"They are ghosts, as in haunted houses, and they give you shivers down the spine ... if they can, and you no longer know what you are up to. One must not accept that. One must kick them out vigorously. It is very sticky and insidious, but may the devil take them! Mother is stronger than all their dirty tricks — otherwise, I would have been dead long ago. So courage and clarity — and peace. Peace and clarity. And it all dissolves like miasmas from a marsh.

... Take heart. We are seeing the end of it — the end is always difficult. The Asura struggles like a dying man. He tries all that he can before dying. But he will not succeed."

Dear Micheline,

These last days were like a fury in the "subtle" worlds — in fact since March 30 or 31, with a "peak" on April 4, when one of our white pigeons died, attacked by blackbirds, chased and ... drowned in the septic tank! This is the nauseating sign of M. & Co. I don't want to go into details. And the other night, rain and a hail storm, with hailstones even on Sujata's bed through the holes in the roof — we are repairing. But the force that attacked this house and has been continuing to attack it for ten days or so, is strangely "focused," like a baleful beam. Yes, "they" must indeed understand the importance of this place and that if we manage to establish a solid base here, it's their end. Hence the fury. Everyone here feels or "sees" it. But it is almost charming compared to Pondicherry: we have some free air to breathe, the body is light, without this millstone around our necks and that kind of physical suffocation I used to feel.

So, of course, the attack was simultaneously launched on Land's End (I had felt it for several days and I was as if worried about this place). "By chance," on Friday, the 7^th evening, as we were coming back from our walk through the forest and the tea plantations below Land's End, we heard a lorry coming into Land's End: they loaded huge tree-trunks. I loosened the driver's tongue: three trees cut. At this stage, I still thought that it was limited and that the owner wanted to earn a few thousand rupees for his everyday expenses, but... first you can imagine how heartbreaking it is, those people should be publicly whipped, it is really the reign of the Shudras⁴ for whom nothing matters but money and they devastate the earth, everywhere. But the next morning, "by chance," we saw half a dozen woodcutters coming out of the forest and crossing the meadow in front of Harwood — why did they go that way, right before our eyes? Truly the Grace looks after everything. I questioned those workers: they were going to cut all the trees of Land's End! Land's End's timber had been sold to a wheeler-dealer for 8,500 rupees. We rushed to Land's End with Roger to see the damage: three big trees had already been cut, plus seven medium-sized ones. More than sixty-year-old trees, gigantic eucalyptus trees.... Oh, if you could see that hole in the little wood of Land's End, those torn stumps.... Then I grabbed the dealer by the throat and offered him 13,000 rupees in cash for all the wood that he had bought for 8,500 rupees — and not one more tree cut. We dismissed the woodcutters. There only remained the corpses of two trees that they could not load into their lorry the day before. Then we took on that loathesome owner (meanwhile, Sujata and I had sent you a telegram): an obvious blackmail to oblige us to buy his property for one lakh⁵ rupees, which is fabulous, as the repair work amounts to more than 50,000 rupees — the house is not worth more than 60,000 rupees. But the house stripped of its forest is out of the question and I would not wish to enter this devastation. Living trees, so beautiful, which took so much time and love to grow, and then bang, for 8,500 rupees. I shall not dwell on the horrible discussion with this individual and above all his witch of a wife: two days of negotiations — rapacity, hearts of stone. Sujata was there like Kali. (...)

Without Land's End, it was the ruin of our plans. We needed these two houses to shelter our team, plus the machine and the installations. Harwood was of no use without Land's End, we would have had to leave India. If this didn't work out, it would have been a sign for me that there was nothing to do but to leave India and create our centre elsewhere. (...) Well, there is a grace called Micheline. In the meantime, I had phoned to Delhi, but it was difficult for them to buy two houses one after the other. I was ashamed to knock on doors in this way and it was with sadness that Sujata sent you a telegram. We had never asked for money in our life. Oh, among the attacks of this last fortnight, all my old formation of Sannyasi came back: I who dream to live half-naked in a lonely hut, without seeing anybody, I was faced with this crazy house (Harwood) under repair, with a thousand domestic problems, and was about to buy a second crazy house, even crazier. If I was not certain that Mother was leading me and that She has a plan here, all this would be mad and more than mad for any sensible person. For four years I have not ceased taking insane decisions without knowing why or where I am going, or whether I am right or wrong. That is how things are. So the Sannyasi in all that is put to a severe test. You know, one slams the door and goes off to the forest, so lightly — but there is Mother's Work, I cannot just drop everything. So I continue. Then there is Micheline and I sent a telegram to Micheline. All the same, Sujata and I embrace you with gratitude — but for you, once more, the Work would have been endangered or stopped.

... I intend to get on with my real work right away, this second volume of the Agenda. I forget to tell you that I have received such an enthusiastic letter from C.P.N. Singh⁶ regarding the marvellous machine. There will be no difficulty for the import license. The most difficult is the custom's duty exemption: Kireet and C.P.N. are moving heaven and earth, but the political climate here is very uncertain, not to say chaotic. C.P.N. is under C.B.I. (the secret Indian police) surveillance, which does not make things easier. We expect Indira to be arrested before long — if it happens, it will be the signal of a big upheaval. But I think Mother weighs all her steps and nothing will happen before all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are exactly in place, our centre included.

One last thing is worrying me. Following Andre Moris-set's registered letter, X told me very frankly that it had sown a kind of uneasiness, to say the least, among all our friends in Paris: reactions of confusion, almost of panic. One must understand once and for all that those people's action is coupled with an occult action very recognisable by those who know a little or are a little sensitive: their letters, their acts are invariably accompanied by a vibration of fear. Such is the power of these people. That is how they reign over the Ashram. Around all their acts, there is a kind of muted threat, gluey and insidious, which has no human origin and makes up all its "occult" force. Fear, threat and blackmail are the instruments of the Asura. For four years now, I continually see this vibration playing on all sides and doing its damage. When Barun + Counouma wrote to Laffont, it literally created panic and confusion in the whole publishing house: they stopped the printing of the first volume of the Agenda, then took it up again, then stopped it again, as if they no longer knew what they were doing. Tantrics know perfectly well how to handle this dirty, very effective little vibration. Confusion and fear are its immediate effects. When they write letters, their letters relay this vibration. So really, one must not fall into this trap at the first opportunity. One must look at things coolly and call Mother. Theirs is exactly the power of ghosts. They are ghosts, as in haunted houses, and they give you shivers down the spine ... if they can, and you no longer know what you are up to. One must not accept that. One must kick them out vigorously. It is very sticky and insidious, but may the devil take them! Mother is stronger than all their dirty tricks — otherwise, I would have been dead long ago. So courage and clarity — and peace. Peace and clarity. And it all dissolves like miasmas from a marsh.

... Take heart. We are seeing the end of it — the end is always difficult. The Asura struggles like a dying man. He tries all that he can before dying. But he will not succeed.

With you

very deeply

with my heart full of gratitude

Satprem

Mother shoves our noses into Matter pitilessly and in every detail. Probably it is right where the game is being played out!

 http://www.aurobindo.ru/workings/satprem/carnets_of_an_apocalypse_0002_e.htm

 Golden Krishna(Krishan Kali?)

