Life must blossom like a flower offering itself to the Divine

The Mother embraces all earth in her arms and has set the progression towards the Truth as its noble aim. In order to hasten the progress, time and again, she sends forth glorious lights on earth.

In the history of earth, there have been many such lives, those that were and still are a music of Krishna’s light. They are lives offered at the feet of Krishna and in living so, they spread breadcrumbs¹ on the path for others to follow on. The story of Aandaal in southern India is one such life. Mirabai of Rajasthan lived devotion, her songs bring Krishna into our midst. Our Sweet Mother’s life is also one such life. She is Mahalakshmi who has come on earth and created a whole new world for us to be in. Like Aandaal’s paasurams, are Mirabai’s songs on Krishna and so are Mother’s prayers and meditations.

Mother lived a spiritually conscious life right from her childhood. Her experiences were many, her records give a beautiful narration of them. India was a place that was so dear to her heart. She was led to come to India where she met Sri Aurobindo, and in him she saw the Krishna who had been guiding her life. She offered herself at Sri Aurobindo’s feet and continued on to do his work for the world.

Growing up with The Mother and learning with The Mother are beautiful books that bring in us a growing attachment with The Mother. In this process, we can enrich ourselves with skills that will express our devotion and enable us to share it with others - be it in music, poetry or painting or any other form of fine arts. By offering our works to her and serving as a beam of her light, we participate in Mother’s project of bringing the earth a step closer to the Truth.

In Savitri, Book of Divine Mother is a hymn on The Mother by Sri Aurobindo. It is a chant that glorifies her splendor and invokes her presence. “One shall descend and break the iron law” he sings, in Vision and the Boon, to mark the grant bestowed by The Mother to send a light of hers on earth. The light is indeed Savitri, who is led to discover the Truth of her being and live the same for the world. All her life is a blossoming like a flower offering itself to the Divine.

Sandhya

*The word ‘breadcrumbs’ is a terminology used in Software Engineering context of user interface design where a web page shows the path of navigation. It is also from the story of Hansel and Gretel where it is said that they scatter breadcrumbs on the path they travel in order to remember the way.

*Title is a quote by the Mother.

July - August Sunday Activities at the Centre - A glimpse

July 23^rd and July 30^th – Rig Veda and Savitri

Jared Quek is back with us with penetrating insights gained from his Rig Veda studies at Oxford as well as from the weekly meets at Sri Aurobindo Society in London. He has initiated a new delightful twist to our ‘Secrets of Veda’ sessions nudging us to comb passages of Savitri to unearth the hidden links to Rig Veda. We were presented with the Rig Veda Manadala 1, Sukta 1 on Agni, of course with one set of Sri Aurobindo’s translations among the 14 or so he had compiled; the same sheet also displayed a few passages from Savitri Book 2, Conto 12, ‘The Heavens of the Ideal’.

Agni-Fire-Flame takes on numerous significant roles such as the aspect of sacrifice, Divine Will, Chief Priest/controller/summoner/Protector/Supporter/ Enjoyer of the offerings and much, much more. Krishnamoorthy uncle read a short passage from Vishnu Sahasranamam and its translation closely reflecting these roles of Agni in Yagna (offering). In fact, Agni takes on Transcendal, Universal and Individual aspects.

“Agni is at once a fire of aspiration, a fire of purification, a fire of Tapasya, a fire of transformation” Sri Aurobindo

If we trace the origin of pure flame, we reach the heart of Divine Mother’s Love; this is explained by Mother with respect to the following lines from Savitri

“The great stars burn with my unceasing fire

And life and death are both its fuel made.

Life only was my blind attempt to love:

Earth saw my struggle, heaven my victory (Savitri, Book 10, Conto 3)

… it is the principle of Love that is transformed into flame and finally into light. It isn’t the princi­ple of Light that is transformed into flame when it materializes: it’s the flame that is transformed into light.

