The other way round

Re: Sri Aurobindo and the Future of Humanity
by RY Deshpande on Mon 11 Aug 2008 05:20 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link

In the context of the “visible-invisible”, I could possibly just add the following two among many similar statements of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo:

• I think it was to Dilip Roy that Sri Aurobindo had written that he could continue to write the Arya (1914-21) not for seven but for seventy years and yet his knowledge wouldn’t get exhausted. The plumbless oceanic “invisible” ’s poised “visible” itself therefore has become a small fraction of our “visible”. And then who can really understand this overt “visible”? For instance, the Secret of Savitri, the supreme revelation of Sri Aurobindo as the Mother says, remains inaccessible to us because of our severe limitations.

• Apropos of the work of physical transformation the Mother spoke of how much Sri Aurobindo had done after his passing away. This is a sealed “invisible” to us and perchance could be accessed if only we grow occult-yogically. Let me quote the Mother: “How much he has worked since he left! Oh!... all the while, all the while. It seems... it seems to be a miracle in the body. The disappearance of this formation seems truly miraculous.” (Notes on the Way, 14 March 1970, CWM, Vol. 11) And here is another profound statement from the Mother: “The question is to know whether [the body] will be able to follow.... In order to follow, not only must it endure but acquire a new form, a new life. That, I do not know. In any case, it does not matter—the consciousness is clear and the consciousness is not subject to [it]. If that can be made use of, so much the better, otherwise... There are things still to be found. Yes, things to be found!... What is to be found is the plasticity of Matter, so that Matter is able to progress always. There you are. How long will it take? I do not know. How much experience is needed? I do not know. But now the way is clear. The way is clear.” (Ibid., 30 October 1971)

Which simply means that, while we might go only by the “visible”, perhaps by the Centenary Volumes and the Agenda plus the Collected Works, the dimensions of the “invisible” have to be seen by the faculty of the intuition and yet higher senses of cognition. Until then our opining and comparisons based on the “visible” made available to us would remain crude happy pastimes.

More important than access to the “invisible” is first our capacity to make an authentic spiritual progress for which all the help and guidance is available from the Mother and the Master. If it is going to be called an act of faith, let it be so. At the same time, there is absolutely no question of the ‘faith”-ful enforcing it on others, as there cannot be the fundamentalist’s imposition in matters of spiritual quest and progress. Nor of this guru versus that guru, not of this yoga versus that yoga, and so on. Each individual has to make the discovery for himself, and so too each collectivity. In any case, it is too far away from us to understand what the “direct action from the Supreme” means, action in the context of the stubborn Mind of Night standing across the path of the divine Event. Freedom—that’s the true spirit, and the more we live in it the more we grow. ~ RYD Reply

Re: Sri Aurobindo and the Future of Humanity
by RY Deshpande on Mon 11 Aug 2008 05:35 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

There’s absolutely no question of doubting the importance of Sri Aurobindo’s writings and the Mother’s talks—far from it. It was not for nothing that Sri Aurobindo used to write day after day, rather night after whole night, for eight years, those thousands of letters. It was not for nothing that he encouraged the aspiring poets to use poetry as a means for the expression of the spirit, to open the doors of creativity to the higher possibilities which must step into this world of ours. These were a part of his yogic action for establishing something which had got to be done in this material creation. But these immediate identifiables, the “visibles” are just an aspect of a much larger, more luminous occult-spiritual operation.

Therefore when the rationalist goes only by them, even dismissing at times what is beyond them, then he is doing injustice to the Yogi in several ways. Sri Aurobindo’s writings, Sri Krishna’s Gita on the battlefield, the Mother’s running the Dining Room are the “visibles” for us and we tend to go by them alone. Surely, Sri Krishna didn’t come just for haranguing the besieged Arjuna and making him pick up the weapon of destruction!

Surely the Mother didn’t consent to pass through the portals of the birth that is a death for the sake of the Dining Room!

Much vaster actions are involved and they are concerned with the very difficult problems of this inconscient creation itself. The process and purpose of Avatarhood is for opening the doors of evolution to the next step and for doing that they take the entire burden upon themselves. At one time the Mother was unhappy that some of the Master’s literary disciples were cutting into his time with the literary issues, that they did not understand with what greater things he was busy. “My life is not on the surface for men to see”—this is what Sri Aurobindo himself had declared.

Therefore it will rather be disparaging to speak about him in a desultory way. Yet we have to move on, we have to find our true, our authentic potential—and grow. That’s what finally matters—and for that all the help is there. ~ RYD Reply

Re: Sri Aurobindo and the Future of Humanity
by RY Deshpande on Wed 13 Aug 2008 05:16 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

With a great deal of research done over a long period of time and marshalling the collected historical documents connected with the life of Sri Aurobindo, we are presented his ‘factually dependable and correct’ biography by Peter Heehs, check at biography, author of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo ...

Our author writes about Sri Aurobindo that “his life as a yogi and spiritual leader is more difficult to quantify, but it certainly will not be forgotten soon.” Perhaps it will be the other way round. ~ RYD Reply