This is the eternal tree with its roots above and it's
branches downward;this is BRAHMAN,this is the IMMORTAL;in it are lodged all the worlds and none goes beyond it.THIS and THAT are ONE.
KATHA UPANISHAD
In the seventh heaven, Prophet Muhammad saw Sidrat al-Muntaha--a very big tree of sidr. Each of the fruits of this tree is as large as a big jar. The leaves of this tree are similar to the ears of the elephants. Sidrat al-Muntahais an extremely beautiful tree. It is visited by butterflies made of gold. When these butterflies gather on this tree, its beauty is beyond description.
Asvattha(Ashwattha)-Fig tree,symbol of the cosmic manifestation
Gabriel According to 'A'ishah and others, the Prophet saw him in his true form only twice, as is indicated by the Quran: "this is naught but a revelation revealed, taught him by one terrible in power, very strong [i.e., Gabriel]; he stood poised, being on the higher horizon ... He saw him another time by the Lote Tree of the Far Boundary" (LIII, 4-14). The first vision took place at the cave of Hira', during the revelation of the first verses of the Quran, the second during the mi'raj. According to another account, having seen Gabriel in his true form, the Prophet fainted. Regaining consciousness, he said, "Glory be to God! I did not know that any of the creatures were like this!" Gabriel replied, "What if you had seen Israfil? He has twelve wings, one of which is in the east and the other in the west. The Throne rests upon his shoulders, yet he shrinks because of God's tremendousness until he becomes like a suckling child."
[Yusufali 16:2] He doth send down His angels with inspiration of His Command, to such of His servants as He pleaseth, (saying): "Warn (Man) that there is no god but I: so do your duty unto Me."
"Then the Prophet ascended to the seventh heaven, and that is where our Messenger saw Prophet Ibrahim. Prophet Ibrahim is the best of the prophets after our prophet, Muhammad. The Prophet saw Prophet Ibrahim with his back against al-Bayt al-Ma^mur. To the inhabitants of the skies, al-Bayt al-Ma^mur is like the Ka^bah is to us, the inhabitants of the earth. Every day 70,000 angels go there; then exit from it, and never return. The next day another 70,000 angels go, come out, and never return. This will continue until the Day of Judgment. In this, there is an indication as to the greatness of the numbers of the angels--their numbers are far more than the numbers of the humans and the jinns together".SOURCE
Grandshaykh Sharafuddin narrated the following story:
The year in which Abu Muhammad Qasim was to leave this world,he set out on a pilgrimage on the third of Ramadan.When he arrived at al-Qudayd,where pilgrims usually sojourn,GOD opened to his vision to behold angels desending from heaven and ascending in countless numbers.They would come down,visit the place,and then go back up.And while he watched these angels carrying the the blessings with which GOD was sending them,it was as if that light and concentrated power was being poured into his heart directly,filling it with sincerity and GOD-conciousness
(from Classical islam and the Naqshbandi Sufi/History of the saints of the golden chain)
"You may remember Ramakrishna's saying that the Jivakoti can ascend the stairs, but not return, while the Ishwarakoti can ascend and descend at will. If that is so, the Jivakoti might be those who describe only the curve from Matter through Mind into the silent Brahman and the Ishwarakoti those who get to the integral Reality and can therefore combine the Ascent with the Descent and contain the “two ends” of existence in their single being."
[Yusufali 3:19] The Religion before Allah is Islam (submission to His Will): Nor did the People of the Book dissent there from except through envy of each other, after knowledge had come to them. But if any deny the Signs of Allah, Allah is swift in calling to account. [Yusufali 3:20] So if they dispute with thee, say: "I have submitted My whole self to Allah and so have those who follow me." And say to the People of the Book and to those who are unlearned: "Do ye (also) submit yourselves?" If they do, they are in right guidance, but if they turn back, Thy duty is to convey the Message; and in Allah's sight are (all) His servants.
"The surrender must be total and seize all the parts of the being. It is not enough that the psychic should respond and the higher mental accept or even the inner vital submit and the inner physical consciousness feel the influence. There must be in no part of the being, even the most external, anything that makes a reserve, anything that hides behind doubts, confusions and subterfuges, anything that revolts or refuses..A glad and strong and helpful submission is demanded to the working of the Divine Force, the obedience of the illumined disciple of the Truth, of the inner Warrior who fights against obscurity and falsehood, of the faithful servant of the Divine". Sri Aurobindo
"Our yoga is not identical with the yoga of the Gita although it contains all that is essential in the Gita's yoga. In our yoga we begin with the idea, the will, the aspiration of the complete surrender; but at the same time we have to reject the lower nature, deliver our consciousness from it, deliver the self involved in the lower nature by the self rising to freedom in the higher nature. If we do not do this double movement, we are in danger of making a tamasic and therefore unreal surrender, making no effort, no tapas and therefore no progress; or else we may make a rajasic surrender not to the Divine but to some self-made false idea or image of the Divine which masks our rajasic ego or something still worse..." SRI AUROBINDO
PURANI: J asks: Is there a universal plane called the universal psychic, like the universal vital or the universal mental? He thinks of the psychic as being only individual. SRI AUROBINDO: It is a mistake to suppose that the psychic is only individual or consists only of individuality. There is a universal psychic like the rest. PURANI: Is it there that the soul retires after leaving the body and gathers material for a new birth? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. Page-434 PURANI: He also asks how the distinction is made in The Life Divine between Being and Non-being. Does the Non-Being come after Overmind - or before it? SRI AUROBINDO: Why is he particular about the Non-Being? You arrive at the Non-Being by following the negative path. That is to say, when you start from mind, I mean spiritual mind, you come or open yourself to the experience of Nirvana. This Nirvana is the negation of all that the mind can affirm as the Being but it is only a gate of entry into the Absolute. From this Nirvana you can either take up the negative or the affirmative path. By the negative you reach the Non-Being or what the Gita calls anirdeshyam (the intermediate). This Non-Being is the Buddhists Nirvana or Chinese Tao.The Buddhists consider it as Shunya, the Void, while to the Taoists this void, contains everything. Again, this Nirvana is not the same as the Brahmanirvana of the Gita. By following the affirmative path you arrive at the Supermind and pass through it to the Sachchidananda . In my own case, I passed to the supermind from a Nirvana which was not of the Buddhist type but a state of mere being with the most indispensable positive element.The Goraknath peoplealso follow this affirmative way. From the point of view of realisation, there are three aspects of Brahmana - Atman or self, Purusha or Soul, Ishwara or God. The Adwaitins negate both Purusha and Ishwara and arrive at the unity of the Atman and Brahman. The Buddhists negate all the three aspects and arrive at Non-Being.
