet the experience can be the same experience of something which cannot be thought about but comes as its living expression.

Mother, were the Vedic Rishis men who had evolved to that state or were they special manifestations?

What do you mean? Whether they were evolutionary beings or involutionary beings?

They were probably... no... they were surely involutionary beings. But the body was the result of evolution.
But it is absolutely certain that they were involutionary beings,
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that is, beings who had come down from higher regions and used these bodies, who had identified themselves with these bodies.
This is it, what I said the other day, you know, that what has changed the course of terrestrial and human development totally is bodies becoming perfected enough to be able to serve as instruments for beings of higher regions who have come to incarnate in them in order to use them. And it seems obvious that the Rishis were of these – if not all at least those who were the leaders, those who were at the head. But very probably they formed a group which must have had its own realisation, very independent of the surroundings. They lived, besides, quite isolated, if what is reported is correct.

(Silence)

Vedas Vedanta

WHOEVER is still under the influence of intellectual pride, is shocked when people depreciate the reason as the supreme guide. He asks how is it posssible for a man of culture to depreciate the reason and exalt some extraneous influence like that which people call God? But these doubters are under the influence of European materialism which tries to confine man to his material portion and deny him the possibility of a divine origin and a divine destiny. When Europe left Christianity to the monk and the ascetic and forgot the teachings of the Galilean, she exposed herself to a terrible fate which will yet overtake her. God in man is the whole revelation and the whole of religion. What Christianity taught dimly, Hinduism made plain to the intellect in Vedanta. When India remembers the teaching she received from Shankaracharya, Ramanuja and Madhva, when she realises what Sri Ramakrishna came to reveal, then she will rise. Her very life is Vedanta.

If anyone thinks that we are merely intellectual beings, he is not a Hindu. Hinduism leaves the glorification of intellectuality to those who have never seen God. She is commissioned by Him to speak only of his greatness and majesty and she has so spoken for thousands of years. When we first received a European education, we allowed ourselves to be misled by the light of science. Science is a light within a limited room, not the sun which illumines the world. The aparā vidyā is the sum of science but there is a higher vidyā, a mightier knowledge. When we are under the influence of the lower knowledge, we imagine that we are doing everything and try to reason out the situation we find ourselves in, as if our intellect were sovereign and omnipotent. But this is an attitude of delusion and māyā. Whoever has once felt the glory of God within him can never again believe that the intellect is supreme. There is a higher voice, there is a more unfailing oracle. It is in the heart where God resides. He works through the brain, but the brain is only one of His instru-

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ments. Whatever the brain may plan, the heart knows first and whoever can go beyond the brain to the heart, will hear the voice of the Eternal. This is what Srijut Aurobindo Ghose said in his Bombay speech. But our contemporary, the Indian Patriot, has lamented his downfall from the high pedestal of culture he once occupied. Our contemporary has forgotten the teachings of Vivekananda which were once so powerful in Madras.

Splitting Of The Moon

The splitting of the moon (Arabic: انشقاق القمر‎) is a claimed miracle done by the prophet Muhammad in Islamic tradition.[2] The incident is mentioned in many early Muslim traditions as the context of revelation (asbāb an-nuzūl) for the Qur'anic verse 54:1-2 and virtually all Muslim commentators accept the historicity of the miracle...source

The Mother's Paintings

AN APPARATION

The Mother (Mirra Alfassa, 1878 -1973) loved to draw and paint from her childhood. Though art was only one of her many interests, it occupied a prominent place in her early life. She began to take drawing lessons at the age of eight. Two years later she started to learn oil painting and other painting techniques. By the time she was twelve she was doing portraits. In 1892, when she was fourteen, one of her charcoal drawings was exhibited at the International "Blanc et Noir" Exhibition in Paris...source

Every Being Surrenders To The Supreme

[Yusufali 13:15] Whatever beings there are in the heavens and the earth do prostrate themselves to Allah (Acknowledging subjection),- with good-will or in spite of themselves: so do their shadows in the morning and evenings.

[Yusufali 16:48] Do they not look at Allah's creation, (even) among (inanimate) things,- How their (very) shadows turn round, from the right and the left, prostrating themselves to Allah, and that in the humblest manner?