The great stars give light because they burn; they burn be­cause they are under the effect of Love… ” (Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 6, September 8, 1965, pp. 235-238)

Aswapaty also feels the flame discovery in the Divine Mother’s ‘House of the Spirit and the New Creation’  

“The great world-rhythms were heart-beats of one Soul,

To feel was a flame-discovery of God” (Savitri, Book 3, Conto 3)

Coming back to the passages from ‘The Heavens of the Ideal’ Conto Jared presented, Aswapaty is continuing his journey on the “Mighty kingdoms of the Deathless Flame” with several references to the common Vedic imagery such as Sacrifice, ‘Altar Mind’, Priests, ‘Day and Dusk’, ‘Illumined Might’ (Hero Power or consciousness force), Ascending Force and the list continues.

We also discussed about the infinite possibilities and the complex nature of the experience of Divine delight; Jared highlighted that this experience aspect should not be confused with the multiple practical pathways which could be simple or complicated. The experiences of Vedic Rishis were not intellectual but powerful and concrete imagery of Transcendental powers. We were all encouraged to read the 14-page introduction to the Secret of Vedas by Sri Aurobindo in ‘The Doctrine of the Mystics” http://saccs.org.in/texts/sriaurobindo/-sa-doctrine-mystics.php

We also tried to figure out some of the aspects of Savitri far beyond the view of Vedas. Savitri’s most powerful pose with the transcendental vision of Victorious Truth in front of the Lord of Death (Yama) came to mind. Krishna’s Vishwaroopa Darshan to Arjuna was Universal (Overmental) vision with both positive and negative aspects shown to address the developmental needs of  the vital Man; whereas, Savirti’s integral transcendental vision, as an incarnation of Divine Mother, sees no evil and considers even Death as her deputy God serving a Divine purpose – during the transition period until the immortal Super Man is born. It is the Marvel vision of Sarvam Brahma. Savitri transforms Yama into being of Light in the Everlasting Day. 

This reminds us of how Joss Brooks transformed the polluted Adayar river banks to a beautiful park in his own humble way (reference to July 14^th slide show at our centre); negative is not opposite of positive; negative conceals what is missing to make our view whole.

Savitri is revealed as the Divine Flame and Divine Mother incarnation in infinite dimensions right from the Symbol of Dawn, through the birth and growth of flame of Quest and beyond victory over God of Death. Let us all spare some time to enjoy the five poises of Savitri as portrayed by Sri Aurobindo as alluded to during our discussions:

1. The prophetic vision given by Mother as a Boon to Aswapaty’s Yoga
2. As seen by Aswapaty’s subtle vision (Telepathy) when Savitri approaches him in the palace
3. Narad’s Trikala Drishti when he sees Savitri on her return after meeting Satyavan
4. An amalgamated earthly and overmental Divine vision in the Symbol of Dawn conto in the opening
5. Transcendental vision beyond Lord Krishna's Vishwaroopa Darshan as the Divine Mother incarnation as detailed above

Similarly, the Savitri passages Jared presented from ‘The Heavens of the Ideal’ conto form just one out of the several views Aswapaty reveals during his mystic voyage on the world stairs; this part specifically reflects the traditional journey in timelessness aspiring towards heaven or moksha shunning the challenges of earthly life. The goal of our Integral Yoga is to make our earth a heaven calling for vertical unification of Superconscient with Subconscient and horizontal unification of Individual with the Universal. It emphasizes striving to go deeper within to release the involved forces and through triple transformation bring down the transcendental Shakti and Cosmic Prakriti powers to play ‘our role in the whole’ - bringing out knowledge out of ignorance, beauty out of chaos and dynamic delight out of pain/suffering. This process has been made simpler for us through the untiring sacrifices of Sri Aurobindo and Divine Mother in bringing down the Supramental Light, Force, Love and New Consciousness to our Earth. Our Psychic flame can guide our accelerated progress enabling double opening both below and above in us creating an Integral Flame (Agni) pathway to progress beyond the clutches of fate, time and even death.