May 15. 1973. in the afternoon¹⁰

“Krishna in Gold”

A vision of Sujata’s

A place similar to the Playground. A few people, here and there, are talking or going about.

I am standing somewhere in the middle of the ground, in front of Mother’s door.

From the main gate enters a vehicle — half-cart half-cab — drawn by two bullocks. It comes to a stop a few feet away from me. The driver makes the bullocks kneel down. Out steps a gentleman. The cart is driven away.

The gendeman is dressed in white, Indian-fashion (dhoti, punjabi). He is round-faced and fair-skinned. Reminds me of a Zamindar [landlord] from the North. In fact he is the new proprietor¹¹ coming to take possession.

The doors behind me are locked. He has the keys.

But he is not supposed to open one particular room: the one I thought was Mother’s. But he goes straight there and unlocks that door.

He enters. I too, as if I had the right to do so.

We weave our way to the bottom of this room. I have a vague impression of a small window on the end wall. And in the left corner, is a richly decorated high throne. Seated in it is a Divinity.

He is quite small on that huge throne (about two feet or so).

He is made of solid gold.

At his feet are signs and objects of worship.

As we approach him, a sort of intense prayer or aspiration takes hold of me. We stand in front looking at him — my whole being is one intense prayer or invocation. The Divinity comes alive. He smiles slightly, then steps down.

He barely reaches my breast and seems to me like a little boy of eight or ten.

The three of us come out of the room. The scene has changed. Now it is countryside. A vast, unlimited expanse stretches in front. A few plots are cultivated, but most of the land is untended.

We walk. We walk on a narrow ridge by the side of a cultivated rice-field, which is to the right of us. It is green. I am nearest to it. The gentleman is the farthest. The Divinity is between us. He has a funny walk. He is so heavy (being made of solid gold) that he seems to lurch from side to side. I feel concerned and hold his arm to help him. I feel a tenderness also as for a child.

Then I turn my face toward him to reassure him. But instead of me looking down it is he who looks down on me! I am really astonished to see how tall he has grown during this short walk of but a few steps! Now it is I who hardly reach his shoulder. He seems to have grown to a lad of 13 or 14.

As I look up, he looks down at me and smiles. Ohh, what a smile! Utterly sweet and full of mischief. It contained a world: “You see, I am quite all right. Now you will see what fun we’ll have!”

We walk on. To our left, sitting cross-legged, head bent, is M. [a disciple very learned in Sanskrit texts]. As we advance, I think, “What a pity, we shall pass right in front of him, but he would not even know who passed by!” But as we near, he raises his head and sees. I feel glad for M.

We walk on. Now the scenes change fast. We meet more and more people. Trees. Roads. Still more people. Wherever we go there is trouble, disturbance, confusion. As if the Godhead were sowing disruption everywhere. The Zamindar gets annoyed. He had brought out the Divinity to show people what a fine fellow he was! Everybody should have great respect for him, obey him, for is he not the Proprietor? But the God had just the opposite effect! He should no longer be abroad. He must be put back where he belonged, and relocked.

So we return to the sanctuary. This time I remain outside. The Zamindar takes the God inside. And tries to shut the door.

But the Godhead will not be shut in.

I can see the gold God growing, growing.

The ceiling falls in. The god’s head and chest go through the ceiling. He tears down the walls and throws bricks everywhere. The Zamindar has disappeared under the debris.

The gold God grows. Taller and mightier. And will brook no resistance. With His mighty hands, He pulls down the walls of His old sanctuary.

When I woke up, I called Him “Krishna in gold.”¹²

(Mother’s Agenda XIII, May 15, 1973)

Vivekanada and Sri Aurobindo Were Ahead Of Their Time

Sri Aurobindo on Vivekananda

«In vindicating ancient things it has been obliged to do so in a way that will at once meet and satisfy the old mentality and the new, the traditional and the critical mind. This in itself involves no mere return, but consciously or unconsciously hastens a restatement. And the riper form of the return has taken as its principle a synthetical restatement; it has sought to arrive at the spirit of the ancient culture and, while respecting its forms and often preserving them to revivify, has yet not hesitated also to remould, to reject the outworn and to admit whatever new motive seemed assimilable to the old spirituality or apt to wide the channel of its larger evolution. Of this freer dealing with past and present, this preservation by reconstruction, Vivekananda was in his life-time the leading exemplar and the most powerful exponent. But this too could not be the end; of itself it leads towards a principle of new creation.»

Satprem was right

So let's become and conquer as Rishi Agastya said:

"Let us have the taste of even all the contesting forces,

Let us conquer indeed even here,

Let us run this battle-race of a hundred leadings..."

(Letter to an Auroville woman. Note in the margin: "Not sent, except to the Devil!")

The game of the Asura is always the same, throughout all of human spiritual history: it catches a bit of the Truth, and with the very force of the Truth it has swallowed, it develops its Falsehood. The danger of the Falsehood is not Falsehood, if I dare say, but the portion of Truth that has been swallowed and that helps strengthen the Falsehood. The true Asura is not the "devil" whom everybody knows is dark and wicked, but the little saint who uses the Truth and utters the words of Truth for his selfish ends. In the name of Christ's "Love," more than one "heretic" was imprisoned and tortured and burnt. In the name of "nonviolence," they betrayed the true Shakti of India and encouraged a mass of spiritual calves who meditate seated on the rot of the country. The greatest crimes and the greatest betrayals have always been committed in the name of Truth, it goes without saying. In the name of Mother and Sri Aurobindo and the "Ideal of Human Unity," they imprison some Aurovilian brothers and hire dubious lawyers. In the name of this much-vaunted "Unity," they expel Satprem from the Ashram, take away the visas of the dissidents or the rebels, and at the same time, say: let's embrace Navajata, let's embrace Shyamsundar — let's embrace one another, we are all "One," aren't we? No, little one, I don't know if it is the "Truth," but it is mental rot. The "spiritual" arguments of the person you speak of smell bad — it is a corpse of the decaying Truth. You must choose, you must know what you want and on which side you stand. It is this courage that is needed. During the war too, we heard more than one traitor, in the name of the "Unity of France," proclaim collaboration with the troops of the Gestapo.

Unity is all very well, but we have first to deserve it: you don't create unity by putting a viper in your pocket, or else it will bite you and so much the better, if you are silly enough to put a viper in your pocket.

Truth is not something that is like a fried egg: it is something that becomes itself and conquers itself. Unity is not something that exists like a pair of spiritual slippers. It is something that becomes itself and conquers itself at each instant against a thousand enemies.

So let's become and conquer as Rishi Agastya said:

"Let us have the taste of even all the contesting forces,

Let us conquer indeed even here,

Let us run this battle-race of a hundred leadings..."

(Rig-Veda I. 179)

That's it.

Satprem

source: http://www.aurobindo.ru/workings/satprem/carnets_of_an_apocalypse_0002_e.htm

Apocalyptic (literature)

For a modern mind, the word "apocalypse" means a great world disaster. But in fact, it is the transcription of αποκαλυψιζ a Greek term which simply means "laying bare," "unveiling." Uncommonly used in non-religious Greek, it appears rather often in the biblical translation of the Septuagint, where it refers to a "laying bare" in the material sense, but above all, in the figurative sense, to the "revelation" of human or divine secrets.

