Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore

Beauty

2011-12-28T15:57:00.002-08:00

The Beauty of tomorrow

The beauty that will express Divine Power.

- The Mother

Common Name: Chinese hibiscus
Botanical Name: Hibiscus rosa-sinensis
Spiritual Name: Beauty of Tomorrow

From the editor's desk

2011-12-28T15:57:00.001-08:00

Beauty is the theme of this first issue of our newsletter for 2012. It would be an interesting exercise to bring to mind how many times a day we encounter the word or idea of ‘beauty’, whether in speech, written words, songs and in thought or even in feelings and through the senses, silently. This will give us an indication of how often in a day we may be affiliated and associated with this phenomenon called beauty or with what intensity we feel beauty within us. But is it so important to live such an association? What could beauty possibly serve in our lives?

This newsletter throws some light on beauty in light of integral philosophy, and some possibilities of beauteous experiences in our own lives and around us and the greater good that beauty could serve. But before attending to any issues or questions on beauty, one needs to be intimately familiar with what beauty means in the psyche of each one of us. What do we hold as beautiful – this must then be the primary question that one ought to pose oneself. It takes some time to get to the root of this but it is worth trying. For in the attempt at coming to an understanding of what beauty means to oneself, one is made to delve into something about oneself, of the stuff that one is made out of. The determining factor could be a mental framework we carry with us, or something that pleases the heart or it could be one that makes one feel, “just good”. What makes one decide that something is or is not beautiful? Then there is another question worth pondering over…. Are there common objects or subjects of beauty that every human being would accept as beautiful? If yes, what would these be? And if no, can there be an ultimate beauty that one can aspire for or take as a standard against which to measure all other expressions of beauty?

Sri Aurobindo, in his vast wisdom, has presented beauty as an expression of Divine Ananda and explains that one is negated in the absence of the other or if not negated, than less able to be manifest with ease. He expresses also that there does exist the highest form of beauty that is able to be manifest on earth and that is Supramental Beauty. He categorically points out that beauty is an expression of the spirit and that in order to fathom beauty in anything at all, one would first have to penetrate into the spirit of that subject, since the seat of beauty is in the spirit.
How much of this high interpretation of the Indian Psyche fits into our common mould? What are the terms of references in our lives? What are the theoretical standpoints of beauty we subscribe to, or the philosophical standpoint that helps us to determine beauty where it exists?
Perhaps beauty is beyond all these mental complexities? Perhaps, as The Mother would have said, beauty is in simplicity? However, this beauty will have to be known integrally, for its fullest experience. The mind needs to know beauty and how it limits beauty within its mental frameworks. The heart will have to intimately feel beauty which it probably can when it lifts ingrained preferences, its likes and dislikes born out of a limited and limiting ego and the body will have to live beauty in its flesh and veins, in its very cells. Then can we know that we have integrally experienced beauty and move on and on, expanding the boundaries of what is beauty. Perhaps this can happen in a flash, when one knows one’s “secret self” which is again said to be All-Beauty, All-Goodness and All-Truth.
But again, these are mere words. Let’s turn the pages and direct some blunt questions to ourselves. Do we know beauty? Have we truly touched the body of beauty? Lived it? Only we can tell, each one of us, explicitly, in our own terms …..

Savitri

2011-12-28T15:56:00.006-08:00

A Nature lifted by a larger breath,
Plastic and passive to the all-shaping Fire,
Answers the flaming Godhead’s casual touch:
Immune from our inertia of response
It hears the word to which our hearts are deaf,
Adopts the seeing of immortal eyes
And, traveller on the roads of line and hue,
Pursues the spirit of beauty to its home.
Thus we draw near to the All-Wonderful
Following his rapture in things as sign and guide;
Beauty is his footprint showing us where he has passed,
Love is his heartbeat’s rhythm in mortal breasts,
Happiness the smile on his adorable face.

(Savitri, Book 2, Canto 2)

This greater life is enamoured of the Unseen:
It calls to some highest Light beyond its reach,
It can feel the Silence that absolves the soul;
It feels a saviour touch, a ray divine:
Beauty and good and truth its godheads are.

(Savitri, Book 2, Canto 6)

Then in the process of evolving Time
All shall be drawn into a single plan,
A divine harmony shall be earth’s law,
Beauty and Joy remould her way to live:
Even the body shall remember God.

(Savitri, Book 11, Canto 1)

Question of the month

2011-12-28T15:56:00.005-08:00

Why dost thou recoil from a mask? Behind its odious, grotesque or terrible seemings Krishna laughs at thy foolish anger, thy more foolish scorn or loathing and thy most foolish terror.

Q: Is it only our mental conception that sees grotesque and odious things, or are they really as we see them? And the same applies to beauty, doesn’t it?

A: The Mother: It is certain that in the present state of the physical world, appearances are still very deceptive; physical beauty is not always the sign of a beautiful soul, and an ugly or grotesque body may conceal a genius or a resplendent soul.

But for one who has more inner sensitivity, appearances are no longer deceptive and he can perceive the ugliness hidden beneath a pretty face and the beauty concealed beneath a mask or ugliness.

There are also cases, and these are becoming more and more numerous, where the appearance reveals the inner reality which then becomes discernible to all.

(The Mother, ‘On Thoughts and Aphorisms’ Volume 10, ‘Collected Works of The Mother’, Centenary Edition, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1977)

The Mother’s Prayers

2011-12-28T15:56:00.001-08:00

In the world of forms a violation of Beauty is as great a fault as a violation of Truth in the world of ideas. For Beauty is the worship Nature offers to the supreme Master of the universe; Beauty is the divine language in forms. And a consciousness of the Divine which is not translated externally by an understanding and expression of Beauty would be an incomplete consciousness.

But true Beauty is as difficult to discover, to understand and above all to live as any other expression of the Divine; this discovery and expression exacts as much impersonality and renunciation of egoism as that of Truth or Bliss. Pure Beauty is universal and one must be universal to see and recognise it.

O Lord of Beauty, how many faults I have committed against Thee, how many do I still commit. Give me the perfect understanding of Thy Law so that I may not again fail to keep it. Love would be incomplete without Thee, Thou art one of its most perfect ornaments, Thou art one of its most harmonious smiles. At times I have misunderstood Thy role, but in the depths of my heart I have always loved Thee; and the most arbitrary and radical doctrines could not extinguish the fire of worship which, from my childhood, I had vowed to Thee.

Thou art not at all what a vain people think Thee to be, Thou art not at all attached exclusively to this or that form of life: it is possible to awaken Thee and make Thee shine in every form; but for that one must have discovered Thy secret. . . .

O Lord of Beauty, give me the perfect understanding of Thy Law, so that I may no longer fail to keep it, so that Thou mayst become in me the harmonious consummation of the Lord of Love.

- The Mother (29th June, 1917)

I glimpsed the Apsaras bathing in the pools

2011-12-28T15:52:00.000-08:00

I glimpsed the Apsaras bathing in the pools
And saw the wood-nymphs peering through the leaves;

Animated cartoons depict these celestial beings, fairies, apsaras, wood-nymphs, or whatever we might call them, in a setting of great harmony and beauty either playing with flowers, butterflies or birds. The creative world of artists, poets, painters, and to a great extent, small children, are familiar with this world where “apsaras roam” and play. (it might be difficult to encounter them in shopping malls or construction sites!) We are not able to tune in to this beautiful world or glimpse the Apsaras bathing in the pools as Satyavan did, as we live too much in our mental being and our vibrational frequency does not tune in with this wonderful world. However there was a time when there was an earthly paradise which was ‘simple, luminous, uncomplicated”. The Mother has described this earthly paradise which existed in earth’s history where there was perfect harmony without any perversion or distortion.

In her own words “I remember there was certainly a moment in earth’s history when there existed a kind of earthly paradise, in a sense that it was a perfectly harmonious and natural life; that is to say, the manifestation of the mind was in accord, was still in complete accord with the ascending march of Nature and totally harmonious, without perversion and distortion. This is the first stage of mind’s manifestation in material forms.”

A godlike packed intensity of sense
Made it a passionate pleasure even to breathe;
All sights and voices wove a single charm.
The life of the enchanted globe became
A storm of sweetness and of light and song,
A revel of colour and of ecstasy,
A hymn of rays, a litany of cries: (‘Savitri’, Book Four, Canto One)

As Sri Aurobindo concludes in this beautiful passage “All Nature was at beauty’s festival”. Why is it that the world we live in now has changed so dramatically with all the perversions and distortions? The Mother was asked these questions: How long did it last? How was this world, and if it existed, where did it exist? She pointed to the Indian Ocean, first to the west of Ceylon and India and then to the east, between Ceylon and Java, but she added that such a place does not exist now as it was swallowed by the sea.

The Mother recollects “I have a memory of a life in which the body was perfectly adapted to its natural environment and the climate adapted to the needs of the body, the body to the needs of the climate. Life was wholly spontaneous and natural, just as a more luminous and more conscious animal life would be; but there were none of the complications and distortions that the mind brought in later in the course of its development. I have the memory of that life- I had it, I relived it when I became conscious of the life of the earth as a whole”

This world of “imperishable beatitudes, the moments of early awakenings and divinity” are described in these thrilling lines of ‘Savitri’:

Here upon earth are early awakenings,
Moments that tremble in an air divine,
And grown upon the yearning of her soil
Time’s sun-flowers gaze at gold Eternity:
There are the imperishable beautitudes.
A million lotuses swaying on one stem,
World after coloured and ecstatic world
Climbs towards some far unseen ephiphany. (‘Savitri’, Book Two, Canto Twelve)

However this earthly paradise did not last long. With the progress of evolution the “mind began to develop in itself, for itself, that all the complications of distortions began.” The Mother points out that the old traditions of the story of Genesis symbolically talked of such a moment in earth’s history. This paradise, as The Mother recollected, must have been exceedingly beautiful, spontaneous and close to Nature. During our trip to Java some years ago, I was wondering if this paradise the Mother talked of could be submerged beneath the sea there somewhere?

The Mother has said that if one has a poetic or artistic consciousness and if you love harmony and beauty you can build a world like this in your imagination , she called this “telling stories to oneself and… It is not at all a telling with words, in one’s head: it is a going away to this place which is fresh and pure, building up a wonderful story there. And if you know how to tell yourself a story in this way… this story will be realized in your life…The dreams of childhood are the realities of mature age. (K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar, ‘On The Mother- The Chronicle of a Manifestation and Ministry’).

Let us join Satyavan in exploring this wonderful world and hear the “strange voices cross the ether’s waves”, “the happy faces which looked from ray and flame” and “glimpse the Apsaras bathing in the pools and wood –nymphs peering through the leaves;”

The day and dusk revealed to me hidden shapes;
Figures have come to me from secret shores
And happy faces looked from ray and flame.
I have heard strange voices cross the ether’s waves,
The centaur’s wizard song has thrilled my ear;
I glimpsed the Apsaras bathing in the pools
And saw the wood-nymphs peering through the leaves; (‘Savitri’, Book Five, Canto Three)

The next time you are in a beautiful garden or a harmonious setting in Nature, if you are emanating vibrations which tune in to these beings - harmony, beauty and silence - you might just catch them peering through the leaves or playing with the butterflies and inviting you to their world …

- Sudha.

The power of Beauty in daily Life

2011-12-28T15:51:00.001-08:00

Beauty is an attribute or quality that an object or a phenomenon may possess due to some arrangement of its forms or movements, possibly emanating from a deeper truth. However that is not all. This expression that we call beauty has to be in relationship between an object or subject with an experiencing being. All that pleases, elevates, engages in a subtle joy or otherwise, while evoking a sense of awe and wonder in the experiencing being can be attributed the term beauty. In this relationship, when a state of well-being and elevation of spirit is evoked in the experiencing being, then beauty is said to exist. Beauty is an expression in form and form here can be a physical entity, or an idea or a thought, a feeling, an act that naturally appeals to one, because it is attractive. Sri Aurobindo indicates, “Beauty is Ananda taking form—but the form need not be a physical shape. One speaks of a beautiful thought, a beautiful act, a beautiful soul.” (Aurobindo, 1999; 14 March 1933).

We have an innate draw in us towards that which is beautiful, just as we have a draw towards that which is delightful or lovely. Very often, we find that all is well till the mind, in its customary fashion intervenes, starts its interrogations and then the vital does its share of seizing the object of beauty for its sole enjoyment and possession. The movement that surges forth with eager, grabbing hands is quite apart from the movement of self-giving that beauty essentially is.

True artists, including poets, are those who are able to perceive beauty as it is and to express their comprehension of beauty on their chosen medium for the sake of art and the expression of beauty, perhaps in the best way and the highest form known to them. We perceive the making of this selfless appreciation in exquisite forms of sculpture and painting, prose, poetry or musical composition from all around the world.

It is said that the Psychic being responds to true, simple beauty as the lotus to the sun. Whenever beauty is recognized, the being seems to be in some state of elevation, feeling a subtle and deep inner experience. It has been categorically stated by The Mother and Sri Aurobindo in their writings that a constant contact with beauty has the power of kindling the psychic flame within and nurturing its growth. Lines from ‘Savitri’ speak of beauty thus (Aurobindo, 1970, p. 485):

Our soul from its mysterious chamber acts;
Its influence pressing on our heart and mind
Pushes them to exceed their mortal selves.
It seeks for Good and Beauty and for God; (‘Savitri’, Book Seven; Canto Two)

This can be the greatest Power of Beauty in our everyday lives then. For when the psychic flames forth, there is nothing that can stop the outpouring of love and devotion towards the Divine, in consecrating one’s entire existence at the Divine’s feet. When in contact with beauty, we inevitably sense a power previously latent, a power that transforms our state of being for that moment, if not integrally, at least in parts, but eventually towards that fulfillment. It is this transforming power of beauty that is intriguing.

Different ideas of Beauty

2011-12-28T15:50:00.002-08:00

In the world of relativities, can there be the highest form of beauty? How does one set the standard for what real beauty is? Maybe, with our measuring mind, there can never be an ultimate standard of beauty. Beauty may mean different things to different people. Perhaps something more than the mind or the heart can recognize or express real beauty? Let us take a look at ideas of beauty from a few angles.

Historian and philosopher Havell makes a comparison between the perception of beauty between the Western and Eastern mind. The Western mind, more steered towards a materialistic viewpoint, views beauty as inherent in certain forms of matter and not in others. There is suggestion of a definition of beauty that denotes something as beautiful according to some principles and some not as beautiful based on some other sets of principles.
Kai Hammermeister offers further insights into the Western idea of beauty from other thinkers, from the recent to the ancient ones. He illustrates Western approach to beauty as one that was “treated together with the ideas of the good and the true as one of the aspects of being ….. There was never much doubt in any philosopher’s mind that beauty is something praiseworthy and valuable”. Beauty was an “expression of the harmony of the cosmos” according to Plato, and Plotinus proclaimed that “the visible beauty of worldly things mirrored the divine beauty”. Kai traces out that the same approach was predominant in the Middle Ages. Beauty in objects, according to the 13th century thinker, Thomas Aquinas, was “luminous symbolizations of God’s glory” (Garcia-Rivera, Graves, & Neumann, 2009).
The Eastern idea of beauty, on the other hand, is steeped in subjectivity. Beauty is not inherent in form or matter; it belongs only to the spirit and is only expressed in the outer form and can therefore, only be apprehended by spiritual vision. Sri Aurobindo’s point on the spirit in this respect in ‘Foundations of Indian Culture’ further illustrates this notion of the spirit being the seat and source of beauty (Aurobindo, 1988):
“For the Indian mind form does not exist except as a creation of the spirit and draws all its meaning and value from the spirit. This characteristic attitude of the Indian reflective and creative mind necessitates in our view of its creations an effort to get beyond at once to the inner spirit of reality it expresses and see from it and not from outside.”
In Indian philosophy, there is a definite movement away from the employment of only the sensory organs and the subsequent experience of pleasure that defines beauty. Beauty, when seen does not stop short at pleasure, a lower form of enjoyment; it can evoke Ananda or bliss, a higher form of spiritual enjoyment of the essence of beauty. Sri Aurobindo pronounces that “Where there is Ananda, Beauty finds itself expressing with ease.” (Aurobindo, 1999).
In fact, in ‘Letters on Poetry, Literature and Art’ he writes “beauty is Ananda in manifestation; beyond manifestation beauty loses itself in Ananda or, you may say, beauty and Ananda become indistinguishably one.” (Aurobindo, 1999; 14 March 1933).

According to Sri Aurobindo’s vision, Beauty is an expression of the Divine in the physical. Though the expression is in the physical, the “principle and law of Beauty” is spiritual, something having its root and emerging from within…it is this that expresses itself outwardly on the form. On a similar vein, it is also then true that it is through an object or a subject of beauty that one can touch the inner truth of things, that some intimation of the inner spirit is known and works of beauty, such as Art and Literature thrive only towards this high aim (Aurobindo, 1999; 23 August 1933). What could then be the highest form of beauty? “Beauty is the special divine Manifestation in the physical, as Truth is in the mind, Love in the heart, Power in the vital. Supramental beauty is the highest divine beauty manifesting in Matter.” (Aurobindo, 1999; 19 February 1934).

The Power of Beauty

2011-12-28T15:50:00.001-08:00

What is so special about beauty then, that it is sought after incessantly, that makes it one remembered and that we so readily allow to become a part of ourselves, our consciousness? There is a power in beauty, as there is a power in love, a power in silence or in concentration. Beauty holds in it power, a kind of energy or capacity that is offered to us to be engaged in some kind of self-growth, even if momentarily, to be propelled forward on the wings of this power of beauty. Beauty evokes in us sensations of happiness, delight, joy, a strong sense of well-being and puts us in contact with some sort of movement within, an energy within, an energy creative, rejuvenating, therapeutic and even transformative. If we watch ourselves carefully when involved with an experience of beauty, we can sense a very strong vibration of gratitude that springs from a nameless fount within. This gratitude wells up towards the grace that brought the beauty to one’s attention. Beauty also evokes a sense of gratitude from within for the boon granted, with a humbling realization of a state of poverty that was there within before that experience of beauty was lived.

What is sensed as beautiful makes us stop a moment, arrested. All movements that were on the run, come to a standstill and we are drawn towards the object/subject of beauty. There is a concentration of attention on the object or subject of beauty, an inner engagement, and the mind is on standstill at least for seconds. This stilling of the mind itself, in an environment of well-being that beauty brings, can do wonders to our system. There is a meditative power in objects of beauty, as the being engages with them. This meditative quality is only possible when the being looks upon the object of beauty with a disinterest, appreciating it only for the sake of itself, and its quality of beauty, with a sort of detachment. Beauty transmits a sustaining energy. When one finds oneself surrounded by beauty there is felt an energy that can sustain one. Fatigue leaves and one is rejuvenated and charged with new energy to carry on with one’s daily tasks.

Most of all, beauty must emit a transformative power upon us as well. As one contemplates on objects of beauty, one’s psychic being is said to respond and come closer to the surface. This is marked by a certain happiness (if not Ananda itself), a certain glee that arises from deep within, a quiet joy. In this engagement sustained for a longer period of time in contemplation, in close association, something of the spirit behind the object of beauty communes with the spirit within the experiencer of beauty who is enjoying the object of beauty for its own sake. Our own senses yearn for the lovely and beautiful always because of the heightened sense of experience made possible by the contact and we seek beauty in our own self and existence, in Body, Mind and Vital. Therein is transformative Power.

Herein lies the supreme Power of Beauty in everyday life, its ability to transform our outlook, the way in which we think, feel and our aspiration for more and more of beauty. There is possible a contact with one’s Psychic or at least the vicinity of it or a chance to invoke it and bring it to the fore-front, in a shorter or longer period of time, today tomorrow or hereafter.

Daily encounters with Beauty

2011-12-28T15:49:00.001-08:00

We may choose to look at our normal life as mundane, ordinary, uneventful or as something eventful, with stimulating points of growth and progress at given moments of the day. When one looks at anything at all, and looks with a deeper vision that seeks out the spirit behind the object or the subject and the experience, then there is a possibility that life can become simple and extraordinary. Peaks of joy and bliss can be felt as the Divine glow is perceived in everything, event or object, thought or feeling or sensation … anything at all can become occasions that bring us closer to the highest we can fathom here and now, in whatever constitutes our being, in the presence of beauty.

Let us take a snapshot view of our everyday life. It begins with the opening of our eyes as consciousness rises to the surface being. The moment is even more precious if the hour of awakening happens to be the very hour of dawn. There is a beauty in the silence around us, as the phenomenal world around us is largely still awake or gradually awaking. There is a deep silence as of Gods asleep. In the depth of that silence, it becomes possible to listen to one’s own silence harboured within. The first splash of cold water on one’s face adds glory to the awakening day as we step out of drowse and with wide-eyed freshness, face life, only to embrace it. Then stepping outdoors, when luck is on one’s side, the eastern sky undergoes changes, and one almost perceives an artist at work, splashing colours of varied shades and hues and shaping a dawn that is at once a breathtaking joy to behold and the herald of the future to unfold in silence promises hidden within its folds. There is an intriguing beauty in the way the unknown is strewn across our path, with dawn casting its opening signature on the seal about to break.

Then there is Nature we are surrounded with, wild or tamed. When one looks closely at plants, behind their appearances there is a spirit of giving, just for its sake. They are made that way, just to give, and the flowers, their crowning glory, bear testimony to this giving, this self-offering. There is beauty in being aware of this. There is gratitude in the heart for being made aware of this. There is a joy that dances within to be gifted the nearness of all things green and there is an aspiration to always value Nature as she is offered to us. The play of little animals scurrying about, receiving prasad from the giving hands of plants and trees is an added occasion for joy. There is beauty in watching the harmony between the animals and the plants. There is no vengeful bickering there, there is a sweet and harmonious giving and taking, all for the joy of living, for existing. There is an immense beauty in this perception of the harmony in Nature. There is beauty in the way leaves fall from the trees, spent, used, their purpose fulfilled. There is a beauty in the way they fall with grace and self-giving, only to be embraced by the soft hands of the earth for the other lives to share and be sustained, for new life to begin. There is a beauty in this perception. There is beauty in the way the winds sweep across the earth, touching us gently, giving us sensations of hot and cold, brushing past trees, making the leaves move, rustle, producing soothing sounds that reach far in whispers. There is beauty too in the fiercest of hurricanes that blow across countries, at the way the strong winds scoop up waves after huge waves tossing them carelessly across the coast, thrashing rocks and sand and anything across it’s path. There is an immense beauty in coconut trees leaning under the weight of the force, giving in, without breaking, not confronting them; in huge trees being uprooted within seconds and thrown upon land, large, majestic, fallen. There is an awesome beauty in the encounter with the other side of Nature, the furious and the so called destructive. But here too, the dance of Mahakali prevails. There is destruction from which life regenerates, where renewal is assured. The eye that sees the wrath of Mahakali dancing on the chest of a blissful Shiva, withdrawn in Samadhi also sees Her immense love for her creations. This relationship perceived also seethes with the beauty of the Divine forces at work, in accordance to a higher Intelligence.

There are countless such encounters with beauty in everyday life that we may possibly come across. The fragrance of fresh flowers abloom in the garden throw us into a subtle world of ecstasy; A sincere and simple smile on an unknown face is beautiful and we return that gesture with gratitude. There is beauty in this. There in Power in this, the power that enables us to recognize our kinship with one and all and in that recognition to feel freedom, a freedom that uplifts one and enables one moment of growth? There is beauty in the dark clouds gathering at the edge of the horizon, brimming to the full, ready for a cloud burst and the subsequent showering of rejuvenating waters upon the earth. There is beauty in watching the falling rain drops and a greater beauty in watching the water eagerly seeping into parched earth, which equally eagerly absorbs the droplets into itself, both becoming one. There is a power in this beauty. A harmony is at work and the sky and the earth merge in strange ways. There is power in this and we realize the harmony in nature and we grow likewise, seeking that same harmony around ourselves and within. This beauty which kindles that flame of aspiration is powerful.

We meet a dear friend, or someone more than a friend, more than kin, with whom some soul connection looms though we cannot put our finger to it. Eyes meet and a depth is dug into our souls, and a smile speaks pages. There is beauty in this encounter and a power to inch our way inwards a little more.

Let’s now turn our attention to how we carry ourselves physically in our everyday lives. Is there beauty in a good posture? Is there beauty in the way we stand, walk, sit and rest? If there is, what are the aspects of this that gives beauty to the form? If there isn’t, then why not? And if there is beauty, how does it impact us? And if it doesn’t, why not? Anyone on the path of this yoga will have to become aware of himself, right to the details. These are some aspects of that detail. And if there is perfection in the way we carry ourselves, is this a sustainable perfection or is this perfection a fleeting appearance dictated by egoistic claims of vanity? Like this, we can encounter beauty or a lack of it in our being as well, in the way we speak, listen, eat and clothe.

The Soul in us tends towards the Beautiful, together with Love, Truth, Goodness, as Sri Aurobindo spells out in ‘The Synthesis of Yoga’. He also places the true place of Beauty and that is to interpret the Eternal (Aurobindo, 1997, p. 155):

“It (the soul) insists on Truth, on will and strength and mastery, on Joy and Love and Beauty, but on a Truth of abiding Knowledge that surpasses the mere practical momentary truth of the Ignorance, on an inward joy and not on mere vital pleasure,—for it prefers rather a purifying suffering and sorrow to degrading satisfactions,—on love winged upward and not tied to the stake of egoistic craving or with its feet sunk in the mire, on beauty restored to its priesthood of interpretation of the Eternal, on strength and will and mastery as instruments not of the ego but of the Spirit.”
It is soul-growth or the gradual definition of the psychic quality in us that beauty empowers. “It is the soul in us which turns always towards Truth, Good and Beauty, because it is by these things that it itself grows in stature; the rest, their opposites, are a necessary part of experience, but have to be outgrown in the spiritual increase of the being.” (Aurobindo, 1997, p. 632)

What can be more fitting than to conclude this exploration of beauty in everyday life with The Mother’s quotation:

Let beauty be your constant ideal.
The beauty of the soul
The beauty of sentiments
The beauty of thoughts
The beauty of the action
The beauty in the work
So that nothing comes out of your
Hands which is not an expression
Of pure and harmonious beauty.
And the Divine Help shall always
Be with you.
- The Mother.

- Jayanthy

Reference

Aurobindo, S. (1970). Savitri. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust.
Aurobindo, S. (1988). Foundations of Indian Culture (3rd, Revised ed.). Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry.
Aurobindo, S. (1997). Synthesis of Yoga (Vol. Volumes 33 and 34). Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust.
Aurobindo, S. (1999). Letters on Poetry, Literature and Art. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry.
Garcia-Rivera, A., Graves, M., & Neumann, C. (2009). BEAUTY IN THE LIVING WORLD
Journal of Religion and Science, 44(2), 20.

Thoughts on center activities

2011-12-28T15:48:00.000-08:00

11 Dec 2011,
Reading of excerpts from ‘Lights on Yoga—With The Mother’s Comments’

After the Opening Meditation, everyone present at The Centre formed a small circle to read excerpts from the book ‘Lights on Yoga—With The Mother’s comments’. We were to read the questions and answers from Page 67. It is always nice to read the questions, pause for a while, reflect on the questions, exchange our thoughts and ideas with each other only to see the varied ways in which the human mind perceives the same question. Interestingly, the questions we had in front of us that day were innocent questions asked with a child-like candor.

“Sweet Mother, here it is written: “This liberation, perfection, fullness too must not be pursued for our own sake, but for the sake of the Divine.” But isn’t the sadhana we do done for ourselves?”

