July 23rd and July 30th – Rig Veda and
Savitri
Jared Quek is back
with us with penetrating insights gained from his Rig Veda studies at Oxford as
well as from the weekly meets at Sri Aurobindo Society in London. He has
initiated a new delightful twist to our ‘Secrets of Veda’ sessions nudging us
to comb passages of Savitri to unearth the hidden links to Rig Veda. We were
presented with the Rig Veda Manadala 1, Sukta 1 on Agni, of course with
one set of Sri Aurobindo’s translations among the 14 or so he had compiled; the
same sheet also displayed a few passages from Savitri Book 2, Conto 12, ‘The
Heavens of the Ideal’.
Agni-Fire-Flame takes
on numerous significant roles such as the aspect of sacrifice, Divine Will,
Chief Priest/controller/summoner/Protector/Supporter/ Enjoyer of the offerings
and much, much more. Krishnamoorthy uncle read a short passage from Vishnu
Sahasranamam and its translation closely reflecting these roles of Agni in
Yagna (offering). In fact, Agni takes on Transcendal, Universal and Individual
aspects.
“Agni
is at once a fire of aspiration, a fire of purification, a fire of Tapasya, a
fire of transformation” Sri Aurobindo
If we trace the origin
of pure flame, we reach the heart of Divine Mother’s Love; this is explained by
Mother with respect to the following lines from Savitri
“The great stars burn
with my unceasing fire
And life and death are
both its fuel made.
Life only was my blind
attempt to love:
Earth saw my struggle,
heaven my victory (Savitri, Book 10, Conto 3)
… it is the principle of Love that is
transformed into flame and finally into light. It isn’t the principle of Light
that is transformed into flame when it materializes: it’s the flame that is
transformed into light.
The
great stars give light because they burn; they burn because they are under the
effect of Love… ” (Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 6, September 8, 1965, pp.
235-238)
Aswapaty also feels
the flame discovery in the Divine Mother’s ‘House of the Spirit and the New
Creation’
“The great
world-rhythms were heart-beats of one Soul,
To feel was a
flame-discovery of God” (Savitri,
Book 3, Conto 3)
Coming back to the
passages from ‘The Heavens of the Ideal’ Conto Jared presented, Aswapaty is
continuing his journey on the “Mighty kingdoms of the Deathless Flame” with
several references to the common Vedic imagery such as Sacrifice, ‘Altar Mind’,
Priests, ‘Day and Dusk’, ‘Illumined Might’ (Hero Power or consciousness force),
Ascending Force and the list continues.
We also discussed
about the infinite possibilities and the complex nature of the experience of
Divine delight; Jared highlighted that this experience aspect should not be
confused with the multiple practical pathways which could be simple or
complicated. The experiences of Vedic Rishis were not intellectual but powerful
and concrete imagery of Transcendental powers. We were all encouraged to read
the 14-page introduction to the Secret of Vedas by Sri Aurobindo in ‘The
Doctrine of the Mystics” http://saccs.org.in/texts/sriaurobindo/-sa-doctrine-mystics.php
We also tried to
figure out some of the aspects of Savitri far beyond the view of Vedas.
Savitri’s most powerful pose with the transcendental vision of Victorious Truth
in front of the Lord of Death (Yama) came to mind. Krishna’s Vishwaroopa
Darshan to Arjuna was Universal (Overmental) vision with both positive and
negative aspects shown to address the developmental needs of the vital Man; whereas, Savirti’s integral
transcendental vision, as an incarnation of Divine Mother, sees no evil and
considers even Death as her deputy God serving a Divine purpose – during the
transition period until the immortal Super Man is born. It is the Marvel vision
of Sarvam Brahma. Savitri transforms Yama into being of Light in
the Everlasting Day.
This reminds us of how
Joss Brooks transformed the polluted Adayar river banks to a beautiful park in
his own humble way (reference to July 14th slide show at our
centre); negative is not opposite of positive; negative conceals what is
missing to make our view whole.