To Sujata
with whom, step by step, we went through those terrible ordeals, supported by our sole love for Mother
and our desperate will to continue Their Work until the end

http://www.aurobindo.ru/workings/satprem/carnets_of_an_apocalypse_0002_e.htm 

Islam And Supramnetal Consciousness Part3

3) But (later generations) cut off their affair (of unity), one from another: (yet) will they all return to Us. 

(  سورة الأنبياء  , Al-Anbiya, Chapter #21, Verse #93)

 A life of unity, mutuality, and harmony alone, emerging from individuals who are in integral relationship with themselves, others, and the transcendent spirit, can deal with the overwhelming needs of the collective life. The gnostic beings would help establish this integral, unifying gnostic consciousness on earth, which would provide a far greater power and knowledge than man now has for understanding and acting on the needs of the emerging collective. The one rule of this divine life would be the self-expression of the spirit, of the divine, in all aspects of life.

This then must be the nature of the third and final transformation which finishes the passage of the soul through the Ignorance and bases its consciousness, its life, its power and form of manifestation on a complete and completely effective self-knowledge. The Truth-Consciousness, finding evolutionary Nature ready, has to descend into her and enable her to liberate the supramental principle within her; so must be created the supramental and spiritual being as the first unveiled manifestation of the truth of the Self and Spirit in the material universe.

— Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 918, 10th ed.

Allah (swt) is Omnipotent and Omnipresent (Having infinite power and being present everywhere) Surah Qaaf, 50:16




We define God necessarily as being “omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent.” These terms correspond to Sat–Existence, and Chit–Consciousness/Force. This implies that all forms are forms of the conscious Being of God. This Divine Consciousness can and does manifest many different things at the same time, things which to our human view are in conflict or contention with one another, but from a different view are simply essential pieces to a larger harmony and working beyond our mental framework’s capability of understanding.

This leads us to the three poises or statuses of the Supermind that all must be co-existent. First, a foundation in the unity of all things; second, a modification that allows the multiplicity to manifest within the Oneness and the Oneness to be inherent in the multiplicity; and third, an action that supports “the evolution of a diversified individuality which, by the action of Ignorance, (which may be called an exclusive concentration), becomes in us at a lower level the illusion of the separate ego.”

reference: Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Chapter 16, The Triple Status of Supermind

Islam And Supramental Consciousness Part2

(10) He is Allah, the Creator, the Evolver, the Bestower of Forms (or colours). To Him belong the Most Beautiful Names: whatever is in the heavens and on earth, doth declare His Praises and Glory: and He is the Exalted in Might, the Wise.

( سورة الحشر , Al-Hashr, Chapter #59, Verse #24)

(2) Allah, the Eternal, absolute;

( سورة الإخلاص , Al-Ikhlas, Chapter #112, Verse #2)

(274) In an Assembly of truth, in the Presence of a Sovereign Omnipotent.

( سورة القمر , Al-Qamar, Chapter #54, Verse #55)

(1) It is He Who hath created for you all things that are on earth; Moreover His design comprehended the heavens, for He gave order and perfection to the seven firmaments; and of all things He hath perfect knowledge.

( سورة البقرة , Al-Baqara, Chapter #2, Verse #29)

"Like an eye extended in heaven," says the Rig Veda (I.17.21).

"The Absolute is everywhere... every finite is an infinite".-Sri Aurobindo

Chapter 15
The Supramental Consciousness

It is quite difficult to define the supramental consciousness in mental terms, for it is nonmental by definition, and it defies all our three-dimensional laws and perspectives. The word itself may mislead us, because it is not an epitome of human consciousness, but another type of consciousness....The supramental being sees things not as one on the levels surrounded by a jungle of present facts and phenomena but from above, not from outside and judged by their surfaces, but from within and viewed from the truth of their centre...Supermind does not set truth against truth to see which will stand and survive, but completes truth by truth in the light of the one Truth of which all are the aspects....261 And he spoke of the light of the Thought that carries in it its own opposites.262 This is what the Mother calls thinking spherically...Nothing to the supramental sense is really finite: it is founded on a feeling of all in each and of each in all: its sense definition... creates no walls of limitation; it is an oceanic and ethereal sense in which all particular sense knowledge and sensation is a wave or movement or spray or drop that is yet a concentration of the whole ocean and inseparable from the ocean.... It is as if the eye of the poet and artist had replaced the vague or trivial unseeing normal vision, but singularly spiritualized and glorified, – as if indeed it were the sight of the supreme divine Poet and Artist in which we were participating and there were given to us the full seeing of his truth and intention in his design of the universe and of each thing in the universe. There is an unlimited intensity which makes all that is seen a revelation of the glory of quality and idea and form and colour. The physical eye seems then to carry in itself a spirit and a consciousness which sees not only the physical aspect of the object but the soul of quality in it, the vibration of energy, the light and force and spiritual substance of which it is made.... There is at the same time a subtle change which makes the sight see in a sort of fourth dimension, the character of which is a certain internality, the seeing not only of the superficies and the outward form but of that which informs it and subtly extends around it. The material object becomes to this sight something different from what we now see, not a separate object on the background or in the environment of the rest of Nature but an indivisible part and even in a subtle way an expression of the unity of all that we see. And this unity... is that of the identity of the eternal, the unity of the Spirit. For to the supramental seeing the material world and space and material objects cease to be material in the sense in which we now on the strength of the sole evidence of our limited physical organs... receive [them];... they appear and are seen as Spirit itself in a form of itself and a conscious extension.
http://www.aurobindo.ru/workings/satprem/adventure_of_consciousness_e.htm#053

Islam And Supramental Consciousness-Part1

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-Sri Aurobindo

 The Truth-Consciousness is not only a power of knowledge; it is a being of consciousness and knowledge, a luminous many-sided dynamis and play of the omniscient Spirit; in it there can be a spiritual feeling, a spiritual sensation, a spiritual essentiality of substance that knows and reveals, that acts and manifests in an omniscience which is one with omnipotence-Sri Aurobindo

 (1) In an Assembly of Truth, in the Presence of a Sovereign omnipotent. 

(  سورة القمر  , Al-Qamar, Chapter #54, Verse #55)

(1) He it is that cleaveth the day-break (from the dark): He makes the night for rest and tranquillity, and the sun and moon for the reckoning (of time): Such is the judgment and ordering of (Him), the Exalted in Power, the omniscient. 