This triggered an intriguing discussion of the connection between the Self and the Divine. It is fascinating to see how each of us has our own way of interpreting and assimilating ideas. After sharing these ideas with one another, we set out to see what answer The Mother had given for the same question. It is to be noted that The Mother always says we need to put the Self (the egoistic self) out of the frame when we do any work for The Divine. In order to understand the answer to the fullest, we read it aloud and re-read it in an attempt to absorb the essence of it completely. We went on to read the next 3 questions and answers too, trying to absorb as much as possible from the answers given by the Mother.
- Preethi

Along the way

2011-12-28T15:47:00.000-08:00

“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.
It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning a lion wakes up.
It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle.
When the sun comes up, you better start running.”
---An African proverb

There could not be anything more apt to describe the 4th of December, 2011—the day when a lot of people in Singapore were all set to run the Standard Chartered Marathon 2011, and a few of us from the Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore had gathered for our monthly walk at Fort Canning Park. Fort Canning is a small hill and history has it that Sir Stamford Raffles had his first residence built atop the hill. What a lovely choice of location for a house! The unique blend of lush greenery, historical relics and expansive lawns makes Fort Canning stand out from the rest of the parks in Singapore. The Gate of Fort Canning is a magnificent structure with inconspicuous stairways that lead to bunkers on the sides. There were plenty of boards on the side of the pathways with crisp bits of information to enlighten us about the significance of the various features of the park. We found a couple of 9-pound cannons on the way. Fortunate to be part of a generation where these are mere relics and of no more importance, there was a silent sense of gratitude amidst us. Along the way, we did catch up with each other, making the walk every bit more special with the sharing of thoughts, experiences and ideas. Moments like these make us realize that there is so much to learn from each person around us after all. And this is what makes life and enchanting and enriching experience.

After traversing the entire path, we all gathered for a small round of Mantras and OM chanting--The perfect end to the perfect walk at Fort Canning. We then embarked on our journey to the Ganeshs where we were heartily greeted by family members for a soulful Collective Meditation and a good Sunday brunch.

We have been blessed with twelve lovely walks in the year 2011. With the Divine Grace, we shall have all this and more in the coming year. A very Happy New Year to one and all!
- Preethi

From the Editor's desk

2011-11-29T19:54:00.003-08:00

The month of December observes Sri Aurobindo’s Mahasamadhi on the 5th. It is also a month we have chosen to celebrate the life of Amal Kiran, one of Sri Aurobindo’s foremost disciples. He left his physical body this year, on the 29th of June, at the age of 106. Amal Kiran was born on 25th November 1904 as Kaikhushru Dhunjibhoy Sethna. It was in December, at the age of 23, in 1927 that Amal Kiran joined the ashram in Pondicherry. Three years later, on 3rd September 1930, upon his request, Sri Aurobindo named him Amal Kiran, or The Clear Ray. This name, coming from the master, must have been an impetus to its actual realisation to any extent in a human soul in the guise of K D Sethna.

Before his advent into ashram life, Amal Kiran was already an erudite scholar of letters, winning many prestigious prizes, awards and a scholarship. In the ashram, he devoted himself to Sri Aurobindo and The Mother with unreserved fervour and remained one of their truest children till the end. Known as a multi-faceted genius, he has produced about 50 scholarly writings and was the editor of Mother India. Through some of his writings one can sense the immense devotion he had for Sri Aurobindo and The Mother and the crystal clear knowledge of the purpose of his life upon earth. His sole preoccupation in life seemed to have been his seeking for a transformation of his being through opening himself to the light of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo. Here is an excerpt from his writings that gives us a taste of the kind of self-consecration his life was: “…There is one single wish running through all the years—and that is to be open more and more to the transforming grace of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. On each birthday it gets an extra spurt.”
He entwined everyone with this love we may call impersonal love, the highest form of love that is bound not but reached far into the secret spaces within. Strangely, all who speak of him posthumously speak of him with light in their eyes and joy. This must be the result of the mark he had left on people who came to know him. The late Jugal Kishore Mukherjee had remarked, “K.D.S.’s shining complexion, his delicate sensitive face, two eyes radiating a keen and kind glint of intelligence and a sweet smile as innocent as that of a child, cannot but captivate the hearts of the visitors.” (http://overmanfoundation.wordpress.com/2011/06/29/the-passing-of-amal-kiran-alias-k-d-sethna/)

Perhaps, above all qualities, his sense of humour puts a stamp on his personality as one who finds amusement in the play of God, with his life the playing-field. In a recent conversation, Sudha-di, an ashramite and a close friend of Amal-da, shared with delight some of her personal encounters with his humour:
• Amal Kiran had received a phone call. At the other end the voice queried, “Is this Auro-Food” (a wrong call). Pat came the reply from Amal Kiran, “No this is Amal-Drink.”
• Amal Kiran had injured his hip and was in traction and he had to keep himself quite still. Sudha-di queried,” You must be feeling like the immobile Brahman.” And with a chuckle he replied, “Fortunately not the motionless one!”

• His close friend Raja had brought his 3-year old daughter to see him. The child stood before Amal Kiran in awe and blurted out in Tamil, “He looks like God!” Amal Kiran wanted to know what she had said and her father translated. Upon hearing this, Amal Kiran patted her chubby cheeks and said something to the effect, “I haven’t lived in vain then!”

Let us turn a few leaves and take a peek into the life of this inspiring gem, a colossus amongst sadhaks.

Savitri

2011-11-29T19:54:00.001-08:00

The gulf between dream-truth, earth-fact was crossed,
The wonder-worlds of life were dreams no more;
His vision made all they unveiled its own:

(Savitri, Book 2, Canto 3)

These are high forerunners, the heads of Time,
The great deliverers of earth-bound mind,
The high transfigurers of human clay,
The first-born of a new supernal race.
The incarnate dual Power shall open God’s door,
Eternal supermind touch earthly Time.
The superman shall wake in mortal man
And manifest the hidden demigod
Or grow into the God-Light and God-Force
Revealing the secret deity in the cave.

(Savitri, Book 11, Canto 1)

A wide God-knowledge poured down from above,
A new world-knowledge broadened from within:
His daily thoughts looked up to the True and One,
His commonest doings welled from an inner Light.

(Savitri, Book 1, Canto 3)

Question of the month

2011-11-29T19:53:00.000-08:00

Q: Could you say something about your birth? What is its aim and object?

A: Amal Kiran: My aim and object is always to be near Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. I have to manifest whatever qualities I have absorbed from them.

Q: Now you are entering your centenary. Your friend, Nirodbaran-da, has completed his centenary. What does this centenary mark for the development and progress of the humanity?

A: Amal Kiran: Oh! … How one can be a disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. It meant to show that.

Q: Yes, it seems very important. Does it mean to realise Their ideal and all that They have said?

A: Amal Kiran: Yes, as far as that is possible.

(From a pamphlet – ‘Wonder No More, Amal-Kiran at 100’, issued by Aditi-Utsang, Sri Ma-Sri Aurobindo Purna-yoga Kendra, Jalada, Dist. Balasore ( Orissa) on the occasion of Amal-Kiran ‘s 100th Birthday on 25.11.2003.)
Amal Kiran: Won’t you tell me something to which I can always turn for help and contact during my stay in Bombay?

Sri Aurobindo: Remember the Mother and, though physically far from her, try to feel her with you and act according to what your inner being tells you and act according to what your inner being tells you would be her Will. Then you will be best able to feel her presence and mine and carry our atmosphere around you as a protection and a zone of quietude and light accompanying you everywhere.

(‘Amal-Kiran, Poet and Critic’, Edited by Nirodbaran and R.Y. Deshpande, Sri Aurobindo Ashram , Pondicherry)

Forerunner of the Divine Word – by C.V. Devan Nair

2011-11-29T19:43:00.000-08:00

[We present here some extracts of an article written by the late C V Devan Nair, former chairman of Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore and also former President of Singapore]

I love and admire Amal Kiran, not only for himself, but for the entire context of space , time and atmosphere which engendered so variegated a flower. And for the fact that I personally came to know this phenomenon and to partake of some at least of its hues and scents. I deliberately use the plural in this regard, simply because this particular bloom is so multi-hued that one does not know where to begin.

In any case, I am not qualified to speak about the multifarious achievements of a man who can only be described as a polymath. I forget the details, but I recall that even the Mother once had occasion to speak to Sri Aurobindo about her discovery that Amal was so amazingly knowledgeable. Pose a riddle, and he will produce exactly the right rabbit from an inexhaustible hat. He had even remembered, it seems, the title of some western opera, which Mother had forgotten.

Sri Aurobindo knew perfectly well what he was doing when he named K.D.Sethna Amal Kiran- The Clear Ray. For among those who responded to the rhythmic footfalls of Divinity, Amal is surely the greatest, if one goes by the collection of his poetry so aptly titled: The Secret Splendour.

With his innate poetic genius, his phenomenal memory of everything he reads, and an extraordinary sensitiveness to ever-so-subtle nuances of shade and significance, Amal proved to be an uncommonly clear conduit for the Truth-burdened word and phrase. Indeed, Sri Aurobindo’s comments on several of his poems, as on those of Nirodbaran, Dilip and others constitute, in themselves, a practical education with regard to the shape and thrust of the Future Poetry.

The prolific polymath who Amal Kiran is, discoursing learnedly on the principles of modern physics; probing into India’s historical past; is at once also a searching literary critic, a formidable debater on a variety of subjects, a devastating critic of literary or metaphysical poseurs and know-alls; and a Bhakta who yearns for the Divine Beloved. Who else but a Bhakta could have written This Errant Life?

This errant life is dear although it dies;
And human lips are sweet though they but sing
Of stars estranged from us; and youth’s emprise
Is wondrous yet, although an unsure thing.

Sky-lucent Bliss untouched by earthiness!
I fear to soar lest tender bonds decrease.
If Thou desirest my weak self to outgrow
Its mortal longings, lean down from above,
Temper the unborn light no thought can trace,
Suffuse my mood with a familiar glow.
For’tis with mouth of clay I supplicate:
Speak to me heart to heart words intimate,
And all Thy formless glory turn to love
And mould Thy love into a human face.

If Radha saw divine Love moulded in Krishna’s face, why not Amal Kiran who saw it moulded in Sri Aurobindo’s? Anyway, here is Sri Aurobindo’s own comment on the poem:

“A very beautiful poem, one of the very best you have written. The last six lines, one may say even the last eight, are absolutely perfect. IF you could always write like that, you would take your place among English poets and no low place either. I consider they can rank-these eight lines- with the very best in English poetry”.

No mean, praise, coming from so high a source! One more of Amal’s poems, this time on Sri Aurobindo, titled The Master:

Bard rhyming earth to paradise
Time-conqueror with prophet eyes,
Body of upright flawless fire,
Star-strewing hands that never tire-
In Him at last earth-gropings reach
Omniscient calm, omnipotent speech,
Love omnipresent without ache!

Does still a stone that cannot wake
Keep hurling through your mortal mind
Its challenge at the epiphany?
If you would see this blindness break,
Follow the heart’s humility-
Question not with your shallow gaze
The Infinite focused in that face,
But, when the unshadowed limbs go by,
Touch with your brow the white footfall:
A rhythm profound shall silence all!

When I first read this poem, a profound gratitude, welled up in my deepest heart. I, who had greatly regretted not having had Sri Aurobindo’s personal darshan, felt that regret almost disappear. It was as if Amal’s lines gave me the much-coveted darshan of the Lord, and I was reduced to a trembling bundle of ecstasy. Thank you, dear Amal, thank you!

No piece on Amal would be complete without reference to his wit and humour. For if he was formidably cerebral in his prose writings, deeply intuitive in his poetry, in his humour he went unabashedly for the belly, as I came to know personally.

How gently, how wittily, how vividly he had once suggested a correction to an atrocious verbal slip on my part in an article I had sent him for Mother India. I had referred to “persons turning their noses down” on things they deemed beneath them. Amal’s corrective response caused me to laugh till my belly ached. He wrote: “As far as I know, elephants are the only animals which can turn their noses up and down and sideways.” And with what joy I made the necessary correction!

Finally, I will acknowledge that Amal himself might not know. It was largely thanks to his sympathy, and his enlightening words of encouragement that I was able to recover from what at the time had seemed to me a personal calamity. It turned out to be a vast liberation instead.

One more thing I need very much to say to Amal in this commemorative volume: “Carry on, dear Amal, in our midst. You have given so much, as only you can. You can give more. I would like to be around to contribute to the festschrift volume to observe your hundredth birthday as well. I will only be a mere stripling of eighty-one then.”

(This extract of C.V. Devan Nair’s article is taken from ‘Amal Kiran, Poet and Critic’, edited by Nirodbaran and R.Y. Deshpande. Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Due to a lack of space we regret not carrying the article in its entirety. Due apologies.)

Albert Einstein’s letter to Amal Kiran

2011-11-29T19:41:00.001-08:00

Coming of the disciples – Amal Kiran

2011-11-29T19:40:00.001-08:00

Almost a year earlier, K. D. Sethna had come from Bombay. A brilliant Philosophy graduate, he had done desultory Yoga, and was researching on "The Philosophy of Art" for his M.A. In the meantime, having bought a new pair of shoes wrapped in an old newspaper, he returned home and saw an article on "The Ashram of Aurobindo Ghose" in that paper. His mind was suddenly made up: Pondicherry would be his place of sadhana - what he had bought must have served as the shoes of a pilgrim! He arrived in December 1927 and was received by Purani who had been the link in the correspondence between the Ashram and this newcomer. On entering the room of Purani (who was staying then in the Guest House, in the room once occupied by Sri Aurobindo), Sethna happened to look through the north-facing window and caught a glimpse of the Mother walking on the roof-terrace of the Meditation House, and he said to himself, "She is very beautiful!" A meeting with her was arranged, and he told her that, having seen everything of life, he now wanted nothing except God. The Mother was amused and said sweetly:

“Oh, at 23 you have seen all of life? Don't be in such a hurry, you must take your time. Stay here, look about, see how things are, see if they suit you and then take a decision.”

Although a bit disappointed, he agreed - but the Mother's eyes! What eyes! What radiance!

“When I was talking with her I felt as if from her face and eyes some silver radiance were coming out... I could not make out how this was happening ¬ nor could I doubt that this was happening. Apart from this impression of light, there was another - something out of the ancient Egypt.”

He stayed on for the Darshan of 21 February 1928, - and forgot about his M.A. dissertation. The Darshan strengthened his desire to do the Integral Yoga, and the Mother accepted him. There was of course no question of an interview with Sri Aurobindo, and like others in the same predicament, he too had to communicate through letters. "I went on writing to Sri Aurobindo," he acknowledges, "and all types of questions I used to put to him ... bombarding him with queries. Most of my questions were either philosophical or literary - because, though I had my own share of common difficulties, the real difficulty at the beginning was my Westernised intellect." Sri Aurobindo replied promptly and sometimes at length, and these letters were an amalgam of information, instruction, elucidation and initiation, and they were to grow into gorgeous epistolary treasures and significantly enrich the Aurobindonian canon. From an early part of his stay, Sethna sported the spiritual name of "Amal Kiran" (Amal for short), which Sri Aurobindo had given him. The word meant "The Clear Ray", and fitted his ardent and flame-bright nature.

It was Amal's particular destiny to correspond at length with Sri Aurobindo on the great 'work in progress', the epic ‘Savitri’, and as good as coax the poem to come out into the open. After a good deal of astute strategy and clever tactics on Amal's part, his efforts were rewarded on 25 October 1936 - "one of the most important days, if not the most important, of my life here" -- for, in a letter written on that day, Sri Aurobindo gave 16 lines from the exordium (Book One, canto I) beginning with the memorable

It was the hour before the Gods awake.

as an example of possible "overhead" poetry. But ‘Savitri’ was to be a carefully guarded secret for another ten years, and even in the Ashram itself very few knew anything authentic about it. There was some random speculation, of course, but that was about all till from the middle forties onwards the poem started appearing, first in fascicles, then in two volumes; and finally in 1954 the entire work came out in a single volume with Sri Aurobindo's letters to Amal on the poem printed at the end.

(Chapter 17, ‘On The Mother - The Chronicle of a Manifestation and Ministry' by K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar. Reprinted (third edition) 2004, Sri Aurobindo International Centre Of Education, Pondicherry.)

“From the very beginning of my stay in the Ashram I have sought to quicken to the presence of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother from the core of my heart… An inner urge…has yearned for an Unknown surpassing every object of my senses and my thought and making nothing worth while unless that Unknown were first found… There is one single wish running through all the years—and that is to be open more and more to the transforming grace of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. On each birthday it gets an extra spurt."
- Amal Kiran

The Secret of the Veda- A First Attempt: Commentaries or Bhāṣhyās on the ‘Vedās’ (contd.)

2011-11-29T19:38:00.000-08:00

Commentaries or Bhāṣhyās on the ‘Vedās’ (contd.)
A tribute to Vedic Riṣhis:

“The Vedic Riṣhis may not have yoked the lightning to their chariots, nor weighed sun and star, nor materialised all the destructive forces in Nature to aid them in massacre and domination, but they had measured and fathomed all the heavens and earths within us, they had cast their plummet into the inconscient and the subconscient and the superconscient; they had read the riddle of death and found the secret of immortality; they had sought for and discovered the One and known and worshipped Him in the glories of His light and purity and wisdom and power.” – Thus spoke Sri Aurobindo, recounting the discoveries of these sages of ancient India who, at the dawn of ages, in sublime verses sang the hidden splendours of man and the odyssey of the soul.
T.V. Kapāli Sāstry - (1886-1953 CE):
Born in a family which, for generations, excelled in Sanskrit scholarship, in the upāsana of Sri Vidya and in the observance of rituals and ceremonials, he was taught, not only to chant the Vedās in the traditional way but also the use of mantrās in rituals. Being a multifaceted personality, he excelled in whatever field he worked. Following the trail of his masters, first of Vāsiṣhṭha Gaṇapati Muni and then of Sri Aurobindo, he unearthed many a truth concealed within the cryptic utterances of the Veda. He has played a significant part in reinterpreting the Vedās to us, along the lines of Sri Aurobindo. There are many readers who respect the spiritual view developed by Sri Aurobindo, but doubt that the spiritual interpretation can be given for all the 10,000 verses. Kapāli Sāstry took up this challenge and has given the deep meaning of the first 1400 verses.
After a life-long study, verification in personal inner life and confirmation in other branches of Indian Wisdom, he began writing his commentary on the Rig Veda in his 60th year (1945). In his Bhūmika, he presents his approach, deriving from ancient riṣhis like Yāska, medieval teachers like Madhvāchārya and modern seers like Sri Aurobindo. His great work ‘Siddhānjana’, commentary on the first Ashtaka of Rig Veda, explores the hitherto neglected psychological and spiritual sides of the ancient hymns. He works out the psychological interpretation guided by the principles of mystic symbolism of the Vedic riṣhis in his verse-by-verse explanation. Being regarded himself as a Tāntrik, he finds astonishing echoes of the Veda in the Tantra, in thought and practice. One of his great contributions, is to dispel the myth that the various Hindu Scriptures like the Veda Samhitās, Upanishads, Yōgās, Tantrās etc., are disparate and do demonstrate that they compliment each other.
Though it has become a practice to see the contents of the Upanishads purely from an intellectual viewpoint, according to the seers of the Upanishads, the truths in these books should be realized by every individual. The process of realization is sādhana, and the hints on sādhana are Vidyās. His work ‘Lights on the Upanishads’ contains detailed discussion of the six Vidyās. He has hinted at several modes of consolidation of sādhana, which will facilitate the sādhaka to evolve himself from mere materiality to super human / super divine levels of super consciousness.
His writings are in four languages namely English, Tamil, Telugu and Sanskrit. Sanskrit was natural to him. All his writings are collected, published and made available in eleven volumes.
A reflection on all earlier Bhāshyās - Sri Aurobindo (Concluding paragraphs of Chapter 3 (Modern theories) of ‘The Secret of the Veda’)
“The hypothesis on which I shall conduct my own enquiry is that the Veda has a double aspect and that the two, though closely related, must be kept apart. The Riṣhīs arranged the substance of their thought in a system of parallelism by which the same deities were at once internal and external Powers of universal Nature, and they managed its expression through a system of double values by which the same language served for their worship in both aspects. But the psychological sense predominates and is more pervading, close-knit and coherent than the physical. The Veda is primarily intended to serve for spiritual enlightenment and self-culture. It is, therefore, this sense which has first to be restored.
To this task each of the ancient and modern systems of interpretation brings an indispensable assistance. Sāyaṇa and Yāska supply the ritualistic framework of outward symbols and their large store of traditional significances and explanations. The Upanishads give their clue to the psychological and philosophical ideas of the earlier Riṣhīs and hand down to us their method of spiritual experience and intuition. European scholarship supplies a critical method of comparative research, yet to be perfected, but capable of immensely increasing the materials available and sure eventually to give a scientific certainty and firm intellectual basis which has hitherto been lacking. Dayānanda has given the clue to the linguistic secret of the Riṣhīs and re-emphasized one central idea of the Vedic religion, the idea of the One Being with the Devās expressing in numerous names and forms the many-sidedness of His unity.
With so much help from the intermediate past we may yet succeed in reconstituting this remoter antiquity and enter by the gate of the Veda into the thoughts and realities of a prehistoric wisdom”.
Concluded.

References
1. ‘ The Light of Veda – A Practical Approach ’ – by Sri T.V.Kapāli Sastry
2. ‘ A New Light on the Veda ’ – by Sri T.V.Kapāli Sastry
(Originally written in Sanskrit under the name ‘Siddhānjana – Bhūmika’, translated into English by Sri M.P.Pandit and thoroughly revised by the author himself, in 1952. Published by Sri Aurobindo Kapali Sastry Institute of Vedic Culture, Bangalore. (SAKSI)).
3. ‘ Agni in the Rig Veda ’ - by Dr R.L.Kashyap
4. ‘ Why read the Rig Veda ’ – by Dr R.L.Kashyap

- Krishnamurthy (chamathu2003@yahoo.co.uk)

ALONG THE WAY........Musings on the November 6th, 2011 Morning Walk

2011-11-29T19:36:00.000-08:00

It was a pleasant morning. The sight of lush greenery and the beautiful fig trees gleefully greeted me. The weather was just perfect: breezy and mild. As I walked down to Bukit Batok Nature Park, I noticed that members had already gathered and were half-way through their warm-up exercises. There were people from all walks of life dotting the park, all engrossed in their own activities. The park was brimming with life and energy.

The morning walk was exceedingly refreshing. As we started doing the warm-up exercises, a sudden energy gushed forth, and we became fully conscious of our being. It was quite overwhelming. Soon, we started exploring the park. We felt one with nature – with the trees, the morning birds, and the quiet atmosphere. It was perfectly harmonious and silent; yet, the place stirred with activity as we tried to reach the top of the park, running, and sweating, and panting. Nothing is more joyous and fulfilling than sharing a wonderful morning with people who you know are ready to share with you in return. The experience was so enthralling that we had a stranger joining us, who also started participating very actively, making the experience all the more special.

Later, we gathered at Mr. Ramanathan’s house for collective meditation. We sat in concentric circles and chanted the OM mantra. It was initiated by the inner circle first, and then was followed by the outer circle. When we started chanting Sri Aurobindo’s mantra, we were overpowered by a spiritual ecstasy. The music was soul-rendering; it elevated us to a higher consciousness, making us feel the divine’s presence. As the music slowly faded away, we felt integrated as a person. It felt like a perfect culmination of a transcendental experience. It was as if we couldn’t get enough of it. We will have fond recollections of this experience for days to come. Meanwhile, we are looking forward to the next session!
- Surya

Om is the signature of the Lord

2011-11-02T21:33:00.002-07:00

An ear of mind withdrawn from the outward's rhymes
Discovered the seed-sounds of the eternal Word
The rhythm and music heard that built the worlds

- Sri Aurobindo in ‘Savitri’

From the editor's desk

2011-11-02T21:33:00.001-07:00

OM ..... a sound that has become a natural part of many of our lives, whether we have opened our doors to it consciously or not; whether we are associated with the spiritual depths of life or its religious frontiers. It more easily reaches the ear of those who join hands in worship along banks of rivers that emerge from the Vedic fountain. OM stands supreme, singular in the depth of its content, its meaning, its significance and above all, its integral effect on the being. The capacity inherent in this seemingly simple monosyllable confronts the mind as intriguing and fascinating. More than the mind then would be needed to unravel the hidden Idea behind this word. The November issue of our Newsletter attempts at unravelling to some small extent this mystery that is OM. Indications are aplenty of the greater role OM could yet play in our lives pacing along the path of transformation.

The Yajur Veda mentions that OM is ‘pranava’ – the humming sound or ‘udgita’ – the elevating chant (http://www.omved.com/vedicpedia/om-in-vedic-literature). OM gets its direct mention and description in several Upanishads, especially the Mandukya, which refers to OM as all that is manifest, which has its origin in the unmanifest. OM is posited as a link, bridging the manifest (which is perceived to be all of this universe and forces potential or set in motion) and the unmanifest. It is the symbol of Brahman, in his triple states, writes Sri Aurobindo, the states being the outward looking Brahman, the inner Brahman and the superconscient causal Purusha.

The pointers are ready and waiting, eager to show the mind, here leader of the pack, the way forward. The Dhyana Bindu Upanishad (http://www.omved.com/vedicpedia/om-in-vedic-literature) takes up some detailed descriptions of OM. The mind is to “reflect on the sound and meaning of OM”. There is an idea of receiving what is given, to keep as one’s object and subject of reflection the sound. One is not asked to make any connotations, arrive at conclusions or to make conjectures and inferences in the scientific order. There is an indication that the truth of the sound OM will be revealed and that one has to approach OM with an open and silenced mind and heart. In this instance, the mind is asked to be an instrument, not the master, and the consciousness to rise above the senses:

"Let Om be the bow, mind the arrow, and Higher Consciousness the target. Those who want enlightenment should reflect on the sound and the meaning of Om.  When the arrow is released from the bow it goes straight to the target."

And here are some indications of conditions that led to Aswapati’s inner hearing (Sri Aurobindo, ‘Savitri’):

Away from the terrestrial murmur turned
Where transient calls and answers mix their flood,
King Aswapati listened through the ray
To other sounds than meet the sense-formed ear.

And how would OM be expressed in sound?

"Like the continuous flow of an oil stream and like the vibration of a bell ... this is the way to chant Om and the way to really know the meaning of the Vedas."

OM chanting (and now, OM choir) stand poised to bring into our world treasures untold of. It remains for each to relate with this Maha Mantra and experience for oneself the unique connection one has with this Primordial Sound and the Creator.

ALONG THE WAY........Musings on the October 2nd, 2011 Morning Walk

2011-11-02T21:29:00.000-07:00

Each one of us has our very own fond memories of the beach. Be it the child-like spirit with which we stand in the water as the waves rush towards us or the sense of calm which overpowers us while we just stand on the shore and observe the vast expanse of water ahead. The beach is a place of healing and joy. The salt cleanses us and the sun embraces us in its warmth.

The October 2011 Walk of Sri Aurobindo Society was at the East Coast Park Beach. It was a very pleasant morning, all thanks to the incessant rainfall the night before. As we gathered at the “spot” for our warming-up exercise, we saw a lot of enthusiastic runners of all age groups running on the tracks. What a lovely way to start a Sunday morning! There were the others who had camped by the ocean the previous night and were just waking up to the thumping of the active runners and slowly peeping out of their tents. Our world consists of all kinds of people indeed. Each person adds his/her own colour to the vast canvas that the world is. And each colour has its own beauty which ONLY it can add.

One look at the mild waves and there was a smile on everyone’s face. The ocean heals the heart, mind and the soul. The allure and charm exuded by the ocean is unmatched. After a nice healthy round of breathing and physical exercises, we started off with some brisk walking along the walking tracks. With the waves for company on one side and our very own friends on the other, it was the perfect setting for a good walk. There were times when we decided to walk quietly and absorb everything that Mother Nature had bestowed us with that morning, and there were other times when good conversation and cheerful laughter were adding to the beauty of the walk. There was a nice pleasant breeze blowing accompanied by a very refreshing mild drizzle.

After traversing the entire path in each one’s convenient pace, we gathered again at the “spot” to embark on the next lap of our Sunday morning. We were all at Mr. Shashi Lal Kashyap’s house for Collective Meditation preceded by some wonderful OM chanting which opened each one of us to a higher realm of Concentration. Each one of us present there surely felt fortunate for being a part of the activity that morning and took whatever best we could take out of it. Such is the journey of life where there is so much to learn and live each day, each moment, to the very fullest.