[Yusufali 16:39] (They must be raised up), in order that He may manifest to them the truth of that wherein they differ, and that the rejecters of Truth may realise that they had indeed (surrendered to) Falsehood.

Sr Aurobindo"s Total Surrender

Room in Majumdars house Majumdars housewhere Sri Aurobindo got fundamental realisation of silent Brahman. He and yogi Vishnu Bhaskat Lele shut themselves away in house of Khaserao Jarvi not letting anybody know it. January 1908, Baroda

Vishnu Bhaskar Lele

May 1932
I think you have made too much play with my phrase "an accident", ignoring the important qualification, "it seemed to come by an accident." After four years of prānāyāma and other practices on my own, with no other result than an increased health and outflow of energy, some psycho-physical phenomena, a great outflow of poetic creation, a limited power of subtle sight (luminous patterns and figures, etc.) mostly with the waking eye, I had a complete arrest and was at a loss. At this juncture I was induced to meet a man without fame whom I did not know, a bhakta with a limited mind but with some experience and evocative power. We sat together and I followed with an absolute fidelity what he instructed me to do, not myself in the least understanding where he was leading me or where I was myself going. The first result was a series of tremendously powerful experiences and radical changes of consciousness which he had never intended—for they were Adwaitic and Vedantic and he was against Adwaita Vedanta—and which were quite contrary to my own ideas, for they made me see with a stupendous intensity the world as a cinematographic play of vacant forms in the impersonal universality of the Absolute Brahman. The final upshot was that he was made by a Voice within him to hand me over to the Divine within me enjoining an absolute surrender to its will—a principle or rather a seed-force to which I kept unswervingly and increasingly till it led me through all the mazes of an incalculable Yogic development bound by no single rule or style or dogma or shastra to where and what I am now and towards what shall be hereafter. Yet he understood so little what he was doing that when he met me a month or two later, he was alarmed, tried to undo what he had done and told me that it was not the Divine but the devil that had got hold of me. Does not all that justify my phrase "it seemed to come by an accident?" But my meaning is that the ways of the Divine are not like those of the human mind
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or according to our patterns and it is impossible to judge them or to lay down for Him what He shall or shall not do, for the Divine knows better than we do. If we admit the Divine at all, both true reason and bhakti seem to me to be at one in demanding implicit faith and surrender. I do not see how without them there can be avyabhichārinī bhakti [one-pointed adoration].

source

The Mother's Total Surrender

1914 Mar 29 Arrives in Pondicherry. Meets Sri Aurobindo at 3:30 p.m.: 'As soon as I saw Sri Aurobindo, I recognised in him the well-known being whom I used to call Krishna.'
'I was seated close to him, simply, like that, on the floor... suddenly I felt within me as if a great Force - Peace! Silence! massive.' On her way out, notices 'I didn't have a thought in my mind... I was absolutely in a complete blank.'
Sri Aurobindo: T had never seen anywhere a self-surrender so absolute and unreserved.'

- Mar 30 'It matters little that there are thousands of beings plunged in the densest ignorance. He whom we saw yesterday is on earth; his presence is enough to prove that a day will come when... Thy reign shall be indeed established upon earth.'.. source

The Four Supreme Angels Or Beings

Allah created the Throne to show His Power. It is carried by four angels, and on the Day of Judgment, it will be carried by eight. The Prophet said he was permitted to speak about one of these angels who carry the Throne. In describing this angel, the Prophet told us the distance between his ear lobe and shoulder is the distance a fast-flying bird would cover in 700 years. Then the Prophet ascended beyond Paradise. He reached a place where he heard the creaking of the pens used by the angels who are copying from the Preserved Tablet. It is at that location Prophet Muhammad heard the Kalam of Allah, which is an attribute of the Self of Allah. He heard the Kalam of Allah which does not resemble our speech--so it is not something that occurs bit after bit. It is not letter after letter or a word that comes after another word. Rather, it is an attribute of Allah which is eternal and everlasting. It does not resemble our attributes. The Kalam of Allah has neither silence nor interruptions. It is an attribute of Allah, and it does not resemble the attributes of the creation..