When the others had gone, Purani brought up again the subject of Non-Being.
PURANI: Did you say the other day that by following the affirmative way one also arrives at Non-Being? I was not very clear about it. SRI AUROBINDO: (with a surprised look): No. Only by the negative path you arrive at Non-Being, or what the Gita calls the Indeterminate. As I said, it is the same as in Taoism and Buddhism. But it is not really Nothing. What we can say is that no attribute of Being can be posited of it. Taoism says that Non-Being is Everything rather than Nothing. By the affirmative path you come through Supermind to Sachchidananda which is both static and dynamic, while through the negative path you come to Non-Being. PURANI: Then the the negative path doesn't lead to Sachchidananda. SRI AUROBINDO: No. NIRODBARAN: Is Non-Being the final stage of the negative path or does one pass through it to something else? SRI AUROBINDO: Non-Being is only a term of the mind to express the Supreme Existence. It is the Buddhists' way of expressing the Supreme they contact. In reality it is nothing but an aspect of the Supreme. What is called the Indeterminate is not really indeterminate. It can be called so because it is not limited or confined to any one determination, not because it is incapable of Page-443 any determination. That is what I have tried to show in The LifeDivine. PURANI: In fact, it is the source of infinite determination. How is Non-Being related to the Supermind, etc., of the affirmative way? SRI AUROBINDO: Both are gates to the Absolute. Non-Being is an aspect of the Absolute. When you enter the Absolute you can't describe it.
In our yoga the Nirvana is the beginning of the higher Truth, as it is the passage from the Ignorance to the higher Truth. The Ignorance has to be extinguished in order that the Truth may manifest.
I don't think I have written, but I said once that souls which have passed into Nirvana may (not “must”) return to complete the larger upward curve. I have written somewhere, I think, that for this yoga (it might also be added, in the natural complete order of the manifestation) the experience of Nirvana can only be a stage or passage to the complete realisation. I have said also that there are many doors by which one can pass into the realisation of the Absolute (Parabrahman), and Nirvana is one of them, but by no means the only one. You may remember Ramakrishna's saying that the Jivakoti can ascend the stairs, but not return, while the Ishwarakoti can ascend and descend at will. If that is so, the Jivakoti might be those who describe only the curve from Matter through Mind into the silent Brahman and the Ishwarakoti those who get to the integral Reality and can therefore combine the Ascent with the Descent and contain the “two ends” of existence in their single being.
The realisation of this yoga is not lower but higher than Nirvana or Nirvikalpa Samadhi.
If Buddha really combated and denied all Vedantic conceptions of the Self, then it can be no longer true that Buddha refrained Page – 59 from all metaphysical speculations or distinct pronouncements as to the nature of the ultimate Reality. The view you take of his conception of Nirvana seems to concur with the Mahayanist interpretation and its conception of the Permanent, dhruvam, which could be objected to as a later development like the opposite Nihilistic conception of the Shunyam. What Buddha very certainly taught was that the world is not-Self and that the individual has no true existence since what does exist in the world is a stream of impermanent consciousness from moment to moment and the individual person is fictitiously constituted by a bundle of samskāras and can be dissolved by dissolving the bundle. This is in conformity with the Vedantic Monistic view that there is no true separate individual. As to the other Vedantic view of the one Self, impersonal and universal and transcendent, it does not seem that Buddha made any distinct and unmistakable pronouncement on abstract and metaphysical questions; but if the world or all in the world is not-Self, anātman, there can be no more room for a universal Self, only at most for a transcendent Real Being. His conception of Nirvana was of something transcendent of the universe, but he did not define what it was because he was not concerned with any abstract metaphysical speculations about the Reality; he must have thought them unnecessary and irrelevant and any indulgence in them likely to divert from the true object. His explanation of things was psychological and not metaphysical and his methods were all psychological, – the breaking up of the false associations of consciousness which cause the continuance of desire and suffering, so getting rid of the stream of birth and death in a purely phenomenal (not unreal) world; the method of life by which this liberation could be effected was also a psychological method, the eightfold path developing right understanding and right action. His object was pragmatic and severely practical and so were his methods; metaphysical speculations would only draw the mind away from the one thing needful...READ MORE
I suppose most of you come on Fridays to listen to the reading of Wu Wei. If you have listened, you will remember that something's said there about being “spontaneous”, and that the true way of living the true life is to live spontaneously.
