Outward changes come in answer to our deeper aspirations of which one may be conscious even in a faint way.
The Divine wisdom is always at work developing events in our life with the single aim of awakening a greater consciousness individually and collectively. These days, I am again thinking very much of the future evolution. It is a very long process to say the least. I am trying to figure out the spiritual powers and agencies at work in the world and in ourselves what are the best ways and means to prepare ourselves to receive these transforming forces, how can we hasten the process, and what might be the progressive stages of transformation.
Since I came to the Ashram in 1946, this problem of transformation has fascinated me. When I was at college I was already convinced that one day man would be surpassed by a superior species of course I had no idea of the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo at that time. At least I had found out then that our mind is very limited in its capacity for knowledge. When I was accepted in the Ashram by the Mother, I was absolutely fascinated by the vision of the supramental evolution. My spiritual progress was very chequered with big ups and downs. But the vision of a new race has always been a great source of inspiration and strength to me. The conscious evolution of a soul into a superior spiritual and divine being is the greatest boon and adventure offered by the Divine to a human being. First and foremost, by whatever inner and outer effort, we must discover the psychic being in the heart centre. Then through aspiration, meditation, concentration, through any and every spiritual discipline, we must open our mind, life and body to the superior levels of spiritual consciousness above our head, more precisely over the highest centre at the top of the head the thousand petaled lotus as it is called. Then will begin a very intense and doubled movement of force descending from above irregularly at first, then regularly at will and even spontaneously. This Force or Shakti will awaken, purify and liberate hidden and latent forces in mind, life and body. Above all, it will gradually liberate the hidden psyche or psychic being at the heart centre. All spiritual aspiration comes from it, but in the human nature it is deeply veiled by the unconsciousness of our lower truth nature. Sri Aurobindo says that the psychic being cannot be fully disengaged from the lower nature unless a highest force of the supramental consciousness descends and transforms the lower obscurity and unconsciousness. Only when there is a complete, unconditional and fully conscious surrender in every part of our being, this original force of divine dynamism can begin to work. When one belongs to the Divine consciously, integrally, when the least trace of ego or separative existence has disappeared, then a supreme working for transformation starts from above. But even this stage is far removed from the immediate prospects of most people except a soul here and there. From then onwards, we enter into the domain of evolutionary mutation or transformation so to speak. The Agenda of the Mother starts from this point. So for most people it will be a sealed book for they lack the corresponding experience. But in the Agenda, there are a thousand things of prime importance for the development of yoga. The Mother sometimes speaks of different people. You should be careful not to take a superior attitude for we shall find the very incapacities, movements of ignorance in ourselves. Our work cannot be complete until every movement of consciousness, every thought, emotion, feeling, sensation is a wave, a ripple in the vast eternal ocean of the indivisible divine consciousness – when there is nothing else, no one else except the Divine in one total consciousness. Well … we have a time filling programme for centuries to come.
Now a little bit of speculation based on hints, glimpses, flashes from higher domains.
This body is the chrysalis in which the divine body (psychic being) grows into a condensed substance of light. But this is a long process. The chrysalis must be made to live a long time 300 years minimum says Sri Aurobindo. So in order to live that long, the chrysalis undergoes a vast transformation permitting the butterfly to take its time for growth. The Supramental manifestation by Sri Aurobindo is the story of the transformation of the chrysalis Once the butterfly is fully formed, it is not born in the human way nor does it have any correspondence with the human body, as we know it. The Mother in the Agenda speaks about the transformation of the chrysalis or the human body She makes the advent of the supramental being realisable in practical terms.
Now coming to the basic condition of a divine transformation. We are on the way in a definite manner once a firm and regular connection is established between the divine force from above the head and the dynamic, active, open-heart centre. The Divine, pouring in the vase the wine of soma is a symbolical image of the spiritual action. So the heart centre must blossom and it may itself call down the rain of the divine force from above for its opening and liberation of the hidden psyche, the immortal portion of the Divine in one mortal body.
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