--Preethi

Om- Reminisences and experiences

2011-11-02T09:29:00.000-07:00

The year was 2006. There were a sizeable number of us seated in the old meditation hall in Delhi Ashram. The room was darkened. There was pin-drop silence even at the beginning of what was to be a precise and unique experience – uplifting. Narad was there, standing. His posture was straight but he was leaning forward slightly as he was standing. He appeared to exude some kind of warmth upon all of us there. His motive was very clear. He wanted all to have the purest experience of that one thing he was there for. He was in the process of calling down a new music.

This was OM choir in Delhi Ashram. Narad gave us some instructions on breathing and posture and carried us through exercises on voice training and tone recognition. Then we were ready. A lone voice started singing OM. We were invited to join in at different times as dictated by something deeper within, or something from above, other than the mind. We had to offer our sound and ourselves. I remember Narad asking us to produce the most beautiful sounds on OM within ourselves and then to concentrate on producing the most beautiful OM as a collective body. Just after a few OMs, I felt the magic. The hall was taken over by something spectacular that I had never encountered anytime in my life. Pure human voices, quite raw and “untrained” – as it were, were coming together in waves as if by magic and creating a unified music or harmonic resonance. This kind of music was not a common theme then, but during those seconds when it was there, all of us unified, instrumental in producing it, one instinctively knew that there, in that hall, at that moment, something pure and divine was there; a special resonance that could shake the very foundation of the past! This music was not about us. It was beyond ourselves, our little selves rather, beyond our egoistic personality that thinks that it alone achieves and is responsible. I felt what could be humility in the whole endeavour, collective. It was an experience of a life-time, those two or three days during which I attended these OM Choir sessions. The quality of music seemed to be directly proportional to our openness and aspiration and silence deep within.

Now, given the chance of reading all about the OM Choir, its origin and the way forward, everything seems to be falling into place. There is a divine music hovering above our heads which can be reached only through bridges that we can build collectively, bridges of harmony, love and joy. Even if these could be achieved for those brief periods we sit in a circle and let an OM choir emerge, something significant could be achieved. These can only be seeds to something divinely pure and beautiful that is to fill our lives as we open ourselves up more and more to the light and love pouring from above. OM has a large part to play in all these. This is an intriguing prospect.

- Jayanthy

Savitri

2011-10-20T21:02:00.003-07:00

Away from the terrestrial murmur turned
Where transient calls and answers mix their flood,
King Aswapati listened through the ray
To other sounds than meet the sense-formed ear.
On a subtle interspace which rings our life,
Unlocked were the inner spirit's trance-closed doors:
The inaudible strain in Nature could be caught;
Across this cyclic tramp of eager lives,
Across the deep urgency of present cares,
Earth's wordless hymn to the Ineffable
Arose from the silent heart of the cosmic Void;

(Savitri, Book 4, Canto 3)

As when the mantra sinks in Yoga's ear,
Its message enters stirring the blind brain
And keeps in the dim ignorant cells its sound;
The hearer understands a form of words
And, musing on the index thought it holds,
He strives to read it with the labouring mind,
But finds bright hints, not the embodied truth:
Then, falling silent in himself to know
He meets the deeper listening of his soul:
The Word repeats itself in rhythmic strains:
Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body's self
Are seized unutterably and he endures
An ecstasy and an immortal change;

(Savitri, Book 2, Canto 14)

Sri Aurobindo on Om

2011-10-20T21:02:00.001-07:00

OM is the symbol of the triple Brahman, the outward-looking, the inward or subtle and the superconscient causal Purusha. Each letter A, U, M indicates one of these three in ascending order and the syllable as a whole brings out the fourth state, Turiya, which rises to the Absolute. OM is the initiating syllable pronounced at the outset as a benedictory prelude and sanction to all act of sacrifice, all act of giving and all act of askesis; it is a reminder that our work should be made an expression of the triple Divine in our inner being and turned towards him in the idea and motive.
(‘Essays on The Gita’, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry)

The word

2011-10-20T21:01:00.004-07:00

”The word is a sound expressive of the idea. In the supra-physical plane when an idea has to be realised, one can by repeating the word-expression of it, produce vibrations which prepare the mind for the realisation of the idea. That is the principle of the Mantra and of japa. One repeats the name of the Divine and the vibrations created in the consciousness prepare the realisation of the Divine.”

Question of the month

2011-10-20T21:01:00.003-07:00

The Mother: With the help of OM one can realise the Divine. OM has a transforming power. OM represents the Divine.

Q: Yes, it represents the Divine. It represents the Divine. OM, but OM is the sound?

A: The Mother: They say that all the aspirations of the world when going towards the Divine make O---M, like that. (The Mother chants the word)

Yes, Mother.

The Mother: And then, that is why they say "OM".

Mother please, say it once again. Please say it again.

The Mother: Eh ?

OM, it is fine, Mother, it was very beautiful.

(Mother laughs)

Mother, once more, please

The Mother: O----M.

And now?

The Mother: It is like this everywhere. O----M. O----M.

Yes, Mother.

The Mother: Look here, I was in France some I think, 60 years ago. There was a Frenchman who came back from the Himalayas, who had stayed there some time and he gave a lecture, and I listened to the lecture and in the lecture he said that when he was deep in the Himalayas, there was a sannyasin whom he didn't know, came to see him and told him only this O----M and that he was completely changed. And then, when he said O----M, I felt the same change in me, ...as if the Divine was coming in. O----M. There you are. Good, good. Keep the secret.

Yes, Mother.

The Mother: You will recall this: O----M. O----M. That's all. O----M. It must be manifested. If anything goes wrong, repeat OM, all will go well.

The Mother: OM: the signature of the Lord.

(‘Sweet Mother: Harmonies of Light, Words recollected by Mona Sarkar’ (Translated from the original in French), Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry.)

Narad Eggenberger and The OM Choir: The New Music

2011-10-20T21:01:00.001-07:00

Narad (Richard Eggenberger) is a longtime member of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and Auroville as well as a musician, poet, landscaper, horticulturist, and gardener.

As a youth he took voice lessons and prepared for an operatic career at the Metropolitan Opera on a scholarship from one of the leading mezzosopranos of the day, Regina Resnick.

When he was 23, he came to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and had his first darshan of the Mother, who made him an ashramite and gave him permission to teach music in the ashram school. He formed an ashram choir that soon built a program of choral music covering many centuries. Mother also gave him the task of bringing down "the new music."

Narad went back to U.S. in 1962, working with a landscape design and installation firm and attending college to learn plant combination theory and other aspects of subtropical horticulture.
In 1969, he returned to Pondicherry, where Mother gave him the task of creating a beautiful garden for the Matrimandir. In the early 1970s he set up the Matrimandir Nursery for collecting, studying, and propagating rare and beautiful plants from all over the world. He worked personally with the Mother on the spiritual significances of flowers and edited the book, ‘Flowers and Their Messages’, the first book published by the ashram on the spiritual significance of flowers. Mother also gave Narad the work of reading ‘Savitri’ every week under the banyan, which he did for 10 years.

In the 1980s, Narad returned to the U.S., where he continued to extend his deep knowledge of plants and trees and to collect specimens for the Ashram and Auroville. He is past president of the Plumaria Society of America and is the author of numerous books and articles on tropical plants.

Meanwhile, after more than four decades of listening to thousands of works of music, seeking the new music everywhere, and singing (though not often, having given up all thought of a concert career), Narad had the insight that the new music was to descend in a collective body — one body with many tones, opening in surrender and aspiration. About seven years ago he began the OM choirs, which have brought a new kind of conscious music to the Ashram, Auroville, and many places around the world.

(Information courtesy Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry)

The theory of the mantra

2011-10-20T21:00:00.001-07:00

”The theory of the Mantra is that it is a word of power born out of the secret depths of our being where it has been brooded upon by a deeper consciousness than the mental, framed in the heart and not constructed by the intellect, held in the mind, again concentrated on by the waking mental consciousness and then thrown out silently or vocally — the silent word is perhaps held to be more potent than the spoken — precisely for the work of creation.”

Om

2011-10-20T20:58:00.000-07:00

In reply to a disciple's question the Mother explained OM in these few but profound words:

OM is the signature of the Lord.

The Mother's first experience of OM was in France when she heard a lecture by a Frenchman who had just then returned from the Himalayas. He said that he had met a sannyasin who told him of the power of Om which had completely changed him. As soon as she heard it she felt a great change coming over her. Such is the Power of OM - the signature of the Lord.

What is a mantra?

“The Mantra is an ever-living embodiment of the Truth and Power which have found expression in it through the medium of the Rishi or Yogin who has given them the body. And when a Mantra is uttered, under proper conditions, it is not the feeble voice of the person reciting that goes forth to evoke the response of the gods to whom it is addressed but the flame of tapasya and realisation that is lying coiled up in the body of that utterance.” (‘The Veda and the Tantra’ by Sri Kapali Sastri)

There is a striking description of the action of Mantra in Sri Aurobindo's epic ‘Savitri’, the brilliant verse starts with "As when the mantra sinks in the yoga's ear....” He explains that when the message of the mantra enters within, the hearer "understands a form of words" and if he strives to find the meaning with his "labouring mind" he will just get bright hints but not the "embodied Truth", it is only when he falls silent and meets "the deeper listening of his soul" that

The Word repeats itself in rhythmic strains:
Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body's self
Are seized unalterably and he endures
An ecstasy and an immortal change:

This must be exactly what the Mother experienced when the Frenchman chanted Om. The Word repeats itself rhythmically and our entire self- “Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body's self” are entirely seized by its vibrations and an immortal change occurs. The reason why the mantra is so powerful especially OM has been explained below.

“The Rishi, the seer when he perceives the Truth, perceives at the same time the sound embodying the Truth. He receives it in the secret depths of his being and gives expression to it in the human tongue. This is Mantra. When the Mantra is properly uttered, the sound-force from which it has sprung is contacted, which in turn reveals the Truth it embodies. So when the Mantra of a deity is uttered, the vibrations create the sound-body of the deity and with repeated utterances, the sound-body of the deity becomes concretely formed and the powerful Presence of the deity is established. “ (‘Glory of The Divine Mother - Devi Mahatmyam’ by S. Sankaranarayanan )

It is no wonder that whereever OM is chanted there is at once a great descent of Peace and divine vibrations .This is because the OM is the sound form of the Divine and not a mere word. Hence on chanting it in the proper manner it brings down the Divine's Presence and Power. This is why it is said in the Tantra that "To hell he goes who mistakes the Guru for a human, who takes the image for a piece of stone, who looks upon the Mantra as mere letters."
Sri Aurobindo's ‘Savitri’ has some breathtaking lines on Mantra and how the Yogi who has silenced his mind and "the voices that an inner listening hears…" becomes a receptacle to receive the "flame-wrapt outbursts of the immortal Word.......".It is in Silence that the Om reveals itself from within.

Why is it that OM is prefaced before every mantra and why is it the Mother of all Mantras? Here is the luminous answer by Sri M.P. Pandit

“When this creation was not, when there was only the Absolute- What the Upanishads call the Brahman- Absolute , and the Tantras, the Para-Shiva- and nothing else, and when this absolute thought of manifesting the creation, there was a stir, a spanda, a vibration. And this vibration- called Nada - on the highest plane of existence is approximated when rendered into human speech by a sound that is produced by pronouncing OM.

And human speech is only one, the lowest, of several grades of speech in existence. From the heights of creation, the essential speech has to pass through three higher stages before it assumes the fourth, gross form of human speech. And OM is the nearest approximation in human speech to the first creative sound that ordered the Universe. That is why OM is designated a symbol of Brahman, the Creator. Each time you repeat OM consciously, you emanate something of the pure vibration that corresponds to that which presided over the birth of this creation. It calls into the atmosphere the very forces that started a new creation. You create a new universe around yourself. “

A Voice profound in the ecstasy and the hush
They heard, beheld an all-revealing Light (‘Savitri’)
- Sudha

For Amal in Memorium

2011-10-20T20:57:00.000-07:00

The lamp flared up when you were born
As if a passing breeze had touched the flame
Or some Immortal from another plane
Glimpsing the waiting cradle, yearned towards
The old familiar bonds of form and name.
Or did the Godhead of your fiery stars
Himself take up your Sagittarian bow
Heaven bent with arrows trained upon the sun
To pierce our leaden skies, that Man might know
What glorious dawns are hidden by those bars?

For dreams we could not reach were caught and bound
In poetry’s magic net, and radiant streams of sound.

- Sonia Dyne (12- Oct-2011)

(Amal Kiran (K.D. Sethna) left his body in July this year. He was one of the foremost of the Ashram poets and his correspondence with Sri Aurobindo on the subject of 'Savitri' has been read throughout the world. His birthday is on November 25th). December)

The Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore will run a Newsletter edition in memory of Amal Kiren for the month of December, 2011. This edition will focus on Amal Kiran, his life and works.

Harmony

2011-10-20T20:55:00.000-07:00

Summer had begun, the rays of the sun snapped Vanita’s eyes and she suddenly got up and realized that she had woken up an hour later. Her entire day went hay-wire; her kids refused to go to school as they had not finished their assignments, she had to convince them and finally dropped them of at school late; she hadn’t finished cooking and had a row with her husband early in the morning. As her husband left she went back to the kitchen and started thinking about why her day was so disturbing. She was completely blank. Her husband came for lunch but he tasted the food and become so upset at the taste that he went away without having his lunch, commenting that it is better for him to eat outside.

Vanita broke down. She was in tears. She decided to make a call to her close friend Ria who was a devotee of The Mother and she always seemed to have a solution to every problem. And surprisingly, just as she was about to pick up her phone Ria was already at the door. Ria came in and was shocked to see the state of the house with clothes and things scattered on the floor. Vanita’s face looked very glum. Ria asked Vanita what had happened? Vanita sat down and explained to her all that had happened since morning, and also said that most of the days were similar to that day.

Ria said that she had a solution provided Vanita was willing to listen to what she had to tell her. Vanita nodded her head, indicating that she was more than willing to listen to what Ria had to say. Ria started off with The Mother’s quote on work:

“Even the apparently most insignificant thing must be done with perfect perfection, with a sense of cleanliness, beauty, harmony and order.”

She asked Vanita to clear up the mess in her home so that she would at least have some peace of mind. Secondly, she asked Vanita to closely analyze the reason why she had a row with her husband very often, and also asked her to introspect and said that The Mother had always quoted,
“When two persons quarrel always both are in the wrong”.

Ria again told Vanita about another of The Mother’s quote, “Look for the inner causes of disharmony much more than the outer ones. It is the inside which governs the outside”, and asked Vanita to organise herself properly to avoid all the confusion. Just before leaving, Ria told Vanita about the Harmony flower and told her that keeping this flower generates radiant rays of peace and harmony in the house. Vanita sat on her couch thinking about all that Ria had said and she slowly realised that she had a major role in all the commotion.

Vanita got up with renewed spirit and decided to clean up the house and then go for a peaceful stroll. While walking she looked around and suddenly found a creeper carrying the Harmony flowers. She plucked a handful of flowers and placed them in a vase in the hall and prayed for a while.

The belief she had in the flower never changed and from that day onwards her mind was always peaceful. As The Mother says,

There is no greater victory than of controlling oneself”
- Sharadha
References
Words of the Mother - Part I (page 110)
Rays of Light (page 123)
Mantras of the Mother (May, 3rd)

Sarvam Krishna Mayam: offering at Gita Jayanti celebrations

2011-10-14T00:05:00.001-07:00

The children of IEP,offered a program entitled "Sarvam Krishna Mayam" at the Global Indian international school stage for as part of the Gita Jayanti cultural program, Krishna Manjari.

This is the 3rd consequtive year that Sri Aurobindo Society is presenting an offering at the Gita Jayanti program.

The Perfect Path

2011-09-29T07:47:00.000-07:00

For each one it is the path that leads fastest to the Divine.

- The Mother

Common Name: Coffee

Botanical Name: Coffea
Spiritual Name: The Perfect Path

From the Editor’s Desk

2011-09-29T07:41:00.000-07:00

The theme of this month’s newsletter remains The Rainbow-Bridge as we continue with Part 2 of the inspiring and illuminating piece of writing by Sonia Dyne. It is fitting perhaps that this theme recurs, as it constantly does in our own lives, time and again. Each of its occurrence in our lives’ sphere, once the consciousness is bent towards a progressive mode, -not so much of the external circumstances of life, though this too will matter and be more determined than be a determining factor, but more from an inner perspective, of a constant aspiration of progression out of inconscience into a consciousness illuminated and all-encompassing, an aspiration that seeks the fulfilment of a deeper urge at union with the original Cause of one’s existence, in knowing who one is and for what reason here, embodied in an earthly existence - opens up new and vaster vistas to be conquered and mastered.

It appears that it is the idea of a continuously developing consciousness that seeks to be a bridge between the nature and the spirit in our own selves that is beautiful, that gives much hope and to an extent explains the muddle of existential questions we are constantly bombarded with in an age of much so called outer development and achievement and an inner desert starved of fulfilment, or a deep sense of joy of being and an all-encompassing love for all in us and around.

One has been let loose in a universe of myriad possibilities, kinds and orders, forever meeting up with an opportunity to being a bridge in many ways and not a mere bridge, but a rainbow bridge, a bridge that opens new paths into realms of beauty, joy and goodness, a bridge into tracks of a new creation to express the ever-new that is constantly born. Many have been our encounters with living bridges such as the Vedic Rishis, the Knowers and Seers. Our ages have seen them bridge the many spheres that en-ring our lives, which en-ring our inner Spaces and the spaces around us, both strangely demarcated by a physical frame, a wall of flesh and nerves and base matter or an Ego factor.

A bridge pre-supposes the existence of two separate spheres, two worlds, one known and lived in and one unknown and set in the future, near or far. The same bridge suggests that the two worlds can be bridged, the very raison d’etre of its existence. Are these vast spaces that separate and segregate, within and without, are these real or are these only perspectives from a looking glass, the looking glass simply being our changing consciousnesses? How does one know? Who is to be the guide? When does one start? How?

Savitri, NOW! Pat comes the answer, like a sharp and crystal clear tinkle in a silent space. The article on The Rainbow Bridge spells this out.

These are the many questions that a symbol such as the rainbow bridge throws at us in a happy reverie snaring us into an endless mode of eternal seeking.

It may well be that the journey starts right inside oneself, in the spaces within, with one bridge there, waiting to be traversed and like this, the gulfs can be reduced to familiar arenas conquered. And to then be able to flood them with the light from the highest available to ones that reveal a flip side of the abysses and the gulfs as storehouses of treasures once deep hid, now exposed.

And if in the inner spaces within, bridges and more bridges extend out into spaces now no more blocked by a separatist existence and where time ceases to have its ordinary meaning, the rainbow bridge would have been justified, its mission fulfilled .... But the greatest assurance is, there is HOPE in the Rainbow Bridge.

Mother's ‘Prayers and Meditations’ - 29 August 1914

2011-09-29T07:39:00.000-07:00

“What would be the use of man if he were not created to throw a bridge between That which is eternal but is unmanifested and that which is manifested, between all the transcendences and splendours of the divine life and all the dark and sorrowful ignorance of the material world? Man is the link between what must be and what is; he is the footbridge thrown across the abyss, he is the great cross-shaped X, the quaternary connecting link. His true domicile, the effective seat of his consciousness should be in the intermediary world at the meeting-point of the four arms of the cross, just where all the infinitude of the Unthinkable comes to take a precise form so that it may be projected into the innumerable manifestation. . .

That centre is a place of supreme love, of perfect consciousness, of pure and total knowledge. There establish, O Lord, those who can, who must and truly want to serve Thee, so that Thy work may be accomplished, the bridge definitively established, and Thy forces poured unwearyingly over the world.”

The Rainbow Bridge – Part 2

2011-09-29T07:29:00.000-07:00

We present below the second and concluding part of a feature article by Mrs Sonia Dyne - The Rainbow Bridge. Part 1 of Mrs. Dyne’s article was featured in our September 2011 issue and can be accessed at our website, www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg. This feature article is reproduced from a lecture that she delivered under the Dr M V Nadkarni Memorial Lecture at Savitri Bhavan, Auroville, on the 20^th of February 2011.

Mrs. Dyne needs no introduction in the Sri Aurobindo circle of Singapore. She was a former Chairperson of the society and also the then editor of our Newsletter. Perhaps, Mrs. Dyne’s sentiments, echoed in the following quote, will be an apt prelude to the following article:

I am pleased that you wish to put 'The Rainbow Bridge' in the Newsletter. It was a great privilege to be invited to deliver the second lecture in memory of Professor Nadkarni, and I am sure that my memories of him and the 'old days' when we used to meet in a ramshackle old building at the corner of Balestier Rd will resonate with many of the older members of the Society who remember them too. – Sonia Dyne

All inspired literature has to some extent the ability to reach out and touch something deep within us that is a kind of homesickness, an awareness of something missing, a yearning that has no name. Savitri has this power to an exceptional degree and to experience it requires no special skills of interpretation or language use. A power is there, even in a single word or phrase, with the potential to awake the psychic being within and bring it forward to play its part in the surface life, as many people know through their own experience. The power comes from the spiritual light clothing itself in a language nearer to sight than thought, a language of symbols and images drawn from life, to evoke a rich tapestry of meaning that thought, with its precise narrow focus, cannot match. A single image, or a single line, can be a mantra designed ‘to overfly the ways of thought to unborn things’:

A magic leverage suddenly is caught
That moves the veiled Ineffable’s timeless Will:
A prayer, a master act, a king idea
Can link man’s strength to a transcendent Force.
Then miracle is made the common rule,
One mighty deed can change the course of things;
A lonely thought becomes omnipotent. (1:2 )

“Sometimes one life is charged with earth’s destiny.” It is a lonely thought - not a collective aspiration - that first calls down the transcendent Force. The solitude of those who are chosen to lead humanity in critical periods of transition is a constant theme: Aswapati has “no companion in the light” and Savitri too faces her long ordeal alone. Most striking of all are the lines from The Book of Fate describing a final dangerous passage in the yoga of Savitri, a crucial moment where “all is won or all is lost for Man.”

As a star, unaccompanied, moves in heaven
Unastonished by the immensities of space,
Travelling infinity by its own light,
The great are strongest when they stand alone.
A God-given might of being is their force,
A ray from self’s solitude of light the guide:
The soul that can live alone with itself meets God;
Its lonely universe is their rendezvous.
A day may come when she must stand unhelped
On a dangerous brink of the world’s doom and hers’
Carrying the world’s future on her lonely breast,
Carrying the human hope in a heart left sole
To conquer or fail on a last desperate verge.
Alone with death and close to extinction’s edge
Her single greatness in that last dire scene,
She must cross alone a perilous bridge in Time
And reach an apex of world destiny
Where all is won or all is lost for man.
In that tremendous silence lone and lost
Of a deciding hour in the world’s fate,
In her soul’s climbing beyond mortal time
When she stands sole with death or sole with God
Apart upon a silent desperate brink,
Alone with herself and death and destiny
As on some verge between Time and Timelessness
When being must end or life rebuild its base,
Alone she must conquer or alone must fall.
No human aid can reach her in that hour,
No armoured God stand shining at her side.
Cry not to heaven, for she alone can save.
For this the silent force came missioned down;
In her the conscious Will took human shape:
She only can save the world and save herself. (6:2)

What is Sri Aurobindo doing here? He is not just writing elegant verses within a conventional frame, he is sharing with us a living experience, directly, from his own consciousness. He wants us to feel what Savitri endures on the edge of Time and Timelessness. The supramental consciousness is timeless and her divine nature is at home there; but her human nature has been formed in time and feels the approach of annihilation. As in a meeting of two parallel universes, the two hemispheres must merge in her or the works of Time must cease to be: “When being must end or life rebuild its base.” The future of human life on earth hangs upon the ability of her human nature to endure to the end the intolerant Light.

It is evident that Sri Aurobindo is re-living the Mother’s experience. In the Agenda there is an account in her own words in which she tries to describe the strange state of transition: “A strange state of transition in the most material consciousness, the consciousness of the body. A transition from this state of subjugation, of powerlessness, where one is always at the mercy of forces, vibrations, unexpected movements – all sorts of stray impulses that impose themselves – and on the other hand the Power. The Power establishing itself and manifesting itself. The transition between these two. . . . . . The whole thing gives the impression of walking along a very sharp ridge between two precipices.”

The lines that evoke the Mother’s ordeal so powerfully have sometimes been criticised because of their constant repetition of the same word, in particular the word “alone”. This seemed to some to be a mistake which Sri Aurobindo would have corrected if he had not left his body so soon, for these were among the last lines dictated by him. Such misunderstanding arises when Savitri is read by the intellectual mind alone, and the old Vedic insight that it is by the power of the heart that the mantra takes form is overlooked. Heart speaks to heart in a different way.

So here we find no ‘mistake’ but one of the finest examples of intuitive speech making use of poetic technique - assonance, the repetition of vowel sounds to obtain a desired effect. Over and over again we hear only, lonely, sole, alone – words which have something more in common than just their meaning: they have the sound Oh! which echoes like a cry of pain from almost every line; just as “alone” rings out, punctuating the description of the terrifying scene like the solemn tolling of a warning bell.

Like the poets of Vedic times, Sri Aurobindo understood that the force of mantric speech resides as much or in the sound as in the meaning. Sound speaks to the subliminal and subconscient parts of the being with suggestions heard by the heart before the mind awakes to them. Thus the response, often veiled by our surface mentality, is elicited from the whole person and in time brings about “the deeper listening of the soul”.

I remember one occasion, when I went to visit Nirodbaran in the Ashram, and he said, with a twinkle in his eye: 'I hear that you have been giving some talks called 'Savitri by Heart' - do you really want our students to learn the whole poem by heart?' I said "No, I want them I want them to understand it by heart - but learning is also a good idea.”

If ever we needed a rainbow bridge it is now, when a transition must be made from the reasoning to the intuitive mind, which alone of all the faculties presently available to us can take us further towards our evolutionary destiny. Reason is the highest faculty of mind that our species has attained in the course of its evolution – it has helped to create the world we live in, but has not been able to control the irrational and destructive impulses that arise in human nature.

Sri Aurobindo is quite clear about this. In The Human Cycle we read: “The great necessity is the conversion of the normal into the spiritual mind and the opening of that mind again into its own higher reaches and more and more integral movement. For before the decisive change can be made, the stumbling intellectual reason has to be converted into the precise and luminous intuitive, until that again can rise into higher ranges to overmind and supermind or gnosis.” (Cent. Ed. p.252)

What Sri Aurobindo is suggesting is nothing less than the rebuilding of the base of our lives. It means first of all freeing ourselves from past conceptions and old habits which impede or prevent further progress:

The unremembering hours repeat the old acts.
Our dead past round our future’s ankles clings
And drags back the new nature’s glorious stride,
Or from the buried corpse old ghosts arise,
Old thoughts, old longings, dead passions live again,
Recur in sleep or move the waking man
To words that force the barrier of the lips
To deeds that suddenly start and oe’rleap
His head of reason and his guardian will. (7.2)

This rebuilding begins with ourselves, with our willingness to clear away the old mental formations, "Our dead past that round our ankles clings."

"The help of Sri Aurobindo is constant, It is for us to know how to receive it."

In 'Savitri ' we have a mantra for transformation, and we should try to approach it as he would approach Sri Aurobindo himself, for indeed the Mantra is his own consciousness distilled into a form of words. These words are precious; they are to be read with a silent mind. Sri Aurobindo has himself taught us how to read them:

"The mind, that restless lake of samskaras, preferences, prejudices, pre-judgments, habitual opinions, intellectual and temperamental likes and dislikes ought to be entirely silent in this matter; its role is to be submissive and and receptive, detached, without passion, passivity without activity should be its state: for the sruti (spiritual text) carries within its very words, a certain prakash, an illumination - the mind ought to wait for that illumination…."