“Without Agni the sacrificial flame cannot burn on the altar of the soul. That flame of Agni is the seven-tongued power of the Will, a Force of God instinct with Knowledge. This conscious and forceful will is the immortal guest in our mortality, a pure priest and a divine worker, the mediator between earth and heaven. It carries what we offer to the higher Powers and brings back in return their force and light and joy into our humanity” Sri Aurobindo

August 6^th – Reading from AIM: Mother and Sri Aurobindo on themselves

We read beautiful passages of Mother on Sri Aurobindo and Sri Aurobindo on the Mother. The key take away was:

"The Mother's consciousness and mine are the same, the one Divine Consciousness in two, because that is necessary for the play. Nothing can be done without her knowledge and force, without her consciousness- if anybody feels her consciousness, he should know that I am there behind it and if he feels me it is the same with hers. If a separation is made like that ( I leave aside the turns which their minds so strongly put upon these things), how can the Truth establish itself- for the Truth there is no such separation. " - Sri Aurobindo.

 August 13^th - Questions and Answers 1956 by The Mother

The attendance was thin with just 6 members. Mr. Krishnamurthy randomly selected page 88 and the question to Sweet Mother appeared “What does Sri Aurobindo mean by ‘a self-dynamising meditation’?”

We discussed the aspect of ‘Sarvam Brahma’ and how He, The Supreme One seeks dynamic delight through the infinite Many; how we can play the role in the whole through the strings of our mind and song waves of our life both created out of the knowledge coming out of the occult clay of seeming ignorance.

We also touched on the Karma Yoga and Gnana Yoga aspects in relation to the dynamism of meditation and as to how each and every act can be traced to reveal Brahman, Divine Mother, Time-Space, Super Mind, Objective Truth, Subjective Truth, Mind, Life, Materialization and dynamic delight of the Divine.

Then we read the All revealing Mother’s answer. Self-Dynamising meditation is a meditation that has the power of transforming your being. It is a meditation which makes you progress, as opposed to static meditation which is immobile and relatively inert, and which changes nothing in your consciousness or in your way of being.

Generally, people don’t have a dynamic meditation. When they enter into meditation—or at least what they call meditation— they enter into a kind of immobility where nothing stirs, and they come out of it exactly as they went in, without any change either in their being or in their consciousness. And the more motionless it is, the happier they are. They could meditate in this way for eternities, it would never change anything either in the universe or in themselves. That is why Sri Aurobindo speaks of a dynamic meditation which is exactly the very opposite. It is a transforming meditation.

I think it is the aspiration that should be different, the attitude should be different. “Different way”—what do you mean by “way”—(laughing) the way of sitting?... Not that? The inner way?

Yes. But for each one it is different. I think the most important thing is to know why one meditates; this is what gives the quality of the meditation and makes it of one order or another.

You may meditate to open yourself to the divine Force, you may meditate to reject the ordinary consciousness, you may meditate to enter the depths of your being, you may meditate to learn how to give yourself integrally; you may meditate for all kinds of things. You may meditate to enter into peace and calm and silence—this is what people generally do, but without much success. But you may also meditate to receive the Force of transformation, to discover the points to be transformed, to trace out the line of progress. And then you may also meditate for very practical reasons: when you have a difficulty to clear up, a solution to find, when you want help in some action or other. You may meditate for that too.

I think everyone has his own mode of meditation. But if one wants the meditation to be dynamic, one must have an aspiration for progress and the meditation must be done to help and fulfil this aspiration for progress. Then it becomes dynamic.

- Ramadoss and Shailaja

Along the Way… August 2017 Walk Review (walk no 384)

"Physical culture is the process of infusing consciousness into the cells of the body. One may or may not know it, but it is a fact. When we concentrate to make our muscles move according to our will, when we endeavor to make our limbs suppler, to give them an agility, or a force, or a resistance, or a plasticity which they do not naturally possess, we infuse into the cells of the body a consciousness which was not there before, thus turning it into an increasingly homogeneous and receptive instrument, which progresses in and by its activities. This is the primary importance of physical culture."

-          The Mother.

It is with this aspiration that the Singapore Society has been holding monthly walks from its inception. In some ways, especially in the wired contemporary world, where devices and media absorb most people’s attention, it is quite a wonderful respite to walk in a beautiful natural setting.