1914 Apr-1915 Feb Finds even the poor, lowly and unlettered Indians spiritually receptive....
Experiences a descent of Power on touching the feet of Sri Aurobindo; considers it the true significance of pranam.
Sees a vision 'in which four beings appeared at the four comers of an immense plateau' and spoke to her. Sri Aurobindo identifies them as the Vedic Gods Mitra, Varuna, Bhaga and Aryaman. Visited by an artist friend, Johannes Hohlenberg, who takes a photograph of Sri Aurobindo in standing profile and also paints his portrait in oil.

Islamic Yoga

[Yusufali 77:30] "Depart ye to a Shadow (of smoke ascending) in three columns,

The Divine has three aspects for us:
1. It is the Cosmic Self and Spirit that is in and behind all things and beings, from which and in which all is manifested in
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the universe—although it is now a manifestation in the Ignorance.
2. It is the Spirit and Master of our own being within us whom we have to serve and learn to express his will in all our movements so that we may grow out of the Ignorance into the Light.
3. The Divine is transcendent Being and Spirit, all bliss and light and divine knowledge and power, and towards that highest divine existence and its Light we have to rise and bring down the reality of it more and more into our consciousness and life.
In the ordinary Nature we live in the Ignorance and do not know the Divine. The forces of the ordinary Nature are undivine forces because they weave a veil of ego and desire and unconsciousness which conceals the Divine from us. To get into the higher and deeper consciousness which knows and lives luminously in the Divine, we have to get rid of the forces of the lower nature and open to the action of the Divine Shakti which will transform our consciousness into that of the Divine Nature.
This is the conception of the Divine from which we have to start – the realisation of its truth can only come with the opening of the consciousness and its change.

The distinction between the Transcendental, the Cosmic, the Individual Divine is not my invention, nor is it native to India or to Asia – It is, on the contrary, a recognised European teaching current in the esoteric tradition of the Catholic Church where it is the authorised explanation of the Trinity, – Father, Son and Holy Ghost – and it is very well-known to European mystic experience. In essence it exists in all spiritual disciplines that recognise the omnipresence of the Divine – In Indian Vedantic experience and in Mahomedan yoga (not only the Sufi, but other schools also) – the Mahomedans even speak of not two or three but many levels of the Divine until one reaches the Supreme. As for the idea in itself, surely there is a difference between the individual, the cosmos in space and time, and something that exceeds this cosmic formula or any cosmic formula. There is a cosmic
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consciousness experienced by many which is quite different in its scope and action from the individual consciousness, and if there is a consciousness beyond the cosmic, infinite and essentially eternal, not merely extended in Time, that also must be different from these two. And if the Divine is or manifests Himself in these three, is it not conceivable that in aspect, in His working, He may differentiate Himself so much that we are driven, if we are not to confound all truth of experience, if we are not to limit ourselves to a mere static experience of something indefinable, to speak of a triple aspect of the Divine?..read more

Spontaneous Surrender

Are not offering and surrender to the Divine the same thing?

They are two aspects of the same thing, but not altogether the same. One is more active than the other. They do not belong to quite the same plane of existence.
For example, you have decided to offer your life to the Divine, you take that decision. But all of a sudden, something altogether unpleasant, unexpected happens to you and your first movement is to react and protest. Yet you have made the offering, you have said once for all: “My life belongs to the Divine”, and then suddenly an extremely unpleasant incident happens (that can happen) and there is something in you that reacts, that does not want it. But here, if you want to be truly logical
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with your offering, you must bring forward this unpleasant incident, make an offering of it to the Divine, telling him very sincerely: “Let Your will be done; if You have decided it that way, it will be that way.” And this must be a willing and spontaneous adhesion. So it is very difficult.
Even for the smallest thing, something that is not in keeping with what you expected, what you have worked for, instead of an opposite reaction coming in – spontaneously, irresistibly, you draw back: “No, not that” - if you have made a complete surrender, a total surrender, well, it does not happen like that: you are as quiet, as peaceful, as calm in one case as in the other. And perhaps you had the notion that it would be better if it happened in a certain way, but if it happens differently, you find that this also is all right. You might have, for example, worked very hard to do a certain thing, so that something might happen, you might have given much time, much of your energy, much of your will, and all that not for your own sake, but, say, for the divine work (that is the offering); now suppose that after having taken all this trouble, done all this work, made all these efforts, it all goes just the other way round, it does not succeed. If you are truly surrendered, you say: “It is good, it is all good, it is all right; I did what I could, as well as I could, now it is not my decision, it is the decision of the Divine, I accept entirely what He decides.” On the other hand, if you do not have this deep and spontaneous surrender, you tell yourself: “How is it? I took so much trouble to do a thing which is not for a selfish purpose, which is for the Divine Work, and this is the result, it is not successful!” Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it is like that.
True surrender is a very difficult thing.

