Flowers of the month

Krishna's play in matter

Beauty, love and joy are His companions. A play that widens and makes us progress.

Common Name: Wishbone Flower
Botanical Name: Torenia fournieri
Spiritual Name: Krishna’s Play in Matter

Krishna's Ananda

The boy with the flute is Sri Krishna, the Lord descended into the world-play from the divine Ananda; his flute is the music of the call which seeks to transform the lower ignorant play of mortal life and bring into it and establish in its place the Lila of his divine Ananda.

- Sri Aurobindo

First Sign of Krishna’s Light in Matter

It is the indication of the coming transformation.

Common Name: Slender Dwarf Morning Glory
Botanical Name: Evolvulus alsinoides
Spiritual Name: First Sign of Krishna’s Light in Matter

Walking in light - a peek at physical culture

In the last issue, we read, in The Mother’s words, “It is good to do exercises and to lead a simple and hygienic life, but for the body to be truly perfect, it must open to the divine forces, it must be subject only to the divine influence, it must aspire constantly to realize the Divine.”1 The perfection of the body is a high ideal that we can seek. In fact, perfecting this physical entity is not going to be without troubles and challenges. Sri Aurobindo says that, “…physical impurity is strong enough to bar the inner progress and limit rigidly the inner experience to some passive peace.”2 Without the transformation of the physical nature, he has said that “no complete transformation is possible”, thus diverging from the stance of ancient seekers “satisfied with rising into the spiritual or psychic realms and leave this part to itself”2. The secret behind perfection of the body is to have it “open to the divine forces.” What are the divine forces? What is “divine influence”? These can only refer to forces or influences from the divine, from The Mother herself. Sri Aurobindo assures, “You have only to remain quiet and undisturbed and let the higher Force work to change this obscure physical nature.”2

Any number of books written by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother would highlight to our seeking mind the nature of the divine force, and its influence. However, it would probably take more than just reading to get on with this yoga. One has to consent to the practice of it, and very often, nothing short of a whole hearted involvement in the practice is called for and that too, integrally, touching all parts of the being. Even if one aspect is touched, as in physical perfection, that too calls for an integral exposure and treatment in minute details for some results to show. Next, the understanding fully of what this “opening” entails, to what force and the methods of opening to the force are inevitable practical considerations to make a meaningful start in this endeavour towards physical perfection. We continue with this introspection in our next issue.

- Jayanthy

1. Excerpts from: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry (2006). Towards Perfect Health, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry
2. Sri Aurobindo (1970). Letters on Yoga,Vol 2, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry

Four great events in history - part 1

“There are four very great events in history, the siege of Troy, the life and crucifixion of Christ, the exile of Krishna in Brindavan and the colloquy with Arjuna on the field of Kurukshetra. The siege of Troy created Hellas, the exile in Brindavan created devotional religion (for before there was only meditation and worship), Christ from his cross humanised Europe, the colloquy at Kurukhetra will yet liberate humanity. Yet it is said that none of these four events ever happened." Sri Aurobindo

The first great event, our Master says, was the siege of Troy by Greeks that gave rise to the growth of Hellenic culture. This war was fought between the Greeks and Trojans with their allies, upon a Phrygian city of Troy (Ilium), on Asia Minor (modern Turkey). The war lasted ten years and it has been traditionally dated from 1194 to 1184 BC and narrated in the great Epics of Homer ( Illiad and Odyssey) wherein the gods and the earthly beings intermingled as if belonging to adjacent provinces and the episodes were interwoven with beings of earth, heaven and hell. Greece had very close commercial as well as cultural interaction with the eastern civilized world like Persia, Mesopotamia, India and Egypt, all of which were cradles of earliest human civilizations.

Rational thinking, scientific reasoning, materialistic perfection and aesthetic outlook of life were the major highlights of the Hellenic culture. Western thought is greatly dependent upon the theories of Greek philosopher-scientists like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, Pythogoras. Worldly prosperity, fit and well maintained physique by practice of sports activities, freedom of expression and intellectual growth were very important for the ancient Greeks. The spiritual and material aspects were never separated. They never believed in escape from life but gave more importance for all rounded happiness and enjoyment of life here on earth. Unlike in the post Christian era where science and religion were two contradicting forces, in ancient Greece all scientists, theologians, philosophers, thinkers, artists, socio political leaders were respected with equal position.