What Lao Tse calls spontaneous is this: instead of being moved by a personal will — mental, vital or physical — one ought to stop all outer effort and let oneself be guided and moved by what the Chinese call Tao which they identify with the Godhead — or God or the Supreme Principle or the Origin of all things or the creative Truth, indeed all possible human notions of the Divine and the goal to be attained...READ MORE
To be spontaneous means not to think out, organise, decide and make an effort to realise with the personal will.
I am going to give you two examples to make you understand what true spontaneity is. One — you all know about it undoubtedly — is of the time Sri Aurobindo began writing the Arya,¹ in 1914. It was neither a mental knowledge nor even a mental creation which he transcribed: he silenced his mind and sat at the typewriter, and from above, from the higher planes, all that had to be written came down, all ready, and he had only to move his fingers on the typewriter and it was transcribed. It was in this state of mental silence which allows the knowledge — and even the expression — from above to pass through that he wrote the whole Arya, with its sixty-four printed pages a month. This is why, besides, he could do it, for if it had been a mental work of construction it would have been quite impossible.
WHEN MEN SEEK AFTER THE IMMUTABLE,THE INDETERMINABLE,THE UNMANIFEST,THE ALL PERFADING,THE UNTHINKABLE,THE SUMMIT,THE IMMOBILE,THE PERMENANT,EQUAL IN MIND TO ALL,INTENT ON THE GOOD OF ALL BEINGS,IT IS TO ME THAT THEY COME
Because Sraddhalu Ranade and Alok Pandey have been invited to the US for the AUM conference this year, we wish to place certain facts about them before those who may be considering support or sponsorship of these peopleor their projects. These facts concern their involvement in what we regard as promotion of religious fundamentalism, censorship, distortion of truth, and defiance of Ashram rules and authority carried out by Ranade and Pandey recently, so that you may assess any possible support for them. To make people aware of the misleading activities of Ranade, Pandey, and others, and to increase awareness of an unfortunate growing trend among some who claim to be followers of Sri Aurobindo, a website, has been started http://www.iyfundamentalism.info.
Apart from the evidence of the Quran, there is one reference which is controversial among the commentators. There is a tradition reported from the Holy Prophet (sa) which speaks of an Indian prophet by name. In his words:
There was a prophet of God in India who was dark in colour and his name was Kahan.1 Now anyone acquainted with the history of Indian religions would immediately connect this description to Lord Krishna, who is invariably described in the Hindu literature as being dark of complexion. Also, the title Kanhaya is added to his name Krishna. Kanhaya contains the same consonants K,N,H as does the name Kahan -- in no way an insignificant similarity. But whether any non-Arab prophet was mentioned by name or not is only an academic discussion. There is no denying the fact that the Holy Quran makes it incumbent on every Muslim not only to believe in all the prophets, but it also clearly informs us that in every region of the world and in every age, God did raise messengers and prophets. This belief in principle in the truth of the founding prophets and also the minor prophets of other religions is a unique declaration of the Quran, absent in all other divine books. It throws light on the universality of creation as well as on the universality of Islam itself. If the Quranic claim that the teachings of the Quran are for the entire world is true, then it has to recognise the truth of all prophets. Otherwise the followers of so many different religions will not find any connecting bridge between themselves and Islam...SOURCE
. . . Nor does spirituality mean the moulding of the whole type of the national being to suit the limited dogmas, forms, tenets of a particular religion, as was often enough attempted by the old societies, an idea which still persists in many minds by the power of old mental habit and association; clearly such an attempt would be impossible, even if it were desirable, in a country full of the most diverse religious opinions and harbouring too three such distinct general forms as Hinduism, Islam and Christianity, to say nothing of the numerous special forms to which each of these has given birth. Spirituality is much wider than any particular religion, and in the larger ideas of it that are now coming on us even the greatest religion becomes no more than a broad sect or branch of the one universal religion, by which we shall understand in the future man's seeking for the eternal, the divine, the greater self, the source of unity and his attempt to arrive at some equation, some increasing approximation of the values of human life with the eternal and the divine values. (The Renaissance in India , p.33.) If we are to make our society perfect and the nation is to live again, then we must revert to the earlier and fuller truth. We must not make life a waiting for renunciation, but renunciation a preparation for life; instead of running from God in the town to God in the forest, we must rather plunge into the mountain solitude in our own souls for knowledge & joy & spiritual energy to sustain any part that may be given to us by the master of the Lila. If we get that strength, any society we build up must be full of the instinct of immortal life and move inevitably towards perfection. As to the precise way in which society will be reconstructed, we have hardly yet knowledge enough to solve the problem. We ought to know before we act, but we are rather eager to act violently in the light of any dim ray of knowledge that may surprise our unreflecting intellects, and although God often uses our haste for great and beneficial purposes, yet that way of doing things is not the best either for a man or a nation. One thing seems to me clear that the future will deny that principle of individual selfishness and collective self-interest on which European society has hitherto been based and our renovated systems will be based on the renunciation of individual selfishness and the organisation of brotherhood, – principles common to Christianity, Mahomedanism and Hinduism. (Essays Divine and Human, p. 58.)
