St. Bismillah placed at the head of the Koran

Oct 10--

St. Bismillah placed at the head of the Koran

The movement of the Siddhi is once again overcoming the Asiddhi. The second & first chatusthayas are being restored in their completeness. The faith that disregards immediate out- ward circumstances, is developing, although still combated by the suggestions of the intellectual environment

Outward circumstances of the moment have to be understood by the vijnana. But there must first be this general faith that they have all an intelligible purpose & an intelligible sense.

---

647

It is true that they are worked out through the Pranic world by the Dwayavins using conflicting energies, but the Power that gov- erns them in spite of their ignorance & mutual misunderstanding is One, who is neither a passive Being nor a blind Force.

The only question that remains is whether the immediate guide of the Yoga is the Ishwara himself or a Spirit who errs, the Manomaya Purusha in oneself or a Manishi outside.

The faith must be that it is the Ishwara, Anandamaya & Vijnanamaya who is the guide, although He still uses the im- pulsions & ideas of the Manishi & not yet the full Vijnanamaya harmony.

It is the replacement of the mental perceptions & impulses that is the work of the Vijnanachatusthaya. It is because that work is not yet done, that the first two chatusthayas are open to shocks & disturbances through the disappointment of the faith.

This is why it has always been said that the absolute finality of the first two chatusthayas depended on the fulfilment of the third.

But the entire fulfilment of the third implies the fulfilment of the fourth and fifth and therefore necessarily of the sixth and seventh.

Therefore it is an integral fulfilment that is being worked out & this aim prevents the separate perfection of each chatusthaya by itself without relation to the rest.

Faith & Ananda Brahman are the two keys to the perfect internal state, with dasya as the joining point. Knowledge & Power are the two keys to the perfect external state, with Daivi Prakriti as the joining point.

Utthapana Arms 1 hr 45 minutes, discontinued for want of time, not failure of power. More physical unwillingness & more defect of anima than day before yesterday..

Effectivity of tapas still acts against resistance and by lapse of time.

http://www.sriaurobindoashram.info/Content.aspx?ContentURL=_StaticContent/SriAurobindoAshram/-09%20E-Library/-01%20Works%20of%20Sri%20Aurobindo/-01%20English/-03_CWSA/-10_Record%20of%20Yoga/-32_29to30%20SEPTEMBER%2031%20DECEMBER%201914_1.htm

Bismillah al rahman al rahim

The Arabic phrase shown above is pronounced as Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim, and is a beautifully poetic phrase which offers both deep insight and brilliant inspiration. It has often been said that the phrase Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim contains the true essence of the entire Qur'an, as well as the true essence of all religions.

Muslims often say this phrase when embarking on any significant endeavor, and the phrase is considered by some to be a major pillar of Islam. This expression is so magnificent and so concise that all but one chapter of the Qur'an begins with the words Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim.

http://wahiduddin.net/words/bismillah.htm

Ramakrishna's Vision Of Prophet Mohammad

However, while Ramakrishna taught that all spiritual paths lead to the same goal, the realization of Ultimate Consciousness, he never implied that we should ignore the diversity of spiritual moods and their contrasting cultural expression. Each path or sacred tradition has its own appropriated modes of contemplation, the integrity of which should be respected. When Ramakrishna practiced the constant praise of Allah, into which he was initiated by a wandering Sufi master, he would not enter the Kali temple. After three days of continual absorption in the holy name of Allah, Ramakrishna experienced a vision of the Prophet Mohammed, whose radiant form blended with his own and both were revealed as the radiance of ultimate consciousness. Ramakrishna experienced a similar communion with the transcendental form of Jesus following days of continuous Christ-centered contemplation....source& read more here

see also vedanta of southern california

The Tao,Nirvana,And Non Being

EVENING

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 people also 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 Life Divine.
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.

Beyond Nirvana

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

Thou Art That!!