(  سورة الأنعام  , Al-Anaam, Chapter #6, Verse #96)

Sri Aurobindo "The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth"

Supermind and Mind of Light
 
The essential character of Supermind is a Truth-Consciousness which knows by its own inherent right of nature, by its own light; it has not to arrive at knowledge but possesses it. It may indeed, especially in its evolutionary action, keep knowledge behind its apparent consciousness and bring it forward as if from behind the veil; but even then this veil is only an appearance and does not really exist: the knowledge was always there, the consciousness its possessor and present revealer. This too is only in the evolutionary play and on the supramental plane itself the consciousness lives always in an immediacy of knowledge and acts by a direct immediacy of knowledge. In Mind as we see it here the action is very different; it starts from an apparent absence of knowledge, a seeming ignorance or nescience, even, in material Nature, from an inconscience in which any kind of knowing does not seem at all to exist. It reaches knowledge or the action of knowledge by steps which are not at all immediate but rather knowledge at first seems utterly impossible and foreign to the very substance of this Matter. Yet, in the blindness of Matter itself there are signs of a concealed consciousness which in its hidden fundamental being sees and has the power to act according to its vision and even by an infallible immediacy which is inherent in its nature. This is the same Truth that is apparent in Supermind but is here involved and seems not to be. The Mind of Light is a subordinate action of Supermind, dependent upon it even when not apparently springing direct from it, in which the secret of this connection becomes evident and palpable.
The Truth-Consciousness is not only a power of knowledge; it is a being of consciousness and knowledge, a luminous many-sided dynamis and play of the omniscient Spirit; in it there can be a spiritual feeling, a spiritual sensation, a spiritual essentiality of substance that knows and reveals, that acts and manifests in an omniscience which is one with omnipotence. In Mind this Truth-Consciousness and these workings of the Truth-Consciousness can be there and even though it limits itself in Mind and has a subordinate or an indirect working, its action can be essentially the same. There can even be a hidden immediacy which hints at the presence of something absolute and is evidence of the same omnipotence and omniscience. In the Mind of Light when it becomes full-orbed this character of the Truth reveals itself though in a garb that is transparent even when it seems to cover: for this too is a truth-consciousness and a self-power of knowledge. This too proceeds from the Supermind and depends upon it even though it is limited and subordinate. What we have called specifically the Mind of Light is indeed the last of a series of descending planes of consciousness in which the Supermind veils itself by a self-chosen limitation or modification of its self-manifesting activities, but its essential character remains the same: there is in it an action of light, of truth, of knowledge in which inconscience, ignorance and error claim no place. It proceeds from knowledge to knowledge; we have not yet crossed over the borders of the truth-conscious into ignorance. The methods also are those of a self-luminous knowing and seeing and feeling and a self-fulfilling action within its own borders; there is no need to seek for something missing, no fumbling, no hesitation: all is still a gnostic action of a gnostic power and principle. There has been a descent from full Supermind into Mind, but this Mind though a self-limited is not yet an agnostic consciousness unsure of itself or unsure of its workings; there is still a comprehending or an apprehending consciousness which goes straight to its object and does not miss its mark or have to hunt for it in the dark or in insufficient light: it sees, knows, puts its hand immediately on things of self and things of Nature. We have passed into Mind but Mind has still not broken its inherent connection with the supramental principle.
Still there is an increasing self-limitation which begins even with Overmind: Overmind is separated by only a luminous border on the full light and power of the supramental Truth and it still commands direct access to all that Supermind can give it. There is a further limitation or change of characteristic action at each step downwards from Overmind to Intuition, from Intuition to Illumined Mind, from Illumined Mind to what I have called the Higher Mind: the Mind of Light is a transitional passage by which we can pass from supermind and superhumanity to an illumined humanity. For the new humanity will be capable of at least a partly divinised way of seeing and living because it will live in the light and in knowledge and not in the obscuration of the Ignorance.
Still, again there will be a difference between the superhuman and the human, a difference in nature and power but a difference especially in the access and way of admission to the Truth-Consciousness and its activities: there may indeed be two orders of its truth, direct and half-direct, immediate and near or even only a reception at a distance. But this we must consider afterwards; at present it is sufficient to mark certain differences in the descending order of gnostic mind which culminates here. We may say that there is a higher hemisphere of our being in which Mind luminous and aware of its workings still lives in the Light and can be seen as a subordinate power of the Supermind; it is still an agent of the Truth-Consciousness, a gnostic power that has not descended into the mental ignorance; it is capable of a mental gnosis that preserves its connection with the superior light and acts by its power. This is the character of Overmind in its own plane and of all the powers that are dependent on the Overmind: the Supermind works there but at one remove, as if in something that it has put forth from itself but which is no longer entirely itself but is still a delegate of the Truth and invested with its authority. We are moving towards a transitional border beyond which lies the possibility of the Ignorance, but the Ignorance is not yet here. In the order of the evolutionary descent we stand in the Mind of Light on that border and a step downward can carry us beyond it into the beginnings of an ignorance which still bears on its face something of the luminosity that it is leaving behind it. On the other hand, in the ascending order of the evolution we reach a transition in which we see the light, are turned towards it, reflected in our consciousness and one further step carries us into the domain of the Light. The Truth becomes visible and audible to us and we are in immediate communication with its messages and illuminations and can grow into it and be made one with its substance. Thus there is a succession of ranges of consciousness which we can speak of as Mind but which belongs practically to the higher hemisphere although in their ontological station they are within the domain of the lower hemisphere. For the whole of being is a connected totality and there is in it no abrupt passage from the principle of Truth and Light into their opposite. The creative truth of things works and can work infallibly even in the Inconscient: the Spirit is there in Matter and it has made a series of steps by which it can travel from it to its own heights in an uninterrupted line of gradations: the depths are linked to the heights and the Law of the one Truth creates and works everywhere.
Even in the material world which seems to us a world of ignorance, a world of the workings of a blind and inconscient Force starting from inconscience and proceeding through Ignorance and reaching with difficulty towards an imperfect Light and Knowledge, there is still a secret Truth in things which arranges all, guides towards the Self many contrary powers of being and rises towards its own heights where it can manifest its own highest truth and fulfil the secret purpose of the universe. Even this material world of existence is built upon a pattern of the truth in things which we call Law of Nature, a truth from which we climb to a greater truth until we emerge in the Light of the Supreme. This world is not really created by a blind force of Nature: even in the Inconscient the presence of the supreme Truth is at work; there is a seeing Power behind it which acts infallibly and the steps of the Ignorance itself are guided even when they seem to stumble; for, what we call the Ignorance is a cloaked Knowledge, a Knowledge at work in a body not its own but moving towards its own supreme self-discovery. This Knowledge is the covert Supermind which is the support of the creation and is leading all towards itself and guides behind this multitude of minds and creatures and objects which seem each to be following its own law of nature; in this vast and apparently confused mass of existence there is a law, a one truth of being, a guiding and fulfilling purpose of the world-existence. The Supermind is veiled here and does not work according to its characteristic law of being and self-knowledge, but without it nothing could reach its aim. A world governed by an ignorant mind would soon drift into a chaos; it could not in fact come into existence or remain in existence unless supported by the secret Omniscience of which it is the cover; a world governed by a blind inconscient force might repeat constantly the same mechanical workings but it would mean nothing and arrive nowhere. This could not be the cause of an evolution that creates life out of Matter, out of life mind, and a gradation of planes of Matter, Life and Mind culminating in the emergence of Supermind. The secret truth that emerges in Supermind has been there all the time, but now it manifests itself and the truth in things and the meaning of our existence.
It is in this series of the order of existence and as the last word of the lower hemisphere of being, the first word of the higher hemisphere that we have to look at the Mind of Light and see what is its nature and the powers which characterise it and which it uses for its self-manifestation and workings, its connection with Supermind and its consequences and possibilities for the life of a new humanity.

Bulletin - November 1950

---

The Gita's Limitations

Sri Aurobindo: There is no transformation there. The supramental transformation is not at all hinted at in the Gita. The Gita lays stress on certain broad lines of the integral supramental yoga: For instance: 1. Acceptance of life and action.