"But what is the Hindu religion ? What is this religion which we call Sanatan, eternal ? It is the Hindu religion only because the Hindu nation has kept it, because in this Peninsula it grew up in the seclusion of the sea and the Himalayas, because in this sacred and ancient land it was given as a charge to the Aryan race to preserve through the ages. But it is not circumscribed by the confines of a single country, it does not belong peculiarly and for ever to a bounded part of the world. That which we call the Hindu religion is really the eternal religion, because it is the universal religion which embraces all others. If a religion is not universal, it cannot be eternal. A narrow religion, a sectarian religion, an exclusive religion can live only for a limited time and a limited purpose. This is the one religion that can triumph over materialism by including and anticipating the discoveries of science and the speculations of philosophy. It is the one religion which impresses on mankind the closeness of God to us and embraces in its compass all the possible means by which man can approach God. It is the one religion which insists every moment on the truth which all religions acknowledge that He is in all men and all things and that in Him we move and have our being. It is the one religion which enables us not only to understand and believe this truth but to realise it with every part of our being. It is the one religion which shows the world what the world is, that it is the Lila of Vasudeva. It is the one religion which shows us how we can best play our part in that Lila, its subtlest laws and its noblest rules. It is the one religion which does not separate life in any smallest detail from religion, which knows what immortality is and has utterly removed from us the reality of death." (From Sri Aurobindo's Uttarpara Speech)
The first message said, "I have given you a work and it is to help to uplift this nation. Before long the time will come when you will have to go out of jail; for it is not my will that this time either you should be convicted or that you should pass the time, as others have to do, in suffering for their country. I have called you to work, and that is the Adesh for which you have asked. I give you the Adesh to go forth and do my work."
THE 2ND MESSAGE
The second message came and it said, "Something has been shown to you in this year of seclusion, something about which you had your doubts and it is the truth of the Hindu religion. It is this religion that I am raising up before the world, it is this that I have perfected and developed through the Rishis, saints and Avatars, and now it is going forth to do my work among the nations. I am raising up this nation to send forth my word. This is the Sanatan Dharma, this is the eternal religion which you did not really know before, but which I have now revealed to you. The agnostic and the sceptic in you have been answered, for I have given you proofs within and without you, physical and subjective, which have satisfied you. When you go forth, speak to your nation always this word, that it is for the Sanatan Dharma that they arise, it is for the world and not for themselves that they arise. I am giving them freedom for the service of the world. When therefore it is said that India shall rise, it is the Sanatan Dharma that shall be great. When it is said that India shall expand and extend herself, it is the Sanatan Dharma that shall expand and extend itself over the world. It is for the Dharma and by the Dharma that India exists. To magnify the religion means to magnify the country. I have shown you that I am everywhere and in all men and in all things, that I am in this movement and I am not only working in those who are striving for the country but I am working also in those who oppose them and stand in their path. I am working in everybody and whatever men may think or do, they can do nothing but help in my purpose. They also are doing my work, they are not my enemies but my instruments. In all your actions you are moving forward without knowing which way you move. You mean to do one thing and you do another. You aim at a result and your efforts subserve one that is different or contrary. It is Shakti that has gone forth and entered into the people. Since long ago I have been preparing this uprising and now the time has come and it is I who will lead it to its fulfilment."
The ordinary individual consciousness,says THE MOTHER,is like an axis and everything turns around the axis.It is like a big axis(it is more or less big,it can be quite small) fixed in time,and everything turns around.It extends moe or less far,it is more or less high,more or less strong,but all turns around the axis.And then there is no longer an axis-gone,fled!It can go to the north,it can go to south,and to the east and to the west,it can go in front,can go behind,it can go no matter where.There is no longer an axis.(From Satprem's Sri Aurobindo or The Adventure Of Consciousness)
169. Christ came into the world to purify, not to fulfil. He himself foreknew the failure of his mission and the necessity of his return with the sword of God into a world that had rejected him. Sri Aurobindo's thoughts and aphorisms
"Mahomed would himself have rejected the idea of being an Avatar, so we have to regard him only as the prophet, the instrument, the Vibhuti. Christ realised himself as the Son who is one with the Father – he must therefore be an aМЩАvatАra, a partial incarnation."
FROM SRI AUROBINDO'S LETTERS ON YOGA(VOLUME1,CH VII,THE PURPOSE OF AVATARHOOD)
[Zack de la Rocha] They say that in war the truth be the first casualty So I, dig in selector, I, the resurrector Fly my shit, sever your neck, wider than ever With my, tongue dipped in funk arsenic Burn this illusion, this lie with straight arson shit Your arsenal stripped, power ain't full jackets and clips It's, my ability to, define phenomenonal raw Crenshaw '84, Boogie Down before L.A. when the war break off Where you be take off, stand-in full face off With the M-1 millimeter, let the rhythm of the chamber hit 'em Let the rich play catch with 'em Better yet make 'em, eat 'em and shit 'em 'til they, so full of holes that they drown in their own I'm like a, nail stuck in the wrist of they Christmas Don't need radio, to leave they family a witness
[Chorus] Muhammad and Christ, word life, would lay your body down To a tune so wild international In the desert full of bullets let yo' body rot With my chrome, with my verse, with my body rock Both Muhammad and Christ would lay your body down To a tune so wild international In the desert full of bullets let yo' body rot With my chrome, with my verse...
