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

February – March Sunday Activities at the Centre - A glimpse

February 19th –  Study of Secrets of the Veda:
This was conducted to consolidate our understanding on some of the critical topics as below:
The central conception of the Veda:
·         Conquest of the Truth out of the darkness of Ignorance  & falsehood.
·         Converting a divided & limited being into higher Consciousness and Bliss.
·         Vedic Ritam is a spiritual as well as a psychological conception. 
Who are the Gods to be invoked and sacrifices offered ?:
(taken from Sri Aurobindo’s book ‘ Hymns to the Mystic Fire’ Pages 26 to 30)
There  are 4 primary Gods – Agni, Indra, Surya & Soma and their deputies such as Vayu, Ashwins, Saraswati, Varuna, Mitra, Aryaman, Bhaga, Viswedevas etc.,
Difference between Gods & Demons:
Gods are children of Aditi – Infinity & Light, help increase the Truth in human beings and prevent attacks from hostile forces.    
Demons are children of Diti – They are dark forces - Powers of division & limitation, also named as Dasyus, Vritras, Panis Vala etc.,
Vedic Symbolism: 
For example:  ‘Gritha’ (Clarified butter) represents knowledge ,
                      ‘go’ (Cow) represents – Ray of Light or Light
                      ‘Ashwa’ (Horse) – represents Force, Power & Strength
                     ‘ Adri’  (Hill) – represents Ignorance or inconscience

February 21st – Mother’s 139th birth anniversary:

Evening Programme started at 7:00 PM

Meditation with Sunil’s Music
Readings from The Mother’s ‘Prayers and Meditations
Reading of Darshan Message from Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Puthucherry
Welcome Address by the Chairman
Devotional Music Offering by Ms Sushma Somasekharan
Closing Meditation
Mahaprasad

It is always a joy to be part of the Mother’s Birth Anniversary celebration.

The arrangement of flowers at Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s altar was enough to capture our hearts and our spirits glow! The meditation music and the prayers brought so much calmness in the mind. Our dear chairman Sri Kashyapji spoke much lovingly about our Centre and the members’ contribution in various ways. Ms Sushma’s rendering of the devotional music on the Divine Mother  was so melodious and soaked us in the delight of the devotion!

Like the beautiful flowers of different colours and fragrance suddenly bloom in the garden of Mother Nature in the early morning, the variety of delightful dishes bloomed on the buffet table offered by our lovely and loving friends!

Darshan Day Message: “ The Grace is always with you, concentrate in your heart with a silent mind, and you are sure to receive the guidance and help you aspire for”
-          The  Mother
February 26th – Savitri, An unending Journey – Book 2:
                                                                                                                                                              (The Traveller of the Worlds) - Canto 3 – The Glory and Fall of  Life (pictures 1 to 7)

Mr Ramadoss facilitated the video session on the Meditations on Savitri, where Mother reads certain passages from Savitri with Huta’s paintings as the backdrop. 

Picture 1: The course of Life even in her own world is  set under certain conditions inherent in the creation of that  plane of existence. There is a large freedom of movement and effectuation but it is governed by the operations of a Time-rhythm  relevant to its order of existence. Time and  Circumstance walk together!
   
 Picture 2: Human imagination just looks for unending and uninhibited satisfaction of vital desires and passions, not knowing the diviner quality of joy, a celestial nature free and limitless and extending towards receding limits.

Picture 3: That in the above domains of deathless Light,luminous soothing belts of peace, flowing seas of joy, sunlit realms, where grief is not, that vouchsafe themselves to the grasp of man’s consciousness for however brief a moment. Such an experience can impress itself on man and form a permanent part of his consciousness or leave a memory which comes alive at will. What is once so experienced can always be called back in recollection and relived in a subtle way. They are the Kingdoms of Beatitude!

Picture 4: These regions of the Life-world are fields for the play of an untrammelled Life force.  There is here a purity, a brightness of the spirit that renders all movement delightful uninterrupted by flaws and twists!

Pictures 5-7: Goes back to the primitive beginnings of the earth-creation, there was no life, no mind, no sense. All was dead matter.

Slowly there gathered an urge within for movement, for expression and the original harmony was disturbed. There was an awakening and a call went forth to Life to descend from her native plane above and activate the myriad forms into movement. Life heard the call and invaded the material kingdom in order to fill it with all her joy and power.

There was a wider movement of joy and happiness and the glory of Life thrilled in the swiftness of the beauty of beasts. It became possible for man to appear and front the world with his thought and soul.

 But before Life could establish her full sway a dark Power of Nescience cast its shadow on the soul and imposed a purposeful ordeal on the Spirit that was manifesting through its Life-Power. Life underwent an arrestation of her dynamisms, a diminution and deformation of her natural beauty and bliss. Her immortality got veiled and in her constricted movement, desire and struggle afflicted Life. Life turned into a purveyor of Death.

Source: Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo.


March 5th - Reading from AIM Magazine:

Read a few passages from January 2017 issue of AIM, The Path of Agni

Rishis of the Vedas: The Vedic Rishis were men of great spiritual and occult knowledge and only their descendants were given the initiation of their knowledge and not the ordinary human beings. The Mantras were given to the Vedic rishis by the hidden planes of consciousness and contained the secret knowledge.

The Seer –poets: Our greatest Seer-poets like Vishvamtra, Vamadeva, Dirghatamas and many others touch the most extraordinary heights and amplitudes of a sublime and mystic poetry and for example poems like the Hymn of Creation move in a powerful clarity on the summits of thought on which the Upanishads lived constantly with a more sustained breathing!

The Veda-Mantras: What the Vedic poets meant by Mantra were an inspired and revealed seeing and vision thinking attended by a realisation. It was the innermost truth of God and self and man and nature, it was a thinking that came on the wings of a great soul rhythm, Chandas.


March 12th-   Read a passage from Questions and Answers, 1956 The Mother. Volume 8

 18 July 1956.

Mother talks about the Divine Love which is obscured by ignorance and our mind cannot seize the ecstasy of the heart and passion of the pure and sublimated sense and the attraction which is the call of the divine flute player.

Lord Krishna is the immanent and universal Divine who is the supreme power of attraction and soul the psychic personality, called here Radha. Just like Radha answers to the call of Divine flute player, we can for sure find divine Ananda in all things around us immaterial of whether it is just grass or an animal or the human beings, by seeing the one divine presence and a complete self giving to that Presence.
We can enjoy the perpetual ecstasy getting closer the divine in us!

-          Jayalakshmi


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