2. Clarification of the nature of the Transcendent Divine.

3. The Divine Personality and its Transcendence.

4. Existence of two Natures — para and apara. Disciple: It speaks of the Para Prakriti and says that advanced souls attain to the Para Prakriti.

A. wrote an article in the Calcutta Review about ''The Advaita in the Gita".

Sri Aurobindo: He finds the idea of transformation of nature in the Gita and also other things contained in The Life Divine. I don't see all that in the Gita myself.

Disciple: A's contention is that there are hints and suggestions in the Gita that can mean transformation. For instance, it says that one must become the instrument in the hands of the Divine. Then it says: put a madbhavamagata — "those who strive become pure and attain to my nature of becoming". Also: nistraigunyo bhava — "becomes free from the three modes."

Sri Aurobindo: There is no transformation there. The supramental transformation is not at all hinted at in the Gita. The Gita lays stress on certain broad lines of the integral supramental yoga: For instance: 1. Acceptance of life and action.

2. Clarification of the nature of the Transcendent Divine.

3. The Divine Personality and its Transcendence.

4. Existence of two Natures — para and apara. Disciple: It speaks of the Para Prakriti and says that advanced souls attain to the Para Prakriti.

Sri Aurobindo: The Para Prakriti there is used in general terms.

Disciple: Yes. I don't find the transformation in the Gita. The exposition of the levels of consciousness beyond mind, their functions, a clear, rational statement of intuitive consciousness, inspiration, revelation, and the ascent of the consciousness through the Overmind to the supermind — these things are quite new and not found even in the Upanishads.

Sri Aurobindo: I think so; the Gita only opens out the way to our yoga and philosophy. Among the Upanishads only the Taittiriya has some general idea of the higher terms. The Veda treats symbolically the same subject.

Disciple: Suppose there is transformation in the Gita, one can ask what kind of transformation it is, — spiritual, psychic or Supramental?

Sri Aurobindo: It does not speak of transformation; it speaks of the necessity of action from a spiritual consciousness-according to it all action must proceed from a certain spiritual consciousness.

As the result of that action some change may come about in the nature which might amount to what may be called transformation. But in the Gita the instruments of action remain human throughout (the Buddhi etc.). In does not speak of the intuitive consciousness.

In our ancient works there is no conception about the evolutionary nature of the world, or rather, they do not have the vision of humanity as an evolutionary expression of the Divine in which new levels of consciousness gradually open up, or are bound to open up. There is no clear idea of the new type of being that would evolve out of man.

If all that is contained in The Life Divine is found entirely in the old systems then it contradicts the claim that this yoga is new, or at any rate, different from the traditional methods. Perhaps A. was trying to synthesise the Gita and The Life Divine, (laughter).

source: http://www.aurobindo.ru/workings/purani/evening_talks/1-0050.htm

Harmonzing The Body

Those who harmonize their whole being with the Messenger of Allah are harmonizing and unifying with Allah.

~ 4:80

Into The LIght

 

“That you may bring forth your people from the darkness into the light ...” (14:5)-THE HOLY QURAN

This Divine may lead us often through darkness, because the darkness is there in us and around us, but it is to the Light he is leading and not to anything else.-Sri Aurobindo
********************************************************************************
Whatever the motive immediately pushing the mind or the vital, if there is a true seeking for the Divine in the being, it must lead eventually to the realisation of the Divine. The soul within has always the inherent (ahaitukī) yearning for the Divine; the hetu or special motive is simply an impulsion used by it to get the mind and the vital to follow the inner urge. If the mind and the vital can feel and accept the soul's sheer love for the Divine for his own sake, then the sadhana gets its full power and many difficulties disappear; but even if they do not, they will get what they seek after in the Divine and through it they will come to realise something, even to pass beyond the limit of the original desire.... I may say that the idea of a joyless God is an absurdity, which only the ignorance of the mind could engender! The Radha love is not based upon any such thing, but means simply that whatever comes on the way to the Divine, pain or joy, milana or viraha, and however long the sufferings may last, the Radha love is unshaken and keeps its faith and certitude pointing fixedly like a star to the supreme object of Love.

What is this Ananda, after all? The mind can see in it nothing but a pleasant psychological condition, – but if it were only that, it could not be the rapture which the bhaktas and the mystics find in it. When the Ananda comes into you, it is the Divine who comes into you, just as when the Peace flows into you, it is the Divine who is invading you, or when you are flooded with Light, it is the flood of the Divine himself that is around you. Of course, the Divine is something much more, many other things besides, and in them all a Presence, a Being, a Divine Person; for the Divine is Krishna, is Shiva, is the Supreme Mother. But through the Ananda you can perceive the Anandamaya Krishna, for the Ananda is the subtle body and being of Krishna; through the Peace you can perceive the Shantimaya Shiva; in the Light, in the delivering Knowledge, the Love, the fulfilling and uplifting Power you can meet the presence of the Divine Mother. It is this perception that makes the experiences of the bhaktas and mystics so rapturous and enables them to pass more easily through the nights of anguish and separation; when there is this soul-perception, it gives to even a little or brief Ananda a force or value it could not otherwise have, and the Ananda itself gathers by it a growing power to stay, to return, to increase.

I cannot very well answer the strictures of Russell, for the conception of the Divine as an external omnipotent Power who has “created” the world and governs it like an absolute and arbitrary monarch – the Christian or Semitic conception – has never been mine; it contradicts too much my seeing and experience during thirty years of sadhana. It is against this conception that the atheistic objection is aimed, – for atheism in Europe has been a shallow and rather childish reaction against a shallow and childish exoteric religionism and its popular inadequate and crudely dogmatic notions. But when I speak of the Divine Will, I mean something different, – something that has descended here into an evolutionary world of Ignorance, standing at the back of things, pressing on the Darkness with its Light, leading things presently towards the best possible in the conditions of a world of Ignorance and leading it eventually towards a descent of a greater power of the Divine, which will be not an omnipotence held back and conditioned by the law of the world as it is, but in full action and therefore bringing the reign of light, peace, harmony, joy, love, beauty and Ananda, for these are the Divine Nature. The Divine Grace is there ready to act at every moment, but it manifests as one grows out of the Law of Ignorance into the Law of Light, and it is meant, not as an arbitrary caprice, however miraculous often its intervention, but as a help in that growth and a Light that leads and eventually delivers. If we take the facts of the world as they are and the facts of spiritual experience as a whole, neither of which can be denied or neglected, then I do not see what other Divine there can be. This Divine may lead us often through darkness, because the darkness is there in us and around us, but it is to the Light he is leading and not to anything else.
(source: Sri Aurobindo. Archives and Research. April 1977, P.61-65)

Between Two Realms HE Stood Not Wavering

B9 C1 Between Two Realms He Stood, Not Wavering ...http://www.sriaurobindoashram.com/Content.aspx...