[Zack de la Rocha] In this era where DJ's, behave Be paid to be slaves, we raid airwaves, to be sane And, what's rainin, from the station Cash fascination, like livin dead fed agents Distract us fast, from a disaster's wrath for sure Air war is flooded like the 9th Ward On the AM, on the AM Turn and face them, hatred and mayhem Slay them, dangerous, I take razor steps It's the swing from the bling, to the bang on the left It's the murderous return, boom bap full strap Your six that got clipped, you can't clap back With minimal lift, and criminal flow I'm killin them soft and billin them for, everything stole And once again I'm that nail in the wrist of they Christmas Watch me make they family a witness~!
[Chorus] Muhammad and Christ, word life, would lay your body down To a tune so wild international In the desert full of bullets let yo' body rot With my chrome, with my verse, with my body rock Both Muhammad and Christ would lay your body down To a tune so wild international In the desert full of bullets let yo' body rot With my chrome, with my verse, with my body rock
After 9/11 you could see that reframing taking place. The specter of Communism no longer haunted the U.S., justifying its actions in Latin America and all over the world. What filled that void were Al Qaeda and the Muslim world in general. That song is, in an abstract way, addressing the way the right has distracted people from this huge rush of wealth from the bottom to the top..“I don’t see [One Day as a Lion's first single Wild International] as an anti-religious song. I see it as the West has been using Christianity as a way to justify its actions when in reality, those figures, Christ and Muhammad, were rebels. These two religious figures have been co-opted to justify power, although they fought against the abuses of power and the expansion of empire.” — Zach de la Rocha,
Restless soul, enjoy your youth Like Muhammad hits the truth Can't escape from the common rule If you hate something, don't you do it too...too...
Small my table, a-sets just two Got so crowded, I can't make room Oh, where did they come from? Stormed my room! And you dare say it belongs to you...to you...
This is not for you (3x) Oh, not for you...ah, you...
...scream...my friends...don't call me... ...friends, no they don't scream... ...my friends don't call...my friends don't...
All that's sacred comes from youth Dedication, naive and true With no power, nothing to do I still remember, why don't you...don't you...
This is not for you (3x) Oh, never was for you...fuck you... This is not for you... Oh, this is not for you...yeah, you... This is not for you... Oh, not for you... Oh, you...
[Yusufali 85:13] It is He Who creates from the very beginning, and He can restore (life).[Yusufali 85:14] And He is the Oft-Forgiving, Full of Loving-Kindness(the mahalaksmi aspect of the divine mother)
IS MAN THE MOST CORRUPT SPECIES ON EARTH?ARE WE IN TOUCH WITH NATURE?WE MAYBE AWARE OF "SOMETHING ABOVE"BUT DOES THAT MAKE MAN A SUPERIOR ANIMAL?
I HAVE dwelt at some length, though still very inadequately, on the principles of Indian religion, the sense of its evolution and the intention of its system, because these things are being constantly ignored and battle delivered by its defenders and assailants on details, particular consequences and side-issues. Those too have their importance because they are part of the practical execution, the working out of the culture in life; but they cannot be rightly valued unless we seize hold of the intention which was behind the execution. And the first thing we see is that the principle, the essential intention of Indian culture was extraordinarily high, ambitious and noble, the highest indeed that the human spirit can conceive. For what can be a greater idea of life tl1an that which makes it a development of the spirit in man to its most vast, secret and high possibilities, ― a culture that conceives of life as a movement of the Eternal in time, of the universal in the individual, of the infinite in the finite, of the Divine in man, or holds that man can become not only conscious of the eternal and the infinite, but live in its power and universalise, spiritualise and divinise himself by self-knowledge? What greater aims can be for the life of man than to grow by an inner and outer experience till he can live in God, realise his spirit, become divine in knowledge, in. will and in the joy of his highest existence? And that is the whole sense of the striving of Indian culture...READ MORE
IT IS essential, if we are to get a right view of Indian civilisation or of any civilisation, to keep to the central, living, governing things and not to be led away by the confusion of accidents and details. This is a precaution which the critics of our culture steadily refuse to take. A civilisation, a culture must be looked at first in its initiating, supporting, durable central motives, in its heart of abiding principle; otherwise we shall be likely to find ourselves, like these critics, in a maze without a clue and we shall stumble about among false and partial conclusions and miss entirely the true truth of the matter. The importance of avoiding this error is evident when we are seeking for the essential significance of Indian religious culture. But the same method must be held to when we proceed to observe its dynamic formulation and the effect of its spiritual ideal on life. Indian culture recognises the spirit as the truth of our being and our life as a growth and evolution of the spirit. It sees the Eternal, the Infinite, the Supreme, the All; it sees this as the secret highest Self of all, this is what it calls God, the Permanent, the Real, and it sees man as a soul and power of this being of God in Nature. The progressive growth of the finite conscious- ness of man towards this Self, towards God, towards the universal, the eternal, the infinite, in a word his growth into spiritual consciousness by the development of his ordinary ignorant natural being into an illumined divine nature, this is for Indian thinking the significance of life and the aim of human existence. To this deeper and more spiritual idea of Nature and of existence a great deal of what is strongest and most potential of fruitful consequences in recent European thinking already turns with a growing impetus. This turn may be a relapse to "barbarism" or it may be the high natural outcome of her own increasing and ripened culture; that is a question for Europe to decide. But always to India this ideal inspiration or rather this spiritual vision of Self, God, Spirit, this nearness to a cosmic consciousness, a cosmic sense and feeling, a cosmic idea, will, love, delight into Page-156 which we can release the limited, ignorant suffering ego, this drive towards the transcendental, eternal and infinite, and the moulding of man into a conscious soul and power of that greater Existence have been the engrossing motive of her philosophy, the sustaining force of her religion, the fundamental idea of her civilisation and culture...READ MORE
