Editorial

The choice, simply, is left to us – the path of difficulties or the sunlit path. In one’s own life, by and large, does it appear as if one has made a choice without being aware that there was a choice in the first place, that there were actually two choices at the least to choose from? If yes, then life ought to be proceeding in a settled and happier fashion. This so called life lived by exercising genuine choice, fully aware of the nature of the choice and all its consequences and living with a deep satisfaction and sense of fulfillment – this life appears to be one given to a select few. However, on the other hand, it also appears that a larger cross section of humanity is given to another kind of life of strive, struggles, uncertainties – a life that seems quite out of one’s control, no matter what one may do to control it. Perhaps it was this cross section of humanity that The Mother was addressing when she said,
All was gold and gold, a torrent of golden light pouring down in an uninterrupted flow and bringing with it the consciousness that the path of the gods is a sunlit path in which difficulties lose their reality.
Such is the path open before us if we choose to take it.

The “us” features stark. The Mother has, so to speak, included herself in this collective, for after all, was not She the one who consented to descend into this mind, life and matter in order to reverse the order of an involved consciousness to an evolving one? The next happy point to note is, though included in the “us”, part and parcel of this flesh and blood living such a life upon earth, She has had the sweet fortune of looking upon and living in that world where “All was gold”….with a “torrent of golden light pouring down in an uninterrupted flow…” There is the promise of possibility which one of this world can nurture in one’s heart in the form of an aspiration. The next promise inherent in these lines is that this beauteous path is a matter of choice. One is in control, is the declaration; it is all in our own hands, is the insistence.

Is one game to make that choice? But this choice can only come about, it appears, when this human psychology receives some semblance of light from higher spheres and transforms. How is this transformation to be made possible? A promise lies in the uncovering of the psychic centre.

Which brings us to “sadhana”. Sadhana refers to ‘spiritual practice or discipline; the practice of yoga.’ (from The Sunlit Path - Aspects of Sadhana, Sri Aurobindo Ashran Trust, 1984). The master lays down one condition in order to be placed on this Sunlit Path, and that too a condition that is dependant upon one’s will, which brings us to The Mother’s insistence that the choice is our own. That condition is ‘surrender’. The master writes (in A Practical Guide to Integral Yoga, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, 1955):

“The sunlit path can be followed by those who are able to practise surrender, first a central surrender and afterwards a more complete self-giving in all parts of the being. If they can rely wholly on the Divine and accept cheerfully whatever comes to them from the Divine, then their path becomes sunlit and may even be straightforward and easy.”

At the final analysis, life stares back at us with her well-defined beautiful eyes, crystal clear and calm. Are we making of this life what someone else would want of it? Is the conditioning that one has been through since time immemorial too cumbersome even to think about? Do we leave that to slip to the background and yet would have that very conditioning form the backbone of all our thoughts and acts and tendencies, not to mention the choices we make in life? It could just be timely to review what sadhana means to one, in one’s own life.