Ancient Greece is considered by most historians to be the foundation of Western Civilization and it has been immensely influential on the language, politics, educational systems, philosophy, art and architecture of the modern world, particularly during the Renaissance in Western Europe and again during various neo-Classical revivals in 18th and 19th century Europe. It was only after the Renaissance from 15th century, which promoted the revival of ancient Greek thought and ideals, that Europe again woke up from its deep slumber of the dark middle ages when progress was completely stopped or retarded by the religious or monarchic controls. Both adventure and scientific temperament that resulted in the growth of Europe in the coming centuries occurred during this period of Renaissance of Hellenic intellectual spirit.

Sri Aurobindo mentions in ‘Human Cycle’ about Hellenic culture,

“The Hellenic mind largely dominated by a love of the play of reason for its own sake, but even more powerfully by a high sense of beauty, a clear aesthetic sensibility and a worship of the beautiful in every activity, in every creation, in thought, in art, in life, in religion. So strong was this sense that not only manners, but ethics were seen by it to a very remarkable extent in the light of its master idea of beauty; the good was to its instinct largely the becoming and the beautiful. In philosophy itself it succeeded in arriving at the conception of the Divine as Beauty, a truth which the metaphysician very readily misses and impoverishes his thought by missing it” ( Human cycle page 95)

Sri Aurobindo has summarized the evolutionary journey of animal man towards the divine man in the above statement of four great events that had triggered progressive changes in the history of mankind. Each again was an hour of God bringing down one aspect of the Divine Sachidananda and accordingly the Hellenic culture reached the peak of Beauty in its perfection making the Beauty aspect of “ ‘Wisdom, Strength, Harmony, Perfection’ wherein the Perfection is by Mahasaraswathi the Mother’s Power of Work and her spirit of Perfection and order.” The Mother by Sri Aurobindo.

.....to be continued.

- Sundari

The yoga of the cross

It is a wisdom that none of the masters of this age have ever known, or they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. - Corinthians 2:8

Imagine yourself in the Palestine 2100 years ago and you want to start a new religion. Seems strange, as there was no shortage of religions in the world around you. Obviously, there were the Jews with their belief in one God, whose name they did not dare to utter, so they called Him with an unpronounceable YHWH. They worshiped him in Jerusalem in their most sacred temple and the sacrificial blood of the lambs invoked his blessings. They waited for his Messenger, a Saviour, who would restore the slaved Jews to the old glory of a chosen nation. They called him the Messiah.

Then there were the Romans, the mighty conquerors of the ancient lands. Their many gods controlling storms, oceans, marriages, professions… had to be kept always happy. Your luck was linked to their happiness, so to be pleased, they too required sacrifices and precious gifts. Further north over the Mediterranean Sea were the Greeks with their own pantheon of Gods residing on the Mount Olympus…. Then there were Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians, Syrians….

YHWH, Jupiter, Zeus all of them competed for the hearts and minds of their followers, who burnt for them animals and incense, offered gold in return for Gods’ favours and averting bad luck. All that the believers wanted was control and predictability. The Gods were to be feared, every time they appeared on the scene, it was not good news to the people. Thus most religions worked out words and rituals to placate the angry Gods and, by doing so, hoped to keep their lives and history predictable.

Now, what God would you choose for your new religion? What would be his throne and what crown would beautify his head? What rituals would wheedle his favours and what miracles confirm his sovereign power over the Earth and the Heaven? Would you, in all your new religion marketing strategy and “out of box thinking”, ever come up with an idea of a God with a cross as a throne, head crowned with thorns, scourged and nailed naked to two wooden beams, stinking of blood, sweat and tears? And would you call this an avatar of LOVE??? A God abhorred by the Romans and a blasphemy to the Jews? I would not.

Well, exactly such a God a small group of Jews chose 2000 years ago as their God. His name was Jesus and they called him the Christ, the Anointed One. Could they be more absurd in claiming that in Him, the Crucified lied the God’s secret, unknown since the beginning of time and revealed to them: “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. For “the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”(1 Corinthians 1:20-25).

No wonder that around the end of the second century someone has scratched on a Roman wall a graffito of a man worshiping a donkey-head figure on the cross. Was it a mockery of a crazy sect worshiping a symbol of foolishness? Possibly. Whatever it was, today it is the first known representation of the crucifixion. Not an encouraging start in a new religion indeed.

