6 January 2013: Reading of “The Mother and Sri Aurobindo on themselves” and OM Choir
It was the first Sunday of the first month of the New Year. There was a beautiful walk as part of our Monthly Walks in the morning. A few of us gathered at the Centre in the evening after the walk and brunch in the morning.. After the Opening Meditation, a prayer from ‘Prayers and Meditations’ was read out. After this, we picked up copies of the book “The Mother and Sri Aurobindo on themselves”. We read out 2 pages from this precious book which gives us an insight on what The Mother and Sri Aurobindo wrote about their own lives. After a brief discussion, we all formed a small circle for the OM choir around a candle glowing in all its glory. We had a quick voice exercise session and then began offering our best OMs in a group. The harmonious OMs offered have a beautiful calming effect on all of us present.
13 January 2013: Talk by Jared Quek- “The Kingdoms of the Little Mind-Part 1”
The second Sunday is when we have been having talks by Jared at the Centre. The topic this time was “The Kingdoms of the Little Mind”. As always, we were each given a handout with precious excerpts from ‘The Life Divine’. Jared started with a very comprehensive analogy to help us all understand “The Evolution of Man”. He spoke about how man, after having made his place for himself in the physical and vital world of earth, now has that little bit of leisure required to consider his farther possibilities of art, music, aesthetics etc. With the help of this background, we started on our journey of traversing the different facets of the Mind. We began with the lowest sub-plane of the intelligence—The Physical Mind. Here, one is the physical man who attaches most importance to the most objective things—food, shelter, sleep etc. and to his outer life. Man is most comfortable in this zone, with little or no ambition. He has a mental part also, but this too is traditional, customary and objective. We then moved on to the Vital Mind, the basis to life. The Vital Mind is the one which is dynamic, vital, nervous, capable of desires, emotions and many such things. It is the Vital mind which drives a leader of any magnitude. This triggered off an interesting discussion on how and which mind we mostly spend our day-to-day lives in.
20 January 2013: Talk by Jared Quek- “The Kingdoms of the Little Mind -Part 2”
This being the Third Sunday, we were to continue the talk on “The Kingdoms of the Little Mind”. Today, we were to deal with the next topic—The Mental Mind. Jared quickly summarised what was discussed the previous Sunday for the benefit of people who were not present the previous Sunday.
He gave a simple yet powerful analogy comparing the human mind to a Radio set. The Radio is nothing without the battery which powers it, just as the Human Body is nothing without the life and spirit in it. The Radio can have the capability to tune to just one essential frequency. Similarly, we can just live with the Physical Mind, in our comfort zone, with no aim or aspiration. The Radio may be advanced enough to tune to other frequencies. Likewise, we can tune our minds to be in the Vital, Mental etc. Not to forget that the Physical mind is still present in us and shall manifest itself from time to time.
After this, he spoke about how the more complex a personality, the higher the state of mind, illustrating this with examples such as geniuses like Leonardo Da Vinci, Sri Aurobindo etc., who have multiple facets to their personality.
The Mental Mind is above the level of vital mentality and is a mind-plane of pure thought and intelligence. The thinker, philosopher, scientist, dreamer, idealist, to name a few, are all under the influence of the Mental Mind. He is powerful enough to control and harmonise his nature and lay it forth as a mental ideal.
After reading the excerpts and discussing them, we sat down for our Closing Meditation.
- Preethi
It was the first Sunday of the first month of the New Year. There was a beautiful walk as part of our Monthly Walks in the morning. A few of us gathered at the Centre in the evening after the walk and brunch in the morning.. After the Opening Meditation, a prayer from ‘Prayers and Meditations’ was read out. After this, we picked up copies of the book “The Mother and Sri Aurobindo on themselves”. We read out 2 pages from this precious book which gives us an insight on what The Mother and Sri Aurobindo wrote about their own lives. After a brief discussion, we all formed a small circle for the OM choir around a candle glowing in all its glory. We had a quick voice exercise session and then began offering our best OMs in a group. The harmonious OMs offered have a beautiful calming effect on all of us present.
13 January 2013: Talk by Jared Quek- “The Kingdoms of the Little Mind-Part 1”
The second Sunday is when we have been having talks by Jared at the Centre. The topic this time was “The Kingdoms of the Little Mind”. As always, we were each given a handout with precious excerpts from ‘The Life Divine’. Jared started with a very comprehensive analogy to help us all understand “The Evolution of Man”. He spoke about how man, after having made his place for himself in the physical and vital world of earth, now has that little bit of leisure required to consider his farther possibilities of art, music, aesthetics etc. With the help of this background, we started on our journey of traversing the different facets of the Mind. We began with the lowest sub-plane of the intelligence—The Physical Mind. Here, one is the physical man who attaches most importance to the most objective things—food, shelter, sleep etc. and to his outer life. Man is most comfortable in this zone, with little or no ambition. He has a mental part also, but this too is traditional, customary and objective. We then moved on to the Vital Mind, the basis to life. The Vital Mind is the one which is dynamic, vital, nervous, capable of desires, emotions and many such things. It is the Vital mind which drives a leader of any magnitude. This triggered off an interesting discussion on how and which mind we mostly spend our day-to-day lives in.
20 January 2013: Talk by Jared Quek- “The Kingdoms of the Little Mind -Part 2”
This being the Third Sunday, we were to continue the talk on “The Kingdoms of the Little Mind”. Today, we were to deal with the next topic—The Mental Mind. Jared quickly summarised what was discussed the previous Sunday for the benefit of people who were not present the previous Sunday.
He gave a simple yet powerful analogy comparing the human mind to a Radio set. The Radio is nothing without the battery which powers it, just as the Human Body is nothing without the life and spirit in it. The Radio can have the capability to tune to just one essential frequency. Similarly, we can just live with the Physical Mind, in our comfort zone, with no aim or aspiration. The Radio may be advanced enough to tune to other frequencies. Likewise, we can tune our minds to be in the Vital, Mental etc. Not to forget that the Physical mind is still present in us and shall manifest itself from time to time.
After this, he spoke about how the more complex a personality, the higher the state of mind, illustrating this with examples such as geniuses like Leonardo Da Vinci, Sri Aurobindo etc., who have multiple facets to their personality.
The Mental Mind is above the level of vital mentality and is a mind-plane of pure thought and intelligence. The thinker, philosopher, scientist, dreamer, idealist, to name a few, are all under the influence of the Mental Mind. He is powerful enough to control and harmonise his nature and lay it forth as a mental ideal.
After reading the excerpts and discussing them, we sat down for our Closing Meditation.
- Preethi
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