Merry Christmas

The meaning of blowing of trumpets by the Angels

"The Vani
that announces appears as that of an Angel of God, controlling, but
aware of the derivative nature of the control & allowing the vak
to flow through her. The derivative control of the world by Angels,
Powers, Gods, Mahatmas announced by this Vani preceded by a
blowing of trumpets in the Anandaloka."-Sri Aurobindo
________________________________________________________________________________


11.20 a.m.
The spiritual communications to the ear, this morning, revealed
themselves as the communications of two kinds of spirits, those
who are merely of the buddha plane, manasic, and given over to
error, and those who stand on the borders of the sukshma and
the mahat, receiving knowledge from the vijnanam, expressing it
in the sukshma. Some of the latter are farther, some nearer to the
borderline, some stand upon it, and according to the proximity is
the soundness of the expression of the knowledge to the mind and
the fullness and force of its substance. Besides these manasic beings,
there are the voices of the Suryaloka and Janaloka who have already
13 January – 8 February 1912 49
manifested. The mere buddha voices are now very rare and weak.
The siddhi has risen to the borders of the mahat and reached over
into it, and none have power who are below its line of attainment.
The thoughts, perceptions etc may also be classified as on the same
levels; there is sometimes even a double movement of knowledge in
the mahat echoed in the sukshma. The forward movement
of the ananda is now being left to itself and another siddhi taken
up, the relations of the Jiva (dasyam) with the Master of the Yoga
and those whom he has chosen. All restraint by the mind or any
other organ used by the Jiva is to be entirely abandoned. The Vani
that announces appears as that of an Angel of God, controlling, but
aware of the derivative nature of the control & allowing the vak
to flow through her. The derivative control of the world by Angels,
Powers, Gods, Mahatmas announced by this Vani preceded by a
blowing of trumpets in the Anandaloka
(Source;Sri Aurobindo Record Of Yoga:13th January-8th February 1912)

Coincidence?

 

Hijra (Islam)

...

The Migration

Upon receiving divine direction to depart from Mecca, Muhammad began taking preparation and informed Abu Bakr of his plan. On the night of his departure, Muhammad’s house was besieged by the appointed men of Quraysh in order to do away with him next morning. Muhammad had certain deposits of Quraysh who used to do so because of Muhammad’s honesty. Muhammad handed them over in the charge of Ali and directed him to return the deposits to their owners, and asked him to lie down on his bed assuring him of God’s protection. It is said that when Muhammad emerged from his house, he recited the ninth verse of sura Ya-Seen of the Quran and threw a handful of dust at the direction of the besiegers, with result that the besiegers were rendered unable to see him.^[20] Soon Muhammad joined Abu Bakr, left the city, and the two took shelter in a cave outside the city. Next morning, the besiegers were frustrated to find Ali in Muhammad’s place. Fooled and thwarted by Muhammad’s plan, they rummaged the city in search for him,^[21] and some of them eventually reached the threshold of the cave, but success eluded them. When the Quraysh came to know of Muhammad’s escape, they announced heavy reward for bringing Muhammad back to them, alive or dead. Unable to resist this temptation, pursuers scattered in all directions. After staying for three days, Muhammad and Abu Bakr resumed their journey and were pursued by Suraqa bin Malik. But each time he neared Muhammad’s party, his horse stumbled and he finally abandoned his design of capturing Muhammad.^[10] After eight days’ journey, Muhammad entered the outskirts of Medina around June 622 CE,^[22] but did not enter the city directly. He stopped at a place called Quba, a place some miles from the main city, and established a mosque there. After fourteen days’ stay at Quba, Muhammad along with Abu Bakr started for Medina, participated in his first Friday prayer on the way, and upon reaching the city, was greeted cordially by its people.
(SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_%28Islam%29)

THE ADESH

Extract from A.B. Purani’s transcript of a talk of 28 June 1926 (PTMS 12, pp. 215-16).

Haradhana - Is it a fact that you came away straight to Chandranagore from the Dharma office & the CID’s by God’s grace were not there?

Shri A - I was at the Karma Yogin Office & we knew about the search that was going to be made evidently with the object of arresting me. There were some people there & Ramchandra was there proposing to give a fight to the Police & so many other ideas were flying about when suddenly I heard a voice from above saying “No. Go to Chandranagore” —.

After coming from the jail I used to hear voices & in those days I used to obey them without questioning. & I told them that I would go to French India — & then arrangements were made & the CID’s I don’t know whether by God’s Grace or the prostitutes’ grace but they were not there.

Haradhana - And about coming to Pondicherry also you heard a voice[?]

Shri A - “Yes” that is quite true.

4

Extract from a letter of 5 January 1936 (published in Letters on Yoga (1972), p. 40).

As for Adesh, people speak of Adesh without making the necessary distinctions, but these distinctions have to be made. The Divine speaks to us in many ways and it is not always the imperative Adesh that comes. When it does, it is clear and irresistible, the mind has to obey and there is no question possible, even if what comes is contrary to the preconceived ideas of the mental intelligence. It was such an Adesh that I had when I came away to Pondicherry.

5

Extract from Nirodbaran’s transcript of a talk of 10 December 1938 (NTMS 9, p. 1).

Q - Why did you choose Pondicherry as the place for your sadhana?

A - Because it was by an ‘adesh’ I was asked to come here. When I was leaving Bombay for Calcutta I asked Lele what I should do re my sadhana. He kept silent for some time (probably waiting to hear a voice from the heart) and replied, “meditate at fixed time and hear the voice in the heart.”

I didn’t hear any voice from the heart but a different voice.…

6

Extract from Nirodbaran’s transcript of a talk of 18 December 1938 (NTMS 9, pp. 128-29).

After another arrest, I published the Karmayogin. There I wrote an article “open letter to my countrymen” for which the Govt wanted to prosecute me. While the prosecution was pending I went away secretly to Chandernagore. And there,³ as I was thinking what to do next, I heard the adesh “Go to Pondicherry.”

Q - Why to Pondicherry?

A - I could not question. It was Sri Krishna’s adesh. I had to obey. Later on I found it was for my yogic work that I was asked to come here.⁴

Sri Krishna: The Dark-hued boy A DREAM (Harimohan's Dream- A Short story by Sri Aurobindo)