The Agenda,20th may,1953

A Chronology Of Mother's Life

Her embodiment is a chance for the earth-consciousness to receive the Supramental into it and to undergo first the transformation necessary for that to be possible.
Sri Aurobindo

1830 Dec 18 Birth of Mira Ismalun (nee Pinto), the Mother's maternal grand-mother, in Egypt. Died in 1909.

1843 Jul 5 Birth of Moise Maurice Alfassa, the Mother's father, in Adrianople (Edirne), Turkey. Died in 1918.

1857 Aug 26 Birth of Mathilde Ismalun, the Mother's mother, in Alexandria, Egypt. She often told little Mirra, 'You are born to realise the highest Ideal' and taught her 'the discipline and the necessity of self-forgetfulness through concentration on what one is doing'. Died in 1944.

1870 Apr 6 Birth of Henri Francois Morisset, the Mother's first husband, in Paris. A renowned artist - his best creations were made during the years they were together. Died in 1954.

1872 Aug 15 Birth of Aurobindo Akroyd Ghose (Sri Aurobindo) at about 5:10 a.m. in Calcutta.
The Mother: 'What Sri Aurobindo represents in the world's history is not a teaching, not even a revelation: it is a decisive action direct from the Supreme.'

continue here

Surrender To God In Love

Sufism -- Sufis -- Sufi Orders
Sufism's Many Paths Dr. Alan Godlas, University of Georgia
Sufism or tasawwuf, as it is called in Arabic, is generally understood by scholars and Sufis to be the inner, mystical, or psycho-spiritual dimension of Islam. Today, however, many Muslims and non-Muslims believe that Sufism is outside the sphere of Islam. Nevertheless, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, one of the foremost scholars of Islam, in his article The Interior Life in Islam contends that Sufism is simply the name for the inner or esoteric dimension of Islam.
After nearly 30 years of the study of Sufism, I would say that in spite of its many variations and voluminous expressions, the essence of Sufi practice is quite simple. It is that the Sufi surrenders to God, in love, over and over; which involves embracing with love at each moment the content of one's consciousness (one's perceptions, thoughts, and feelings, as well as one's sense of self) as gifts of God or, more precisely, as manifestations of God.

read more

1912- Nov 7 Meets Sufi mystic and musician Hazrat Inayat Khan. He tells her that for the sufis there is 'a state higher than that of adoration and surrender to

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the Divine', namely, the stage 'when there is no longer any distinction... between the Divine and oneself

Vedanta Brain Islamic Power

"..The Buddhistic enlightenment and discipline did not admit the supreme authority of the Vedas; it sought other bases of truth and reality. It was a great denial; and it meant and worked for a vital schism. The denial of the Vedas by itself, perhaps, would not be serious, but it became so, as it was symptomatic of a deeper divergence. Denying the Vedas, the Buddhistic spirit denied life. It was quite a new thing in the. Indian consciousness and spiritual discipline. And it left such a stamp there that even today it stands as the dominant character of
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the Indian .."

"..India today presents the problem on a larger scale and on a higher or deeper level. The demand is for a spiritual fusion and unity. Strange to say, although the Spirit is the true bed-rock of unity – since, at bottom, it means identity – it is on this plane that mankind has not yet been able to really meet and coalesce. India's genius has been precisely working in the line of a perfect solution of this supreme problem.
Islam comes with a full-fledged spiritual soul and a mental and vital formation commensurable with that inner being and consciousness. It comes with a dynamic spirit, a warrior mood, that aims at conquering the physical world for the Lord, a temperament which Indian spirituality had not, or had lost long before, if she had anything of it. This was, perhaps, what Vivekananda meant when he spoke graphically of a Hindu soul with a Muslim body. The Islamic dispensation, however, brings with it not only something comple-
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mentary, but also something contradictory, if not for anything else, at least for the strong individuality which does not easily yield to assimilation. Still, in spite of great odds, the process of assimilation was going on slowly and surely. But of late it appears to have come to a dead halt; difficulties have been presented which seem insuperable..."

