Our nature must be an instrument in her hands

Editorial - Sraddha, November 2015 - Arup Basu

But since no human system has this endless receptivity and unfailing capacity, the supramental Yoga can succeed only if the Divine Force as it descends increases the personal power and equates the strength that receives with the Force that enters from above to work in the nature. This is only possible if there is on our part a progressive surrender of the being into the hands of the Divine .... Self-surrender to the divine and infinite Mother, however difficult, remains our only effective means and our sole abiding refuge. Self-surrender to her means that our nature must be an instrument in her hands, the soul a child in the arms of the Mother’ (Sri Aurobindo, Essays Human and Divine, 1994, pp.178-80). The Mother, ever practical, makes it much simpler and offers this mantra when she says that in each moment of our life, every movement of our consciousness and body cell, in all our thought and seeing, our very breathing and moving we must “Remember and Offer”.

Sceptics will point out that ‘when Sri Aurobindo left his body, the accumulated result of all his physical consciousness was transmitted to the Mother’s body, and thus there was no waste’ (Kireet Joshi and Jyoti Madhok, But it is done ..., p.98). But with the Mother’s passing away, there was no such body so capable and developed to receive and store the accumulated result of her consciousness. How then can we assume that the work of supramentalisation will continue in the foreseeable future? 

We all know that after Sri Aurobindo’s passing, Mother embarked upon a most painstaking, arduous and ambitious yoga of the cells, using her body as the field of experiment, seeking to make the physical consciousness, matter itself, the body-cell consciousness an unmediated and direct expression of the supreme Divine Consciousness-Force, as the Supreme manifesting through the Mother’s Force. Exhaustive notes of these experiences have been recorded in the minutest detail in her conversations with Satprem in Agenda. 

To return to the doubts expressed about the future of supramentalisation, Mother herself has resolved this problem in her conversation with Satprem in Agenda, vol.11, where she states firmly ‘that the object to be accomplished was the change in the physical consciousness, the change in the physical appearance was a secondary consequence, that would be the last thing to change. She said emphatically that the thing that had to be accomplished was accomplished’ (Ibid, p.107). She says ‘... this change in the CONSCIOUSNESS – has taken place .... The physical is CAPABLE of receiving the Superior Light, the Truth, the true consciousness and to manifest it’ (Ibid, p.108).

On this Victory day, therefore, let the 3-word mantra of the Mother be our watchword and remind ourselves once again that the best way of participating in this great and heroic evolutionary endeavour is to become an ideal child of the Mother. 

Contents

The Object of Our Yoga Sri Aurobindo 9

Vedami-ma-m.sa- : The Background Srimat Anirvan 11

The Mundaka : Chapter Three: Section II The Goal and the Path Alok Pandey 17

Sri Aurobindo’s Interpretation of the Gita C C Dutt 22

The Mother Image in Sri Aurobindo Prema Nandakumar 35

Attainment of Immortality – Pt. II Interpretation Debashish Banerji 44

Talk on the Mother’s Mahasamadhi Udar Pinto 55

A Manifestation sheathed in Light Rick Lipschutz 65

Auroville: towards a spiritualised society based on Integral Yoga Bindu Mohanty 83

The Role of Ashrams in India Beloo Mehra 109

The Future Poetry and Beyond: a Search for a Complete Theory of Poetry Goutam Ghosal 121

Timeless Eternal and Eternity in Time:

Classical Indian Art Susmita Bhattacharya 128

Notes On Authors 139

Frontispiece : Painting of Sri Aurobindo by Barindra K Ghosh

Cover : Painting by Giles Herdman