,nirvana,absolu

QUEST FOR GOD

O’ver hill and dale and mountain range,In temple, church, and mosque,In Vedas, Bible, Al KoranI had searched forThee in vain.Like a child in the wildest forest lostI have cried and cried alone,“Where art Thou gone, my God, my love?The echo answered, “gone.”And days and nights and years then passedA fire was in the brain,I knew not when day changed in nightThe heart seemed rent in twain.I laid me down on Ganges’s shore,Exposed to sun and rain;With burning tears I laid the dustAnd wailed with waters’ roar.I called on all the holy namesOf every clime and creed.“Show me the way, in mercy, yeGreat ones who have reached the goal.”Years then passed in bitter cry,Eacch moment seemed an age,Till one day midst my cries and groansSome one seemed calling me.A gentle soft and soothing voiceThat said ‘my son’ ‘my son’,That seemed to thrill in unisonWith all the chords of my soul.I stood on my feet and tried to findThe place the voice came from;I searched and searched and turned to seeRound me, before, behind,Again, again it seemed to speakThe voice divine to me.In rapture all my soul was hushed,Entranced, enthralled in bliss.A flash illumined all my soul;The heart of my heart opened wide.O joy, O bliss, what do I find!My love, my love you are hereAnd you are here, my love, my all!And I was searching thee -From all eternity you were thereEnthroned in majesty!From that day forth, wherever I roam,I feel Him standing byO’ver hill and dale, high mount and vale,Far far away and high.The moon’s soft light, the stars so bright,The glorious orb of day,He shines in them; His beauty - might -Reflected lights are they.The majestic morn, the melting eve,Teh boundless billowing sea,In nature’s beauty, songs of birds,I see through them - it is He.When dire calamity seizes me,The heart seems weak and faint,All natures seems to crush me down,With laws that enver bend.Meseems I hear Thee whispering sweetMy love, “I am near”, “I am near”.My heart gets strong. With thee, my love,A thousand deaths no fear.Thou speakest in the mother’s layThous shuts the babies eye,When innocent children laugh and play,I see Thee standing by.When holy friendship shakes the hand,He stands between them too;He pours the nectar in mother’s kissAnd the baby’s sweet “mama”.Thou wert my God with prophets old,All creeds do come from Thee,The Vedas, Bible, and Koran boldSing Thee in Harmony.“Thou art,” Thou art” the Soul of soulsIn the rushing stream of life.“Om tat sat om.”Thou art my God,My love, I am thine, I am thine.

(Swami Vivekananda's poem)

Only Breath

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim,not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi or Zen.Not any religion, or cultural system.I am not from the East or the West,nor out of the ocean or upfrom the ground, not natural or ethereal,not composed of elements at all.I do not exist, am not an entity in this worldor the next, did not descend from Adam and Eveor any origin story.My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless.Neither body nor soul.I belong to the belovedhave seen the two worlds as oneand that one call to and know,First, last, outer, inner, only thatbreath breathing human —Jalaluddin Rumi,

The Great Secret
God was full of Wine last night,So full of wine
That He let a great secret slip.He said:
There is no man on earthWho needs a pardon from Me -
For there is really no such thing,No such thingAs Sin!
That Beloved has gone completely Wild-He has poured Himself into me!
I am Blissful and Drunk and Overflowing.
Dear world,Draw life from my Sweet Body,
Dear wayfaring souls,Come drink your fill of liquid rubies,For God has made my heartAn Eternal Fountain!
(Hafiz)

The Lord accepts the sin and the virtue of none;because knowledge is veiled by the ignorance.mortal men are deluded-The Gita

These are they who are conscious of the much falsehood in the world;they grow in the house of Truth,they are the strong invincible sons of the infinity-Rig Veda

"so remarkable..the poems of vivekananda,rumi, and hafiz..rumi describing nirvana of the absolute,hafiz intoxicated with ananda(bliss),and vivikananda seeking the union with the divine.."