On August 6, 2017, 12 members came together at McRitchie Reservoir carpark to start yet another walk. This was the three hundred and eighty fifth monthly walk, in an unbroken tradition. Anuvrat and baby Anushna came to flag off the event, and we started with stretches for around ten minutes to gently condition muscles for the walk. Stiffness dissolved in the sun, and soon we were ready to quickly walk by the water towards the wooded section of the reservoir. August is the month when Singapore celebrates its National Day. Singapore is truly blessed to have so many natural settings, beautifully maintained for a modern city, where land and water is a coveted resource. As we stretched our limbs, the groups of different citizens gathered around us to undertake different kinds of physical activities formed a celebratory environment.

After the initial exercises, we made our way by colorful canoes on the water towards the forest, where there are walking trails through rubber trees, and other plantation era relic vegetation. McRitchie Reservoir carries history even as its expansiveness offers a timelessness, where time seems to stand still, and birdsong is heard, away from the hustle bustle of the city. It is the oldest reservoir on the island, built in the 19^th century. The walking trail had an incline, and slowly we fell into a kind of line, with Mr. Ramanathan leading the train with a brisk pace, as some of us made our way slowly and deliberately, sometimes pausing to catch a breath on the incline. Even though the sun was bright on that day, the shade of the trees offered a cool path, on which we made our way. It is always amazing to see how trees aspire towards the light and sun, their leaves making their way softly and strongly to find light where they can. The forest is always a reminder of that aspiration towards the light, even in human beings, even in the shade, even where we least expect it.

As we trudged along, slowly and briskly, slices of conversations about pilgrimages, and meditation practices, hung in the humid air. There is a delight in undertaking activities and sharing aspirations with fellow sadhaks and a walk offers a unique opportunity. After walking for about an hour, and almost 4 miles, we made our way back to where we started, and divided into groups to go to Mr. and Mrs. K V Rao’s place.

 A wonderful welcome awaited us there with cool water and drinks even before we entered the home. The place was set up for prayers and meditations, and beautiful flowers adorned the altar. Mr. Rao had cooked a meal for about 60 guests on his mother’s anniversary. After meditation and readings from the Mother’s writings, the guests were invited to the table, where a real spread was laid out. The food was amazing, and we felt the love that had gone into cooking it. After the meal, there was a little get together to discuss the youth program led by Jared. A feeling of thankfulness at the beautiful morning flooded most hearts, as we experienced both a filling up of the spirit, as well as hungry stomachs. It was a day to remember both the birthday of Sri Aurobindo, and the birthday of the land we live in, and hence was a reminder of the presence of divine grace in our lives, which manifests in many ways. All we have to do is open our hearts and eyes.

Sumita Ambasta

A Seer was born, a shining Guest of Time

His was a spirit that stooped from larger spheres
Into our province of ephemeral sight,
A colonist from immortality.

The universal strengths were linked with his;
Filling earth’s smallness with their boundless breadths,
He drew the energies that transmute an age.

Immeasurable by the common look,
He made great dreams a mould for coming things
And cast his deeds like bronze to front the years.

-          Savitri, Sri Aurobindo

From the Editor’s Desk (Aug 2017)

On our onward journey with Savitri as theme, we take a glimpse at Ashwapathy in this month’s issue of the Newsletter. This choice is also in line with the much awaited month of August that observes the 145th birth anniversary of  Sri Aurobindo. 

Even as Sri Aurobindo penned the epic poem, he poured his whole consciousness into it; his autobiography in part, Savitri is an intimate aid for Spiritual growth. For through King Ashwapathy, the human father of Savitri, Sri Aurobindo conveys his lifelong sadhana in integral yoga and the entire gamut of his experiences. Through Ashwapathy, Sri Aurobindo hews a path across a virgin forest for the travellers of the future advancing towards the grand discovery of the Divine plan. It is notable that Ashwapathy’s yoga, recounted in Books 1 to 3, in 10,000 lines, holds a central place in the epic and covers almost half of its length, alongside Savitri’s yoga. The Mother asserts that what Sri Aurobindo conveys through the lines on Ashwapthy and his journey are “experiences lived by him, realities, supracosmic truths…He experienced all these as one experiences joy or sorrow, physically. He walked in the darkness of inconscience, even in the neighbourhood of death, endured the sufferings of perdition, and emerged from the mud, the world-misery to breathe the sovereign plenitude and enter the supreme Ananda.” 