The solution can come, first, by going to the true religion of the Spirit, by being truly spiritual and not merely religious, for, as we have said, real unity lies only in and through the Spirit, since Spirit is one and indivisible; secondly, by bringing down something – a great part, indeed, if not the whole – of this puissant and marvellous Spirit into our life of emotions and sensations and activities.
If it is said that this is an ideal for the few only, not for the mass, our answer to that is the answer of the Gita – Yad yad acharati sreshthah. Let the few then practise and achieve the ideal: the mass will have to follow as far as it is possible and necessary. It is the very character of the evolutionary system of
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Nature, as expressed in the principle of symbiosis, that any considerable change in one place (in one species) is accompanied by a corresponding change in the same direction in other contiguous places (in other associated species) in order that the poise and balance of the system may be maintained.
It is precisely strong nuclei that are needed (even, perhaps, one strong nucleus is sufficient) where the single and integrated spiritual consciousness is an accomplished and established fact: that acts inevitably as a solvent drawing in and assimilating or transforming and re-creating as much, of the surroundings as its own degree and nature of achievement inevitably demand.
India did not and could not stop at mere cultural fusion – which was a supreme gift of the Moguls. She did not and could not stop at another momentous cultural fusion brought about by the European impact. She aimed at something more. Nature demanded of her that she should discover a greater secret of human unity and through progressive experiments apply and establish it in fact. Christianity did" not raise this problem of the greater synthesis, for the Christian peoples were more culture-minded than religious-minded. It was left for an Asiatic people to set the problem and for India to work out the solution.

Nolini Kanta Gupta > Volume-1 > The Basis Of Unity

Genetics And Aryan Invasion Debate

India’s case Since the 1990s, there have been numerous genetic studies of Indian populations, often reaching apparently divergent conclusions. There are three reasons for this: (1) the Indian region happens to be one of the most diverse and complex in the world, which makes it difficult to interpret the data; (2) early studies relied on too limited samples, of the order of a few dozens, when hundreds or ideally thousands of samples are required for some statistical reliability; (3) some of the early studies fell into the old trap of trying to equate linguistic groups with distinct ethnic entities — a relic of the nineteenth-century erroneous identification between language and race; as a result, a genetic connection between North Indians and Central Asians was automatically taken to confirm an Aryan invasion in the second millennium BCE, disregarding a number of alternative explanations.7 More recent studies, using larger samples and much refined methods of analysis, both at the conceptual level and in the laboratory, have reached very different conclusions (interestingly, some of their authors had earlier gone along with the old Aryan paradigm8). We will summarize here the chief results of nine studies from various Western and Indian Universities, most of them conducted by international teams of biologists, and more than half of them in the last three years; since their papers are complex and technical, what follows is, necessarily, highly simplified and represents only a small part of their content. The first such study dates back to 1999 and was conducted by the Estonian biologist Toomas Kivisild, a pioneer in the field, with fourteen co-authors from various nationalities (including M. J. Bamshad).9 It relied on 550 samples of mtDNA and identified a haplogroup called “U” as indicating a deep connection between Indian and Western-Eurasian populations. However, the authors opted for a very remote separation of the two branches, rather than a recent population movement towards India; in fact, “the subcontinent served as a pathway for eastward migration of modern humans” from Africa, some 40,000 years ago:
“We found an extensive deep late Pleistocene genetic link between contemporary Europeans and Indians, provided by the mtDNA haplogroup U, which encompasses roughly a fifth of mtDNA lineages of both populations. Our estimate for this split [between Europeans and Indians] is close to the suggested time for the peopling of Asia and the first expansion of anatomically modern humans in Eurasia and likely pre-dates their spread to Europe.”
In other words, the timescale posited by the Aryan invasion / migration framework is inadequate, and the genetic affinity between the Indian subcontinent and Europe “should not be interpreted in terms of a recent admixture of western Caucasoids10 with Indians caused by a putative Indo-Aryan invasion 3,000–4,000 years BP.”..READ MORE