Now this important task of rebuilding the base seems to belong quite naturally to Auroville, the City of Dawn. Already the pioneering work of the Savitri Bhavan means that the transforming Mantra is reaching an ever wider circle of people ready to receive it. Our schools can do more by ensuring that young people are in some measure exposed to ‘Savitri’: a few lines, remaining in the memory for a lifetime, will continue their work in deepest part of the being.

Even the physical labour involved in the building of a city, the clearing and planting of land, the construction of roads and waterways, the creation of good channels of communication - all these enterprises, useful in themselves, might be even more valuable if they could be undertaken with the specific intention of opening up the sealed consciousness of Matter to the Light and releasing new energies in order to rebuild our base of life. If this could be done consciously and with dedication, it would be a great step towards a truly future - orientated society. To recognize and respect the consciousness of the material world is a new idea, a new area for research on lines suggested already in many places by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Science in our own century is struggling to understand the nature of matter, while all the discoveries lead to still more difficult questions. Sri Aurobindo suggests a different line of enquiry, opened up by an expanding human consciousness:

‘We begin to perceive too the key to the enigma of matter, follow the interplay of Mind and Life and Consciousness upon it, discover more and more its instrumental and resultant function and detect ultimately the last secret of Matter as a form, not merely of Energy, but of involved and arrested or instably fixed and restricted consciousness; and begin to see too the possibility of liberation and plasticity of response to higher powers, its possibilities for the conscious and no longer the more than half inconscient incarnation and self-expression of the Spirit.” (Letters on Yoga Vol2 Cent.ed)

Auroville may one day begin to explore such distant horizons, as part of its essential research into the evolution of consciousness. Matter yearns towards transformation, yearns to express the beauty that is the first manifestation of the Divine in the material creation: the marble rejoices in the shaping touch of the sculptors chisel; paint and canvas embrace the artist's skill; clay longs for the potter's hands to release its fulfilment in beauty of form.

When we contemplate a great work of art, we can almost feel this material joy, which our bodies share, the mind being all the time unaware of it. It may be that Matter's joy is that secret of great art which no one has ever been able to define, the secret that distinguishes a masterpiece from the inferior stuff. The Mother understood this when she spoke of the divine Love 'infusing itself' into all the atoms of the most obscure Matter.

Why should such work fall within the remit of Auroville’s research? Because one of the chief obstacles to rebuilding the base of life in a new way is the persistence of “the leaden formulas of mind” as Sri Aurobindo calls them, old fixed opinions and ideas running in narrow grooves of thought. In a homogenous society it is difficult for people to be different, to step out boldly in a new direction, whereas in Auroville, where people from all parts of the world rub up against each other all the time, the mental grooves we bring with us begin to wear thin.

One final passage of prophecy – a comforting one, for it affirms that even if we fail, Nature will not fail and the omnipotent Spirit cannot fail:

The Spirit shall be master of his world
Lurking no more in form’s obscurity
And Nature shall reverse her action’s rule,
The outward world disclose the Truth it veils;
All things shall manifest the covert God,
All shall reveal the Spirit’s light and might
And move to its destiny of felicity.
Even should a hostile force cling to its reign
And claim its right’s perpetual sovereignty
And man refuse his high spiritual fate,
Yet shall the secret Truth in things prevail.
For in the march of all-fulfilling Time
The hour must come of the Transcendent’s Will:
All turns and winds towards his predestined ends
In nature’s fixed inevitable course
Decreed since the beginning of the worlds
In the deep essence of created things:
Even there shall come as a high crown of all
The end of Death, the death of Ignorance.
But first high Truth must set her feet on earth
And man aspire to the Eternal’s light
And all his member’s feel the Spirit’s touch
And all his life obey an inner force.
This too shall be; for a new life shall come,
A body of the Superconscient’s truth,
A native field of Supernature’s mights;
It shall make earth’s nescient ground Truth’s colony,
Make even the Ignorance a transparent robe
Through which shall shine the brilliant limbs of Truth
And Truth shall be a sun on Nature’s head
And Truth shall be the guide of Nature’s steps
And Truth shall gaze out of her nether deeps. (Bk 11)

It is a wonderful thing to be here and to read Sri Aurobindo’s prophetic lines within the embrace of these white walls, knowing that others will do the same, day after day until – all is done for which the earth was made. There are many ways to rebuild the base of life, and I hope Auroville will explore all of them. But of these, Savitri is the most immediately accessible, and probably the most effective. Sri Aurobindo’s great legacy has the power to transform the consciousness of all who approach it in a spirit of persistence and faith. Of that there is no doubt. I hope all who are able to come will take advantage of the great opportunity you have here at the Savitri Bhavan, to experience this for yourselves. It is never a question of purely mental understanding - Savitri as a Mantra for transformation will open up new pathways to knowledge through the intuition and through the heart. “The heart and the mind are one universal Deity and neither a mind without a heart nor a heart without a mind is the human ideal…… The integral divine harmony within, but as its result a changed earth and a nobler and happier humanity.”

It may be that in the 21^st Century we have something still to learn from those distant ancestors of ours, who kept their belief that the world around them was created and sustained by the power of their song. We too have a song, Sri Aurobindo’s great hymn celebrating the marriage of our soil to the sky. We could even now be singing a new world into existence.

On the eve of her birthday, the last word belongs to the Mother:

"The moment you open to the divine Love”, she said , "You also receive the power of transformation."

- Sonia Dyne

Concluded.

ALONG THE WAY........Musings on the September 4th, 2011 Morning Walk

2011-09-29T07:27:00.000-07:00

Bedok Reservoir is a place where Mother Nature through her infinite manifestations, represents the core elements. Nature is our first teacher when we first set foot onto this world. She is stoic and silent. Tuning in with this Silence gives a sense of expanse and it removes all kinds of constrictions of the mind. Nature is our teacher and listening to her from the core of the heart, tunes us with the infinite. “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” (“The Teacher as Evolutionary Energy” by Robert Bainbridge)

The Bedok Reservoir has a circular path around the water with its twists, turns and bends. With water on one side and greenery and trees on the other, the walking path in the middle when one traverses, is verily a meditation. It’s the very representation of life itself. It teaches us to live and not exist.

A bright sunny morning bringing the message of cheerfulness is what one could feel. A question arises, what is Sun after all? The Sun rising every morning brings forth a silent message – the illumination must gradually happen within, the more the receptivity, faster is the process. The sights and sounds were representative of the calm one could feel within. The students with their kayaks were testing their endurance. Another set of students practicing for the dragon boat race represented a team, the unison with which they were rowing their boat silently conveyed TEAMWORK – Means more WE and Less Me and togetherness has its beauty – TEAM – Together Everyone Achieves More.

Communion with nature is therapeutic in a way. It revitalizes and invigorates us. One unconsciously promises to be akin with it more often. It is indeed in these pure moments of silence that pure thoughts are generated. And the concentric ripples of it spread around you. So during the brunch it was suggested that as the exercises before the walk culminating in a mindful walk, a circle time after the walk would refocus on what transpired.

Living in the consciousness of the Divine every single moment, we realise our present life as Sri Aurobindo says “just one life in an unending chain of existence”. A path on which we are traveling many have already traveled and many will traverse the very path. We leave our footprints on. As the group finished the walk and gathered to go to Mr. Lok’s residence a sense of unwinding was felt by the group.

So do join us ALONG THE WAY for the October walk. - Jaishree

Are Teachers Rainbows ?

2011-09-29T07:24:00.000-07:00

Entrapped between the
Ever dominating Blazing Red,
And the Snobbish regal Violet,
The students sought to examine,
Each of the brilliantly hued ones.

Raising remainders of Supreme Sacrifice
The valiant Orange glowed.
Whilst the Yellow and Green sought
To convey the essence of Nature.

Poised cool on the Precipice was
The eternal favourite Blue,
While Indigo made its presence between
The neighbours,

But, the pupils still and forever preferred
The lovely WHITE
Pure, Serene , Supreme
One into whom everyone could mingle

And be ONE.

September is the month both Singapore and India celebrate Teachers Day. Jaishree was sent the poem above by a friend on the occasion.

More Vignettes of Sri Aurobindo & The Mother by Kumari, Shyam

2011-09-29T07:21:00.000-07:00

These 421 short stories are vibrant with the presence of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Here is a window into a fascinating world where "All life is yoga." These stories have the power to enlighten and elevate. The reader, while delightfully entranced, may also find his faith strengthened and discover that the flame of aspiration burns brighter in his heart. Gems of spiritual guidance abound throughout this treasure of lovingly collected stories. This is an extraordinary record of the Grace and guidance of the Avatars of the Supermind. Two stories are selected from the book and published below. We will read more stories on Sunday, 23 October 2011 at 6.00 pm for half-an-hour followed by OM Choir.

Auroville and the Russians

I was not involved in Auroville, but one day the Mother said to me, "You know, there is a hitch about the opening ceremony of Auroville. All the communist countries led by Russia are refusing to participate because in the Charter there is one line that says, `We accept to be servitors of the Divine Consciousness.' This concept they cannot accept." She asked me to go to Madras and speak to the Russian Consul-General. I enquired, "Mother, why did you pick on me?" She replied. "You just go, don't ask why." I persisted, "Mother, I don't know what to say. How would I know what to say?" She said, "Yes, I know, that's why you are going. Don't think of what you are going to say. You just go and I'll put the words into your mouth." So I went.

I was really struck by the warmth with which the Consul-General welcomed me. He said, "Auroville is such a beautiful concept, such a wonderful idea, we like it so much, but this one line we cannot accept. This word 'Divine' to us means God and our philosophy says that there is 'No God.' So we cannot accept because of that." Now the Mother put words into my mouth and what I said was not my own idea. I said, "All right, if you don't accept that let us see what you can accept. Do you accept the concept of progress?" He replied, "Certainly, certainly, our whole philosophy is based on progress." I said, "Oh, I'm very happy to know that. I know very little about your communist philosophy, but I am happy to know there is this idea of progress. But progress towards what?" He said, "Why do you have to progress towards anything? You can just go on progressing." I said, "What about the concept of progress towards perfection?" He exclaimed, "Ah! That is a very good idea. Progress towards perfection. Ah! that is wonderful. You have given us a new slogan for our party — Progress Towards Perfection."

He was thrilled with the idea. I added, "Finally we come to an Ultimate Perfection. What do you say to that?" He frowned and said, "Now you are becoming a philosopher. Ultimate Perfection means nothing to me. Just nice-sounding words. It doesn't mean anything, an empty phrase; it just sounds good, without any meaning. What is Ultimate Perfection?" I replied, "Well, I don't know what it means and what it does not mean, but what I know is, we have other words like that — we have 'zero,' we have 'infinity' — they also mean nothing and yet we have to accept them, especially in mathematics. You Russians are great mathematicians. If you remove zero or remove infinity, they will shoot you. You can't do without that." He said, "Ah! you have caught me nicely. It is a fact, you are right. Zero and Infinity also mean nothing. All right, we accept Ultimate Perfection." I said, "That is the Divine." He asked, "Is that so?" I replied, "The Divine is the Ultimate of everything. If you take perfection, it is Ultimate Perfection. You can take it anyway, give it any name, it is the Divine. Why should you object?" He said, "Oh! That puts quite a different picture on it. All right, we accept. We will come."

The story has nothing to do with my wisdom. It was only what came from the Mother. When I came back and reported what I had said, the Mother told me, "Udar, you have done very well. You have said exactly what I wanted you to say."

Auroville Inauguration Ceremony

For the actual ceremony, it was planned that a boy and a girl from each country would bring a piece of earth from their country, walk up the ramp to the central urn and put that earth into the urn. While this was being done, a representative from their country would read out the Charter of Auroville in the language of their own country and accept it on behalf of his country. It was a very beautiful concept. There had to be a Master of Ceremonies to call each country's name by turn and direct the ceremony. They proposed an American actor with a good voice. The Mother said, "I don't know who this American is. I want Udar there."

Thus I was pitch-forked into something I did not want. I had to go and be the master of ceremonies. The whole ceremony was very, very beautiful and it went perfectly, smoothly, without the smallest hitch, without even the smallest hesitation, so much so that the American Consul-General came to me afterwards and asked, "How many times have you rehearsed this ceremony?" I replied, "We have never rehearsed it." He exclaimed, "No?" "No," I emphasised. He commented, "I have seen so many ceremonies but I have never seen anything go so perfectly, without the slightest hitch or hesitation. Absolutely perfect, like a well-oiled machine."

This is how the Mother works and can work if the instruments do not put their own ideas in between.

On the last Sunday of each month, we read excerpts from the above book and share our insights. Do join us, if you have not already....

The Perfect Path

2011-08-31T07:54:00.000-07:00

For each one it is the path that leads fastest to the Divine.

- The Mother

Common Name: Coffee

Botanical Name: Coffea
Spiritual Name: The Perfect Path

From the Editor's Desk

2011-08-31T07:43:00.000-07:00

The rainbow it not a material entity. It comes in a spectacular fashion spanning a corner of the skies and vanishes. It is a play of meteorological and optical factors that lead to the formation of this phenomena. Light rays pass through clear, crystal droplets of rain water, or mist, spray or airborne dew and are refracted. Refracted light is then reflected out and appears in the atmosphere as a spectrum of coloured light. Newton noted the seven colours on the rainbow to be red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. The rainbow falls 42° from the direction opposite the sun.

Throughout time, the rainbow has never failed to appeal to man’s imagination. Its sheer beauty and lightness adorning the vast skies spell wonder and joy in the hearts of observers. It is no wonder that mythologies from all over the world, fables, literary prose and poetry have a special place for the rainbow. Here are some examples of how different civilisations ascribed a meaning to the rainbow.

In the Genesis it is recorded that the rainbow was God’s promise that the earth would not be destroyed again by another Flood. Here is the rainbow as a symbol of promise and therefore of assurance. In Sanskrit, a rainbow is termed Indradhanush, or literally translated, Indira’s bow. Indra, the valiant lord of rain, thunder and lightning and of war uses the rainbow as his bow to fire arrows of lightning at an Asura, Vrta. In Chinese mythology, the rainbow was a patch of stones of five colours stacked on the sky by a goddess to hide a slit on the sky.

A prominent modernist literary writer of the 20^th century, Virgina Woolf ascribes impermanence and fragility to the rainbow which makes a spectacular but brief appearance across the sky. Sri Aurobindo, uses the rainbow as a symbol of a bridge, in the Graeco-Roman tradition. More than a bridge, he sees behind the physical light the spiritual light. The rainbow is used as a symbol in conveying to readers messages on his Integral Yoga. The phrase “rainbow bridge” occurs once in Sri Aurobindo’s epic poetry, Savitri in Book 2, Canto 6, Pg 182 as follows:

Across a luminous dream of spirit-space
She builds creation like a rainbow bridge
Between the original Silence and the Void.

Nature is personified as a builder of a bridge, the rainbow bridge between the high worlds of the gods and the lower world of existence here on earth. Nature builds creation such that it assumes the order of a bridge that connects this earth to higher worlds, bridging the gap between the world of the Void where the spirit sleeps forgotten and the high world from which it all originated, the World of the Silent Brahman. This rainbow bridge lies across the luminous dream of spirit-space...something intangible. Here he lends the rainbow its spiritual quality and the symbolic representative of a truth he envisaged.

The “rainbow bridge” features again in one of Sri Aurobindo’s collected poems, titled, “God’s Labour” written between 1935 and 1936. It was during the 1930s also that Sri Aurobindo worked on refining extensively Part 1 of Savitri in which Book 2 referred above appears.

I had hoped to build a rainbow bridge

Marrying the soil to the sky
And sow in this dancing planet midge
The moods of infinity.

Here again, Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga and his mission on earth are brought to light. The bridging of “soil to sky” or nature with spirit is his aim here, to make manifest in this soil the presence of divinity.

Savitri

2011-08-31T07:40:00.000-07:00

Earth must transform herself and equal Heaven

Or Heaven descend into earth's mortal state.
But for such a vast spiritual change to be,
Out of the mystic cavern in man's heart
The heavenly Psyche must put off her veil
And step into common nature's crowded rooms
And stand uncovered in that nature's front
And rule its thoughts and fill the body and life.

(Savitri, Book 7, Canto 2)

To eternal light and knowledge meant to rise,
Up from man's bare beginnings is our climb;
Out of earth's heavy smallness we must break,
We must search our nature with spiritual fire;
An insect crawl preludes our glorious flight;
Our human state cradles the future god,
Our mortal fraility an immortal force.

(Savitri, Book 2, Canto 10)

To the Heights

2011-08-31T07:38:00.000-07:00

The two worlds are cloven apart
And a chasm yawns between,
The deluding midworld that with its lurid shadow
Divides Heaven and Earth!

But one day they shall come close
And the lightning fire leap out
To consume the shadow track
And turn it into the gleaming path
For Heaven to descend upon earth.

(Nolini Kanta Gupta, A poem from ‘To The Heights’, Translated from French – ‘Vers Les Hauteurs’, Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Pondicherry)

Mother's 'Prayers and Meditations’ - 29 August 1914

2011-08-31T07:36:00.000-07:00

"What would be the use of man if he were not created to throw a bridge between That which is eternal but is unmanifested......”

The Rainbow Bridge – Part 1

2011-08-31T07:27:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to include in this Newsletter a feature article by Mrs Sonia Dyne - The Rainbow Bridge. This is reproduced from a lecture that she delivered under the Dr M V Nadkarni Memorial Lecture at Savitri Bhavan, Auroville, on the 20^th of February 2011. This article inspired our theme for this month. The article will be presented to you in two parts. Part 2 of the article would appear in next month’s issue. Mrs. Dyne needs no introduction in the Sri Aurobindo circle of Singapore. She was a former Chairperson of the society and also the then editor of our Newsletter. Perhaps, Mrs. Dyne’s sentiments, echoed in the following quote, will be an apt prelude to the following article:

The Rainbow Bridge – Part 1

We are here today to honour the memory of Professor Mangesh Nadkarni, a true disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and an outstanding exponent of their work. I had the great privilege and pleasure of knowing him during the years when he was teaching at the University of Singapore, and giving a great deal of his time in the evenings and at weekends to spend with the members of our Sri Aurobindo Society, taking part in our regular meetings and leisure activities.

In those days, we used to meet on the upper floor of a very old building, a former police station, which occupied one corner of a busy road junction. Traffic roared past without a pause, and the old timber-framed walls seemed to vibrate with every passing vehicle. Listening to Professor Nadkarni, we became oblivious to the dinginess of our surroundings and the relentless noise, aware only of the soft light shining on photographs of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and a discourse that held us spellbound. It was not only the spoken words that held our attention, but the sheer enthusiasm and total conviction of the speaker himself. It often seemed to me then that the strident voice of a great city dedicated to commerce was trying in vain to drown out the mantric verses of Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri, and I used to fancy that the air itself would preserve their vibration and remember them, as water is said to remember. Much later I discovered that Sri Aurobindo had written, in a reference to certain schools of Vedic thought: ‘…that which we have created in our consciousness by the Word, we can fix there by the Word, to become part of ourselves and effective not only in our inner life, but upon the outer physical world.’

During the time that Dr Nadkarni was with us, membership of our small Society increased to include more people from outside the Indian community, so that for the first time we could see ourselves as part of a truly international family. This was largely due to the popularity of Dr Nadkarni himself, not only as an outstanding teacher but as someone who constantly inspired us with a new spirit of dedication to the Integral Yoga.

Speaking here in the Savitri Bhavan in 2002 he said: “Savitri is not great only as literature. It is a living book….. it is not only the manifestation of the new spiritual age that is about to dawn on humanity, but it is also a powerhouse. This power becomes dynamic when we receive it into ourselves and manifest it in our lives through our sadhana”. True to his word, he seemed to live the teaching he so eloquently proclaimed.

Among the passages Dr Nadkarni liked to read aloud, bringing them to life as only he could, many were prophetic in their revelation of humanity’s potential, the destiny Sri Aurobindo referred to when he wrote:

‘If mankind could but see, though in a glimpse of fleeting experience, what infinite enjoyments, what perfect forces, what luminous reaches of spontaneous knowledge, what wide calms of our being lie in wait for us in the tracts which our animal evolution has not yet conquered, they would leave all and never rest till they had gained these treasures.’

The tragedy is that we can’t see, even though these treasures are within us, as in a sealed room of our earthly habitation to which we have no access in the present stage of our evolution. But we can believe in our future.

Dr Nadkarni’s delivery was unmatchable: nevertheless, in tribute to him I would like to begin with a prophetic vision we often heard him read, adding the power of his own conviction to Sri Aurobindo’s evocative words, a passage which remains in my mind forever associated with his memory:

At the head she stands of birth and toil and fate,
In their slow round the cycles turn to her call;
Alone her hands can change Time’s dragon base.
Hers is the mystery the Night conceals;
The Spirit’s alchemist energy is hers;
She is the golden bridge, the wonderful fire.
The luminous heart of the unknown is she,
A power of silence in the depths of God;
She is the Force, the inevitable Word,
The magnet of our difficult ascent,
The sun from which we kindle all our suns,
The light that leans from the unrealized Vasts,
The joy that beckons from the impossible,
The might of all that never yet came down.
All nature dumbly calls to her alone
To heal with her feet the aching throb of life
And break the seals on the dim soul of man
And kindle her fire in the closed heart of things.
All here shall be one day her sweetness’ home
All contraries prepare her harmony;
Towards her our knowledge climbs, our passion gropes;
In her miraculous rapture we shall dwell,
Her clasp shall turn to ecstasy our pain.
Our self shall be one self with all through her.

It sometimes seems to us that the promised joy does indeed ‘beckon from the impossible. Yet nobody has ever been more poignantly aware of the painful uncertainties of human life than Sri Aurobindo himself:

A creature born to bend beneath the yoke
A chattel and a plaything of time’s Lords
Or one more pawn who comes destined to be pushed
One slow move forward on a measureless board
In the chess-play of the earth-soul with doom
Such is the human figure drawn by Time (1:2)

The very words labour: beneath the threshold of their surface sense, that grating sound ‘aw’ repeated seven times in four lines echoes the merciless scraping against the board of the pawn’s enforced progress - not lifted up and gently placed in position, but ruthlessly shoved into danger, an expendable piece: the human tragedy made real to us through this symbol by the intuitive language of Sri Aurobindo.

In complete contrast, there are the astonishing prophetic passages, in which the seer, seized by a power transcending space and time as we know them, rises beyond the range of human mind and from there looks down at an apocalypse heralding the end of Death and Hell. True to the long tradition of prophecy, they begin with the words: “I saw”. Sri Aurobindo puts these lines into the mouth of Aswapati - but the vision is his own:

I saw the Omnipotent’s flaming pioneers
Over the heavenly verge which turns towards life
Come crowding down the amber steps of birth;
Forerunners of a divine multitude
Out of the paths of the morning star they came
Into the little room of mortal life.
I saw them cross the twilight of an age,
The sun eyed children of a marvelous dawn,
The great creators with wide brows of calm,
The massive barrier breakers of the world
And wrestlers with destiny in her lists of will,
The labourers in the quarries of the gods,
The messengers of the Incommunicable,
The architects of immortality.
Into the fallen human sphere they came
Faces that wore the Immortal’s glory still,
Voices that communed still with the thoughts of God,
Bodies made beautiful by the Spirit’s light.
Carrying the magic word, the mystic fire,
Carrying the Dionysian cup of joy,
Approaching eyes of a diviner man,
Lips chanting an unknown anthem of the soul
Feet echoing in the corridors of Time. (3:4)

A commanding vision– but how is it possible? How do we make that leap from the “death-bound littleness” of our present existence, so clearly understood by Sri Aurobindo and so accurately described by him in line after line of Savitri? It has taken a few million years of Nature’s evolution to bring us to the point where we are now – at the end of “the curve of reason” to use Sri Aurobindo’s vivid phrase. What is the way forward, and how do we bridge the gulf between our present state and the future foreseen by Sri Aurobindo?

A radical transformation is called for - and it must begin now, with us. The Mother showed the way when she called 'Savitri' a "mantra for the transformation of the world." How well she understood what that means, the secret of its power:

"With the divine Love is the supreme power of transformation. It has this power because it is for the sake of transformation that it has given Itself to the world, and manifested everywhere. Not only has it infused itself into Man, but also into all the atoms of the most obscure matter in order to bring the world back to the original truth."

We may have reached already a dangerous stage of our human journey where, if we do not change, the Earth will no longer sustain us. We misuse our human freedom to pollute the fragile envelope of air surrounding our planet; air that is the universal sign of our oneness with all life. It was not around from the beginning. It was created by life evolving in the oceans and it is still the same air; air that was breathed by Socrates and the Buddha and flowed through the flute of Krishna.

And yet, the freedom we now misuse is the very essence of our humanity. It marks us out from other living creatures on our planet. Freedom is the most precious and at the same time the most terrible of divine gifts, for once given it can never be taken away. Sri Aurobindo understood the fundamental importance of freedom and proclaimed it on the first page of The Life Divine saying – “The earliest formula of wisdom promises to be its last – God, Light, Freedom, Immortality.” He was not a believer in evolution in the strict Darwinian sense, as he made clear in a document of 1914. In his view, man was a special creation – a divine soul in an animal body. That is why there are so many references in Savitri to a power that guides from within – the outstretched hand felt upon our lives. “All’s miracle here” he wrote, “and can by miracle change.” Should we then expect a miracle?

Neither Sri Aurobindo nor the Mother envisaged a ‘miraculous’ change, because it would deny to Mankind the God-given gift of his freedom to choose. Without that freedom, no ascent to the supramental consciousness would be even possible, for freedom is the hallmark of the supermind, just as it is of our human nature.

Thus the climax of Sri Aurobindo’s poem is not the moment when Savitri tears the mask from the face of Death and discovers the sole reality of Love, but the free choice she makes on behalf of the human race. By her surrender to the divine Will she has earned that right, but the divinity incarnate in her does not impose a choice, her human part alone must make it. Here is that dramatic moment in Book 11:

Around her some tremendous spirit lived,
Mysterious flame around a melting pearl,
And in the phantom of abolished Space
There was a voice unheard by human ears that cried:
“Choose, spirit thy supreme choice not given again;
For now from my highest being looks at thee
The nameless, formless peace where all things rest.
In a happy, vast sublime cessation know,
An immense extinction in eternity,
A point that disappears in the infinite, -
Felicity of the extinguished flame,
Last sinking of a wave in a boundless sea,
End of the trouble of thy wandering thoughts,
Close of the journeying of thy pilgrim soul.
Accept, O music, weariness of thy notes,
O stream, wide breaking of thy channel banks.”
The moments fell into eternity.
But someone yearned within a bosom unknown,
And silently the woman’s heart replied:
“Thy peace, O Lord, a boon within to keep
Amid the roar and ruin of wild Time
For the magnificent soul of man on earth
Thy calm, O Lord, that bears thy hands of joy. (11:1)

The choice has been made for us, and the way prepared for us by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. A ‘rainbow bridge’ was built in the unseen - the epic of Savitri records the building of it and becomes its counterpart in earthly time. The very language of Savitri marks it out, for it is the spontaneous utterance of an intuitive consciousness that we are only just able to grasp: it is the future poetry and its appeal is to the whole human person on levels above and below the surface mind.

The image of the rainbow bridge comes from A God’s Labour, one of Sri Aurobindo’s most loved poems. Written in 1935, at a time when he was actively engaged on the composition of Savitri, it describes in words that are clear and explicit the nature and purpose of the work he had undertaken in collaboration with the Mother:

I had hoped to build a rainbow bridge
Marrying the soil to the sky
And sow in this dancing planet midge
The moods of infinity.

The difficulties and dangers of the Sadhana, the discoveries and ultimate success of the great mission, are all contained in the 31 verses of A God’s labour - almost it seems, as a summary of their further elaboration in Savitri itself. Despite the unprecedented nature of the task, in the end the work was done:

The gulf twixt the depths and the heights is bridged
And the golden waters pour
Down the sapphire mountains rainbow ridged
And glimmer from shore to shore.

