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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