> THE task of religion and spirituality is to mediate between God and man, between the Eternal and Infinite and this transient, yet persistent finite, between a luminous Truth-Consciousness not expressed or not yet expressed here and the Mind's ignorance. But nothing is more difficult than to bring home the greatness and uplifting power of the spiritual consciousness to the natural man forming the vast majority of the race; for his mind and senses, are turned outward towards the external calls of life and its objects and never inwards to the Truth which lies behind them. This external vision and attraction are the essence of the universal blinding force which is designated in Indian philosophy the Ignorance. Ancient Indian spirituality recognised that man lives in the Ignorance and has to be led through its imperfect indications to a highest inmost knowledge. Our life moves between two worlds, the depths upon depths of our inward being and the surface field of our outward nature. The majority of men put the whole emphasis of life on the outward and live very strongly in their surface consciousness and very little in the inward existence. Even the choice spirits raised from the grossness of the common vital and physical mould by the stress of thought and culture do not usually get farther than a strong dwelling on the things of the mind. The highest flight they reach ― and it is this that the West persistently mistakes for spirituality ― is a preference for living in the mind and emotions more than in the gross outward life or else an attempt to subject this rebellious life-stuff to the law of intellectual truth or ethical reason and will or aesthetic beauty or of all three together. But spiritual knowledge perceives that there is a greater thing in us; our inmost self, our real being is not the intellect, not the aesthetic, ethical or thinking mind, but the divinity within, the Spirit, and these other things are only the instruments of the Spirit. A mere intellectual, ethical and aesthetic culture does not go back to the inmost truth of the spirit; it is still an Ignorance, an incomplete, outward and superficail knowledge..READ MORE
Thursday, April 9, 2009
A man came to the Prophet Mohammed and showed him a nest full of young birds wrapped up in a piece of carpet. “I found these birds, my Lord,” he said, “as I came through the wood. Hearing the chirps of the nestlings, I looked into a tree and found this nest.” “Put the nest on the ground,” said the Prophet. Then the mother bird swooped down and perched on the edge of the nest, delighted to have found her children. “Put the family back where you found them,” said Mohammed. And he added: “Be kind to animals. Ride them when they are strong enough to carry you. Dismount from them when they are tired. Give them to drink when they are thirsty.” In the records of Islam it is said that one day the angels of heaven said to God: “O God, is there anything in the world stronger than rock?” “Yes,” God replied, “iron is stronger, for it breaks rock.” “Is there anything stronger than iron?” “Yes, fire, for it melts iron.” “And is there anything stronger than fire?” “Water, for it quenches fire.” “And what is stronger than water?” “Wind, for it can move the waves.” “And is there anything even stronger?” “Yes, the kind heart that gives alms in secret, not letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing.” Not that today giving alms is the chief way of being kind. Of course, we may help our neighbour with a kind-hearted gift. But the story means that, by a gift or in any other way, the power of kindness is the greatest power in the world for winning the affection and friendship of others. Suffering is aroused by the suffering of others, and joy by their joy. Such is the glorious nature of sympathy.
The Divine can be realised on any plane according to the capacity of that plane, as the Divine is everywhere. The yogis and saints realise the Divine on the spiritualised mind plane; that does not mean they become supramental.
Because he is a great man does it follow that everything he thinks or says is right? or because he lives in the light does it follow that his light is absolute and complete? The “Truth-Consciousness” is a phrase I use for the supermind. X is not in the supermind. He may be and is in a true Consciousness, but that is a different matter.
Perhaps you are of the opinion of X, “The Divine is here, how can he descend from anywhere?” The Divine may be here, but if he has covered here his Light with darkness of Ignorance and his Ananda with suffering, that, I should think, makes a big difference to the plane and, even if one enters into that sealed Light etc., it makes a difference to the consciousness but very little to the Energy at work in this plane which remains of a dark or mixed character.
The Divine Force can act on any plane – it is not limited to the supramental Force. The supramental is only one aspect of the power of the Divine.
The sadhak of integral yoga who stops short at the Impersonal is no longer a sadhak of integral yoga. Impersonal realization is the realisation of the silent Self, of the pure Existence, Consciousness and Bliss in itself without any perception of an Existent, Conscient, Blissful. It leads therefore to Nirvana. In the integral knowledge the realisation of the Self and of the impersonal Sachchidananda is only a step, though a very important Page – 107 step, or part of the integral knowledge. It is a beginning, not an end of the highest realisation.
These feelings are the usual attitude of the physical consciousness left to itself towards the Divine – a complete Agnosticism and inability to experience. The knowledge of the impersonal Divine by itself does not affect the material facts of earth or at least need not. It only produces a subjective change in the being itself and, if it is complete, a new vision and attitude towards all things immaterial or material. But the complete knowledge of the Divine can produce a change in material things, for it sets a Force working which ends by acting even upon these material things that seem to the physical consciousness so absolute, invincible and unchangeable.
Why cannot one love or experience [the Cosmic and the Transcendent Divine] concretely? Many have done it. And why assume that He is immobile, silent and aloof? The Cosmic Divine can be as close to one as one's own self and the Transcendent as intimate as the closest friend or lover. It is only in the physical consciousness that there is some difficulty in realising it. The Jain realisation of an individual godhead is all right so far as it goes – its defect is that it is too individual and isolated.