In speaking of his work as a ‘rainbow bridge’ Sri Aurobindo brings together two of the most ancient and potent symbols we know. A bridge connects the place where we are to the place where we want to go; by its very nature it spans the twin dimensions of space and time, carrying us from the known to the unknown, from the place where we are to the place where we will be. As a psychological symbol, it connects our hopes and dreams to their future realization. In its material reality, a bridge enables us to cross a dangerous place or an impossible chasm. Savitri is a living bridge created in the consciousness of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and imbued with the power to effect a real change in the way we see ourselves and experience life.

As a sign of the connection between earth and intangible realm of the Spirit, the rainbow appears in myth and legend from earliest times. It has an important place in the oldest surviving culture we know, that of the Aboriginal inhabitants of Australia, dating back 15,000 years. They too have their rainbow bridge in the shape of a huge coloured snake, creator of the ancestors who roamed the primeval earth. From the rainbow snake when it rose up from the waterholes to span the sky, their ancestors learned songs of power to sing into existence each feature of the landscape, each animal and plant. In a later age, after the great flood, the rainbow became a symbol of hope, a sign in the heavens that a wrathful God would never again punish mankind by destroying the earth.

There is another, more profound aspect to Sri Aurobindo’s choice: a rainbow is visible light. Behind it is the spiritual light we do not see:

“Contrary to our ordinary conceptions,” he wrote, “light is not primarily a material creation …….light is primarily a spiritual manifestation of a divine reality illuminative and creative: material light is a subsequent representation or conversion of it into matter for the purposes of the material Energy.” (This description of the double nature of light was written long before we became familiar with the mysterious double life of the photon, simultaneously both wave and particle.)

A Spiritual light manifesting itself as poetry is the true source of Savitri’s power to lift our consciousness to a higher level than we normally experience; to lift it nearer to the plane of intuitive mind. In Indian tradition, the transforming power of the word is known as Mantra, and it is much more than just inspired writing. Sri Aurobindo has given many descriptions of Mantra, besides providing a sustained and consistent example of it in Savitri itself. From our point of view one of the most helpful explanations he has given is in the context of The Secret of the Veda:

“The Mantra, although it expresses thought in mind, is not in its essential part a creation of the intellect. To be the sacred and effective word, it must have come as an inspiration from the supramental plane, termed in Veda rtam, the Truth, and have been received into the superficial consciousness either through the heart or by the luminous intelligence.

The heart in Vedic psychology is not restricted to the seat of the emotions; it includes all that large tract of spontaneous mentality nearest to the subconscient in us, out of which rise the sensations, emotions, instincts, impulses and all those intuitions and inspirations that travel through these agencies before they arrive at form in the intelligence.”

“……..It is there that the inspirations of the Universal Soul can most easily enter in, and most swiftly take possession of the individual soul. It is therefore by the power of the heart that the mantra takes form. But it has to be received and held in the thought of the intelligence as well as in the perceptions of the heart; for not till the intelligence has accepted and even brooded upon it, can that truth of thought, which the truth of the Word expresses, be firmly possessed or normally effective. Fashioned by the heart, it is confirmed by the mind. But another approval is also needed. The individual mind has accepted; the effective powers of the Cosmos must also accept. The words of the hymn retained by the mind form a basis from which the future thought energies have to proceed.”

I draw your attention to the last sentence. In Savitri Sri Aurobindo has given us a new ‘hymn’ by which we may concentrate the thought energies of our own age. It is indeed a wedding hymn – to use an ancient Greek word for such a composition, it is an Epithalamion celebrating the marriage of the soil to the sky. In former times its verses would have been sung or chanted in celebration rather than read silently; but equally it was to be remembered and cherished and ‘brooded upon’. Reading Savitri may be our shortest, easiest and most direct way to develop the intuitive intelligence that is the first step towards a new consciousness.

This work is a beacon of fire, illuminating everything that is brought within the circle of its light. In that light all the achievements of the past, all our religions, all our philosophies, our sciences old and new – indeed all fields of human endeavour – appear renewed and connected to each other by a thousand subtle ties. Wherever they are deficient, too narrowly based or distorted by ignorance and ill-will, this light comes in to reveal the halo of hidden Truth and the potential of hidden perfection our mental eyes do not see. It is the light of the Supramental playing upon the human world, restoring the shattered original harmony of the higher spheres, a light so powerful that it can change the way we experience the world.

......to be continued

Along the Way...

2011-08-31T07:23:00.000-07:00

It was a bleak morning. The cheerful rays of the sun were absent. Clouds were gathering in different corners of the sky. As I emerged from the underground car park of the Botanical Garden’s Visitors’ Centre, I was pleasantly greeted by the sight of a good number of people doing the last exercise for the warm-up session. We concluded the morning’s warm up session with a chant dedicated to The Mother, OM Anandamayi. This single mantra brought a deep silence in the circle. We were ready to take off when many others joined us at the same point. They were also, like me, lost sheep joining the main herd a little later. The light of The Mother embraces all and thus we began our walk around the Park together, as one family.

It was a great feeling to be with greenery. Somehow, nature has her very own special way of infusing in us something of her vast energy, sucking away all sorrows and clouds that may be within, or infusing in us a new energy. It rests solely on us, on our consciousness, how we may want to use that energy that we are gifted. Children expend it in a spirit of simple abandonment and Nature replenishes them without fail as they play. Adults are known to use, generally, much of their mind and a wild vital complicates the matter further. Energy is inevitably lost in making sense of the tangle we end up in eventually, in getting out of it. However, there are, thankfully, methods in which energy can be harnessed and channelised in ways that can bring in, over and over again, a free flow of itself for sustenance, that fatigue becomes a phenomenon foreign. It has been found that a total self-giving of oneself to the highest within achieves this feat where fatigue does not throw even its vaguest shadow upon us. Which brings us back to the walk. A walk walked in an attitude of goodwill to oneself and all around, in the midst of nature, fine trees and shrubs, plants and flowers, celebrated by bees, birds and butterflies, a walk in appreciation and gratitude and perhaps, dotted with deep silence spells many magical moments for a start. Indeed, it is this sweet innocent world that one should want more and more of. Spaces within are opened to be touched and the cleansing process is very slowly and gradually effected. Imagine doing such a walk with a group of people dedicated to the same!

The gathering dark clouds and rumbling skies opened up 45 minutes into the walk. It rained furiously. Whether we got wet or not, we must all have been cleansed, such is the magic of the presence of water, its shower of blessings.

- Jayanthy

Aug 15th 2011 Programme - Videos & Photos

2011-08-30T06:26:00.000-07:00

Videos:
IEP Children's offering:

Musical offering by Mr & Mrs Shashi Lal Kashyap and team:

Savitri - An offering:

Photos:
Savitri - An offering by devotees:

Inspiration

2011-08-03T06:33:00.001-07:00

Waits patiently to be received.

- The Mother

Common Name: Dutchamn's Pipe, Pelican Flower

Botanical Name: Aristolochia Rigens

Spiritual Name: Inspiration

From the Editor's Desk

2011-08-03T06:32:00.001-07:00

This month’s newsletter celebrates Sri Aurobindo’s 139th birth anniversary with some thoughts on his poetry as well as on his adoration of the Mother Land, India, as the Bharatha Shakti, or Bhavani Bharati. A Sri Aurobindo without mention of his poetry or mention of the Bharat Mata he revered and knew to be the leader of the future world towards a higher life, was unimaginable. In his own words too, it was no mere accident that India was re-conferred her freedom on the 15th of August 1947. An indelible mark he left on both poetry and on his revered Motherland. His deep devotion for this land, is prominent in his “Hymn to Durga”. A poignant stanza says it all, (translated from the original Bengali version to English by Nolini Da):

Mother Durga! Extend wide the power of Yoga. We are thy Aryan children, develop in us again the lost teaching, character, strength of intelligence, faith and devotion, force of austerity, power of chastity and true knowledge, bestow all that upon the world. To help mankind, appear, O Mother of the world, dispel all ills.

In “Savitri”, his epic poem, his Magnum Opus, we have a description of Sri Aurobindo’s idea of high poetry, characterised by
“ ...metres that reflect the moving worlds,
Sight’s sound-waves breaking from the soul’s great deeps.

Invested with a rhythm of higher spheres
The word was used as a hieratic means
For the release of the imprisoned spirit
Into communion with its comrade gods.”

Poetry ‘s means - words, lines and verses - served a spiritual end, for the discovery of the deeper soul’s yearnings or intimations, a medium through which these were expressed and in the process, a spirit released that communes with the “gods”. Of Sri Aurobindo’s poetry across the years, one can discern a change in the direction and its general orientation. He himself has mentioned that his earlier poems were vital in origin, and poems that come to mind are “The Lover’s Complaint” or “Lover in Sorrow”, written in melancholic fervour. In this edition, we have included one such earlier poem, “Perfect thy motion”, that muses on the Creator Force, written at a time, perhaps, when he was experimenting with verses while trying to express his insights. However, his later poems reveal a depth and a height born out of his own growth in the spiritual arena. In fact, he himself says that his later poems cannot be anything but reflect his state of being, born out of higher realms, being a manifestation of his spiritual stature at the time of writing, such as perhaps, “Rose of God” an experimentation in new metres, written on the last day of 1934, when he was well advanced in his sadhana, an attempt that appears to be a stark contrast with his earlier experiments.

On the other hand, his epic poem, “Savitri” was one that was meant not to be finished. It was an ever-evolving experiment “to see how far poetry could be written from one’s own yogic consciousness and how that could be made creative.” In such an attempt, countless revisions are a norm and Sri Aurobindo never hesitated, as we have it from records, to revise whole chunks of lines over and over again, each time he detected its origin from spheres lower than what he had gained entry into at the point of re-reading. Such was the genius behind that magnum opus, “Savitri” and such was his fixed regard on perfection in expressing words from higher realms with least distortion here in this world. Such, his sincerity, austerity and magnanimity.

Savitri

2011-07-26T20:50:00.001-07:00

Intuitive knowledge leaping into speech,
Hearing the subtle voice that clothes the heavens,
Carrying the splendour that has lit the suns,
They sang Infinity’s names and deathless powers
In metres that reflect the moving worlds,
Sight’s sound-waves breaking from the soul’s great deeps.

Invested with a rhythm of higher spheres
The word was used as a hieratic means
For the release of the imprisoned spirit
Into communion with its comrade gods.
Or it helped to beat out new expressive forms
Or that which labours in the heart of life,
Some immemorial Soul in men and things,
Seeker of the Unknown and the Unborn
Carrying a light from the Ineffable
To rend the veil of the last mysteries.

(Savitri, Book 4, Canto 4)

Question of the month

2011-07-26T20:49:00.000-07:00

Q: Nirodbaran: We have been wondering why you should have to write and rewrite your poetry – for instance, Savitri ten or twelve times- when you have all the inspiration at your command and do not have to receive it with the difficulty that faces budding Yogis like us.

A: Sri Aurobindo: That is very simple. I used Savitri as a means of ascension. I began with it on a certain mental level, each time I could reach a higher level I rewrote from that level. Moreover I was particular – if a part seemed to me to come from any lower levels I was not satisfied to leave it because it was good poetry. All had to be as far as possible of the same mint. In fact Savitri has not been regarded by me as a poem to be written and finished, but as a field of experimentation to see how far poetry could be written from one’s own yogic consciousness and how that could be made creative. I did not rewrite Rose of God or the sonnets except for two or three verbal alterations made at the moment.

Q: Nirodbaran: Is silencing the mind to be done only at the time of writing?

A: Sri Aurobindo: Silencing the mind at the time of writing should be sufficient, even not silencing it but its falling quiet to receive.

Q: Nirodbaran: One of my methods in composing is to try to find out the rhymes.

A: Sri Aurobindo: Just the thing you should not do. Let the rhyme come, don’t begin dragging all sorts of rhymes in to see if they fit.

Q: Nirodbaran: Do you want to say that if I have discovered some lines I must not think of the next lines, but try instead to keep absolutely silent?

A: Sri Aurobindo: That is the ideal way; but usually there is always an activity of the mind jumping up and trying to catch the inspiration. Sometimes the inspiration, the right one, comes in the midst of this futile jumping, sometimes it sweeps it aside and brings in the right thing, sometimes it asserts itself between two blunders, sometimes it waits till the noise quiets down. But even this jumping need not be a mental effort- it is often only a series of suggestions, the mind of itself seizing on one or eliminating another, not by laborious thinking and choice, but by a quiet series of perceptions. This is the method No. 2, No. 3 is your Herculean way, quiet the slowest and worst.

Q: Nirodbaran: I have worked today from 1.30 to 6.15 p.m. – 5 hours ! – and composed only 16 lines ! Is this a sign of laziness?

A: Sri Aurobindo: But that is quite magnificent – 16 lines in one day, 3 1/5 lines an hour about! Remember that Virgil used only to write 9 lines a day. At this rate you will end by being twice as inspired and fluent as Virgil.

(Nirodbaran, ‘Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo’, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1969).

Poetry and Yoga

2011-07-26T20:48:00.002-07:00

Literature and art are or can be a first introduction to the inner being- the inner mind, vital; for it is from there that they come. And if one writes poems of bhakti, poems of divine seeking, etc, or creates music of that kind, it means that there is a bhakta or seeker inside who is supporting himself by that self expression. There is also the point of view behind Lele’s anwer to me when I told him that I wanted to do Yoga but for work, for action, not for sannyasa and Nirvana, but that after years of spiritual effort I had failed to find the way and it was for that I had asked to meet him. His first answer was, “It would be easy for you as you are a poet.”

I used to write poems on vital love, I could not do it now (for if I wrote of love, it would be of psychic and spiritual feeling) not because I have narrowed or deteriorated but because I have centred myself in a higher consciousness and anything merely vital would not express me. It must be the same with any one who changes his level of consciousness. Can one say of the man who has grown out of childishness and no longer plays with nursery toys that he has narrowed and deteriorated by the change?

On Mystic poetry

2011-07-26T20:48:00.001-07:00

There are two kinds of mystic poetry: Occult – mystic and spiritual-mystic. That poem of mine about the moon and the star or ‘The Bird of Fire’ is occult mystic. In ‘Nirvana’, for instance, I have put exactly what Nirvana is.

(‘Reminiscences and Anecdotes of Sri Aurobindo’, Compiled by M.P.Pandit, Deepti Publications, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry)

The Mother on Inspiration

2011-07-26T20:47:00.002-07:00

“…inspiration from regions far above the mind surpasses in value and quality the highest achievements of the mind, such as reason. Reason is certainly at the apex of human mental activity. It can review and control the knowledge acquired with the help of the senses. It has often been said that the senses are altogether defective instruments of knowledge, that they are incapable of perceiving things as they are, that the information they supply is superficial and very often faulty. When it is fully developed, the human reason knows this and does not trust the knowledge of the senses. It is only if one is infrarational, if I may say so, that one believes that all one sees, hears, or touches is absolutely true. As soon as one is developed in the region of higher reason, one knows that all these notions are almost essentially false, and that one can in no way rely on them. But the knowledge one receives from this supramental or divine region surpasses all that can be conceived or understood by reason, at least to the same extent that reason surpasses the knowledge of the senses.

Several questions concern a practical point: ``How to develop the capacity for inspiration?''; ``What are the conditions needed to receive inspiration and is it possible to have it constantly?''

I have already replied to this. When one opens oneself to the supramental regions, one puts oneself in the right state for receiving constant inspirations. Until then, the best method is to silence the mind as much as possible, to turn it upwards and to remain in a state of silent and attentive receptivity. The more one is able to establish a silent, perfect calm in the mind, the more one becomes capable of receiving inspirations.”

(‘CWM- Volume 10’, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1979, published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram)

Salute to the Mother! Vande Mataram! Jai Hind!

2011-07-26T20:47:00.001-07:00

“O our Mother, O Soul of India, Mother who hast never forsaken thy children even in the days of darkest depression, even when they turned away from thy voice, served other masters and denied thee, now when they have arisen and the light is on thy face in this dawn of thy liberation, in this great hour we salute thee. Guide us so that the horizon of freedom opening before us may be also a horizon of true greatness and of thy true life the community of nations. Guide us so that we may be always on the side of great ideals and show to men thy true visage, as a leader in the ways of the spirit and a friend and helper of all peoples.”

Also, in the morning the Mother hoisted her flag- which was to be called “The Spiritual Flag of India" - blazoning forth India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Ceylon all together, with her own symbol at the centre, over the main Ashram building. There was a record number of visitors to the Ashram, and over two thousand had Darshan in the afternoon. Presently the Mother appeared on the low terrace over Dyuman's room; the courtyard was packed to capacity. The Bande Mataram was sung as it had never been sung before, for now it was a moment of fulfilment, and the Mother responded with 'Jai Hind' and the congregation was to cherish the memory of her marvellous gesture for long afterwards.

The Mother's flag- the Spiritual Flag of India- which since 15th August 1947 has been for us a flaming minister, a symbol of hope and a declaration of faith, has been flying high and serene in the minds and sensibilities of countless number of Indians. The blue flag figuring the great Indian subcontinent stretching from Kashmir to Sri Lanka, from Sind to Burma, environed by the Himalaya in the North, the Indian ocean in the South, the Arabian sea on the West and the Bay of Bengal in the East, and with the Mother's symbol of her Shakti, her four powers and her twelve emanations concentrically arranged as the heart of the living Mother of a seething mass of humanity numbering almost a billion- what is this Spiritual Flag of India but a revelation, an ephiphanic projection, a visual recordation of the deeper reality, the inspiring Truth, of this primordial Asiatic region, the matrix of the stupendous human adventure on the earth, and the destined scene of the next leap forward to the horizons of supermanhood ?

This flag symbolising the spiritual reality and unity of Greater India- the true India- was verily the Mother's answer to the brutal partition of India decreed by the erstwhile British rulers and accepted by the short-sighted and faint-hearted Indian leaders of 1947, for the Spiritual Flag of India with the Mother's symbol as the central design and highlighted by the blue background was the Ashram's flag as well. Explaining the significance, Sri Aurobindo said in 1949:
“The blue of the flag is meant to be the colour of Krishna and so represents the spiritual or Divine Consciousness which it is her work to establish so that it may reign upon earth.”

The world's deep contrasts are but figures spun
Draping the unanimity of the One.
My soul unhorizoned widens to measureless sight,
My body is God's happy living tool,
My spirit a vast sun of deathless light.

Like the human soul, the nation's soul too defies all man-made boundaries - physical, legal, constitutional- and embraces the infinities. Even so, by charging the new Map of India with a spiritual glow and infinitude of connotation, the Mother tried to undo in some measure the mischief of the Partition mentality of self-fragmentation, the surge of mutual suspicion and hatred, and the enthronement of communal and sub-national egoism that were alien to the spiritual ideal of oneness, wholeness and intergrality, Mother was not limited to the head alone, the feet alone, the hands alone or even the visible body alone. The Mother's ambience of protective love and sovereign Grace overflowed the visible boundaries. Salute to the Mother! Vande Mataram! Jai Hind!
India is my true country, the country of my soul and spirit...

“I want to mark this day by the expression of a long cherished wish; that of become an Indian citizen. From the first time I came to India- that is in 1914 - I felt that India is my true country, the country of my soul and spirit... Now the time has come when I can declare myself.

But, in accordance with Sri Aurobindo's ideal, my purpose is to show that truth lies in union rather than in division. to reject one nationality in order to obtain another is not an ideal solution. So I hope I shall be allowed to adopt a double nationality, that is to say, to remain French while I become an Indian.

I am French by birth and early education, I am Indian by choice and predilection. In my consciousness there is no antagonism between the two, on the contrary they combine very well and complete one another. I know also that I can be of service to both equally, for my only aim in life is to give a concrete form to Sri Aurobindo's great teaching in his teaching he reveals that all the nationals are essentially one and meant to express Divine Unity upon earth through an organised and harmonious diversity.”

Commenting on the Mother's declaration, K.D. Sethna wrote: Here is a flaming milestone in a mighty mission- the mission to incarnate the true spirit of this great land and by that incarnation bring forth again and carry to its climax the light of a more than human consciousness that India throughout her history has sought to manifest.

This concept of double citizenship was a challenge to the "Lord of the Nations”, the Asuric being who receives the ready homage of all rabid "national" egoisms. By expressing her wish for 'double citizenship', the Mother planted a potent seed in the human consciousness, and in the fullness of time mankind would want to shed its diverse, divisive, nationalist labels to seek a 'world citizenship' in a world polity as visualised in Sri Aurobindo's seminal treatise, ‘The Ideal of Human Unity’. With this very end in view, the 'World Union' movement was to be launched by A. B. Patel, with its headquarters in the Ashram and the Mother as President.

(Extracts from ‘On The Mother- The Chronicle Of A Manifestation And Ministry’- K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar, Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Pondicherry).

"August 15th is the birthday of free India. It marks for her the end of an old era, the beginning of a new age. But it has significance not only for us, but for Asia and the whole world, for it signifies the entry into the comity of nations of a new power with untold potentialities which has a great part to play in determining the political, social, cultural and spiritual future of humanity...

I have always held and said that India was rising, not to serve her own material interest only, to achieve expansion, greatness, power and prosperity, -- though these too she must not neglect --, and certainly not like others to acquire domination of other peoples, but to live also for God and the world as a helper and a leader of the whole human race."

In Memoriam – Amal Kiran (K.D. Sethna )

2011-07-26T20:44:00.000-07:00

(26-Nov-1904 to 29-Jun-2011)

"..the long years of aspiration are coming to fruition. Those four lines:
Arms taking to a voiceless supreme delight,
Life that meets the Eternal with close breast,
An unwalled mind dissolved in the Infinite,
Force one with unimaginable rest.

It was in 1937 that I wrote to Sri Aurobindo, "I aspire to live, as well as echo in quality of inspiration, those four lines of yours which I consider a plenary Mantra. Show me a way to realise my aspiration, I feel very impatient though I must confess to my shame that aspiration of the poet is more frequently in the forefront than that of the Yogi."

Sri Aurobindo's reply started with "Impatience does not help; intensity of aspiration does..."

At last this aspiration is coming to fruition."
- Amal Kiran, 29/30 October 1992.
-
Amal Kiran is nothing if not a sadhak, - a sadhak with a most intense and ardent aspiration for self-realisation and God-union and eventually, the divine life... Amal Kiran's burning faith in Sri Aurobindo and the Mother is an iridescent example to all disciples and devotees of the twin Avatars.

Who is Amal Kiran ? Kekoo D. Sethna - a sadhak resident at Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

What is Amal Kiran ? In his being a spiritual soul whose one preoccupation is its evolution to the integral Divine; in his nature a pure ray serene; an incandescent, receptive intelligence, buddhi; a quiet resolute determination, samkalpa, a flaming, unifying love, prema.

- Arabinda Basu

Creative Word

2011-06-30T20:05:00.001-07:00

Belongs only to the Divine.
- The Mother

Common Name: Shasta daisy
Botanical Name: Leucanthemum X superbum
Spiritual Name: Creative Word

From the editor's desk

2011-06-30T20:03:00.004-07:00

A symbol is that which is representative. It is derived from the Greek word, “symbolon”, which means, “throw together” or “coincide”, ‘sign’ or mark’. A symbol is therefore an object, an item, a person, an image, a picture, an event, a sign or even sound that represents an idea, something more than its literal meaning.

In the human civilization, symbols have been used variously since time immemorial to convey sets of meanings to different groups of people for different reasons or purposes. The appearance of a symbol before us puts us in close relationship with an idea that that symbol represents. A thought on Mathematical symbols may help to explain this. The symbol of the Christian Cross brings to us an idea of the suffering of God on the cross for the sake of man. In the Indian tradition, the lotus is regarded as a symbol of purity, divinity, knowledge and enlightenment. Then we have the currency symbol we come across each time we engage in monetary transactions. The “+” symbol represents the Red Cross, which essentially represents the ideal humanitarian goodwill to mankind in terms of rendering aids for physical well-being and health. Similarly national ideals are captured in the national flag with symbols. For example a rising crescent may represent progress, and a wheel or the Dharma Chakra represent dynamic progress. Such symbols on the flag tend to represent the soul quality of a country. Colours are also symbolic, as in white representing purity.

Since symbols are representative, it goes without saying that they encapsulate in them an idea and cut down on the necessity for verbose descriptions or explanations. They render an economy of words while offering an experience of the idea encapsulated therein. Art and literature are rife with symbols, and poetry is no exception. In fact, symbols feature as an important device in poetry for evoking complex ideas without resorting to much use of words. This in itself lends a cryptic beauty to poetry and enhances its quality.

In poetry, one can make out perhaps two main types of symbols – symbols that are typical to that culture that the poem evolved from, such as a lion, symbolizing strength and energy, dove, for peace or symbols can be one that the poet himself creates from the context of the poem. Very often, the reader is left to his own devices to interpret the symbol and make out the idea represented. This in itself gives poetry a flexibility, a certain malleability that does not confine or constrict, but flows like a river. The state of being of the reader co-mingles with the consciousness of the writer and meaning is made.

Let’s now dwell a while on what Sri Aurobindo has to say about symbols in poetry, beyond what is commonly understood as symbols in poetry. According to Sri Aurobindo, a symbol is “a living Truth or inward vision or experience of things, so inward, so subtle, so little belonging to the domain of intellectual abstraction, and precision...” Sri Aurobindo, by putting down these terms, calls upon the poet into higher realms of his being, above the mere intellectual. In high poetry, the symbol is representative of an experience deep, “inward”, “subtle”. These terms in themselves point to realms beyond the mere mental, or intellectual. There is a suggestion of poetry emerging out of psychic play, as well as from regions above the higher mind. Poetry becomes an act of the spirit and naturally, symbols would have to be of that texture and flavour, since arising out of that higher or deeper experience.

Savitri

2011-06-30T20:03:00.003-07:00

Intuitive knowledge leaping into speech,
Hearing the subtle voice that clothes the heavens,
Carrying the splendour that has lit the suns,
They sang Infinity’s names and deathless powers
In metres that reflect the moving worlds,
Sight’s sound-waves breaking from the soul’s great deeps.

Invested with a rhythm of higher spheres
The word was used as a hieratic means
For the release of the imprisoned spirit
Into communion with its comrade gods.
Or it helped to beat out new expressive forms
Of that which labours in the heart of life,
Some immemorial Soul in men and things,
Seeker of the Unknown and the Unborn
Carrying the light from the Ineffable
To rend the veil of the last mysteries.

(Savitri, Book 4, Canto 2)

Question of the month

2011-06-30T20:03:00.001-07:00

Q: What is the symbol behind the legend of Savitri ?

A: Sri Aurobindo: Satyavan is the soul carrying the divine truth of the being within itself but descended into the grip of death and ignorance; Savitri is the Divine Word, daughter of the Sun, goddess of the supreme Truth who comes down and is born to save. Still it is not a mere allegory, the characters are not personified qualities, but incarnations of emanations of living and conscious Forces with whom we can enter into concrete touch and they take human bodies in order to help man and show him the way from his mortal state to a divine consciousness and immortal life.
.

“Savitri alone is sufficient to make you climb to the highest peaks. If truly one knows how to meditate on Savitri, one will receive all the help one needs. For him who wishes to follow this path, it is a concrete help as though the Lord himself were taking you by the hand and leading you to the destined goal. And then, every question, however personal it may be, has its answer here, every difficulty finds its solution herein; indeed there is everything that is necessary for doing the Yoga.”

On symbols in poetry

2011-06-30T20:01:00.000-07:00

Like many other lovers of Sri Aurobindo's poetry, I too have been 'under the influence' of his symbol-rich poetry over the years. Only recently, however, I came across a book by A.B.Purani1 on Sāvitrī, which in its introductory chapter, threw light on what a 'symbol' represents. These wonderful passages made me want to try and learn what else the Master may have said on this subject; hence this short note.

Before we turn to what symbols represent, it could be worthwhile to breathe a few lines of poetry that are rich in the use of symbols

“It lit the thoughts that glow through the centuries” 2
“..An eye awake in the voiceless heights of trance” 3
“Lulled by Time’s beats eternity sleeps in us” 4
“The Adorer and Adored self-lost and one“5
“A blazing eye of Time watching the motionless day” 6

- A description of the Sun, in whose sight and to which, the ‘day’ is eternal. To have written this line, the poet would perhaps have experienced being the Sun – it is not a symbol that can ordinarily leap to an abstracting or even brilliantly imaginative mind.