n this story Sri Aurobindo, the greatest Divine Rationalist, uses two characters, Shyamsundar (means 'beautiful Sri Krishna' as the Divine) and Harimohan (a poor human being) as two opposite and contrasting metaphors, in seeking to answer the assailing questions of human mind and the inscrutable divine mystery of 'Leela or Play of God.' A poor man sat in his dark room and thought of his miserable plight and of the wrongs and injustices in the kingdom of God. Overcome by abhiman, he spoke thus: "People give the excuse of the Law of Karma to save the good name of God. If my present miserable existence is the result of the sins of my last life, if I was really such a great sinner, then the current of evil thoughts would still flow in my mind, the mind of a great sinner cannot become pure in a day. And take the case of Tinkori Shil; if the Law of Karma was true, then, considering his wealth, treasure, gold and silver, retinue of servants, he must have been in his previous incarnation a world-famous holy saint; but one does not see the slightest indication of that now in his present life. There is no one in the world who is more cruel, wicked and evil. No, the Law of Karma is a ruse of God, a doctrine to dupe the minds of men. Shyamsundar is the cleverest of the clever, he is safe because he does not come anywhere near me, otherwise I would have taught him a good lesson and exposed all his tricks." No sooner had the poor man said these words than he saw his dark room flooded with waves of very bright light. A moment later the waves of light disappeared in the darkness and he saw a very beautiful, dark-hued boy standing in front of him with a lamp in his hand, smiling gently, but not saying anything. As he saw peacock-feathers on his head and bells on his feet, the poor man realised that Shyamsundar himself had come and given himself up to him. Embarrassed, he thought for a moment of falling at his feet, but he did not feel like doing so at all when he saw the boy's smiling face. At last he blurted out, 'Hey, Keshta why have you come?" "Why, didn't you call me?" said the boy, smiling, "just now you had such a strong desire to whip me, well, I've given myself up. Why don't you get up and lash me?" The poor man felt more embarrassed, not due to any remorse for wishing to whip the Divine, but to chastise such a handsome boy in return for his love did not seem to be in good taste. "Look, Harimohan," the boy spoke again, "those who are not afraid of me, regard me as their friend, even call me names but out of affection and wish to play with me, are very dear to me. I have created this world for the sake of play and have been always looking for play-mates but don't find any. Every one becomes cross with me, makes demands on me, asks me for gifts, positions, liberation, devotion, but alas! nobody wants me for my sake. I give what people want. What can I do but satisfy them? Or they'll tear me to pieces. I see that you also want something. Being cross you want to whip someone and have summoned me to gratify that desire. I've come to take the lashings of your whip, ye yatha mam prapadyante, 'as one approaches me.' But if you wish to hear about it before you beat me up, I will explain to you my method. Well, do you agree?" "Can you really?" asked Harimohan, "I see you've the gift of the gab, but why should I believe that a young immature boy like you can teach me anything?" "Come, see if I can," replied the boy smilingly. Having said that, Sri Krishna touched Harimohan's head. Immediately electric currents began to spread through the whole body of the poor man; the Kundalini power, normally asleep at the base of the spine, shot up to the crown of his head in the form of a fiery serpent hissing loudly and his brain became filled with waves of vital force. The very next moment the walls of the room around Harimohan seemed to recede into the distance, the world of names and forms, abandoning him, became unmanifest as it were in the infinite. Harimohan lost his normal consciousness. When he came to, he found himself standing with the boy in a strange house and saw in front of him an old man sitting on a mattress, absorbed in deep thought. On seeing that face contorted by worries and grief-stricken, hopeless and sad, Harimohan just could not believe that it really was that of Tinkori Shil, the most powerful and leading man in the village. At last, full of fear, he asked the boy, "Oh Keshta, what have you done, sneaked like a thief into someone else's house? The police will come and thrash our lives out of us with a severe beating. Don't you know the might of Tinkori Shil?" "Very well, indeed," smiled back the boy, "but stealing is an old occupation of mine. I am on intimate terms with the police. There is nothing to fear. Now I am giving you subtle sight, look into the old man's mind. You know Tinkori's might, now see my power too." Then harimohan could see into Tinkori's mind. He saw that it was like a rich city destroyed by enemy attack, so many goblins and demons of terrifying shapes entered that keen, powerful intellect and destroyed its peace, broke up its concentration and robbed it of its happiness. The old man had quarrelled with his favourite youngest son and driven him out; losing his beloved son born in his old age, he was overcome with grief, yet anger, pride, hypocrisy were sitting as sentries barring the door of his heart and denying entry to forgiveness there. Stories about the bad moral character of his daughter had been circulated; the old man was weeping after having hounded her out of his home; he knew that she was innocent but the fear of society and public opinion, vanity and his own selfish interests were stifling his love. The memory of a thousand sins made him shudder with fear, yet he lacked the courage and the power to purify those evil tendencies. From time to time the thought of death and of the next life frightened him terribly. Harimohan saw that from behind the thoughts of death, fearsome messengers of Yama were peeping and knocking at his door. Every time there was such a knock the old man's inner being screamed, mad with fear. Witnessing this terrible scene Harimohan turned towards the boy with trepidation and said, "Goodness, what is this Keshta? I thought the old man was supremely happy." "That is my power," replied the boy, "tell me, now, whose power is the greater, Tinkori Shil's of the next district or Sri Krishna's who lives in Vaikuntha? Look, Harimohan, I too have police and sentries, government, law and judicial trials. I can also play like a king. Do you like this game?" "Good Lord, no,"said Harimohan. "This is a very bad game, do you enjoy it?" The boy replied, smiling, "1 like all kinds of play. I like to whip, also to be whipped." "Look Harimohan," he continued, "people like you see only the surface of things and have not yet developed the subtle sight to see their inner truth. That is why you say that Tinkori is happy and you are miserable. This man has no material want and yet how much more is this millionaire suffering. Can you say why? Happiness is a state of the mind so is suffering. Happiness and suffering are simply modifications of the mind. He who has got nothing and whose only asset is misfortune can be very happy even in the midst of danger. Notice also that just as you are not getting any satisfaction out of spending your days in acquiring dry merit and are always thinking of suffering, so also is this man doing the same, living out his days in dry demerit. That is why there is momentary happiness resulting from virtue and temporary unhappiness issuing from sin, and vice versa. There is no real joy in this conflict. I've got the picture of an abode of bliss; he who comes to me, falls in love with me, seeks me, puts pressure on me, even persecutes me, he gets from me by force as it were the picture of joy." Harimohan listened eagerly to Sri Krishna's words. The boy spoke again. "Understand this too, Harimohan, dry merit has become for you devoid of the sap of joy, yet you can't resist the power of its impressions, nor can you conquer that petty egoism. For the old man dry demerit has similarly become joyless, yet, being unable to renounce it because of the force of its impressions, he is suffering Hell in this life. This is called the bondage of virtue and vice. Unconscious impressions born of Ignorance are the chains of this bondage. But this terrible suffering is really very good for the old man because this will lead to his salvation and true welfare." "Keshta, you speak very sweetly," said Harimohan, who was till now listening very quietly, "but I can't really believe you. Pleasure and pain may be only states of the mind, but surely external conditions are their causes. Look, when someone's mind is very distressed by hunger, can he be happy? Or can anyone think of you when he is suffering from disease or pain?" "Come, Harimohan," said the boy I will show you that too, saying this, the boy again touched Harimohan's head. As soon as he felt the touch Harimohan no longer saw Tinkori Shil's house but a sannyasi seated, absorbed in meditation, a large tiger lying at his feet like a guards on the solitary, beautiful peak of a mountain, with a pleasant breeze blowing there. Harimohan's legs, when he saw the tiger, refused to budge, but the boy dragged him near the sannyasi, Harimohan, unable to resist the boy's strength had willy-nilly to go. The boy said, "Harimohan, see." Harimohan looked and saw the mind of the sannyasi like an open exercise book, with the name 'Sri Krishna' written a thousand times on each of its pages. The