Thoughts on center activities

15/01/2012: Reading of the Vignettes followed by OM Choir
It all started with a beautiful opening meditation with Sunilda’s ‘Savitri’ music playing in the background. With the same sense of calm, each of us gathered there picked up a copy of ‘Vignettes’. We were lucky to have found a very interesting Vignette that day---one about Sri Aurobindogram (a small village in Madhya Pradesh, India) which has been named after Sri Aurobindo. It was a revelation of sorts to most of us sitting there. A few of us had been to the place too. It was great to listen to their experiences and thoughts about the place.

After a quick discussion, we all formed a circle around a candle glowing nice and bright and the perfect setting for the OM Choir. Our collective effort to catch the music from the higher planes is always an experience to cherish and remember as each time is so unique and so beautifully different from the previous times. Words will never be able to do justice to what one experiences during the OM Choir.

22/01/2012: Collective Meditation with Music
The Mother always emphasized that along with reading the Works of Sri Aurobindo, we must also definitely try to achieve perfect Concentration in Silence. This is an essential element of aspiring to get in communion with The Divine. We, at the Singapore Centre, were to have a Collective Meditation for about 45 minutes. With the lights dimmed and The Mother’s Organ Music playing in the background, the experience was surreal. I was reminded of the words of The Mother I had read as a child, when the word MEDITATION used to weigh heavily on my head! The Mother made it seem so simple with her simple yet beautiful words. The White Pass at the Matrimandir (which used to be distributed until a few years ago for Meditation in the Inner Chamber) used to have The Mother’s words printed on it. It said

“…only for those who are serious---serious, sincere---who really want to learn to concentrate…”
“No fixed meditations…but they must stay there in silence, in silence and concentrate.”
“A place…for trying to find one’s consciousness.”

---The Mother

29/01/2012 & 05/02/2012: ‘Meditation with Savitri’ Video
The day of the month when we have our ‘Savitri’ Reading at the Centre, we were to read ‘The Secret Knowledge’ from Book 1 Canto 4. To enable us to understand ‘Savitri’ better with each attempt, we make use of the marvelous pictures by Huta and the descriptions for each of them. The reading was preceded by a ‘Savitri’ video we watched.


12 /02/2012: Elements of Yoga
Serenity reigned in the premises following our meditation on The New Year Music. Mr. Kashyap took up the ‘Prayers and Meditations’ of The Mother and read out 2 prayers, setting the stage for our explorations on ‘Faith’. We first read on faith from Sri Aurobindo’s ‘Elements on Yoga’ followed by a question posed to The Mother on the same work in ‘Commentary on Elements of Yoga’, by The Mother. We read the question a couple of times and then proceeded on to express our views on Faith.

Essentially the question we were addressing was ‘How can faith be increased?’. One of us was of the opinion that it could be nurtured with a gain in knowledge of any particular phenomenon, and in this instance, about faith in the divine. When one knows (mentally) about what the divine may mean, then it is possible to grow faith. Another devotee voiced on the contrary that knowledge of that sort may not be necessary, that faith can be nurtured just like that, like a seed, without any need to know or through experiences that continuously point one to a particular phenomenon as “truth”.

We proceeded to read The Mother’s answer.

Ultimately, it is true, we would all agree, that faith, no matter how it is nurtured or what caused it to be, in the first place, is extremely necessary in life. It is what gives hope and a meaning to everything we do and perhaps actualizes an aspiration. In a state of faith, we may actually be psychologically preparing ourselves to realize a given experience which then becomes an actuality.

It leaves for us to explore further what faith may mean and how it could be increased by taking a plunge deeper into our inner worlds, with these books perhaps, as our first guides.

- Preethi / Jayanthy