On to the passage itself from Purani-ji's book :
“All language is symbolic“7

In poetry, symbols come naturally as very effective means for expressing the poet’s experience, besides being economical. According to C.Day Lewis, the special faculty of the poet is the “power of creating images”. These “images” that a poet creates are a kind of sign-language which forces itself on him under the stress of the creative impulse or in the moments of intensity of his creative faculty. The “image” created by the poet is effective and therefore authentic in proportion as it conveys the experience or the state of consciousness, without diminution or distortion. When the image is authentic it is a symbol, that is to say, it does not merely represent the experience but conveys the experience and is the most effective expression of it in language. Sri Aurobindo calls this “the finding of the inevitable word” and “inspired phrase“.
“Vision is the characteristic power of the poet, as is discriminative thought the essential gift of the philosopher and analytic observation the natural gift of the scientist”.

It is the faculty of vision, the power of seeing the truth of one’s experience or even some supra-intellectual Truth embodied as a symbol that gives the poet his special expressive power. It is true that a poet can create, or rather construct with the help of his imagination, an intellectual symbol which conveys his import to other people by a figure of symbol which represents rather than is the experience. Kalidas can use the “Cloud” as a “messenger” and Shelley convey the poet’s Truth through the “Skylark”.

With regard to the function of the symbol in expression Sri Aurobindo says in another letter:
” A symbol expresses not the play of abstract things or ideas put into imaged form but a living Truth or inward vision or experience of things, so inward, so subtle, so little belonging to the domain of intellectual abstraction, and precision that it cannot be brought out except through symbolic images – the more these images have a living truth of their own which corresponds intimately to the living truth they symbolise, the greater becomes the art of the symbolic expression.”

In his letters on poetry8, Sri Aurobindo also clarified how a poetic rendering of a symbolic vision could be different from a mystic poem; that a poem could be symbolic and mystic at the same time, but this was not a given:

"It is when the thing seen is spiritually lived and has an independent vivid reality of its own which exceeds any conceptual significance it may have on the surface that it is mystic.

..In the more deeply symbolist — still more in the mystic-poem the mind is submerged in the vividness of the reality and any mental explanation falls far short of what is felt and lived in the deeper vital or psychic response."

"A symbol must always convey a sense of reality to the feeling (not the intellect)"
"Mystic symbols are living things, not abstractions"

A disciple wrote to him, saying "If I try to understand the thing every bit seems ridiculous."
To which Sri Aurobindo replied:

"Because you are trying to find a mental meaning and your mind
is not familiar with the images, symbols, experiences that are peculiar to this realm. Each realm of experience has its own figures, its own language, its own vision and the physical mind not catching the link finds it all absurd."

Suggested follow-up on this subject:
There is a wonderful page or two at the end of the introductory chapter of Purani-ji’s book where he brings out the parallels between the symbolism in the Rig Veda and Savitri. A short excerpt is presented below, should this invite you to look up the original.

Sāvitrī is symbolic and the poetic genius of Sri Aurobindo has been saturated not only with English, Greek and Latin poetry but it has dived deep into the earliest poetry of humanity, the Rig Veda. How the Veda is living poetry and how Sri Aurobindo makes it live again in his translations of the hymns of the Veda is well known to those who have seen his epoch-making researches in the realm of Vedic interpretation embodied in his published book, ‘Hymns to the Mystic Fire’, and the still unpublished work, ‘The Secret of the Veda’. His thesis is that the Rig Veda is symbolic poetry embodying the spiritual wisdom of the early mystics. He himself has been a mystic all along his life and because of his affinity with the spirit of mystic expression it is natural that in Sāvitrī there are passages and lines which echo in their proper setting some of the poetic forms of the Vedic symbolists.
References
1 A.B.Purani, “Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri – An Approach and a Study”, pg 10. 1st pub 1952; ISBN :81-7058-683-6
2,3,4,5 from Sāvitrī
6 "In horis Eternum", Sri Aurobindo
7 Lasceiles Abercrombie
8 Letters on Poetry and Art, Sri Aurobindo
- Uday Arya
(Uday has been a lover of Sri Aurobindo's poetry since he can remember. He currently lives and works in Paris, and writes periodically at aryaputr.wordpress.com)

The Secret of the Veda’ – A First Attempt

2011-06-30T20:00:00.000-07:00

Commentaries or Bhāṣhyās on the ‘Vedās’ (contd.)
Swāmi Dayānanda Saraswati - (1824 – 1883):

He was an important Hindu religious scholar, reformer and the founder of the Ārya Samāj, ‘Society of Nobles’, a Hindu reform movement, founded in 1875. Denouncing ritualistic worship prevalent in Hinduism at that time, he worked towards reviving Vedic ideologies.
Swāmi Dayānanda interpreted and affirmed that the Veda is a book of knowledge. He put forth a monotheistic religious view and held that some of the modern scientific truths could be derived from a right and true understanding of the Vedās.
Sri Aurobindo on Swāmi Dayānanda:
“The third Indian contribution is older in date, but nearer to my present purpose. It is the remarkable attempt by Swāmi Dayānanda, the founder of the ‘Ārya Samāj’, to re-establish the Veda as a living religious Scripture. Dayananda took as his basis a free use of the old Indian philology which he found in the ‘Nirukta’. Himself a great Sanskrit scholar, he handled his materials with remarkable power and independence. Especially creative was his use of that peculiar feature of the old Sanskrit tongue which is best expressed by a phrase of Sāyaṇā’s – the “multi-significance of roots”. We shall see that the right following of this clue is of capital importance for understanding the peculiar method of the Vedic Riṣhis.
Dayānandā’s interpretation of the hymns is governed by the idea that the Vedās are a plenary revelation of religious, ethical and scientific truth. Its religious teaching is monotheistic and the Vedic gods are different descriptive names of the one Deity; they are at the same time indications of His powers as we see them working in Nature and by a true understanding of the sense of the Vedās we could arrive at all the scientific truths which have been discovered by modern research.”
Such a theory is, obviously, difficult to establish. The Rig Veda itself, indeed, asserts that the gods are only different names and expressions of one universal Being who in His own reality transcends the universe; but from the language of the hymns we are compelled to perceive in the gods not only different names, but also different forms, powers and personalities of the one Dēva. The monotheism of the Veda includes in itself also the monistic, pantheistic and even polytheistic views of the cosmos and is by no means the trenchant and simple creed of modern Theism. It is only by a violent struggle with the text that we can force on it a less complex aspect.
That the ancient races were far more advanced in the physical sciences than is as yet recognised, may also be admitted. The Egyptians and Chaldeans, we now know, had discovered much that has since been rediscovered by modern Science and much also that has not been rediscovered. The ancient Indians were, at least, no mean astronomers and were always skillful physicians; nor do Hindu medicine and chemistry seem to be of a foreign origin. It is possible that in other branches also of physical knowledge they were advanced even in early times. But the absolute completeness of scientific revelation asserted by Swami Dayānanda will take a great deal of proving”.

Sri Aurobindo – (1872 – 1950):

One amongst the many significant contributions of Sri Aurobindo was his setting forth an esoteric meaning of the Vedās. The Vedās were considered by some to be composed by a barbaric culture worshiping violent Gods. Sri Aurobindo was convinced that this was due to non-grasping of Vedic symbolism, both by Occidental and Oriental scholars. He strongly believed there was a hidden spiritual meaning in the Vedās. He viewed the Rig Veda as a spiritual text written in a symbolic language in which the outer meaning was concerned with ritualistic sacrifices to the gods, and the inner meaning, which was revealed only to initiates, was concerned with an inner spiritual knowledge and practice, the aim of which was to unite in consciousness with the Divine.
Eminent among the learned and occupied with severe austerities, the revered Sri Aurobindo, came upon a new path quite unexpectedly. He explains in clear terms how he came upon the Veda (‘The Secret of the Veda’, Chapter 4, Page 34).

“Like the majority of educated Indians I had passively accepted without examination, before myself reading the Veda, the conclusions of European Scholarship both as to the religious and as to the historical and ethnical sense of the ancient hymns. In consequence, following again the ordinary line taken by modernised Hindu opinion, I regarded the Upanishads as the most ancient source of Indian thought and religion, the true Veda, the first book of Knowledge. The Rig Veda in the modern translations which were all I knew of this profound Scripture, represented for me an important document of our national history, but seemed of small value or importance for the history of thought or for a living spiritual experience.

My first contact with Vedic thought came indirectly while pursuing certain lines of self-development in the way of Indian Yoga, which, without by knowing it, were spontaneously converging towards the ancient and now unfrequented paths followed by forefathers. At this time there began to arise in my mind an arrangement of symbolic names attached to certain psychological experiences which had begun to regularise themselves; and among them there came the figures of three female energies, Ila, Saraswati, Sarama, representing severally three out of the four faculties of the intuitive reason,- revelation, inspiration and intuition. Two of these two names were not well known to me as names of Vedic Goddesses, but were connected rather with the current Hindu religion or with old Puranic legend, Saraswati, goddess of learning and Ila, mother of the lunar dynasty. But Sarama was familiar enough. I was unable, however, to establish any connection between the figure that rose in my mind and the Vedic hound of heaven, who was associated in my memory with the Argive Helen and represented only an image of the physical Dawn entering in its pursuit of the vanished herds of Light into the cave of the Powers of darkness. When once the clue is found, the clue of the physical Light imaging the subjective, it is easy to see that the hound of heaven may be the intuition entering into the dark caverns of the subconscious mind t prepare the delivery and out-flashing of the bright illuminations of knowledge which have there been imprisoned. But the clue was wanting and I was obliged to suppose an identity of name without any identity of the symbol.”

Thus, the secret that lay hidden in the Veda stood revealed to him though his mind was never given to the search of the meanings of the mantrās. All these happened when he was absorbed in Yoga with his eyes turned within. Since then, he came to have an abiding interest in the inquiry into the meaning of the Vedās. Having found the secret of the Veda, the great Sage spoke out truths, even though impenetrable, regarding the Riks, the Riṣhis and the Gods for the enlightenment of the enquiring minds, in accordance with his vision.

References
1. ‘ The Light of Veda – A Practical Approach ’ – by Sri T.V.Kapāli Sastry
2. ‘ A New Light on the Veda ’ – by Sri T.V.Kapāli Sastry
(Originally written in Sanskrit under the name ‘Siddhānjana – Bhūmika’, translated into English by Sri M.P.Pandit and thoroughly revised by the author himself, in 1952. Published by Sri Aurobindo Kapali Sastry Institute of Vedic Culture, Bangalore. (SAKSI)).
3. ‘ Agni in the Rig Veda ’ - by Dr R.L.Kashyap
4. ‘ Why read the Rig Veda ’ – by Dr R.L.Kashyap
to be continued……

- Krishnamurthy (chamathu2003@yahoo.co.uk)

IEP – The Trip to Sisters Island

2011-06-30T19:58:00.000-07:00

We had a great trip to Sisters Island, thanks to Shree for coordinating and organizing the trip and activities. About 30 people, adults and children took part in the trip and all of them enjoyed the trip, from the boat trip to the island to the games, waterplay, wildlife observation and exploration.

IEP sessions always revolve around a theme, and the theme of the day was perseverance. After the trip, some facilitators commented that perhaps the children didn’t quite get the concept of perseverance. However, the theme of perseverance was underlying several events that occurred throughout the day. The kabbadi and Number-Off games were of course introduced to encourage interaction and persevere in the face of a difficult task. Other than them also, there was a lot of perseverance, along with other qualities coming in during the water play and worm digging that went on in the island. Children who were initially afraid to climb the rocks or to go into the water eventually got over their fear and walked into the ocean. By the end of the day, most of the children were very comfortable with having millipedes crawling over them, or having little crabs on their hands. I also noticed a lot of perseverance in the jet-lagged Pradeepta who gritted herself through the trip to give her support in the event though she had just returned from Barcelona the evening before.

As a facilitator, I also learnt an important lesson on being a role model. During the drawing session, a child was referring to my drawing and making her own. The adults in the group encouraged her to draw on her own and not copy. Though I didn’t think much of it then, I remembered the event later. Children learn all the time by copying and imitating. Which is why we need to set such high standards for ourselves. If she sees me doing shoddy work, she would do shoddy work herself. Which brings me to the fact that due to lack of time, I completed my drawing rather shoddily, which of course the child picked up on, asking "Your drawing is very nice, but why have you scribbled the colours??"

Mother once said that children are merciless when they see adults displaying the weaknesses that we so often tell children not to display. As facilitators, we have to be doubly aware of the dangers of doing so.

Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore, participates in the Singapore Book Fair

2011-06-30T19:56:00.000-07:00

Our Society participated in the Singapore Book Fair 2011 from 27 May to 5 June at the Suntec Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Centre.

Our members contributed a sum of $3020.00 for the rental of the bookstall and purchase of books from the Sri Aurobindo Book Distribution Agency (SABDA). Eighteen volunteers came forward to man the stall during the 10-day event. Besides the sale of books, we worked to create greater awareness of the Society. People who had shown interest were invited to join us at our meetings and talks.

This project has provided us with an opportunity to work in harmony, making an offering to the Divine as The Mother once said, “Remember and Offer”.

Photos from Sisters' Island

2011-06-14T22:09:00.000-07:00

Poetic Ecstacy

2011-06-02T01:58:00.004-07:00

Rare and charming is your presence.

- The Mother

Common Name: Chinese wisteria
Botanical Name: Wisteria sinensis
Spiritual Name: Poetic Ecstasy

Poems in largeness cast like moving worlds
And metres surging with the ocean’s voice
Translated by grandeurs locked in Nature’s heart
But thrown now into a crowded glory of speech
The beauty and sublimity of her forms,
The passion of her moments and her moods
Lifting the human word near to the God’s.
-
- Sri Aurobindo in ‘Savitri’

From the editor's desk

2011-06-02T01:58:00.003-07:00

Poetry is one of the two literary forms of language, the other being prose. In poetry, the unit is a line making up stanzas while in prose, it is a sentence, fully grammatical, generally abiding by logic, with a linear narrative structure, building up the paragraphs. These generally lack an aesthetic appeal, while poetry has the potential of bringing out the beautiful and sublime without being painfully bound to logical or narrative thought processes. Unlike classical poetry, prose lacks a definite rhythmic pattern. Here is a first attempt at capturing what poetry has been accepted to mean. Next we shall have a glimpse of some poets’ ideas on poetry before taking strides towards another view of poetry by a great Poet-Seer.

The Oxford Online Dictionary defines ‘poem’ to be “a piece of writing in which the expression of feelings and ideas is given intensity by particular attention to diction’, its origin being the French poème or Latin poema, from the Greek poēma. The Greek root for poetry is ‘poiesis’, which means ‘a making: a forming or creating of a poem’. Poetry is a literary art form, the creation manifested in the skillful and aesthically pleasing stringing of words such that it has an evocative quality. Certain devices are employed in poetry towards this end, such as assonance, alliteration and rhythm, rendering the poem a sound, musical feel, conveying a certain mood, setting the tone, while ambiguity, symbolism and irony, are devices that leave poetry to various interpretations according to how these are understood by the reader/reciter. Other common devices include metaphor and simile, which serve to introduce relationships previously unperceived.

Consider these views of poets on poetry

'I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering’ – Robert Frost

'Poetry fettered fetters the human race.' – William Blake
'If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.' – Emily Dickinson

'Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose-petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.' – Don Marquis

'Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.' – P B Shelley

'The poet's mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together.' – T S Eliot

What are views of a Poet-Seer? Sri Aurobindo lays down high and exacting qualities of a poet and poetry. “Vision is the characteristic power of the poet….The poet really creates out of himself and not out of what he sees outwardly: that outward seeing only serves to excite the inner vision to its work.” He describes art as that which “must attempt to make us see, and since it is the inner senses that it has to address itself...and since its object is to make us live within ourselves what the poet has embodied in his verse, it is an inner sight which he opens to us, and this inner sight must have been intense in him before he can awaken it in us.” Poetry, then, is spiritual, in its means and end, at its highest.

Sri Aurobindo adds a word of caution to all would-be Yogi-poets: “crave for the stimulus of an audience, social applause, satisfied vanity, appreciation, fame…must go absolutely...your art must be a service not of your own ego, nor of anyone or anything else, but solely of the Divine.”
Let us take a little dip in the pool of high poetry.

Savitri

2011-06-02T01:58:00.001-07:00

Oft inspiration with her lightning feet,
A sudden messenger from the all-seeing tops,
Traversed the soundless corridors of his mind
Bringing her rhythmic sense of hidden things.

(Savitri, Book 1, Canto 3)

********************

The odes that shape the universal thought,
The lines that tear the veil from Deity’s face,
The rhythms that bring the sounds of wisdom’s sea.

(Savitri, Book 11, Canto 1)

Question of the month

2011-06-02T01:57:00.001-07:00

Q: Nirodbaran: Need one aspire even for writing poetry ?

A: Sri Aurobindo: Aspiration is an essential part of the sadhana.

Q: Nirodbaran : If one waits calmly, does not the Grace descend by itself without our asking ?

A: Sri Aurobindo : Not unless one is in a state of Grace – in a psychic condition.

Q: Nirodbaran : If a person asks and doesn’t get it, he is likely to get disappointed ?

A: Sri Aurobindo: If he asks with the vital, yes. Your mind is too active in these matters. Get your mind silent, learn to feel within, to aspire from within- then things will come more easily.

Q: Nirodbaran: Please give me one direct and decisive rule to follow.

A: Sri Aurobindo: Aspire for the opening to the right place of inspiration.

Q: Nirodbaran: Why should joy be a necessary precondition for writing poetry ?
A: Sri Aurobindo: Art is a thing of beauty and beauty and Ananda are closely connected, they go together. If the Ananda is there, then the beauty comes more clearly- if not, it has to struggle out painfully and slowly. That is quite natural.

Q: Nirodbaran: For some time past the inspiration has stopped.

A: Sri Aurobindo: You must remember that you are not a “born” poet- you are trying to bring out something from the Unmanifest inside you. You can’t demand that should be an easy job. It may come out suddenly and without apparent reason like the Ananda- but you can’t demand it.

(Nirodbaran, ‘Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo’, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1969, Printed in Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry)

Q: Do the masses appreciate poetry ?

A: Sri Aurobindo: I think I told you the story of a Spaniard, a commercial man, who was my brother Mano Mohan’s friend. Whenever he came to his room he saw books of Milton lying on the table. He cried out:

“What is this Milton, Milton? Can you eat Milton? “

(‘Reminiscences and Anecdotes of Sri Aurobindo’, compiled by M.P. Pandit, Dipti Publications, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry)

Sri Aurobindo on the spiritual value of poetry

2011-06-02T01:56:00.002-07:00

The Word has power- even the ordinary written word has a power. If it is an inspired word it has still more power. What kind of power or power for what depends on the nature of the inspiration and the theme and the part of the being it touches. If it is the Word itself, - as in certain utterances of the great Scriptures, Veda, Upanishads, Gita, it may well have a power to awaken a spiritual uplifting impulse, even certain kinds of realization. To say that it cannot contradicts spiritual experience.

The Vedic poets regarded their poetry as Mantras, they were the vehicles of their own realizations and could become vehicles of realization for others. Naturally, these mostly would be illuminations, not the settled and permanent realisation that is the goal of Yoga- but they could be steps on the way or at least lights on the way. I have had in former times many illuminations, even initial realizations while meditating on verses of the Upanishads or the Gita. Anything that carries the Word, the Light in it, spoken or written, can light this fire within, open a sky, as it were, bring the effective vision of which the Word is the body.

(Sri Aurobindo, ‘Sri Aurobindo on Himself and On The Mother’, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry 1953)

On Poetry

2011-06-02T01:56:00.001-07:00

Have you ever been asked "hmm... but what is a poem? What is poetry? " ? I ask because I have been asked, and have been quite tongue-tied. The experiment is repeatable; I'd likely mumble, employ a few umms and errs, stare into space and eventually give up. Nothing from my own (little) experience seems to aid in defining this joyous creative endeavour.
I think the impulse to ask, to want to define is natural, especially if one has been affected by a word, a phrase, or an entire poem in a manner not quite comparable even to the most lucid prose. There is a common force at work, I am told, because
“The Word has power- even the ordinary written word has a power. If it is an inspired word it has still more power. What kind of power or power for what depends on the nature of the inspiration and the theme and the part of the being it touches. If it is the Word itself, - as in certain utterances of the great Scriptures -Veda, Upanishads, Gita, - it may well have a power to awaken a spiritual impulse, an uplifting, even certain kinds of realisation. To say that it cannot contradicts spiritual experience. The Vedic poets regarded their poetry as mantras, they were the vehicles of their own realisations and could become vehicles of realisation for others. Naturally, these mostly would be illuminations, not the settled and permanent realisation that is the goal of Yoga—but they could be steps on the way or at least lights on the way. Many have such illuminations, even initial realisations while meditating on verses of the Upanishads or the Gita. Anything that carries the Word, the Light in it, spoken or written, can light this fire within, open a sky, as it were, bring the effective vision of which the Word is the body.”
But maybe the definition is not relevant? Or if it is, perhaps it's good only for academics to conjure up and debate? One part of me asks if definitions are useful at all when the verse was perhaps never intended to be logicized by our abstracting minds or speculative imaginations? The sharply utilitarian bent of modern life asks if poetry serves up anything 'useful' to life, if it is fit for anything more than an occasional delight or smile amidst the otherwise 'productive' enterprise of life. In fact, in the essay "The Essence of Poetry", S.A wrote 1
“To the ordinary mind, judging poetry without really entering into it, it looks as if it were nothing more than an aesthetic pleasure of the imagination, the intellect and the ear, a sort of elevated pastime.”
But there is a power in the poetic word that inspires - and therefore affects us, not only eliciting in us an occasional moment of delight, but going so far as to ready the soil for the ideals of a nation, a race, an age. Along these lines, S.A wrote 2 :
“Let the truly inspiring word be uttered and it will breathe life into dry bones. Let the inspiring life be lived and it will produce workers by thousands. England draws her inspiration from the names of Shakespeare and Milton, Mill and Bacon, Nelson and Wellington. They did not visit the sickroom, they did not do philanthropic work in the parishes, they did not work spinning jennies in Manchester, they did not produce cutlery in Sheffield, but theirs are the names which have made nationhood possible in England.”
In fact, we may even ask: why are the civilization-defining epics poems and not essays? Or still further, why is it that the ancient Indian Scriptures are poetic utterances, and not prose? Why is that despite the umpteen incredible works of ancient Greece, it is the Iliad and Odyssey - both poems, that are the life-blood of the nation? Is there a special place reserved for poetic speech as a form of expression? On this, Sri Aurobindo wrote:
“…. the rhythmic word of the poet [is] the highest form of speech available to man for the expression whether of his self-vision or of his world-vision. It is noticeable that even the deepest experience, the pure spiritual which enters into things that can never be wholly expressed, still, when it does try to express them and not merely to explain them intellectually, tends instinctively to use, often the rhythmic forms, almost always the manner of speech characteristic of poetry.”

Is 'Kavi' just a different word for 'Poet'?

What is this talk about inner sight ?
I've heard the word 'Kavi' being translated simply as 'poet', but what the word could have meant in a bygone era, what connotations it may have carried.. I had no way to know, or have a chance to understand - until now:
“The Kavi 3 was in the idea of the ancients the seer and revealer of truth, and though we have wandered far enough from that ideal to demand from him only the pleasure of the ear and the amusement of the aesthetic faculty, still all great poetry instinctively preserves something of that higher turn of its own aim and significance. Poetry, in fact, being Art, must attempt to make us see, and since it is to the inner senses that it has to address itself,—for the ear is its only physical gate of entry and even there its real appeal is to an inner hearing,—and since its object is to make us live within ourselves what the poet has embodied in his verse, it is an inner sight which he opens in us, and this inner sight must have been intense in him before he can awaken it in us.
Therefore the greatest poets have been always those who have had a large and powerful interpretative and intuitive vision of Nature and life and man and whose poetry has arisen out of that in a supreme revelatory utterance of it. Homer, Shakespeare, Dante, Valmiki, Kalidasa, however much they may differ in everything else, are at one in having this as the fundamental character of their greatness.”

Life has certainly been breathed into my dry bones;
I tend to oxidize best via iambic pentameter...
Below: two revealing excerpts on Rhythm and Technique.
How important is 'technique' in Poetry?
Moreover, technique, however indispensable, occupies a smaller field perhaps in poetry than in any other art,—first, because its instrument, the rhythmic word, is fuller of subtle and immaterial elements; then because, the most complex, flexible, variously suggestive of all the instruments of the artistic creator, it has more—almost infinite—possibilities in many directions than any other...
Poetry rather determines its own form; the form is not imposed on it by any law mechanical or external to it. The poet least of all artists needs to create with his eye fixed anxiously on the technique of his art. He has to possess it, no doubt; but in the heat of creation the intellectual sense of it becomes a subordinate action or even a mere undertone in his mind, and in his best moments he is permitted, in a way, to forget it altogether.
On Rhythm
RHYTHM is the premier necessity of poetical expression because it is the sound-movement which carries on its wave the thought-movement in the word; and it is the musical sound-image which most helps to fill in, to extend, subtilise and deepen the thought impression or the emotional or vital impression and to carry the sense beyond itself into an expression of the intellectually inexpressible,—always the peculiar power of music. This truth was better understood on the whole or at least more consistently felt by the ancients than by the modern mind and ear, perhaps because they were more in the habit of singing, chanting or intoning their poetry while we are content to read ours, a habit which brings out the intellectual and emotional element, but unduly depresses the rhythmic value.
References
1 The Future Poetry, Sri Aurobindo ISBN 978-81-7058-583-1 (written between 1917-1920)
2 Work and Ideal, Bande Mataram, Sri Aurobindo ISBN 978-81-7058-416-2 (written 20th Feb 1908)
3 The Sanskrit word for poet. In classical Sanskrit it is applied to any maker of verse or even of prose, but in the Vedic it meant the poet-seer who saw the Truth and found in it a subtle truth-hearing the inspired word of his vision.
- Uday Arya
(Uday has been a lover of Sri Aurobindo's poetry since he can remember. He currently lives and works in Paris, and writes periodically at aryaputr.wordpress.com)

A tribute to uncle Patel

2011-06-02T01:55:00.001-07:00

When I was 17, in 1997, I visited the Centre for the second time. There was a talk on happiness. Unlike some of the other talks in the Centre, this one was an interactive one, and the audience present was active in discussing. I had been interested for a year or so prior to this visit, on the works of The Mother, having been introduced to them by a friend of the family. With little knowledge and a lot of opinions, I jumped right into the conversation, encouraged in it by an elderly man who sat in the front row and who also had a number of inputs to give to the conversation.

This elderly gentleman, I came to know later, was Patel Uncle. Through the course of fourteen years, I was to have a multitude of interactions with him. Of these, a few pop up prominently when I think of him.

Studying for A levels left me exhausted, with a terrible frustration with Physics and the question of why I had to study the subject. Being inspired by the works of The Mother, I looked at her books for answers to help me out from what I then thought was the stressful student life. Of course, I attended the Sunday talks at the Centre, often dragging along my rather sceptical father, who accompanied me most of the time for the sole reason that I should not walk back in the dark to the bus station.

On one of these occasions, there was the ‘Savitri by Heart’ talk, which, at that time, was given by Mrs Sonia Dyne. At the end of one talk, I approached Uncle and told him that I wanted to read ‘Savitri’ but was afraid that I wouldn't understand. He literally stuffed the huge volume in my hand and made me promise to read one sentence every evening. For a long period, I followed his advice, reading one line every day and signing my name at the end of the full-stop.