sannyasi, having crossed the great gate of nirvikalpa samadhi, was sporting with Sri Krishna in the light of the supernal Sun. He also saw that the sannyasi had been starving for quite a few days and his body had suffered a lot during the previous couple of days from hunger and thirst. "What is this, Keshtã?" asked Harimohan "the saint loves you so much and yet he is suffering from lack of food and drink. Haven't you any sense at all? Who will give him food in this forest infested by tigers?" "1 will," replied the boy, "but see another amusing thing." Harimohan saw the tiger get up and break open a near by ant-heap with a single stroke of a paw. Hundreds of small ants came out and climbing up the sannyãsi's body started biting him in anger. He was still absorbed in deep meditation, unperturbed, perfectly still. Then the boy sweetly whispered into his ears just once, "My friend!" The sannyãsi opened his eyes. At first he did not feel the stinging bites, for the notes of Krishna's flute captivating, and cherished by the whole world were still sounding in his ears as they had done in Radha's ears in Vrindavan. After a while as a result of the constant bitings, his consciousness was drawn towards the body. He still did not move but full of surprise, thought, "How is it? this kind of thing never happens to me. No matter, Sri Krishna is sporting with me and biting me as a battalion of small ants." Harimohan saw that the pain from the ant bites was no longer affecting the saint's mind, and that, feeling intense physical ecstasy after each bite, he sang the name of Krishna and danced, clapping his hands in great joy. The ants dropped on the ground and fled. Astonished, Harimohan asked, "What kind of magic is this?" The boy also clapped his hands and turning twice on one leg laughed out loudly, "1 am the only Magician in the whole universe. You will not understand this magic, it is my supreme secret. And did you notice? He could remember me even in the midst of such physical pain. And now see again." The sannyasi sat down again, calm and serene. His body still experienced hunger and thirst but Harimohan saw that his mind only felt those physical reactions but was not disturbed by or involved in them. Just then someone called out from the hill in a voice sweet as a flute, "Friend!" Harimohan was startled; it was indeed the voice, sweet as a flute, of ShyamSundar himself. Then he saw a beautiful, dark-hued boy come from behind the big rocks with a plate of excellent food and fruits. Harimohan, utterly confused, looked at Sri Krishna. The boy still stood beside him, yet the other boy who was approaching was exactly like Sri Krishna. The boy held up the lamp before the saint and shed light on the plate and said, "See what I have brought." "So you have come," smiled the saint, "Why did you keep me starving for so long? However, now that you have come, sit down, eat with me." The saint and the boy started eating from the dish, offered food to each other and also playfully snatched it away from each other. When they finished their meal, the boy disappeared into the darkness with the plate. Harimohan was about to ask something but he suddenly noticed that neither Sri Krishna nor the sannyasi was there, nor the tiger nor the mountain. He was living in a respectable neighborhood with his wife and family, was very rich, gave gifts to Brahmins and to the poor daily, and said his Sandhya prayers thrice a day following the code of conduct laid down in the scriptures and shown by Raghunandan. In fact, he was leading the life of an ideal husband, father and son. But at the same time he was shocked to find that there was not the slightest neighborliness or joy of living among the residents of that respectable district, that they considered the mechanical observance of the external rules of conduct as spiritual merit. He was now as miserable as he had been happy a moment ago. He seemed to feel very thirsty but could not get a drop of water; in fact he was eating dust, only dust, endless dust. Leaving that place hurriedly he went to another part of the town. There he saw in front of a huge mansion a big crowd from whom a paean of blessings arose. Harimohan went forward and found that Tinkori Shil was sitting in the verandah and distributing a large amount of money to the people assembled there, no one was going back disappointed. Harimohan laughed out loudly and thought, "Is this a dream? Tirikori Shil a great philanthropist!" Then he could see Tinkori's mind, and realised that greed, jealousy, ambition, desire, selfishness and a thousand other frustrations and evil tendencies were clamoring: "Give, give, satisfy us!" Tinkori had suppressed them for the sake of gaining moral merit, fame and pride, left them unfulfilled and had not driven them out of his mind. Just then someone took Harimohan for a hurried tour of the other worlds. He saw the hells and the heavens of the Hindus, Moslems, Greeks, Christians and so many others. Then he found himself again in his own house, sitting on the familiar torn mattress and leaning on a dirty pillow and Shyamsundar standing in front of him. The boy said, 'It's very late at night, if I don't go home now, everyone will tell me off and chastise me. So let me tell you something in brief. The hells and heavens you saw were all of the dream world, imaginary. When man dies he goes to a heaven or a hell and experiences the consequences of his past life. You had acquired some moral merit in your previous life but love had no place in your heart, you loved neither God nor man. After death you were living in that respectable neighborhood and enjoying the fruits of the tendencies and impulses of your mind as they were in your previous life. Having done that for some time you did not like it any more, your vital nature became impatient, so you went to live in a hell full of dust; in the end, when you had enjoyed the fruits of your merit, you were born again. But because in that life you did not really do much to help any one in need apart from making the obligatory charities and keeping up a code of mere external conduct, dry and joyless, there is so much want in this life. And the reason why you are living a life of conventional piety and accumulating merit is that good and evil tendencies are not entirely exhausted by experience in a dream world but only by experience of their results in this world. Tinkori was a great philanthropist in his last life and he is now in this embodiment a millionaire and without any want as a result of the blessings of thousands of people. But because his mind was not purified, he has had to satisfy unfulfilled vicious dispositions by evil acts and thoughts. Have you understood the Law of Karma? Not reward or punishment, but the creation of evil from evil, of good from good. This is a natural Law. Sin is evil, from that is suffering; virtue is good from that comes happiness. This arrangement is there for the sake of the purification of the mind and heart, for the destruction of evil. You see, Harimohan, this earth is only an insignificant fraction of my varied creation, but you are all born here to exhaust evil by works. When people are free from the clutch of good and evil and of merit and demerit and enter the Kingdom of Love, then they become free from the life of action. You too will have this freedom in your next life. I will send my favourite sister, Shakti ('Power') and her companion Vidya ('Knowledge') to you. But look, there is one condition, you will become my playmate and not ask for liberation. Do you agree?" "Keshtã," said Harimohan, you have bewitched me. I feel a great desire to take you on my lap and show my deep affection, there is no other desire left in my life." "Harimohan, did you understand anything?" asked the boy with a smile. "Yes, of course," replied Harimohan. Then, on second thought he asked, "I say, Keshtä, you have cheated me again. You have not given any reason for creating evil." Saying this he grasped the boy's hand. He, however, withdrew his hand and said rather gruffly to Harimohan: "Go away! You want to get all my secrets out in one hour!" He suddenly put out the lamp, moved away and said, smiling, "Well, Harimohan, you completely forgot to lash me. I did not sit on your lap being afraid of that there is no knowing when pressed and angered by external suffering, you may suddenly start teaching me a good lesson. I don't trust you at all!" Harimohan extended his hand in the darkness but the boy moved farther away and said, "No, I am postponing that satisfaction till your next life." Saying this he disappeared somewhere in the dark night. Harimohan woke up listening to the jingling anklets and thought, "What kind of a dream did I see! I saw hell and heaven, and in it I addressed God in the most intimate manner and told him off as if he were a small boy. What a great sin! However, I feel great peace in my heart." Harimohan then started remembering the dark-hued boy's captivating form and kept on saying from time to time: "How beautiful, how very beautiful!" Translator's Note: This short story, 'Swapna' was originally written in Bengali by Sri Aurobindo and published in 1910. 1. Abhiman: This Bengali word cannot be translated. It means hurt pride and grief mixed with resentment against somebody from whom one expects love and better treatment. 2. Keshta: A colloquial form of the word Krishna. 3. Yama: The God of Death. Courtesy & Copyright: Sri Aurobindo's "The Chariot of Jagannatha," published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust. http://www.auro-ma-ramalingam.org/srikrishna.php