Guiding Light of The Month

O Lord, how ardently do I call and implore Thy love! Grant that my aspiration may be intense enough to awaken the same aspiration everywhere: oh, may good- ness, justice and peace reign as supreme masters, may ignorant egoism be overcome, darkness be suddenly illu- minated by Thy pure Light; may the blind see, the deaf hear, may Thy law be proclaimed in every place and, in a constantly progressive union, in an ever more perfect harmony, may all, like one single being, stretch out their arms towards Thee to identify themselves with Thee and manifest Thee upon earth. - The Mother

July Sunday Activities at Centre – A glimpse


7th July 2013 – Readings of The Mother’s words from “Steps to Freedom and Mastery” and OM Choir

About five of us gathered at the Centre this day. Following the reading of two prayers from The Mother’s ‘Prayers and Meditations’ by Ganesh, we settled down to make ourselves a little more receptive to our inner world, even if on the fringe. We continued with the reading of The Mother’s writings that direct us inwards. On this day, we began with a new book that contains The Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s writings on going within and “Becoming Conscious”.  This book will be used during our 1st Sunday evening sessions for the next many weeks. The book is entitled ‘Steps to Freedom and Mastery’, a compilation of Sri Aurbindo’s and The Mother’s work by A.S. Dalal. The book contains 6 parts, of which Part 2 is on “Being Conscious – The First Step”. What does being conscious really mean? What does it entail? What is its importance in our lives? We may be able to find some answers to these questions in the next few months and practice some practical steps for our inner growth. To this effect, we read the first five passages meditatively, as far as this was possible. We then settled for our OM chanting. Narad’s voice exercises, recorded in CD format, were played and then we started with our OM chanting. It is amazing that a single syllable should have such a noticeable effect on our being. A quietness inevitably creeps in with each chant of the OM. And OM in collectivity is another ball game altogether. But again, inevitably, it has all the potential for a harmonious working amongst everyone who forms the circle.

14th July 2013 - Talk by Jared Quek- “The Ascent to Supermind-Part 3”

Two prayers from The Mother’s ‘Prayers and Meditation’ were read by Shailaja. Then Jared began the day’s session by summarising what was done in the previous month on the 2nd week, namely, The Higher Mind. Though the higher mind is the closest to our current mind of cognition which is said to operate on the level of ignorance, by no means can it be assumed to be within easy reach and functioning in our normal day to day live. We started the current session with the next level of mind, The Illumined Mind. Sri Aurobindo writes about this plane, “a play of lightning of spiritual truth and power breaks from above into the consciousness and adds to the calm and wide enlightenment and the vast descent of peace which characterise or accompany the action of the larger conceptual-spiritual principle, a fiery ardour of realisation and a rapturous ecstasy of knowledge.” (‘The Life Divine’, Pg. 978-979)

We can only contemplate silently on these mega lines from Sri Aurobindo’s illumined and vast and crystal clear consciousness.

21st July 2013 - Talk by Jared Quek- “The Ascent to Supermind--Part 4”

This session concluded the series of talks conducted by Jared on aspects of the Yoga. We went through the nature of the Overmind first. Like the rest of the levels of consciousness, this too was the manifestation of The Mother herself. This is the region linking the lower worlds to the high Supramental. When the Overmind descends into the human receptacle, there is a subordination of the “ego-sense”. There is a “wide cosmic perception and feeling of a boundless universal self ..”. It is a centre of luminosity, like the sun. However, what is it that distinguishes this from the Supramental? Sri Aurobindo provides the answer, “In the terrestrial evolution itself the Overmind descent would not be able to transform wholly the inconscience.” Of the Supermind, this is what he has to say in comparison, “The liberation from this pull of the Inconscience and a secured basis for a continuous divine or gnostic evolution would only be achieved by a descent of the Supermind into the terrestrial formula, bringing into it the supreme law and light and dynamis of the spirit and penetrating with it and transforming the inconscience of the material basis.” (pages 988, 989 of ‘The Life Divine’).

We appreciated that it was this point that differentiated integral yoga from the other traditional systems of Yoga.

This was a wonderful evening, when we contemplated together on the necessity of the Supramental Change.

- Jayanthy

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)