The divine Pearl
One day, I was pleasantly surprised to find a large number of edible mushrooms in the garden. They were really magnificent. What surprised me most was the fact that these wild mushrooms which sprouted in the garden had found the ideal conditions. In other words, if the ideal conditions are fulfilled for achieving what we want to achieve, then the result is inevitable. To take another analogy, if there are flowers with nectar, bees are naturally attracted. The salt absorbs water in a humid atmosphere. What we term as the ideal condition automatically produces the desired result. How can this be applied to our search for the Divine? How can we materialize, that is to say, bring down into our body, into the mental, vital, physical consciousness, the Divine Truth and the Divine Presence? What must be the ideal condition so that the Divine force can descend and work in the physical being? The Divine consciousness is infinite and eternal, all around us, but we seem to be impervious to its influence. In other words, as we are constituted at the moment, the Divine Force cannot come in and manifest in the human consciousness. This is in fact the natural state of humanity which is open to the mental consciousness. Man, at his highest, is the thinker and at his best arrives at the perception of an abstract absolute. He gives to it many names – God, Spirit, Silence, the Supreme Good, the Supreme Power, the Supreme Intelligence, even Zero, Nothingness, etc. Mind is truly incapable of directly perceiving the spiritual Reality. The ideal of God, or the Divine Will, remains to him intangible, vague and unreal. Then, where is the nectar in us which can draw the bee of the Divine Consciousness? What are the fundamental conditions which will help grow like mushrooms the Divine Consciousness in us? The mystics found long, long ago that the human body contained certain psychological centers or chakras on the spinal column. They discovered a specially powerful center at the base of the spinal column which when activated or aroused, rose like a hooded serpent through the spinal column, through the head and finally merged in the infinite consciousness above and beyond the head. This is the Kundalini – Power of the Tantra. The awakening of the Kundalini Shakti in one way or another has been the preoccupation o practically every mystic discipline. It was also found by the mystics that as the Kundalini Power rose, it disclosed many other centers before passing through the head. In various disciplines, different accents are put on different centers. The mystics also found that the center at the level of the physical heart was a very special one. Here was housed a small diamond of the Divine Consciousness – one drop of the purest Divine Consciousness. This is the pearl which the spiritual divers seek. This is the element which is a fragment, a portion of the Divine Mother in every human being. This is the true self, the immortal being in us. This is the Divine Seed in us which under proper and favorable conditions will blossom into a divine humanity or more truly a divine being. From the spiritual point of view, this is the only thing true in us. The rest is false and perishable. The yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother cannot properly start unless we have in one way found this divine element in us. How can we discover it? When we fulfill condition number one: This discovery is the most important aspiration and preoccupation of our life. All our thoughts, actions, feelings and emotions are turned to this end alone. Is there any precise method for making this discovery? There is and there is not. Concentration on the heart center, on the Kundalini center, at the base of the spine, or the center between the eyebrows or at the crown of the head. Of course, we must have already fulfilled the basic condition for the discovery of that psychic being or the divine element in us. We do not want the ignorant obscure and painful human existence. We do not want to remain an ordinary human being. Our aim must be far superior to the noblest human ideal. Lead us from darkness and obscurity and ignorance to the eternal Light of the Spirit; lead us from division, conflict, strife, confusion and war to the fullest harmony of oneness and integrality. Lead us from disease, decay, decomposition and death to the everlasting joy of an eternal self existence. When these aspirations rise in us, we are ready for the discovery of the immortal soul in us. If there is an irresistible call from the very depths of one’s being for something, someone true, good and beautiful, then the miracle happens. The Power may descend from above and forcefully open the door of entry into the inner soul in the heart center. The Kundalini may rise and open the center at the heart, or from a great inner pressure, the heart center may gradually open or burst out like a geyser. Somehow or another, the door of the sanctuary is unlocked. Once this is done, it can never be truly undone. There may be a temporary over-clouding of the consciousness, but nothing can stop the growth of the spiritual Light which radiates on the entire range of our consciousness. This is the nectar which draws inevitably the bees, the rays and powers of the superior and divine consciousness beyond the mind. Then comes a time when one receives into the heart the conscious descent of the Force from above, spontaneously or at will. This is the golden bridge; once this connection is made, the consciousness from the higher regions flows into the heart and into the entire being, even the cells of the body. First, there are periodic descents, visitations, downpours and invasions, then gradually it becomes more or less a continuous flow from above into the human instrument and vessel. Without this descent, there is no true liberation and growth of the psychic being, no further growth one might say. Once the golden bridge is made, we are on our way to the irrevocable transformation which may be slow or rapid and may even take many lives, many centuries to be completed.
To sum up, one may say that aspiration is the magnet which opens the secret door of the Divine Sanctuary in the mystic heart. The psychic element, the portion of the Divine in us, the Divine in evolution, once liberated and established in front of our consciousness, spontaneously and automatically rejoins its source, the Infinite, the Eternal, the Lord, the Supreme Mother, the Transcendent Divine. This junction and connection between and this joining together of the higher hemisphere and the lower hemisphere is the beginning of the most miraculous and extraordinary process of transformation of the human instrument into a Divine Being. The aspiration is the Key, it must become the first thing in life, the absolute first thing., If it is made even the second thing, the second dominant preoccupation of life, we will not succeed in the discovery of the Divine in us. As a drowning man gasps for breath, so too, we must aspire for the Divine and then only we are sure to realize Him. This is the verdict of Ramakrishna and it always stands. We are sincere in our search for the Divine when we give to it the absolute first place, when nothing else matters. Then, and only then, the Eagles of Light will swoop down and invade and possess our being with the Divine Truth, Light, Force and Felicity.
There are very few human beings ready for the vast spiritual transformation as envisaged by the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, at least for the moment. But, there is an elite of humanity, a relatively larger number of souls who are ready for a deep, spiritual life, who can live and grow under the direction and leadership and the priesthood of the inmost soul in us, the psychic being. This is the first momentous transformation, a liberation out of conflict, confusion, suffering, obscurity of the human existence. This is the foundation for the further development of the yoga of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.
Some souls have felt the Call and are irresistibly attracted to it, but somehow they are taking time, walking on the shore, looking at the weather and the sea, speculating about the depths and dangers of the deep sea, in short, hesitating and postponing the final, inevitable moment of the plunge … the diver’s plunge for the Pearl.
Niranjan Guha Roy
