January
22nd – Study of Secrets of Veda:
Rig Vedic verses 10 to
12 from Mandala 1, Sukta 3 dedicated to Goddess Saraswati, were covered in the
light of Sri Aurobindo’s interpretations. We understood Saraswati as follows:
• She is that power of Truth, which we
call inspiration.
• Inspiration from the Truth purifies
by getting rid of falsehood.
• As per Indian idea, all sin is merely
falsehood, wrongly inspired motion and wrongly directed will and action.
• The Idea of life and ourselves, we
start with is a falsehood and all else is falsified by it.
• Truth comes to us as a light, a
voice, compelling a change of thought, imposing a discernment of ourselves and all around us.
• Truth of thought creates truth of
vision.
• Truth of vision forms in us truth of
being.
• Out of truth of being (satyam)
flows naturally truth of emotion, will and action.
She is full of her
luminous plenitudes and rich in substance of thought, upholds the sacrifice,
the offering of the mortal being’s activities to the divine by awakening his
consciousness so that it assumes right states of emotion and right movements of
thought in accordance with the Truth.
She brings into active
consciousness in the human being the great flood or great movement, the
Truth-Consciousness itself and illumines with it all our thoughts.
According to Vedic
Rishis, Saraswati liberates the life and being from falsehood, weakness and
limitation and opens to it the doors of the supreme felicity.
January 29th – Readings
from AIM:
Tantra, the
worship of Shakti
1. Hymn to the Goddess: This is a very
beautiful hymn on adoration of the Goddess Mother from Tantric compilation.
Mother Goddess as the very substance of the whole universe including Brahma,
Vishnu, and Shiva who creates, preserves and destroys.
She is the primordial cause of the worlds who
is ever youthful with full of tenderness and beyond description even by the
Vedas.
2. The Philosophy and the Principle behind
Tantra: In Tantric philosophy Prakriti is the main principle and the
Will-in-Power , executive in the universe. It was by learning and applying the
intimate secrets of this will –in –Power , its method, its Tantra, the Tantric
Yogin pursued the aims of his discipline.
Vedanta and Tantra: Two sides of the One Truth.
While Vedanta deals with the principles and essentials of the divine Knowledge,
Tantra deals with forms and processes and Organised powers. It believes that only the “FORCE OF THE
MOTHER” is keeping the whole universe, kicking and alive.
The two paths of Tantra: They are right-hand path
and left hand path, Dakshina Marga and Vama Marga. It is way of knowledge and
the way of Ananda. But these methods distorted over the time to the obscuration
of principles, deformation of symbols and a fall.
The Central Tantric Conception: In the central
Tantric conception, Shakti is considered the sole effective force of all
attainment. In Vedantic concept, She is the power of Maya, and has to be
liberated from Her clutches to attain the silent Purusha. In Integral
conception Conscious-Soul is the Lord, the Nature-Soul is His executive energy.
Purusha in action is creation and the Ananda of the becoming.
Worshipping the Woman as goddess: Feminine
principle found in the living personality is the entire presence of the world
supporting maternal soul of the Divinity. The Devi with all her aspects,
”kalas”, is there in the Woman. In Tantra it is said a Woman is equal to a Guru
and should be worshipped.
I am reminded how a lot of Indian communities
have a ceremony to worship and feed women and young girls before any major
celebration like wedding or thread ceremony!
February
5th – Readings from AIM:
Read first two
paragraphs from Discovering the Vedas.
The Age of Mysteries
This passage talks about
how men of this era of Mysteries, focused on the deeper knowledge and self -knowledge, brought about the practices
and rites of religion. They established symbols. It is interesting to know that
the age of Mysteries brought about the quest to know about the one’s own deeper
self and the profounder world knowledge.
To Know Thyself was the
highest spiritual need. It took different forms in different countries like
Orphic in Greece, Magi in Persia etc....In India to know the ever pervading
Atman is the purpose of human birth.
Another preoccupation
for them was to systemise the occult knowledge to bring mastery over the
physical world and physical things.
Vedas are the creations of an
intuitive Age of mankind.
Veda, then is the
creation of an age anterior to our intellectual philosophies. The wisest then
depended on inner experience; their aim was illumination, not logical
conviction, their ideal the inspired seer not the accurate reason seeker. No
Rishi composed or put rhythm to the hymns. The divine hymn came vibrating out
of the infinite to the inner audience of the man who was fit for impersonal
knowledge. It was Drsti and Sruti , (sight and hearing) which had the
revelatory knowledge and contents of inspiration.
February 12th
– Readings from Questions and Answers, Book 8:
We read the following question and
its answer from page 189 (20th June 1956)
of the book.
Mother, if the heart can be the
means of a more direct knowledge, what is the role of the intellect as an
intermediary of knowledge?
Mother replied as follows:
As an intermediary, did you say?
For the true role of the mind is the
formation and organization of action. The mind has a formative and organizing
power, and it is that which puts the different elements of inspiration in
order, for action, for organizing action. And if it would only confine itself
to that role, receiving inspirations – whether from above or from the mystic
centre of the soul – and simply formulating the plan of action – in broad
outline or in minute detail, for the smallest things in life or the great
terrestrial organizations – it would amply fulfil its function.
It is not an instrument of
knowledge.
But it can use knowledge for action,
to organise action. It is an instrument of organization and formation, very
powerful and very capable when it is well developed…………………..
These are the two uses of the mind;
it is a controlling force, an instrument of control, and it is a power of
organization. That is its true place.
-
Compiled by Rama, Krishnamurthy, Jayalakshmi
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