In fact the image of a bleeding on the cross God was just too much for the early Church theologians. They had to struggle hard in trying to reconcile the nature of an Omnipotent God with the helpless figure hanging on the cross. Was this God Jesus Christ just divine? Was He fully divine and a little bit human? Or maybe he was equally and perfectly both human and divine? The raging horror of the crucifixions and Roman persecutions of the early Christians - until the Emperor Constantine proscribed it in 314 A.D., left a lasting imprint on the Christian memory so that, cross representations remained a rarity for the first six centuries. Then the cross image emerged as another affirmation of Christ’s humanity in the continuing struggle with those who saw only his divinity. It competed with Christ hovering on the cross, often wearing a long robe, eyes open and head erect, unbloodied by nails, his feet resting firmly on the platform. This triumphant Christ must have indicated the difficulty of expressing the death of the Son of God. Between the eighth and the tenth century the doctrine of the substantial unity of Christ’s full human and full divine natures became sufficiently assimilated and established. From now on His death can coexist with His victory. Gradually a loin cloth replaces the robe, his eyes close, head drops to one side, blood flows from the wounds, his weight hangs from the arms, legs twist and feet are nailed to the wood. This naked man nailed to a cross becomes a symbol of humanity on the rack and, according to C.G. Jung, perhaps the deepest archetypal symbol in the Western psyche.

Today, twenty centuries after His death, Christianity still claims to have the privilege to name the Divine secret. That does not automatically make Christians chosen nation and better people. As history has shown our patterns of violence and hatred pretty well match and in time surpass those of non-Christians. Neither does this privilege, though many would have wished for it, makes Christianity the only way through which God revealed Himself to the humanity. Nevertheless it is still amazing that this “failed” God made it after all. This we Christians call the folly, the scandal or the mystery of the Cross, or as Ravi Ravindra puts it in Indian vocabulary, the “Yoga of the Cross”. Let us try and unveil a bit of this mystery.

A Franciscan monk Fr. Richard Rohr writes: “The doctrine of the cross is the great interpretative key that makes many things clear, at least for Christians, but perhaps also for history. It's no accident that we have made the cross the Christian logo, because in the revelation of the cross, many great truths become obvious and even over¬whelming, yet not so obvious beforehand.”* What are these great truths that Fr. Rohr speaks about?

Human history from its biblical archetypes of Cain and Abel is in its major part a continuing succession of violence and bloodshed. It has always been determined by the masters of the age telling us whom to fear and whom to crucify. Millions of soldiers and innocent victims have given their lives believing in their lies. Recently, a modern interpretation of this human addiction to violence was suggested by Rene Girard, a contemporary French anthropological philosopher. His scapegoat theory describes how the scapegoat sacrifice became the foundation of the human culture, and how religion emerged as a necessity in human evolution to control the violence that comes from rivalry. “We usually dealt with human anxiety and evil by sacrificial systems, and that has largely continued to this day. Something has to be sacrificed. Blood has to be shed. Somebody has to be killed. Someone has to be blamed, accused, attacked, tortured or imprisoned—or there has to be capital punishment—because we just don't know how to deal with evil without sacrificial systems. It always creates religions of exclusion and violence, because we think it is our job to destroy the evil element.”* This is the tit-for–tat, eye-for-eye, a hard-to-die paradigm which Gandhi used to say would make the whole world blind. To deal with our human fear and violence and run away from our “shadow” we learned to project the evil outside - to our neighbor and God himself. “We end up making God very small and draw the Godhead into our own ego-driven need for retribu¬tion, judicial resolution and punishment. Yet that's exactly what Jesus came to undo!”* This was the sin of the world to be taken away, the seeing us as separated from God by exposing it as different from what we imagined. It led Him on the Way of the Cross and since then Christianity became “the only religion in the world that worships the scapegoat”*.

Most Christians today would agree that the death of Jesus was a heroic sacrificial payment of a cosmic debt to His Father. What this opinion leaves unsaid is that it unwillingly makes God the Father into a blood thirsty Chief Sacrificer. The contemplative Christian tradition has always insisted that this exactly is NOT, not the reason of Jesus’ incarnation and death on the cross. A Benedictine monk Fr. John Main, who revived the long forgotten Christian Meditation tradition, after learning to meditate from a Hindu Swami Satyananda, said: “When we look at the cross we should not think 'we are saved by the suffering of Christ' but 'we are saved by the love we see here’”. The meaning of the Cross is much deeper and much more mysterious then just an easy to grab for a violent mind atonement theory. “Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity; Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God. This grounds Christianity in love and freedom from the very beginning; it creates a very coherent and utterly attractive religion, which draws people toward lives of inner depth, prayer, reconciliation, healing…Nothing "changed" on Calvary, but everything was revealed so we could change!... Those who "gaze upon" the crucified long enough— with contemplative eyes—are always healed at deep levels of pain, unforgiveness, aggression and victimhood. It demands no theological education at all, just an "inner exchange" by receiving the image within and offering one's soul back in safe return. If all these human crucifixions are leading to some possible resurrection, and are not dead-end tragedies, this changes everything. If God is somehow participating in human suffering, instead of just passively tolerating it and observing it, that also changes everything—at least for those who are willing to "gaze" contemplatively.”*