Turning to Ashwapathy, he is Ashwapathy the King of Madra and the one whose yearning for a greater good for humanity brought about the birth of Savitri, the great World Mother into the human world. Ashwapathy, dissatisfied with the cosmic and microcosmic state of affairs prevailing in him and around him, makes an attempt to realise the Sublime and Supreme in the mundane. He plunges into himself to seek himself out and work out a transformation in himself, seeking a greater good in himself and the whole of humanity.

His journey brings him into the occult regions of his inner self. This results in his own psychological and spiritual transformation. He is carried into another dimension of space and time. He plunges into the dark world of Night and meets the Mother of Evil and her Sons of Darkness. He journeys then through the planes of the physical, vital, mental and the psychic and spiritual planes of existence. As a climatic treat for all lovers of Savitri, Ashwapathy comes face to face with the Supreme Divine Mother. His ardent aspiration for the transformation of the Earth results in The Mother granting him the boon of “One who shall descend and break the iron law”. Thus was the “One”, Savitri, gifted to the world for its transformation through King Ashwapathy’s Yoga. In his own words, Sri Aurobindo describes King Ashwapathy as, “the Yogi who seeks the means to deliver the world out of Ignorance,” reflecting the turn Sri Aurobindo’s own life took on earth for the purpose of realising the Supramental Truth and manifesting it upon the earth plane, giving an influence and a grand uplift to all the workings of Nature. Ashwapathy: 

Immeasurable by the common look,

He made great dreams a mould for coming things

And cast his deeds like bronze to front the years.

Let us contemplate on these laden lines as we approach the special day this August, not forgetting to reflect on our purpose here, in the wide and divine scheme of things.

Savitri, a journey of Love and Light

One who has shaped this world is ever its lord:
Our errors are his steps upon the way;
He works through the fierce vicissitudes of our lives,
He works through the hard breath of battle and toil,
He works through our sins and sorrows and our tears,
His knowledge overrules our nescience;
Whatever the appearance we must bear,
Whatever our strong ills and present fate,
When nothing we can see but drift and bale,
A mighty Guidance leads us still through all.

This transfiguration is earth’s due to heaven:
A mutual debt binds man to the Supreme:
His nature we must put on as he put ours;
We are sons of God and must be even as he:
His human portion, we must grow divine.

Our life is a paradox with God for key.

(Book One, Canto Four)

A note on Aswapathy’s yoga

From the legend we know that Savitri was born to the queen of Aswapathy as the result of a boon by the Goddess Savitri. Here the poet introduces Aswapathy and while explaining the cause of Savitri's birth asserts that her birth was compelled by "a world's desire". Savitri had to take mortal birth in order to meet the intense desire of a whole world. The subsequent portion of the poem up to the end of the third book deals with the vast background which compelled her birth.

Aswapathy's character as a seeker of the Divine and as an adept of the great spiritual and mystic realisation of the past gives us a wonderful picture of man's growth from mental consciousness through various intermediate stages to the Supreme Divine Mother Consciousness.