It was Uncle who suggested that I stay at Anjana Aunty’s house when I mentioned wanting to go to the ashram during the after exam holidays. Anjana Aunty welcomed us gracefully and hosted, not only me, but also my aunt Chitra and her aunt, both of whom would become regular visitors to the ashram and to Patel Uncle's house.

But the true highlight of my relationship with Uncle Patel (though it is hard to single out one incident or event as a true highlight – let’s just say that this is the one that I remember most fondly), was in the year 2000. My aunt Chitra, myself, Sandhya and Patel Uncle took a walk along the beach of Pondicherry, where he spoke with us and told us about his relationship with The Mother, peppering his story with several personal anecdotes. I only remember snatches of the conversation, but I shall always remember sitting on the low wall on Uncle's left, listening to him while the waves crashed on our back.

I remember when Uncle came back to Singapore in the fall of 2000 after being close to a year in India. I remember jumping for joy and hugging my mother when I heard Uncle's voice over the telephone. When we began the website in 2001, Uncle was the first person that I sent the prototype to. He gave me a silver pendant with The Mother's symbol on one side and Sri Aurobindo's symbol on the other. The pendent still resides on a chain around my neck.

As the years went by, Patel Uncle was an advisor, not only to me, but also to the rest of my family. My father often turned to Uncle for advice during times when he had to make difficult decisions and he would always respect Uncle's advice. My uncles and aunts visited Patel Uncle's house when they went to the ashram. The doors to his home were always open, his smile always in place, his telephone at the ready if we wanted to contact someone in the ashram or Auroville.

"This is my grand daughter.” he would say proudly, when he introduced me to people. And infact my grandmother got more than a little mad at me when I told her that Patel Uncle was more my grandfather than my own grandfather.

The last couple of years, I had not contacted Uncle very often other than the odd email and the phone call during birthdays and anniversaries. Two days before Uncle's passing, I was biking home, listening to Dr Nadkarni's memorial lecture on my mp3 player. Perhaps it was through association with Dr Nadkarni or Mrs Dyne's voice giving the lecture that Uncle's image came to me, straight and sharp. When I got home however, the lure of housework and children blotted the image.

Later, I would think and reproach myself several times for not calling and speaking with Uncle when the thought of him came. And it was this reproach and regret that nagged me as I wept by the body of the man who had adopted an unsure teenager as his granddaughter and entrusted her with the secret of ‘Savitri’.

Patel Uncle touched lives the way no one else has. It seems to me that if I grow up to being a fraction of what he was, I would make a significant change in myself and in the world.

- Kiruthika

A tribute to uncle Patel

2011-06-02T01:54:00.000-07:00

‘They who have looked on me shall grieve no more’
–Sri Aurobindo in ‘Savitri’

When I first saw Uncle’s body after he had passed on, I was overcome with sorrow. Then I prayed to the Mother to help me understand what has happened and to react from truth rather than falsehood. I knew the Mother has said that it is selfish to cling on to the departed soul and hence it was wrong to be steeped in sorrow and even harmful to the departed soul. I also remembered she had said the body is a protection and when we leave our body, we lose the protection and thus it is important to send love to the soul as a protection. When I recalled these words of the Mother, what I felt was peace and love rather than sorrow and I could thus send Uncle peace and love. Interestingly, what I subsequently perceived was Uncle didn’t even need that peace and love; rather he seemed to be sending us peace and love from his new home too!

So, as I write this, I recall his great life on earth and the equally great passing on. My parents, my brother, my husband and I are recipients of his love and generosity, like all of us at the centre. My parents were always touched by how he frequently enquired, “How is my dear Vignesh?” even when he was himself not keeping well. In fact, a few days before he passed on, they were telling me how touched they were by his love and concern for Vignesh. We have much to learn from Uncle’s life. The most sincere tribute is to let his spirit and qualities live on: we need to love one another as Uncle loved us.

Love is the hoop of the gods
Hearts to combine.
Iron is broken, the sword
Sleeps in the grave of its lord;
Love is divine. Love is the hoop of the gods
Hearts to combine.
….
When Love desires Love,
Then Love is born.
- Sri Aurobindo in his play ‘Eric’

- Ramya, Ram, Suryanarayanan, Lalitha & Vignesh

My dear uncle Patel

2011-06-02T01:53:00.002-07:00

Patel Uncle is a name with whom everybody in the Society is familiar. His enthusiasm at the age of 86 shocked me and my friends several times. Most likely it is the start of the new world that the Mother and Sri Aurobindo have discussed in great length. Apart from everlasting enthusiasm there was a lot I could learn from him - love and devotion towards the works of the Mother, Sri Aurobindo and the ashram, continuous care of everybody linked with the Society and help he could deliver with the resources best available to him.

It is truly sad to know about the demise of Patel Uncle. It is a great loss to all of us. He was a constant source of inspiration for all of us in the Society at Singapore in many ways. He was always encouraging with his esteemed presence on all occasions, whether it be the annual cleaning of the Centre, weekly programs or any guest lecture. He graced all of us by his constant smile and enthusiasm.

When I had visited him in Pondicherry in January 2010, just after my marriage, he took us to his home, where we met Aunty. The moments spent with him are still fresh in my memory and inspires me on many occasions.

We pray for the spiritual progress of his soul and peace to all family members as they aspire towards the lotus feet of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.
- Rahul Shukla

Fond memories of a great person: Patel uncle

2011-06-02T01:53:00.001-07:00

What kept pulling me to the Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore was of course, the Mother’s Love and Grace; and the Mother has been showering Her Love and Grace through her chosen instrument, who is none other than Sri Patel Uncle.

Every time I met him, I always felt happy and energetic, because there was always an unmistakable aura of love, affection, and positive energy around him. He always brought people together, and kept them together. Like a mother who binds her children with her love and keeps them close to the family, Patel Uncle always brought so many of us together and kept us inspired.

Any knowledge can be of use only when it is put into practice in day-to-day living. Patel Uncle was a shining example of how spiritual knowledge can be put into practice. His thinking was always positive, and he always did his best to get things done for the Society in his unique loving way, inspiring people to come forward to do things happily. Where did he get this charm from? Such a charm can only emanate from the purity of one’s heart, the purity gained from surrendering at the Mother’s Holy Feet.

Patel Uncle always saw the good in each and every person. It takes a lot of unconditional love and large-heartedness to go out of the way all the time to find the good in the other person. This is not easy at all! Only Patel Uncle could do it!

When my daughter, Lakshmi, was once very sick, I spoke to Patel Uncle about her condition. Immediately he spoke to his daughter Anjanaji in Pondicherry and asked her to offer special prayers for Lakshmi’s speedy recovery at the Mother’s altar. She did so promptly and sent the Mother’s blessings to Lakshmi. Such an affectionate gesture from Patel Uncle is unforgettable. A spiritual person is a loving person. Patel Uncle was always a shining example of such a person.

Patel Uncle also served the Mother with sincere devotion by taking tireless initiative to bring eminent speakers from the Pondicherry Ashram to the Singapore Centre. This was a real treat to all the devotees in Singapore.

Patel Uncle was very young at heart. He was always interested in learning something new, and wanted to keep pace with the growing technology. For example, he learnt Photoshop on the computer and put his skills to good use. He always remembered to send beautiful birthday greetings to all of us using Photoshop. Recently, probably because he could not spend as much time on the computer due to his failing health, I was very surprised to get his blessings and best wishes on my birthday through SMS! I immediately thanked him saying that I was truly touched by his love, and said that he was indeed my father in Singapore.

The success of a human life can be measured by how much fragrance a person has spread in this world, a fragrance that can only be spread by unconditional love and sincere affection, and of course, selfless service in the Names of Guru and God. If this is the measure of success, then definitely Patel Uncle has been one of the most successful of his times.

When a loved one has left his body, we miss him a lot. Nevertheless, we need to look at the whole phenomenon from the departed soul’s angle. He was born here to live, to do, to learn, to serve, and when the body has no more use for the soul, it is left. The body is tired, and the ever-fresh soul needs to march forward. When duties are done, the body becomes an unnecessary baggage, and so is discarded.

In spite of thinking like this, my mind is numb with pain and longing; pain, because living in this world, we always want to hold on to the gross forms, and longing, because, our mind always craves for love and affection someone can give us, in spite of our shortcomings.

Patel Uncle has left a beautiful mark in our memories. He has taught us to always remain positive, always drawing energy from the Light of the Divine.

I met him last during Mother’s Birthday Celebrations on 21st Feb 2011 at the Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. His health was visibly deteriorating. Since I always considered him to be like my own father, I went close to him, and whispered to him with conviction: ‘You are the Mother’s child. She is taking care of you’. And She is indeed.
- Padmini Chandrashekar

You will see me

2011-06-02T01:40:00.000-07:00

‘How They Came to Sri Aurobindo and The Mother’ is a compilation by Shyam Kumari of incidents, events, serendipities, yearnings and higher callings that brought various disciples to the path of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. A certain ‘G’, referred to in the article, ‘You Will See Me….’ (reproduced below) was one such devotee. It was with an almost child-like humility that he always said his only identity was that as a child of The Mother.

It is with poignancy, and also with fond remembrance, that we inform readers that the ‘G’ referred to in this article is the Late Shri Nandlal Patel, fondly called Uncle Patel, by so many of us. Uncle Patel left his mortal sheath on the 2nd of April, 2011. The May 2011 issue of our Newsletter was dedicated to his memory and further tributes have been included in this issue as well.

‘You Will See Me…’ rounds off this series of tributes to the memory of a man whose love, warmth, humility and affection have touched so many of us in so many different ways.

Saints and sages say, "Blessed are they who are born in India, for they are spiritually awake." G inherited this inborn gift of a soul turned towards the Divine. He was born in 1923, into a family of devout Vaishnavas, followers of Vallabhacharya. From his childhood, G went regularly to Haveli — as Vaishnava temples are called in Gujarat — and avidly listened to tales of great devotees, such as Dhruva and Prahlad. Near and around his home, there lived many craftsmen who, in the evenings, gathered for collective singing of hymns — keertans. As a child, G participated eagerly in these devotional sessions and was deeply moved by them. Thus the ground became fertile.

In 1940, he met the great saint, Ma Anandamayi, and was attracted and fascinated by her. She would not stay in the home of a householder but remained in the courtyard. This left a deep impression on G. At the same time he started reading Sri Ramakrishna.

In 1943, while he was still in college, G married. His wealthy father-in-law was an evolved soul. Many saints came to him and scores of people turned God-ward under his influence. Two children were born to the happy couple.

The year of destiny arrived. In 1950, his firm, which had its headquarters in Japan, asked G to open a retail branch in Pondicherry. He set off to go there. He knew very little about the Ashram. Since he was from Gujarat somebody gave him a letter of introduction to a well-known Gujarati Ashramite. Very significantly, he reached Pondicherry on his birthday — 1st May 1950. He did not know the special significance birthdays have in the Ashram, but at 4 p.m. he found a Prosperity queue in the Ashram and joined it. Thus without knowing anything about the Mother he had his first Darshan on his birthday. He now considers it his rebirth.

On arriving in Pondicherry, he had gone straight to Hotel Bon Accueil. There he met a Muslim devotee of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother who had come from Madagascar. This gentleman became the link between G and the Ashram. G began going to the early morning Balcony Darshan fairly regularly. He felt that his being went there empty but came away replenished. He says, "The Mother's smile came straight and sank into me." G had many experiences during those early morning Darshans. One day he said to the man from Madagascar, "If I had a bicycle I would not miss a single Balcony Darshan." He found it a little inconvenient to walk all the way from the South Boulevard where his hotel was situated to the Ashram before 6 a.m. The gentleman replied, "Do not make the lack of a bicycle an excuse for not attending the Balcony Darshan." These words stirred G deeply and thereafter he never missed the Balcony Darshan. Incidentally the three children of the owner of this hotel grew very close to the Ashram through G.

He began to read the books of the Mother and felt he could understand everything. He had the good fortune of having Sri Aurobindo's Darshan in August and November 1950. He considered Sri Aurobindo a limitless Himalaya, incarnating grandeur and aristocracy, a vastness, a being without end who was un-fathomable, whom nobody could contain. When Sri Aurobindo left his body, he had twice the Darshan of the Lord lying in state. Then he felt as if he had gathered and received something from Sri Aurobindo into himself.

At the end of December 1950 G's wife and children joined him. This was a turning point in his career. For now, to introduce his family to the Ashram and to admit his children into the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, he came into closer contact with the Mother. The children were first accepted to the Playground. When G asked the Mother for their admission to the Centre of Education the Mother said, "Contact S who will teach them French." They started going to S for French lessons.

G's six-year-old daughter wanted to go swimming. When G conveyed her request to the Mother, she remarked, "Let her come and talk with me." G caught the meaning behind the remark and said to his daughter, "Go to the Mother and ask her yourself." "But, father, how can I talk with the Mother, when. I don't know English or French?" the child protested. G replied, "Then wait till you can." The upshot was that one day the little girl went to the Mother and said in Gujarati that she wanted to go swimming. The Mother asked Champaklal, "What is she saying?" Champaklal translated what she said. The girl got permission and then G's four-year-old son also wanted to go swimming. G had to ask the Mother on his behalf for the child was too young to ask for himself. In due course the children were admitted to the Centre of Education.

Strangely, on the first of every month, G's son came down with a high fever. Naturally the parents were worried. G went and reported the matter to the Mother. She said, "Go to Nripendra and he'll give you some medicine." But after a pause she remarked very gently, "He gets a fever so quickly, but it also disappears very quickly." G realised that what the Mother said was true and he did not feel anxious anymore; miraculously, after this conversation, the fever did not recur.

Slowly they grew closer to the Mother. G's family had the feeling of being accepted by the Mother. The Mother used to give blessings on Vijaya Dashami day. On that auspicious day G stood in front of the Mother and felt her human body change into luminous white clouds. It was such a delightful experience that thereafter on every Vijaya Dashami day G hoped for the experience to repeat itself, but it never did.

Whenever there arose some real necessity G used to pray for an interview with the Mother. Such an occasion arose with his problem of smoking. G used to smoke many cigarettes daily. Whenever he went to the Mother he ate a handful of cardamoms to cover the smell of tobacco. G's wife pleaded with him to give up smoking. She used to scold him, "You are hiding your habit of smoking from the Mother." Her constant rebukes made him lay the problem before the Mother. On 14th November 1952, he bared his heart to the Mother by simply saying, "Mother, I smoke." The Mother gently enquired, "Do you smoke cigars or cigarettes?" "Mother, I smoke cigarettes." The Mother said softly, "It is not good for your will-power." G prayed, "Mother, please give me the strength to give up smoking." The Mother looked at him and smiled.

When G went home he said to his wife, "You have been asking me to tell the Mother about my smoking. Today I told her and now I am free to smoke." He had a few cigarettes left in the tin, which he smoked. His wife said, "You went to the Mother and confessed to her and even then you are smoking. Are you not ashamed?" G felt that his wife was correct. Thereafter, though more than three decades have passed he has not smoked. Even when his friends who smoke pleaded with him to smoke just one cigarette, he did not deviate. He felt as if the Mother was telling him inwardly, "If you give way once, you will never conquer it." By the Mother's Grace he did not have to struggle severely to overcome the habit.

Birthdays in the Ashram were eagerly awaited. Once on his birthday, G joyously prepared to go for the Mother's Darshan. He had got a velvety bedspread to offer to the Mother and he was also taking a special imported perfume Je Reviens by Worth. At the last moment, his little daughter also insisted on taking some offering to the Mother. In his business, G used to receive many tiny sample phials of perfume. The little girl filled her hands with those small bottles and happily they went to the Mother.

The Mother received G graciously, showered her love and blessings on him and asked which books he would like to have. G replied, "Mother, I have not yet read the books you gave me last time." After receiving his birthday card and bouquet G felt that inwardly the Mother had given him what he needed. She turned to his daughter to give the child her full attention. She asked, "What have you brought?" The child opened her hands. "Oooh!" with a voice full of joyous wonder the Mother said, "You have brought Worth perfume! Do you know the history of their manufacturer?" She caressed the girl and her brother. G was overcome by the sweetness of it all. His mind was observing that his velvety bedspread and big bottle of perfume did not get such appreciation from the Mother as that handful of sample phials. The Mother went on to tell the children the whole story of the firm that manufactured the perfume. She opened all these small capsules of perfume that very day. Later she must have mentioned how much she liked that perfume, because that same day Dyuman went to the market and bought all the available bottles of this particular perfume.

A few years passed. G realised keenly the privilege of living in the Ashram atmosphere. But the Gods rule otherwise. In 1954, G's partners asked him to wind up the Pondicherry branch of the company and proceed to Hong Kong.

He had begun consulting the Mother whenever he had to take any important decision. So one evening he went to her in the Playground to get her blessings for his departure to Hong Kong. After seeking her consent and blessings he mentioned that he had two faithful and efficient employees and requested the Mother to absorb them in some Ashram department where they would prove valuable. The Mother nodded consent. Then G requested that, since much stock was still left in the shop, these two employees might be allowed to look after it from time to time. The Mother agreed. Then she went into a trance. After a while, coming out of her trance, she said, "Suppose we sell your goods?" G felt a surge of emotion. The Mother again went within and on coming out of the trance said, "How about our buying your goods?" G became speechless at this divine turn of events; a great silence entered him, a wonder at the marvellous thing that was happening. He became still like a statue. With an avalanche of tears flowing from his eyes he stretched out his hands in consent.

The Mother then added, "Since you are a junior partner in your firm, ask your seniors about it." G was so moved that he simply shook his head to show that it would not be necessary and whatever the Mother decided was acceptable. The Mother then said to G, "Dyuman will contact you in the matter."

G was deeply moved by her Grace. He had to go, but his wife and children were to remain sheltered in the arms of the Divine Mother. Before he left for Hong Kong the Mother called G one day to Pavitra's room. There she gave him a wallet with money in brand new notes, a blessings-packet and a lovely rose. That was the most thrilling and precious moment of G's life. For he saw the Mother as the Avatar, the Rajrajeshwari (the World-Empress) in her form of Universal Divinity with a luminous concentration of calmness. He has the wallet and the dried rose to this day. They are his most prized possessions.

In 1956, G returned to India from Hong Kong intending to place his children in an Ashram hostel and take his wife with him to Singapore. Now it so happened that a renowned saint, Ranchordas-ji, had been doing tapasya for two years in a secluded room in G's father-in-law's spacious garden. He had undergone great austerities. In February 1956, his tapasya was to end and an impressive closing ceremony was to take place at G's father-in- law's house. G reached Bombay but was in a quandary whether he should proceed to Pondicherry or to his father-in-law's home-town. Dyuman, with whom he had very friendly ties, had asked him to come to the Ashram, probably for the 21st February Darshan. By chance G met a saint, Swami Ramdas, and put the problem before him. The Swami advised him to go to Pondicherry. G followed his advice and thus had the good fortune to be in the Playground on 29th February 1956 at the evening meditation when the Mother brought the Suprarmental Light, Consciousness and Force into the subtle-physical layer of the earth.

Soon G left for Singapore, his new base of operations. He would not have the Mother's physical Darshan again. But his children lived in the Ashram and his daughter has made the Ashram her permanent home. There was a constant inner and outer contact with the Ashram. All the people connected with the Ashram who visit Singapore invariably become his guests. His body lives abroad but his soul has always remained in Pondicherry. He considers it an inestimable honour to be counted as one of the Mother's children and to serve the Mother in whatever way it is possible from a distance.

After seventeen years, he came to Pondicherry on 11th November 1973. He had come for the marriage of his son which was to be held on the 18th, in Bombay. On 13th November he left for Bombay followed by his daughter and son-in-law, both Ashramites, and some close friends. On the morning of the 18th they heard the news that the Mother had left her body. Some devotees had chartered a plane to go to Pondicherry and G's daughter and two others were lucky enough to get a place on this flight. But G could not come as he had to see the marriage through. Next day he tried to get a place on any available flight but there was a strike in the airlines. Ultimately, when he with his wife and son reached Pondicherry the gates of the Ashram were closed for the solemn Samadhi of the Mother.

G broke down and wept like a baby. He remonstrated with the Mother, "You have disappointed me. I did not see you for almost seventeen years yet you did not have the kindness to even let me have the Darshan of your body." The Mother reassured him from within, "You will see me in several ways and more often."

This came true but the pain and hurt of not having had the last physical Darshan lingered for years until one day G narrated the story to a senior Ashram friend. She replied, "How many years before 1973 was it that you saw the Mother?" "Many years before", answered G. "You are lucky that you have not seen the Mother after her passing. I had always seen her in her transcendent beauty. When I saw her body I did not want to see her in that state." On hearing this, the regret and the pain passed and G felt reconciled. He realised that this was the answer he was seeking. He says, "Whenever I went to the Mother I would lovingly look into the Mother's eyes and drink in her smile. For me they represent Bliss, Ananda, and Transcendental Joy. It is more precious to me than the whole Brahmanda."

(‘How They Came to Sri Aurobindo and The Mother (Volume II)’ by Shyam Kumari)

Remembrance

2011-04-27T01:24:00.000-07:00

Constant remembrance of the Divine is indispensable for transformation.- The Mother

Common Name: Blue potato bush
Botanical Name: Lycianthes rantonnei
Spiritual Name: Remembrance

Editorial

2011-04-27T01:23:00.003-07:00

Remembrance. A sweet word, it implies the remembrance of something uplifting that spreads a quiet and warm smile within giving much hope, fueling one’s aspiration. It could be the remembrance of a deed, an aim, a beautiful experience, an ideal, a person or at the highest, the remembrance of the Divine Presence in and around us. Remembrance comes, it seems, as a result of some part of our consciousness being deeply touched by something, which is anything at all, under the sky. This something most often appears to be a movement that gains entry into our inner regions resulting in a little stir towards something beautiful, in the line of progression. The title lines of this issue refer to the highest remembrance, that of the Divine, which promises a lead towards progress. The highest progress can only be a transformation of our nature, our consciousness, that Divinity itself may manifest in our earthly being. Any individual, who lives in remembrance of the Divine, or who sincerely tries to, becomes a source of inspiration, admiration, even wonder. This issue of our Newsletter hopes to celebrate the life of one such person who has been instrumental, knowingly or unknowingly, of movements that changed the lives of significant numbers of people in this small circle we call, “our Society”. The original theme for this issue was left on hold, as tribute after tribute poured in. It was really the quality of the tributes that have inspired this issue’s theme and the editorial. Each tribute seemed to strike at the same chord of remembrance – remembrance of a beautiful movement effectuated by the departed. These were sweet memories, written in gratitude and an ardent prayer for that soul to be embraced by the Divine Light. They spoke of a life lived in service to the divine, a life offered to The Mother. He demonstrated to us what surrender and submission to the Divine meant and simple trust. This issue remembers and celebrates such a spirit of devotion, the spirit of goodwill, and surrender to the higher force of all that one does and was, or at least, attempted. It celebrates one man’s sincere efforts to remember and connect all around him to the divine in all that he did and said. It celebrates the life of a man who celebrated life in the name of The Mother.

What he meant to the society, Singapore, and will always mean, cannot be dismissed lightly. It appears that his life was inextricably tied to all our lives in this little island in the South-East. He was commissioned to the East with a divine plan, it seems, now.

It is also significant that the May issue bears this special tribute. His birthday falls on the 1st of May, he would have turned 88. Strangely, 1st May 2011 falls on a Sunday, the day of the walk hosted by his family, and he had always wanted it to fall on a Sunday so that he could observe his birthday together with all the members of the society during the walk brunch. His life was one lived with a host of people from all walks of life, from all over the world, of a wide range of age groups. He was a special man who would take pains to remember each and everyone’s birthday and send birthday messages, and that too, with “blessings from the Samadhi”, whenever he was at Pondicherry. All his numberless treasures that money could not buy, he shared with us. He opened the gates for our further advent into spiritual atmospheres.

This issue is a collective tribute to the man who will always be “Our Uncle Patel”, and a celebration of his life that built bridges, countless bridges that changed lives forever.

IN LOVING MEMORY OF NANDLAL C PATEL FONDLY KNOWN AS OUR DEAREST UNCLE PATEL

2011-04-27T01:23:00.001-07:00

Sri Nandlal C Patel, a significant presence in Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore, left his mortal sheath on 2 April 2011 in the late morning hours, leaving behind his wife, children, grandchildren and numerous people who look upon him as their own, a father figure, grandfather, brother or simply, ‘Uncle Patel’. His was a sweet soul that came upon earth, it appears, to build bridges. Countless are the bridges he would have built. Many a story one would hear of how he connected one person to another or an organisation and changed one’s life forever. What he did, he did with utmost sincerity and an enthusiasm that never waned, that kept one wondering, ‘how does he do it?’ This was our Uncle Patel. His devotion towards The Mother and Sri Aurobindo taught many of us lessons on the power of simple adoration, devotion and obedience to a higher Being. He would go all the way to complete a task he had taken up, no matter how big or small, no matter for whom. Having done his utmost, he would retire, with full faith in the Divine’s order and a will to submit to it. Uncle Patel played a significant role in nurturing the younger members of the society. He never tired of praising each for his or her positive traits and strengths, which tended to shine even more just because of Uncle Patel’s show of confidence and his sincere words of endearment. To many of us, it has been a blessing to have grown and blossomed under the shade of a loving, towering and beneficent tree that was Uncle Patel. Our gratitude to his sweet and all-embracing soul for graciously pulling us into the Light of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother and to the Divine for enabling us to be part of a family that he was instrumental in building since the Society took shape in Singapore in the early 70s.

This month’s issue pays tribute to Sri Nandlal Patel. On behalf of the editorial, here is our ardent prayer that his soul rests in peace on the lap of the Divine Mother, preparing for a greater journey.

An obituary

2011-04-27T01:22:00.001-07:00

We present below a reprint of the obituary read out by Sri Shashi Lal Kashyap, Chairman, Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore during a prayer meeting at Singapore Jain Religious Society, Singapore, on Sunday 3rd April 2011 from 5.00pm to 7.00pm.

Dear Friends,

I stand before you with a deep and heavy heart full of grief and sorrow at the demise yesterday of Nandlal Patel Ji fondly addressed by us as Patel Bhai.

Our family and Patel Bhai’s family have known each other intimately for over fifty years, ever since they came to Singapore from India. Patel Bhai used to say that the very first family he came to know socially was the Kashyap family. He has been my closet friend, companion, mentor and advisor on several matters common to us. Some of you may have seen us both in East Coast Park and other recreational places spending the time together in lengthy morning walks. This went on for a period spanning over thirty five long years without a break. We went through life together and shared our joys and sorrows through thick and thin.

In the early years we were involved with the activities of the Lions Club doing social service. Then we paid attention to the Arya Samaj and Ramakrishna Mission. Since the past over twenty five years we spent more time in the Sri Aurobindo Society in which Patel Bhai was the Vice Chairman since several years. He was a fatherly figure and the main motivator of the movement. He earned the utmost respect from one and all, not only from those close to him but from the whole Gujrati and Indian community at large. His nature was benevolent and full of love and good wishes. He remembered everyone’s birthday and would send greetings by e-mail and sms. He had a thorough knowledge of the life and teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and inculcated these in his own personal life and conduct.

He used to do deep meditation daily throughout his life except the period when his personal health gave way. One month from now on 1st May, he would have completed 88 years. Patel Bhai leaves behind a wonderful legacy of how a righteous person should live in life and dedicate himself to the works of the Divine Mother. We who have known him will fondly cherish the times we have spend together.

On behalf of all of us present, I offer my deepest condolences to dear Bachuben Ji, Anjana and Kalu. Ashok and Bhakti, Samir and Jasmine, Archana and Garry, Upasana and Hari and the great grand children. We invoke the Divine to grant them strength and courage to withstand this immense loss.

May Patel Bhai’s soul rest in peace.

- Shashi Lal Kashyap

A great worker

2011-04-27T01:21:00.004-07:00

Hare Krishna
We have lost a great supporter of our Gita Jayanti event. He was always there to give us his advice. We will miss him. “He who works for me, who loves me, whose End Supreme I am, free from attachment to all things, and with love for all creation, he in truth comes unto me.” (BG XI/55S)
- T Tanigan

Uncle Patel - “A greatness, and a sweetness and a light”

2011-04-27T01:21:00.003-07:00

It is early April and the morning air is full of the sweet fragrance of the Neem flowers. To be with Uncle or to write about him is to breathe the fragrance of the Neem and to be intoxicated with the spiritual atmosphere that radiated from him.