After Jesus the game for the world crucifiers was over. The new game began whose name was God’s Nonviolence and Forgiveness. The new image of God we have is not a Platonic idea or a Form, nor a mythical creation of our imagination, but boundless Love that empties himself in order to first unite us within and then unite us with Himself in love. This is only possible if God enters fully into the human condition - with its limitations, its sinful aspects and its suffering. All this is evident in the Cross. The necessary thing is for us to understand and see it correctly – and this knowledge transforms us moment by moment.

As Ravi Ravindra puts it from the perspective of Indian mysticism: “As far as Jesus is concerned, the right preparation consists in dying to self-will and in denying the self, so that the person can obey the will of God. His yoga consists of this and the cross is the supreme symbol…spiritual significance of the cross cannot be exaggerated…. Every moment, whenever we are present to it, we are at a crossing; at this point of crossing we choose whether to remain in the horizontal plane of the world or to be yoked to the way of Christ and follow the vertical axis of being.”

Finally we arrived at the last Station of the Cross - The Resurrection. We cannot – says Fr. Laurence Freeman, the Director of the World Community for Christian Meditation - separate the Cross from the Resurrection. The way Jesus died (forgiving his enemies, plunging to the depth of human despair but not losing faith with God) and the deepest identity He had in his human nature with the Father God had to lead to His resurrection from the dead. Since then He lives in us, universalised through the gift of His Spirit, the Spirit of God. This understanding makes sense within the framework of the Christian idea of God as Trinity- not just Supreme Being but Being as Communion - the Love of the three Persons in One God. Jesus is the second Person and He was this Word that became flesh, a unique individual in the human history, not the Father or the Spirit. But where One is the other Two are also. So union with Jesus - through faith, love and hope - is union with all Three, with God. The Christian sees Jesus as the incarnation of the universal Word that exists from the beginning. This incarnation however does not negate, replace or in any way diminish other religious traditions through which God has revealed Himself to humanity.
- Andrzej Ziolkowski

Bibliography:

• * From “Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality”, copyright 2008 by Richard Rohr. Reprinted with permission of St. Anthony Messenger Press, 28 W. Liberty St., Cincinnati, OH 45202.
• Ravi Ravindra “The Gospel of John in the Light of the Indian Mysticism”
• Works of John Main and Laurence Freeman
About the author: Andrzej is a Catholic, a Polish living in Singapore. He has great interest in exploring all religions as paths to the One Universal Truth. He is a member of the World Community for Christian Meditation (www.wccm.org).

Question of the month

Q: To what plane of consciousness did Christ belong?

A: The Mother: In the Essays on the Gita, Sri Aurobindo mentions the names of three Avatars, and Christ is one of them. An Avatar is an emanation of the Supreme Lord who assumes a human body on earth. I heard Sri Aurobindo himself say that Christ was an emanation of the Lord’s aspect of love.

The death of Ceasar marked a decisive change in the history of Rome and the countries dependent on her. It was therefore an important event in the history of Europe.

But the death of Christ was the starting-point of a new stage in the evolution of human civilization. This is why Sri Aurobindo tells us that the death of Christ was a greater historical significance, that is to say, it has had greater historical consequences than the death of Ceaser. The story of Christ, as it has been told, is the concrete and dramatic enactment of the divine sacrifice: the Supreme Lord, who is All-Light, All-Knowledge, All-Power, All-Beauty, All-Love, All-Bliss, accepting to assume human ignorance and suffering in matter, in order to help men to emerge from the falsehood in which they live and because of which they die.

Q: (1) Were the meditation and worship of former times the same as those of today?
(2) What does this mean: “the colloquy at Kurukshetra will yet liberate humanity”?