"The Yoga of the Soul's Release" is the subject of this Canto. Here for the first time it becomes clear that this great epic deals with the spiritual odyssey of the soul. The poet here openly discloses himself as the poet of divine life by beginning in this Canto the song of the soul's liberation. The whole poem becomes the song par excellence of man's growth on earth from the inconscient through the vital and the mental stages to the realms of the Spirit, the realms of the Divine. It is the epic of man's ascent from level to level of consciousness rising from world to world, from peaks of mind to the peaks of the spirit till he reaches the supreme Divine and by his unfailing aspiration invokes the Divine to descend into himself so as to create divine life on earth. But this cannot be so long as human soul is tied like an animal with the triple cord of mental, vital and physical ignorance to the sacrificial post in the vast cosmic sacrifice to be offered as a victim. As long as human consciousness lives in the ego, lives subject to desire, conflict, dualities, suffering and pain, so long he cannot fulfil' the deepest longing and the highest aspiration of his being. He must liberate himself from the bondage of ignorance. The first release comes to man when he can go beyond his animal propensities, when he can free himself from the reign of desire and wake up to some ideals in his life. Therefore, we see Aswapathy,—who symbolises man as the Lord of Life,—waking to the higher potentialities of his nature: he is "a thinker and toiler in the ideal's air". It is in his conception and pursuit of higher intellectual, moral and spiritual ideals that man begins to fee! that he is not merely an animal driven by the goad of hunger and thirst and a slave of desires, but that he has come to this earth from some higher spiritual plane,—at least, that there is something in him which is free from the inertia, inconscience, grossness and coarseness of earth nature and is akin to the pure Spirit. Aswapathy felt that he was "a colonist from immortality", and as such he tended to grow towards, or into, the likeness of his spiritual Self. In this intense aspiration to grow into the likeness of spiritual being "his mind was like a fire assailing heaven".

Aswapathy's spiritual growth began by his realising that the external being of man is not the whole of himself. There are hidden "celestial powers" in man, immense spiritual potentialities lie dormant in the human being. There is an immortal ineffable Spirit in man that creates here the forms for his own manifestation. It is that spirit that "in the worm foresees the coming god". It sees the finite that is actual and knows the infinite that is potential and even' certain. It is when man accepts his higher possibilities of spiritual life that he is able to outgrow his present state of ignorance, leave behind him the limited planes of his mental, vital and physical consciousness and rise beyond them. Then, like Aswapathy, he "Arrive on the frontiers of eternity". He who has heard this call of the Beyond is unable to remain satisfied with the ordinary life of ignorance. His heart seems to be smitten by "a beam of the Eternal", and his mind wants to expand into Infinity. When he succeeds in realising his aspiration then the Divine begins to work overtly in him.

Then a different government of his nature begins for the individual. The divine power that descends in him begins to “turn this frail mud-engine to heaven-use". The insignificant human being is utilised by the divine for a divine purpose. Aswapathy found then that the whole movement of cosmic evolution which appears on the surface like a purposeless activity of the inconscient is in reality controlled by a secret Craftsman who works from behind the veil of ignorance to realise here "his dreamed magnificence of things to be". He saw that "a. mystery of married Earth and Heaven" was a part of the divine dream. He saw the vision of the divine life on earth and henceforth he became a seer, and he knew that he was here as "a shining Guest of Time" from Eternity. After the vision of the Truth to be realised here Aswapathy's limited mind became boundless, his little ego-self completely disappeared, "The island ego joined its continent". He was liberated from the yoke of the laws of Nature's ignorance, from the limitations of the intellect. Before him "there gleamed the dawn of a spiritual day”.

After this spiritual awakening "Humanity framed his movements less and less". It was no longer possible for him to allow the human elements in him to govern his life, and to accept as final the limitations of human nature. He awoke in himself latent powers, faculties that lay dormant in him—powers of pure perception, intimate vision, and also of spiritual experience. He could know the motives, ideas and wishes in other men and he felt also world thought-streams running into his own mind. He could hear secret voices and the "Word that knows". He came in contact with planes of consciousness other than the consciousness of the earth and contacted beings on occult planes. In fact, his consciousness ceased to be limited in the individual nature, and began to widen out into the cosmic. He voyaged from plane to plane till he came to the end of the world of symbols and signs.

From there he crossed beyond into the world of the Formless where there is no object cognizable either by the sense or by the thought. There he found that the whole world became a single Being which felt everything as its own Self. There

"The Supreme's gaze looked out through human eyes

And saw all things and creatures as itself".

There "...oneness is the soul of multitude". It was a realm of knowledge in which eternal calm prevails. It is a realm where one experiences boundlessness;

"While there, one can be wider than the world;

While there, one is one's own infinity”.