I never heard of silence descending in other yogas – the mind goes into silence. Since however I have been writing of ascent and descent, I have been told from several quarters that there is nothing new in this yoga – so I am wondering whether people were not getting ascents and descents without knowing it! or at least without noticing the process. It is like the rising above the head and taking the station there – which I and others have experienced in this yoga. When I spoke of it first, people stared Page – 108 and thought I was talking nonsense. Wideness must have been felt in the old yogas because otherwise one could not feel the niverse in oneself or be free from the body consciousness or unite with the Anantam Brahman. But generally as in Tantric yoga one speaks of the consciousness rising to the Brahmarandhra, top of the head, as the summit. Rajayoga of course lays stress on Samadhi as the means of the highest experience. But obviously if one has not the Brāhmisthiti in the waking state, there is no completeness in the realisation. The Gita distinctly speaks of being samāhita (which is equivalent to being in Samadhi) and the Brāhmisthiti as a waking state in which one lives and does all actions.
Men do not know themselves and have not learned to distinguish the different parts of their being; for these are usually lumped together by them as mind, because it is through a mentalised perception and understanding that they know or feel them; therefore they do not understand their own states and actions, or, if at all, then only on the surface. It is part of the foundation of yoga to become conscious of the great complexity of our nature, see the different forces that move it and get over it a control of directing knowledge. We are composed of many parts each of which contributes something to the total movement of our consciousness, our thought, will, sensation, feeling, action, but we do not see the origination or the course of these impulsions; we are aware only of their confused and pell-mell results on the surface upon which we can at best impose nothing better than a precarious shifting order. The remedy can only come from the parts of the being that are already turned towards the Light. To call in the light of the Divine Consciousness from above, to bring the psychic being to the front and kindle a flame of aspiration which will awaken spiritually the outer mind and set on fire the vital being, is the way out.
Each part of the being has its own nature or even different natures contained in the same part.
Consciousness is not, to my experience, a phenomenon dependent on the reactions of personality to the forces of Nature and amounting to no more than a seeing or interpretation of these reactions. If that were so, then when the personality becomes silent and immobile and gives no reactions, as there would be no Page – 233 seeing or interpretative action, there would therefore be no consciousness. That contradicts some of the fundamental experiences of yoga, e.g., a silent and immobile consciousness infinitely spread out, not dependent on the personality but impersonal and universal, not seeing and interpreting contacts but motionlessly self-aware, not dependent on the reactions, but persistent in itself even when no reactions take place. The subjective personality itself is only a formation of consciousness which is a power inherent, not in the activity of the temporary manifested personality, but in the being, the Self or Purusha. Consciousness is a reality inherent in existence. It is there even when it is not active on the surface, but silent and immobile; it is there even when it is invisible on the surface, not reacting on outward things or sensible to them, but withdrawn and either active or inactive within; it is there even when it seems to us to be quite absent and the being to our view unconscious and inanimate. Consciousness is not only power of awareness of self and things, it is or has also a dynamic and creative energy. It can determine its own reactions or abstain from reactions; it can not only answer to forces, but create or put out from itself forces. Consciousness is Chit but also Chit Shakti. Consciousness is usually identified with mind, but mental consciousness is only the human range which no more exhausts all the possible ranges of consciousness than human sight exhausts all the gradations of colour or human hearing all the gradations of sound – for there is much above or below that is to man invisible and inaudible. So there are ranges of consciousness above and below the human range, with which the normal human has no contact and they seem to it unconscious, – supramental or overmental and submental ranges. When Yajnavalkya says there is no consciousness in the Brahman state, he is speaking of consciousness as the human being knows it. The Brahman state is that of a supreme existence supremely aware of itself, svayamprakāśa, – it is Sachchidananda, Existence-Consciousness-Bliss. Even if it be spoken of as beyond That, parātparam, it does not mean that it is a state of Non-existence or Non-consciousness, but beyond even the Page – 234 highest spiritual substratum (the “foundation above” in the luminous paradox of the Rig Veda) of cosmic existence and consciousness. As it is evident from the description of Chinese Tao and the Buddhist Shunya that that is a Nothingness in which all is, so with the negation of consciousness here. Superconscient and subconscient are only relative terms; as we rise into the superconscient we see that it is a consciousness greater than the highest we yet have and therefore in our normal state inaccessible to us and, if we can go down into the subconscient, we find there a consciousness other than our own at its lowest mental limit and therefore ordinarily inaccessible to us. The Inconscient itself is only an involved state of consciousness which like the Tao or Shunya, though in a different way, contains all things suppressed within it so that under a pressure from above or within all can evolve out of it – “an inert Soul with a somnambulist Force.”
Let us therefore embark with Sri Aurobindo and Mother, leaving all our reasonable baggage behind. A new species on earth is not something reasonable. And why not? Are we so foolish to envision a being after man? Has not Darwin shown that species evolve, that one species is born from another? Why should it be different for man?
(Sri Aurobindo:) Because man is a mental being, he naturally imagines that mind is the one great leader and actor and creator or the indispensable agent in the universe. But this is an error; even for knowledge mind is not the only or the greatest possible instrument, the one aspirant and discoverer. Mind is a clumsy interlude between Nature's vast and precise subconscient action and the vaster infallible superconscient action of the Godhead. There is nothing mind can do that cannot be better done in the mind's immobility and thought-free stillness. (17:11)
The truth is that man is nothing, or not much, but he can become -- a great destiny is his if he only consents to have a fairer idea of himself and of the true place he occupies in the universe.
