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

From the Editor’s Desk (Feb 2017)

This issue of our Newsletter focuses mainly on The Mother. The theme we have been exploring since June 2016, Integral Health, will be covered extensively in our next issue. In this issue we briefly introduce the next topic we are going to explore under the theme of Integral Health, ‘Mental well-being with an article by The Mother from CWM, Volume 9.we turn our focus now on mental well being.

We are fast approaching the first Darshan Day of 2017, The Mother’s 139th Birth Anniversary. Born on 21st February 1878, in Paris, to an Egyptian mother and a Turkish father, her advent was the sign and symbol of a changing era spanning the East and West. The Mother came to India to collaborate with a great Yogi, Sri Aurobindo and in its execution, lived to manifest Integral Yoga in this life upon earth. Her birth was a clarion call to the descent of a higher order on earth so that a life divine may be established. What better way to remember her and the life she lived in the midst of her human compatriots, then through the eyes of those who were blessed to live close to her and adored her as their Divine Mother on earth? This issue features reminiscences from Nirodbaran and Champaklal, two of Mother’s children who had the opportunity to be physically close to her. 

The attitude that one has to have towards the Mother is highlighted in the excerpt from Nirodbaran’s,  ‘Sri Aurobindo - A Dream Dialogue with Children’. When someone asks who the Divine Mother is, and what it means, Sri Aurobindo, succinctly proposes to everyone to simply love her sincerely, from the depth of   one’s heart and ask her to explain the mystery that she is. In turn, Sri Aurobindo assures, The Mother herself will do everything and “cut asunder….all the most secret knots in the mind” and clear “the deepest doubts and hesitations”.

Meditating on this utterance by Sri Aurobindo on the Mother, it appears that all we need to do is to establish a simple, natural relationship with her and continue communicating with Her. When we turn the searchlights onto and into ourselves, we realise all the obstructions we are faced with in realising this fully, completely. Importantly, this conditioned mind needs to surpass all human conditioning of the modern age and be ready to consider a relationship based on inner convictions and not external and physical contact. To reach this status, one can imagine what will be needed. Probably a good helping of contemplation and reflection based on an inner journey in an attempt to find out about that space within, will lay the foundation followed by a resolve to feel The Mother, hear her voice and feel her guiding touch and know what She is showing and pointing at.

If we can understand deeply and fully Sri Aurobindo’s direction, then a whole gamut of mental searching and running in circles, hitting at unneeded objects, getting entangled awhile and then spending time disentangling the knot will come to an end. The need of the hour is an intimate relationship with The Mother. On this occasion of the 139th Birth Anniversary of The Mother, it would be worth taking stock of our relationship with Her, in ourselves, whether we are in solitude or in the midst of a thick crowd engaged in all the work we take upon ourselves. One simple question to ask every now and then would be perhaps, “Am I speaking with The Mother now?” Most likely, the busily buzzing mind and the anxious heart strings pulling each other in different directions will come to a standstill, return to base and allow Her to carry us up in consciousness. A relatively higher state of consciousness, we can hope, would then also suffuse the work we do. This effort will probably have to be repeated an infinite number of times, without any promise, only for the sake of establishing a living communicating with Her. 

Are we game?

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