With this experience Aswapathy entered a still Consciousness that sustains all, and a peace that passes all understanding. There he found all contradictions of life resolved, sorrow, pain and conflict ceased, because there the Truth was living its own real life. He, thus, realised the origin of the spirit and established his being in the Infinite and his life upon the Eternal. When he looked at the world from his new spiritual poise he saw that the world was only "A small result of a stupendous force". But the ordinary instruments of human nature are incapable of supporting these higher states of being. They hanker after their normal littleness, they want to go back to their petty activities. The gravitational pull of the lower consciousness brings down the consciousness from its height and, at times, man sinks even lower than the normal consciousness during such periods of downward movement. But even these periods of spiritual set-backs are utilised by the Divine within for his own work and are made to contribute to man's growth. The lower ignorant nature of man also has got to receive the divine in order to undergo a change, otherwise soul alone would reach its perfection and nature remain imperfect and earth unfulfilled. He found that, at times, the higher consciousness came down like rain from above, sometimes a flood of illumination descended and he could retain the Light for longer periods. During these periods of ascent and descent, his being was integrated in the process and attained complete equality, tranquil purity, serene strength and lasting peace. He also saw that this tranquillity, was not merely a static condition, but a dynamic power which helped the toiling world by its silent working. He saw from the height of his spiritual consciousness a new self-creation

"A transfiguration in the mystic depths,

A happier cosmic working could begin

And fashion the world-shape in him anew,

God found in Nature, Nature fulfilled in God.”

The light of this higher consciousness penetrated his lower consciousness, or the lower parts of his nature. And knowledge used to come to bun by an act of intuition.

Inspiration also came down into him often in silence. The closed Beyond was opened with "A stab of flame". When the light of intuition came, the mind overlapped itself and his spirit pursued knowledge like a hound. The sparks of intuition and lightnings of inspiration led him to and gave the knowledge of the various realms of the Infinite, and though he saw the play of ignorance and chance in the world, he saw also, through the veil, and comprehended, the world-design behind its outer appearance. He saw the logic of the infinite Intelligence working in. the finite ignorance. In fact, he saw the origin of the world as it is in the spirit— the Divine builder in sleep behind the world. Beyond his plane of inspiration, he could glimpse the Overmind.

When inspiration came down into him, it was like a divine messenger coming with its own rhythm. Sometimes like a bliss pouring down, or a wordless thought, an all-seeing ray, or at times the closed Beyond was opend with "a stab of flame". At other times it became an eye that awakes in trance, or he felt as if inspiration was plundering the vast estate of the Superconscient for him. It became a "gleaner of grains" or worked like a "sheaf-binder" gathering up parts of knowledge and making them into a whole. At times it worked as a reporter, or like a hound pursuing knowledge. It opened the vision of the Truth or brought the word of the Supreme. Its action made Aswapathy comprehend the world-design and behind the apparent working of chance he saw the unfolding of a world-idea.

In the light of his spiritual experience he saw the tree of cosmos supported by the Spirit. He knew the original divine Desire that gave rise to this creation. He could then understand the wisdom that permits this long game of evolution and even feel the Love that sanctions these workings. From his height he saw that the energies of the lower nature had many occult and spiritual powers hidden under their ignorant workings which, if awakened, would be a very precious acquisition for man. He felt a divine presence and greatness everywhere. This universe became

"...a living movement of the body of God."

The world was a conception and a birth of Spirit in matter from where rose

"The divine Dwarf towered unconquered worlds".

His spirit was the witness-spirit and

"Existence a divine experiment

And cosmos the soul's opportunity."

All the suppressed powers of the subconscient and the ignorant instruments of Nature began to blossom into manifestation in him.

Thus, was he released from ignorance. Knowledge of the Divine poured upon him from above and world-knowledge welled out from within "Lonely his days and splendid like the sun's."

All his actions sprang out of Light and all his thoughts referred to the True and the One. He saw other worlds, other forms, other gods, other beings and he deafly experienced that his life had emerged from the Divine. Now, his only work in life was to help mankind by raising it to this higher level and "Feeling earth's smallness with their boundless breadths," and for this "He drew the energies that transmute an age."

(Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri, An approach and a study, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Puducherry)