(Sri Aurobindo:) Man in himself is little more than an ambitious nothing. He is a littleness that reaches to a wideness and a grandeur that are beyond him, a dwarf enamoured of the heights. His mind is a dark ray in the splendours of the universal Mind. His life is a striving, exulting, suffering, an eager passion-tossed and sorrow-stricken or a blindly and dumbly longing petty moment of the universal Life. His body is a labouring perishable speck in the material universe. This cannot be the end of the mysterious upward surge of Nature. There is something beyond, something that mankind shall be; it is seen now only in broken glimpses through rifts in the great wall of limitations that deny its possibility and existence. An immortal soul is somewhere within him and gives out some sparks of its presence; above an eternal spirit overshadows him and upholds the soul-continuity of his nature. But this greater spirit is obstructed from descent by the hard lid of his constructed personality; and that inner luminous soul is wrapped, stifled, oppressed in dense outer coatings. . . .
Man's greatness is not in what he is, but in what he makes possible. His glory is that he is the closed space and secret workshop of a living labour in which supermanhood is being made ready by a divine Craftsman. But he is admitted too to a yet greater greatness and it is this that, allowed to be unlike the lower creation, he is partly an artisan of this divine change; his conscious assent, his consecrated will and participation are needed that into his body may descend the glory that will replace him. (17:8)
And Sri Aurobindo adds:
Man is a transitional being; he is not final. . . . The step from man to superman is the next approaching achievement in the earth's evolution. It is inevitable because it is at once the intention of the inner Spirit and the logic of Nature's process. (17:7)
Book One, Chapter Three, The Two Negations II. THE REFUSAL OF THE ASCETIC
"All this is the Brahman; this Self is the Brahman and the Self is fourfold. Beyond relation, featureless, unthinkable, in which all is still." Mandukya Upanishad, Verses 2, 7
And still there is a beyond. For on the other side of the cosmic consciousness there is, attainable to us, a consciousness yet more transcendent, -- transcendent not only of the ego, but of the Cosmos itself, -- against which the universe seems to stand out like a petty picture against an immeasurable background. That supports the universal activity, -- or perhaps only tolerates it; It embraces Life with Its vastness, -- or else rejects it from Its infinitude. If the materialist is justified from his point of view in insisting on Matter as reality, the relative world as the sole thing of which we can in some sort be sure and the Beyond as wholly unknowable, if not indeed non-existent, a dream of the mind, an abstraction of Thought divorcing itself from reality, so also is the Sannyasin, enamoured of that Beyond, justified from his point of view in insisting on pure Spirit as the reality, the one thing free from change, birth, death, and the relative as a creation of the mind and the senses, a dream, an abstraction in the contrary sense of Mentality withdrawing from the pure and eternal Knowledge...READ MORE
It is the might of the Godhead in the world that turns the wheel of Brahman.Him one musr know,The Supreme Lord of all the lords,The Supreme Godhead above all godheads.Supreme too is his Shakti and manifold the natural working of her knowledge and her force,the all pervading,absolute without qualities,the overseer of all actions,the witness,the knower.
SWETASWATARA UPANISHAD
(QUOTES FROM SRI AUROBINDO'S LIFE DIVINE,CHAPTER 11,PAGE 322;TOPIC:BRAHMAN,PURUSHA,ISHWARA-MAYA,PRAKITI,SHAKTI)
[Yusufali 2:115] To Allah belong the east and the West: Whithersoever ye turn, there is the presence of Allah. For Allah is all-Pervading, all-Knowing.
[Yusufali 2:147] The Truth is from thy Lord; so be not at all in doubt.
307. Three times God laughed at Shankara, first, when he returned to burn the corpse of his mother, again, when he commented on the Isha Upanishad and the third time when he stormed about India preaching inaction.
The Lord laughed when this man, who thought himself so wise, complied with conventions, wrote useless words and gave an example of overactivity in order to preach inaction.
27 January 1970- The Mother
306. Asceticism is no doubt very healing, a cave very peaceful and the hill-tops wonderfully pleasant; nevertheless do thou act in the world as God intended thee.
Sri Aurobindo shows us that one can be an ascetic by preference and not out of abnegation; and so he makes us understand that to be a servant of the Lord and to act only according to His will is a far higher state than any personal choice, no matter how saintly it may seem. 26 January 1970- The Mother
Brahman-The Absolute;the spirit;the Supreme Being;the Reailty,the Eternal;the One besides whom there is nothing existent,in realtion to the universe the Supreme is Brahman,the one Reality ehich is not only the spiritual,material and conscious substance of all the ideas and forces and forms of the univers,but their origin,support and possessor,the cosmic and the supracosmic(ef Atman)
(FROM SRI AUROBINDO'S LIFE DIVINE GLOSSARY,PAGE 1075)
[Yusufali 112:1] Say: He is Allah, the One and Only;
[Yusufali 112:2] Allah, the Eternal, Absolute;
[Yusufali 112:3] He begetteth not, nor is He begotten;
[Yusufali 112:4] And there is none like unto Him.
[Yusufali 85:8] And they ill-treated them for no other reason than that they believed in Allah, Exalted in Power, Worthy of all Praise!-
[Yusufali 85:9] Him to Whom belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth! And Allah is Witness to all things.
He who chooses the infinite has been chosen by the infinite. - Sri Aurobindo
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