O fragrant are the lanes thy children walk
And lovely is the memory of their feet
Amid the wonder-flowers of Paradise.
- ‘Savitri’

Uncle is one such fragrant “wonder-flower” which bloomed gloriously at the feet of The Mother. This quote by K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar on the psychic contact of the early sadhaks aptly describes Uncle’s life and sadhana, who was blessed abundantly by the Grace of the Mother. Whatever fruits and flowers that bloomed in his garden, due to the psychic touch of the Divine were offered “again at the feet of the Divine”. “Like a seed, the moment abstracted from the flow of time drove roots in the ready soil of the sadhak’s sensibility, and there appeared foliage and flowers and fruit which, in their turn, were to be offered again at the feet of the Divine. The chosen moments as they recurred made a rhythm of their own and the sadhana had an epic spread covering a whole lifetime.”

And in the luminous words of ‘Savitri’, Uncle’s life has been like the flower blooming at the touch of the glorious sun.

Her heart’s inexhaustible sweetness lured their hearts,
A being they loved whose bound exceeded theirs;
Her measure they could not reach but bore her touch,
Answering with the flower’s answer to the sun
They gave themselves to her and asked no more.

As The Mother said there are some who offer their soul, some their life, work, or money but there are a few who “consecrate all they have - soul, life, work, wealth; these are the true children of god”. Uncle has been one such true child of god, whose entire life has been an unceasing worship and consecration to the Divine Mother.

Uncle we will ever remember and cherish the wonderful moments when we sat and listened to the stories and incidents you used to narrate - of your thrilling encounters with The Divine Mother and Sri Aurobindo, the fragrance of your spiritual atmosphere, childlike curiosity and enthusiasm to learn new technologies, the solemn way you used to say “ I am a business man but I do business for The Mother”, your unique ability to find the inherent talent of every person which in turn would be directed godwards, your “magic flowing waters of deep love” and sweetness, and above all your love , surrender and adoration of the Divine Mother.

O Mother, all is done after Thine own Sweet will;
Thou art in truth self-willed,
Redeemer of mankind!
Thou workest Thine own work;
Man only call it theirs.
- Sri Ramakrishna

- Sudha, Surendra and family.

It is as if The Mother had appointed uncle

2011-04-27T01:21:00.001-07:00

It is only appropriate that Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore, decided to dedicate a full issue of the Newsletter to the memory of Uncle Patel. Managing the circulation of the newsletter was one of the innumerable activities organized to perfection by Uncle.

Uncle had the most beautiful relationship with innumerable acquaintances in India, Singapore and all over the world. Deriving his strength from The Mother, he engulfed all who came in contact with him in his wave of compassion, pure love and ever- helping hand. He strained his utmost to obtain any information or help sought by anyone, known or unknown to him, and saw to it that the wants were met to the best of his ability.

Many of us in the present generation have not had the privilege to have a direct darshan of The Mother and receive Her Blessings. It is as if The Mother had appointed Uncle to provide some consolation to such persons and let them experience the bliss of the Divine presence through their interaction with him. Such indeed is the role played by Uncle in our lives, memories of which we shall carry gratefully in our hearts.

It is not easy to contain in a few sentences the magnitude of the inspiration which the two of us received through our association with him. We met him in Singapore early in 1995 when we proceeded there in the course of our Bank service for a four-year stint. Immediately he took charge of us completely. We enjoyed the status of his close family members and were invited to all the functions at his home. He took it as his personal responsibility to take us week after week to the congregation at the Singapore Society, and also for the Sunday morning walks, in his self driven car, and drop us back. We especially longed to hear from him the numerous anecdotes on his association with The Mother. His intense love for The Mother was seen in his every action, which inspired all around him. Our being connected to Uncle helped us strengthen our adherence to The Mother’s ways without getting distracted. He did this magic not by coercion or sermons, but by setting a glorious example by virtue of his sincerely sweet qualities derived from his unshakable dedication to The Mother.

When Chitra fell sick and underwent a surgery at Singapore, he took paternal care of us by driving us to and from the hospital, bringing us food, and above all, by praying to The Mother to work through the hands of the surgeon while performing the operation.

We constantly consulted Uncle before taking any important decision. He heartily welcomed us to Pondicherry when we came to settle down here. We obtained valuable advice and guidance from him at every stage of our settling down. Uncle, with Anjana Di and Aunty who was not keeping good health, made it a point to attend the meditation session held at our new home acquired with his approval and blessing.

Undoubtedly, anyone who takes his object lesson from the life led by Uncle and adopts it in his own life is sure to find fulfillment and become worthy of The Mother’s Blessings.

The harmony of a rich culture’s tones
Refined the sense and magnified its reach
To hear the unheard and glimpse the invisible
And taught the soul to soar beyond things known,
Inspiring life to greaten and break its bounds,
Aspiring to the Immortal’s unseen world.
- ‘Savitri’

- N.Krishnamurthy and Chitra Krishnamurthy

A Bouquet for Uncle Patel

2011-04-27T01:20:00.001-07:00

Having joined the Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore, a few years ago, our association with Uncle Patel lasted for about five years.

The act of creating a memorial issue for one who has passed away is an act of spirituality. A memorial tells the world that this person may be gone but his or her spirit lives on. This individual will forever be tied together in the circle of life. This person’s life mattered and continues to matter. Their acts of goodness and courage will never be forgotten. We feel the same about Uncle Patel – a warm father figure for all Society members.

Khalil Gibran’s famous lines ‘On Giving’ come to mind when we think of Uncle Patel

You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give….
These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.
There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.

He gave us so much love and affection. Each time he met me he mentioned that since my name is the same as that of his daughter in Pondicherry, he will always remember it. The extraordinary cards he sent to us on our birthday and wedding anniversary each year with special messages from The Mother will remain forever with us as unique gifts.

- Anju and Sheel Aditya

Our dear God father

2011-04-27T01:19:00.001-07:00

|| Hari OM ||
With deep regret and immense sorrow, I heard the terrible news a few minutes ago that Uncle Patel left us all & merged with the Supreme, this morning.

He was a tireless and energetic soul who was ever willing to learn and be on the forefront of technology and tools. He even learnt basics of such a formidable tool like Photoshop from me. He was an invaluable member of the Gita Vani team for the last many years and was constant source of inspiration and learning.

I am sure he will guide us from his heavenly abode in future Gita Jayanti activities.

Offering my humble pranams to this wise and wonderful soul,

- Krishna Kumar

To my Jeshta Brhatha
I am trying inspite of too many falls to inculcate one of his great qualities....GIVE UNFLINCHING LOVE TO EVERY ONE YOU COME ACROSS IN THIS LIFE...irrespective of one’s age . This is possible only when (I feel) you see divinity in every one.

With Love.
- J.K. Gopalratnam and Sri Lakshmi

My god-father was the embodiment of “VATSALYA BHAVA”. He was always emanating this beautiful affection for everyone all the time. There was a special way he pronounced each of our names from his heart, thereby showing the feeling of their true meaning. His appreciation towards even our small deeds made us feel like his own children. No one can replace the emptiness he left and I feel I have grown old suddenly!

I love you, dearest God-father.
- Jayalakshmi.

Indeed I am very fortunate to receive this invaluable gift from the Lord, for providing me with the joy of association with my God Father, for the past three decades. The benefit I obtained from his guidance in every field is immeasurable. By a total and unconditional surrender to the Divine Mother, he secured a state of consciousness through which he could exalt all his activities to the Divine level. This was central to the true connection he was able to make with every individual, thus bringing them Delight. He was able to appreciate what one is capable of and effectively encouraged them. Amongst many others, I am very much indebted to him for encouraging me to learn and chant Vedic hymns.

With love to my dear God Father.

- Krishnamurthy

Nandlalji – Personification of Sweetness and Love

2011-04-27T01:18:00.004-07:00

On 2nd April 2011 we all lost our beloved friend Nandlalji- who was highly respected and widely loved. He was a personification of sweetness and love. He was like an elder brother to my late husband when we were in Singapore from 1984 to 1992. Whenever we had any problem, big or small, my husband would dial Nandlal bhai’s telephone number and the problem would be solved in a jiffy. This relationship continued even after we returned from Singapore. What is more important is that he was like this - a helpful angel to every person in distress who approached him.

We (my whole family) always marvelled at his loving, doting and fatherly approach -remembering everybody’s birthday, wedding anniversary, death anniversary of the family members and sending him or her appropriate message and prayer. He sent me a beautiful birthday message and a prayer on my late husband’s birthday on 6th March, though he was quite ill at that time. For him the whole universe was his family: “Vasudhaiv Kutumb”.

Nandlalji’s devotion to Sri Aurobindo and The Mother was undoubtedly great. Though he lived in Singapore, his soul hovered around the Samadhi. Like a true child of The Mother he spread cheer and sunshine around him. His absence will be deeply felt by everybody who knew him. But we will take comfort in the thought that this loving man- whose life was a continuous saga of ardent aspiration and surrender to Sri Aurobindo and The Mother – is now in the ever-loving arms of The Mother. His memories will inspire us to walk on the SUNLIT PATH even while performing mundane and worldly activities.

I offer my deepest condolences to all the family members - Bachchu ben (who herself is another example of sweetness, sincerity and humility), Anjana, Kaluda, Ashok, Bhakthi and their respective families.
- Meera Nadkarni
Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry

My “God-father”!

2011-04-27T01:18:00.003-07:00

It was decided during the brunch on 3rd April 2011 that we should dedicate one Newsletter issue or come out with a booklet in memory of our dearest Uncle Patel. Since then, for the last one week my mind has been oscillating between writing and not writing. I have been thinking whether I would be able to do justice and fit in all the associations I had with Uncle in just one article. The true answer to this question is “No”; however, I decided to write at least some unforgettable memories as my humble tribute to Uncle.

My husband, Ramesh, was working in Singapore and my son Vishnu and I were living in Pondicherry with my in-laws for sometime from 1999 – 2000. Visiting and praying at The Ashram was our daily routine at that time so I became a bit concerned whether there would be a meditation centre in Singapore when it was decided in Sept 2000 that Vishnu and I would join Ramesh to live here. The day before I left for Singapore, while I was sitting near The Samadhi of our Masters, suddenly a thought struck me to go and ask at the office in The Ashram whether there was a meditation centre in Singapore, so I quickly went and enquired; to my delight the answer was “Yes”. To add on to my joy, the office staff said that the vice-president of the Singapore centre was currently in Pondicherry and gave me the home address too. I did not hesitate to immediately go and meet the vice-president. Needless to say that it was my very first meeting with Uncle Patel but it did not seem to be one as Uncle started to speak with me with so much of love and care as though he knew me for a long time. Uncle was also travelling to Singapore the very next day and he gave me his phone to contact him in Singapore.

I started searching for a job once I came to Singapore and Uncle used to help me in as many ways as possible from offering me to use his office computer and Internet to introducing me to as many people as possible. I have to definitely say that he was happier than me when he heard that I got a job and my Employment Pass was approved. Uncle was very thoughtful to give me a beautiful photo of The Mother (which I see when I wake up every morning) on The Mother’s birth anniversary on 21st Feb 2001 when he came to know I did not have one at our home here.

Since I was working in IT, Uncle slowly started to get me involved in our Society’s monthly Newsletter work and gave the idea that Kiruthika and I form a team to start our Society’s website. It further developed that we form an email list and send out the e-Newsletter. Today our Society’s website and the e-Newsletter have reached throughout the world and we have more than 300 email Ids in our email list. There is no doubt that Uncle Patel sowed the seed for this. There was a period where Uncle and I used to talk on phone or communicate by email many times in the same day for our Society’s work and those were the days which made my bonding with Uncle stronger. When we bought an apartment in Singapore in 2005, he was so happy and named it as “Unity” and presented us a beautiful statue of Lord Ganesha.

I have always admired his enthusiasm and eagerness to learn new technologies and how aptly he used to identify specific people for doing specific tasks in our Society. It was Uncle who introduced us and made us instruments of The Mother’s work. He would always say “whatever you do, offer it to The Mother”. Though we read books, we need practical guidance for something to get etched deep in our hearts and that is what Uncle gave us. He never hesitated to give the appropriate appreciation and encouragement to everyone and never ever forgot to pray for us and convey his wishes on our Birthdays.

All of us in the Singapore Centre feel that we are a big family; this feeling was created by none other than Uncle. His love and desire to help others in every possible way would actually make us argue whom Uncle has helped the most. I am sure every one of us would say “It’s me that Uncle loved and helped the most”. This is the special feeling that Uncle gave everyone who was associated with him.

For me Uncle was, is and will always be my “God-father”!
- Dhanalakshmi

My tribute to Patel Sahib

2011-04-27T01:18:00.001-07:00

My first recollection of Patel Sahib dates back to 1984, when I was informed by my close relative and our dear friend, Mr Shashi Lal Kashyap, of weekly talks being held at the Sri Aurobindo Society by the late Professor Mangesh V Nadkarni, whose talks, which I attended from 1984 to 1989, completely changed my life. Patel Sahib and Prof. Nadkarni were very close, and Patel Sahib shone his affectionate and benevolent nature on all who attended the talks. He would always bestow a kindly smile on me and my wife when he met us each week, and he was impressed by our bringing along our (in 1984) 5-year old son, Sanjeev, to the talks. Patel Sahib said that even if Sanjeev could not understand the talks, the positive vibrations from them would definitely influence him for the better, and in this he has been correct.

Subsequently, I learnt from Patel Sahib that in fact he knew my parents since the 1950’s, when he first arrived in Singapore. So our family connections with him are very long indeed. As with all of us, he unfailingly remembered my family members’ and my birthdays, and would send us wonderful messages, from the writings of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo, each year. I will always remember them with affection and gratitude, and remember him, and miss his messages, on future birthdays. Patel Sahib had the great good fortune of having had close personal contact with The Mother when She was in her body, and he manifested Her love and wisdom abundantly and wonderfully indeed. I recall him once telling us that, when he informed The Mother of his desire to leave for Singapore, She straightaway got up, went to the cupboard, took out a substantial sum of rupees – I believe he said it was 50,000 rupees – and gave it to him, to start his work and life in Singapore. He was an authority on the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, although he carried his knowledge lightly. Once, when I had a philosophical conversation with him, he said, a few times, ‘Whatever your doubts and weaknesses are, just surrender them to The Mother, and let Her take care of them’ – advice that has sustained me all these years.

Patel Sahib has been a great soul indeed, with a very benevolent, sincere, loving, and at the same time non-intrusive nature. May the Divine bless his soul forever, and give his family and close ones the strength to bear his loss.
- Basant K. Kapur

A towering figure

2011-04-27T01:17:00.003-07:00

Patel Sahib was a towering figure who endeared himself to everyone who knew him. Perhaps he was the only member of our Society in Singapore who had the privilege to have met Sri Aurobindo and The Mother physically. His faith in them was unshakable. Whatever circumstances, he accepted them as a Grace of The Divine Mother. I will always cherish his guidance, advice and assistance he gave me on several occasions. He had tremendous goodwill and love for all. He neither complained about nor criticised anyone or anything. I will miss him.

- Jagir Singh Riar

Uncle Patel and Anirudh

2011-04-27T01:17:00.001-07:00

Memory has an annoying habit of fading as time goes by, but there are some individuals who make such an impact on you that it is impossible for fog to settle on your memories of them. Nandlal uncle was one of those few individuals. Even today I remember that he was one of the first adults who treated me as a grown – up whenever we briefly conversed, despite the juvenile topics and my naïve views of the world. As a child, it is very refreshing and exciting to talk to someone like this. One of the main things I learnt from Nandlal uncle is the value and importance of maintaining the bridges that one makes. For every one of the eight years since we left Singapore, Nandlal uncle has kept in constant communication and has wished me on my birthday before I even realized I had turned another year older. It is the little things like this that he did that created such a profound impact on me, and I’m sure all of us as well. This short paragraph cannot nearly convey the amount of respect I have for uncle, but uncle’s actions speak infinitesimally louder than any biblically long biography one could write. He will be missed dearly by us all, but has left behind an imprint we will never forget. May his blessings and protection rain down on us and may he forever be in our thoughts.
- Anirudh Desai

In remembrance of uncle Patel

2011-04-27T01:16:00.001-07:00

The smile and the Happiness
Made the world around a paradise,
The appreciation made us shy and smile
The encouragement always brought us
from glum to happy,
The optimism sometimes made us smile in astonishment;
The help from whom can be expected without a shrink in smile,
The innocence and love like a baby
Towards The Mother made him a loved child of The Mother.
- Mira Ganesh

Remembered with love and affection

2011-04-27T01:15:00.002-07:00

Our father described Uncle Patel as a living saint, which is how we all experienced him. We will miss him dearly - his emails and phone calls on special occasions always added to the special quality of the day. He was always so full of utter positivity, light and joy. His generous and loving heart has shown us all the true meaning of spirituality in everyday life. We are all so deeply saddened.

Uncle Patel's loving prayers have always meant so much. We all miss him deeply and honour him always in our memories.

He will always be remembered with much love and affection. He had the wonderful ability to make everyone feel special. He is a shining example of what we must all grow to be. We take comfort in knowing that he is now safe in the glow of Mothers' light.

- Jothie and Vaani (daughters of Late Mr. K.S. Rajah)

In Loving Tribute to a Dear Friend

2011-04-27T01:15:00.001-07:00

Among the younger members of our Society, he was known affectionately as 'Patel Uncle' - but Nandalal Patel, was also a father - a founding father of the Sri Aurobindo Society of Singapore. If the collective membership of a group can be likened to a living body, then he was from the first its warmly beating heart. The source of this warmth that radiated from his unforgettable personality was undoubtedly his deeply sincere and unconditional devotion to the Mother. Because of this he was able to bring with him from Pondicherry something of the Ashram atmosphere, and he delighted in keeping alive the tradition inaugurated by the Mother of giving birthdays a special significance. He took note of the birthdays of friends and members of the Society (including their families), often preparing a beautiful greeting to remind us of the Mother's teaching that on this day the individual soul returns to its origin to renew its energies for the life-mission it has chosen. The old saying 'If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well' could have been made for him. For a time, we worked together on the Singapore Newsletter, and he took endless trouble to ensure that everything needed for a particular issue was in place. All visitors to the Society from abroad, whether friends or strangers, were given VIP treatment when it came to making travel arrangements, obtaining visas, finding accommodation and in many other ways ensuring that their stay was an enjoyable experience.

I myself experienced his generous hospitality from the first minutes of our meeting in 1976, on a memorable day that literally changed everything for me. I had gone to the Ramakrishna Mission on a Sunday evening, after reading in the local newspaper that someone from the Sri Aurobindo Ashram would be giving a talk. Three years earlier I had come across some lines from 'Savitri' and wanted to know more about this poet, of whom I knew nothing at all. Those were the days before the internet made getting such information easy! So I was delighted when Shri M.P. Pandit, who was the speaker, began by saying;: "I have come to put before you the teaching of Sri Aurobindo". He spoke about the Integral Yoga, and at the end I stood up to ask a question. As I was leaving, someone came up to me and invited me to lunch at his home the next day to meet the speaker, who was staying there as his guest. That is how I came to meet my dear friend for the first time.

Last month during a short stay in Singapore. I had the great joy to spend some time with him, and to tell him face to face of my heartfelt gratitude to him because that single act of kindness to a complete stranger had brought me to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. I wanted him to know that on this occasion, as on many others, he had been the instrument of Their Grace.

- Sonia Dyne

Dear uncle Patel

2011-04-27T01:14:00.000-07:00

With deep regret and immense sorrow in our heart , we heard the terrible news that our beloved Uncle Patel Ji left us all & merged with the Supreme,

He was a tireless and energetic soul who was ever willing to learn. He was so loving to every one, an invaluable member of many Societies including founder of Lions Club (Host) and was constant source of inspiration and learning. He inspired us - myself and my wife, Sandhya.

Offering our humble pranams to this wise and wonderful soul,

- C B Agarwal & Sandhya

Dadaji TamhoNe Mara Shat Shat Pranam

2011-04-27T01:12:00.001-07:00

Lord Krishna has several names; one of the most endearing is Nand-Lal - Krishna not as the mighty transcendent Purushotham in whom everything moves, but as loving child, an image more powerful for it reflects the redeeming power of LOVE that liberates us from ignorant mortal state to domains of Light and Ananada.

The day my dear Dadaji decided to venture again into shining realms of The Mother it dawned on me that he was truly the child at heart, Her Lal.

He always told me "you and Sushama have come to Singapore with special blessings of The Mother" - those who were embraced by him will agree that he had this knack of making us all feel special and that in some extraordinary way one had to accomplish something unique no other person could do. Well, we are extraordinary beings, a fact hitherto unknown to our minds, but his liberated self had the vision to see that in us. I am convinced he did not say that lightly with any motivation, but as a simple fact evident in his loving heart.

“What will be the liberated man’s view of the world around him, his attitude towards the cosmic manifestation of which he has now the central secret? He will have first the knowledge of the unity of existence and the regarding eye of that knowledge. He will see all around him as souls and forms and powers of the one divine Being. Henceforward that vision will be the starting-point of all the inward and outward operations of his consciousness; it will be the fundamental seeing, the spiritual basis of all his actions. He will see all things and every creature living, moving and acting in the One, contained in the divine and eternal Existence.”

This vision was sure and integral part of his consciousness and he delighted in passing the flame of this aspiration to us all. He worked tirelessly to bring the spiritual fragrance of Pondicherry Ashram to Singapore, spreading the love and vision of oneness and glorious future towards which the cosmos is unfolding. It was this love that brought him to Singapore again for a final goodbye.

During the magical era of my association with Singapore group, I recall on special occasions Dadaji invited Sharafat Khan-ji to play Sitar at Mother's feet. Well Dadaji was no less a musician, he was a master at playing on our heart strings while creating his own Divine Orchestra (our small group) at Her feet. Any discordant note used to bother him a lot and he worked hard to correct the imperfect notes. Sometimes the circumstances proved stronger but he worked tirelessly to create the wonderful melody that drove our aspiration.

I hold that real Faith cannot be given in church or temple, through repeated prayers or sermons. Faith is a potential in all living things that requires a spark to be discovered, nurtured and established firmly in the mortal frame. Only a blessed few can achieve a Faith so strong that can withstand turbulence of living in this complex materialistic world. Dadaji was instrumental in me experiencing that Love and Faith. Our communion continued even after I left Singapore. As we exchanged notes mundane and profound he was genuinely interested in all that happened in our lives.

When it was time for Dadaji to depart it seemed arranged that I happen to travel to Singapore on business. As I met him a week before his final farewell my heart experienced that same magic of the early days in Singapore. Through the physical challenges he was facing this time, his sharpness was still evident as he enquired about Sushama and the kids. I read him Sri Aurobindo's poem "The Lost Boat" - trying to draw him into conversation and explain my understanding of the lines, but he chose to remain silent. In this final meeting I recognize his parting message - why use words when our hearts are ONE - lets commune in silence for that is the only perfect way to truly "understand" and “know” each other.

Our true homage to Dadaji would be to imbibe his wonderful quality in our lives - lets make every person around us feel 'special', for The Divine is shaping that special quality in each individual personality, something unique that will manifest – it was for hastening that new creation that Dadaji worked tirelessly - lets all do the same.

- Hiren

Blossoming of Nature

2011-04-11T21:15:00.001-07:00

Abundant and strong, nothing can stop its growth.
- The Mother

Common Name: Scots heather
Botanical Name: Calluna vulgaris
Spiritual Name: Blossoming of Nature

“At these blessed hours all earth sings a hymn of gladness, the grasses shudder with pleasure, the air is vibrant with light, the trees lift towards heaven their most ardent prayer, the chant of the birds becomes a canticle, the waves of the sea billow with love, the smile of children tell of the infinite and the souls of men appear in their eyes.”

- The Mother, 'Prayers and Meditations' 31st March, 1917.

Editorial

2011-04-11T21:11:00.003-07:00

We sense an inextricable association with nature at times, if not always. In low moments or moments of stress, we perceive a calming effect of nature on us. During moments of elevation, our contact with nature is translated into creative productions such as poetry, music, art, dance, just to name a few. History is rife with such creations born out of an intense communion with nature. Nature too has shown us another face of hers. We cringe before her face of so called violence and insurmountable energy. What is this Nature? Here are a few definitions: The material world and its phenomena; the forces and processes that produce and control all the phenomena of the material world; the world of living things and the outdoors; and a primitive set of existence, untouched and uninfluenced by civilisation or artificiality. There is an implication in the last definition of nature being quite separate from man. The Vedic tradition views man as an integral part of nature, as in nature consisting of two parts, namely the organisms of individuals and their environment. Nature is also known as Prakriti and means ‘that which gives shapes’ or ‘pure energy’ as opposed to Purusha the ‘creative consciousness’. Purusha uses the power of Prakriti for its unfolding in life. In this issue of our newsletter, we celebrate nature. April 22nd marks Earth Day, a day to think of the glories of the earth and lament over past and continuing ills inflicted upon her and make a collective resolution to do our part to preserve the earth which sustains our existence. This “doing-our-part” is a tricky issue. What is our part? Our part in doing what? What is the current situation of the earth to warrant this from us? Do we exactly know? Due to his indiscriminate practices bordering, at the final analysis, on greed, self-interest, disrespect for beauty, harmony and the natural rhythm and balance in nature, man has drawn towards himself the threat to his very existence. Increased carbon dioxide emission across the globe alone spells doom, as temperatures rise and as a result, ice-caps melt at a faster rate. In the long run, this means a rise in the sea level in some parts of the world, giving rise to the threat of submergence of land masses and in some other parts of the world, the threat of drought, as rivers run dry. Globally, signs of these are already on the rise and hence, the alarm. Earth Day brings to one’s attention these issues. It celebrates the individuals who have single-mindedly crusaded for the well-being of the earth in their own ways, in various nooks and corners of the earth – many there are who are not even known and march on in their endeavours driven by an inner conviction that the earth needs healing. Earth Day is also promising, as children around the world are given a golden opportunity to connect with the earth and make pledges of goodwill towards her. It is hoped that these children will bear that respect for the earth with them always, actualized in their day to day practices as they trod upon this very earth towards the future. For on these practices will depend the outcome of the living conditions that earth would hold for all of life in years to come. In this issue, we are given a glimpse of nature spiritualised through the eyes of The Mother, through the descriptions of this psychic relationship that she had with nature. Nature is a part of our own selves and we, an integral part of Nature. Herein lies the spiritual element ascribed to nature. The newsletter also reminisces over a past calamity to hit a country that The Mother has described with wonder and love.

Savitri

2011-04-11T21:11:00.001-07:00

At first to her beneath the sapphire heavens
The sylvan solitude was a gorgeous dream,
An altar of the summer’s splendour and fire,
A sky-topped flower-hung palace of the gods
And all its scenes a smile on rapture’s lips
And all its voices bards of happiness.
There was a chanting in the casual wind,
There was a glory in the least sunbeam;
Night was a chrysoprase on velvet cloth,
A nestling darkness or a moonlit deep;
Day was a purple pageant and a hymn,
A wave of the laughter of light from morn to eve.

(Savitri, Book 7, Canto 1)

********************

Life ran or hid in her delightful rooms;
Behind all brooded Nature’s grandiose calm.
Primeval peace was there and in its bosom
Held undisturbed the strife of bird and beast.
Man, the deep-browed artificer, had not come
To lay his hand on happy inconscient things,
Thought was not there nor the measurer, strong-eyed toil,
Life had not learned to discord with its aim.
The mighty Mother lay outstretched at ease.

(Savitri, Book 5, Canto 1)

*********************

For Nature walks upon her mighty way
Unheeding when she breaks a soul, a life;
Leaving her slain behind she travels on:

(Savitri, Book 1, Canto 1)