A: Mother: (1) In ancient times, as in our own day, each religion had its own particular kind of meditation and worship. And yet everywhere, always, meditation is a special mode of mental activity and concentration, only the details of the practice vary. Worship is a series of ceremonies and rites that are scrupulously and exactly performed in honour of a deity. Here Sri Aurobindo refers to the worship and meditation of ancient India, in Vedic and Vedantic times.
(2) The colloquy at Kurukshetra is the Bhagavad Gita. Sri Aurobindo considers the message of the Gita to be the basis of the great spiritual movement which has led and will lead humanity more and more to its liberation, that is to say, to its escape from falsehood and ignorance, towards the truth. From the time of its first appearance, the Gita has had an immense spiritual action; but with the new interpretation that Sri Aurobindo has given to it, its influence has increased considerably and has become decisive.

- The Mother (29 June 1960)

(CWM Volume 10, Centenary Edition Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1976, Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry- 605002) .

Savitri

He who would save himself lives bare and calm;
He who would save the race must share its pain:
This he shall know who obeys that grandiose urge.
The Great who came to save this suffering world
And rescue out of Time’s shadow and the Law,
Must pass beneath the yoke of grief and pain:
They are caught by the Wheel that they had hoped to break,
On their shoulders they must bear man’s load of fate.
Heaven’s riches they bring, their sufferings count the price
Or they pay the gift of knowledge with their lives.
The Son of God born as the Son of man
Has drunk the bitter cup, owned Godhead’s debt,
The debt the Eternal owes to the fallen kind
His will has bound to death and struggling life
That yearns in vain for rest and endless peace.
Now is the debt paid, wiped off the original score.
The Eternal suffers in human form,
He has signed salvation’s testament with his blood:
He has opened the doors with his undying peace.


(Savitri, Book 6, Canto 2)

Pursuing her in her fall, implacably sweet,
A face was over her which seemed a youth’s,
Symbol of all the beauty eyes see not,
Crowned as with peacock plumes of gorgeous hue
Framing a sapphire, whose heart-disturbing smile
Insatiably attracted to delight,
Voluptuous to the embraces of her soul.

(Savitri, Book 11, Canto 1)

Editorial

Marco Polo’s venture into China in 1266 that opened the gate of the East to the West;,the Scientific Revolution between 1600 to 1700 that paved the path for present day science and technology, the invention of the computer in 1946 that has shrunken the world and increased the speed of communication and processing are but just a few events in recent world history that have revolutionized the very way we live. The many moments that re-directed a well trodden path have never failed to gain recognition in history as turning-points or revolutions, in the way of thinking, of feeling or acting, thereafter. These significant moments put in place a forward march, almost always, alongside a corresponding progressive, seeking spirit that emanates from within us.

This month’s Newsletter has for its focus an unusual subject. We have taken up one of Sri Aurobindo’s aphorisms to explore, as it appears below, where Sri Aurobindo presents four ancient but major events that set the course of human evolution:

There are four very great events in history, the siege of Troy, the life and crucifixion of Christ, the exile of Krishna in Brindavan and the colloquy with Arjuna on the field of Kurukshetra. The siege of Troy created Hellas, the exile in Brindavan created devotional religion (for before that there was only meditation and worship), Christ from his cross humanized Europe, the colloquy at Kurukshetra will yet liberate humanity. Yet it is said that none of these four events ever happened.
Sri Aurobindo wrote a total of 547 aphorisms around 1913, under three main headings or categories, namely, Jnana (Knowledge), Karma (Works) and Bhakti (Love), all of which appear to correspond closely with major themes treated.

This aphorism is numbered as the 40th aphorism in the category of Jnana or Knowledge, for which The Mother wrote the commentaries between 1960 to 1961. The aphorism takes up four great events in history and points to each of their significance. Then in a twist, Sri Aurobindo, who first referred to these events as “great events in history”, slaps a statement that casts a shadow on the authenticity of their place in history and we are made to cry out loud, at least silently, “you mean these events never took place???!!!!” Mother’s comments on Sri Aurobindo’s aphorisms is timely here:

Here again, as always, Sri Aurobindo sees every aspect of the question … In the union of opposites lies true wisdom and total effectiveness.

Let us re-look the last sentence, “Yet it is said that none of these four events ever happened.” A troubling thought remains after reading the aphorism again and again. He questions the foundation of fundamental belief systems with the last suggestion and the stir created within is especially the greater after he extols their place in history as course-steering. A general study of these events from sources on cyberspace highlights one commonality that bind these different occurrences together. All of these took place in antiquity, narrated and passed down from generation to generation before they found their place in recorded history and hence have less of the rigour that recent historical records carry in them, and therefore the sceptism in the truth of their actual occurrence. But the fact remains, that they played a great part in altering human evolution in very significant ways.

Read on.