Savitri is revealed as
the Divine Flame and Divine Mother incarnation in infinite dimensions right
from the Symbol of Dawn, through the birth and growth of flame of Quest and
beyond victory over God of Death. Let us all spare some time to enjoy the five
poises of Savitri as portrayed by Sri Aurobindo as alluded to during our
discussions:
- The
prophetic vision given by Mother as a Boon to Aswapaty’s Yoga
- As
seen by Aswapaty’s subtle vision (Telepathy) when Savitri approaches him
in the palace
- Narad’s
Trikala Drishti when he sees Savitri on her return after meeting Satyavan
- An
amalgamated earthly and overmental Divine vision in the Symbol of Dawn
conto in the opening
- Transcendental
vision beyond Lord Krishna's Vishwaroopa
Darshan as the Divine Mother incarnation as
detailed above
Similarly, the Savitri
passages Jared presented from ‘The Heavens of the Ideal’ conto form just one
out of the several views Aswapaty reveals during his mystic voyage on the world
stairs; this part specifically reflects the traditional journey in timelessness
aspiring towards heaven or moksha shunning the challenges of earthly life. The
goal of our Integral Yoga is to make our earth a heaven calling for vertical
unification of Superconscient with Subconscient and horizontal unification of
Individual with the Universal. It emphasizes striving to go deeper within to
release the involved forces and through triple transformation bring down the
transcendental Shakti and Cosmic Prakriti powers to play ‘our role in the
whole’ - bringing out knowledge out of ignorance, beauty out of chaos and
dynamic delight out of pain/suffering. This process has been made simpler for
us through the untiring sacrifices of Sri Aurobindo and Divine Mother in
bringing down the Supramental Light, Force, Love and New Consciousness to our
Earth. Our Psychic flame can guide our accelerated progress enabling double
opening both below and above in us creating an Integral Flame (Agni) pathway to
progress beyond the clutches of fate, time and even death.
“Without
Agni the sacrificial flame cannot burn on the altar of the soul. That flame of
Agni is the seven-tongued power of the Will, a Force of God instinct with
Knowledge. This conscious and forceful will is the immortal guest in our
mortality, a pure priest and a divine worker, the mediator between earth and
heaven. It carries what we offer to the higher Powers and brings back in return
their force and light and joy into our humanity” Sri Aurobindo
August 6th – Reading from AIM: Mother and
Sri Aurobindo on themselves
We read beautiful passages of Mother on
Sri Aurobindo and Sri Aurobindo on the Mother. The key take away was:
"The Mother's consciousness and mine
are the same, the one Divine Consciousness in two, because that is necessary
for the play. Nothing can be done without her knowledge and force, without her
consciousness- if anybody feels her consciousness, he should know that I am
there behind it and if he feels me it is the same with hers. If a separation is
made like that ( I leave aside the turns which their minds so strongly put upon
these things), how can the Truth establish itself- for the Truth there is no
such separation. " - Sri Aurobindo.
August
13th - Questions and Answers 1956 by The Mother
The attendance
was thin with just 6 members. Mr. Krishnamurthy randomly selected page 88 and
the question to Sweet Mother appeared “What
does Sri Aurobindo mean by ‘a self-dynamising meditation’?”
We discussed the
aspect of ‘Sarvam Brahma’ and how He, The Supreme One seeks dynamic delight
through the infinite Many; how we can play the role in the whole through the
strings of our mind and song waves of our life both created out of the
knowledge coming out of the occult clay of seeming ignorance.
We also touched
on the Karma Yoga and Gnana Yoga aspects in relation to the dynamism of
meditation and as to how each and every act can be traced to reveal Brahman,
Divine Mother, Time-Space, Super Mind, Objective Truth, Subjective Truth, Mind,
Life, Materialization and dynamic delight of the Divine.
Then we read the
All revealing Mother’s answer. Self-Dynamising
meditation is a meditation that has the power of transforming your being. It is
a meditation which makes you progress, as opposed to static meditation which is
immobile and relatively inert, and which changes nothing in your consciousness
or in your way of being.
Generally, people don’t have a dynamic meditation.
When they enter into meditation—or at least what they call meditation— they
enter into a kind of immobility where nothing stirs, and they come out of it
exactly as they went in, without any change either in their being or in their
consciousness. And the more motionless it is, the happier they are. They could
meditate in this way for eternities, it would never change anything either in
the universe or in themselves. That is why Sri Aurobindo speaks of a dynamic
meditation which is exactly the very opposite. It is a transforming meditation.
I think it is the aspiration that should be different,
the attitude should be different. “Different way”—what do you mean by
“way”—(laughing) the way of sitting?... Not that? The inner way?
Yes. But for each one it is different. I think the
most important thing is to know why one meditates; this is what gives the
quality of the meditation and makes it of one order or another.
You may meditate to open yourself to the divine Force,
you may meditate to reject the ordinary consciousness, you may meditate to
enter the depths of your being, you may meditate to learn how to give yourself
integrally; you may meditate for all kinds of things. You may meditate to enter
into peace and calm and silence—this is what people generally do, but without
much success. But you may also meditate to receive the Force of transformation,
to discover the points to be transformed, to trace out the line of progress.
And then you may also meditate for very practical reasons: when you have a
difficulty to clear up, a solution to find, when you want help in some action
or other. You may meditate for that too.
I think everyone has his own mode of meditation. But
if one wants the meditation to be dynamic, one must have an aspiration for
progress and the meditation must be done to help and fulfil this aspiration for
progress. Then it becomes dynamic.
-
Ramadoss and Shailaja
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