Editorial

August is here! The heart never tires of singing this sacred tune every year and the mind never tires marking out this month in its many splendours. For all devotees or followers of Sri Aurobindo, this day has the double joy of providing one with the opportunity of remembering and celebrating his presence in our lives, his guidance and protection as well as renewing and re-living the promise of a glorious spiritual future for mankind led by that land immersed in gold, Bharatam. This land itself, Sri Aurobindo prophesized, will realize its unity and oneness as it realizes it’s position of spiritual leadership, “A free and united India will be there and the Mother will gather around her her sons and weld them into a single national strength in the life of a great and unified people.” At the Ashram Playgound, there is a Spiritual Map of India. The Mother has said, “This is the map of true India in spite of all passing appearances, and it will always remain the map of the true India, whatever people may think about it.”

The Yoga that Sri Aurobindo had undertaken in his material frame was targeted at the gathering of momentum of the evolution of Divinity upon earth out of its involution in matter, which had long been left to the forces of nature across millennia. His was the feat of the King of Kings, the highest amongst them all, the feat of Divinity itself which consented to descend into the earthen mould and effect a transformation in subtle planes as well as gross, a transmutation in its very material element. It is also a day to celebrate the presence of this Divine Spark in the midst of our lives, in one way or another, a day which offers us yet another opportunity to offer all that we have, that we do and that we are at his feet, if at all we fathom this endeavour worth our lives.

Somewhere along the way, here and there, obstacles do arise aplenty but we recognize a saving Grace. This day too is one to offer our gratitude to that unfailing Grace that permeates everything.
But do we see or feel this Grace, are we able to make that concerted effort to offer ourselves, our lives to It? Some of us do. This is a day to perfect that offering. Some of us house resistances within, other voices that deny and the march forward is indeed slowed. This is a day to delve into the nature of our inner spheres and distinguish the voices that pull at the strings on the surface. This becomes a precious day to wake ourselves out of somnolence and the complacence that tells us that everything is alright, a day when we may heed with courage and with sincerity the truths about ourselves, become aware of the consolations of excuses that the mind offers for all our so called weaknesses and carelessness. This becomes a day for retrospection as well as inspection, deflection of forces that pull us down as well as reflection.

But who is to say this is such and this is not such. One alone can find out. One has to take that coveted dive, deep down and weed out everything from the bedrock. Who will be one’s guide in this plunge? This becomes a treaty one works out, alone, with the Divine within or this invincible Force that we ascribe the care of this life to.

This day offers a splendid opportunity for taking this plunge, only because it is a day concentrated with his presence, his force, as other fellow beings gather to direct their aspirations towards him, their sincere cries for aid and help and guidance. It could be a day holding the promise of a flight on the wings of collective winds towards higher spheres.

This day is special and each lives it according to his deeper self’s dictates. It is a day worth being vigilant about oneself and receptive to the currents of Love and Light that may be flowing, especially abundantly, on this day.

Here are Pranams to Divinity and the Golden Land, and the Promise of a spiritual dawn that is being worked out here, right upon earth.