On Religion and Yoga
Only a general spiritual awakening will bring unity of the race. Religion is not the same thing as the practice of yoga.The Yoga is a difficult spiritual discipline of long sustained effort to discover the eternal Reality, the Source and the Origin. All religions are founded on some aspect of that secret Reality and have helped many souls to break through the ironclad materialism, have sustained people everywhere to face with faith the tragedy of life. But religions have not succeeded in bringing fraternity among the nations and are powerless to transform the congenital animal nature of man and miserably failed to take the human race to the promised land. Religion is not so different from a political doctrine or a tribal creed. It is the glimmer of a firefly.
Yoga is the eternal Supreme Light. Yoga is the sublime urge of the human soul to unite with the Origin, the supreme Reality, the Absolute, the One in all beings and things. While the politicians and religious leaders struggle and fight to own the earth and impose their will on the poor humanity, the Supreme Power who shapes earth’s destiny in minute detail is at work to create a new divine race from this crude material. Nature is always on the move, cannot remain satisfied anymore with her half-baked product. She is glowing in anticipation of a new creation.
Niranjan Guha Roy
There is a Divine Power far above the mind of man,
Each creature is driven by an in-built inviolable law. Each man is driven by his nature, his double nature. He is a thinking animal, halfway between heaven and earth. His life is a constant tug of war between reason and passion.The animal in man is yet too strong for angels eager to save him. Mind cannot control, subdue or transform the animal.
There is a divine power far above the mind of man, There is a supreme Divinity sleeping in his mystic heart. Something marvelous, never known in the history of earth has happened. The barriers between mind and the Divine have been broken down by the incarnate dual powers of the One, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother Divine, Avatars of the Supermind. A supreme almighty Force is pouring down on earth from the transcendent sealed heavens above day and night.
Man does not decide the destiny of the earth or its evolution. In his blind arrogance he does not realise his nothingness,. He is only a momentary flicker of firefly, a stray spark. He will not become divine by his own effort at any time.
In the evolutionary march of life the great hour has come, wherever a fire of utter anguish and prayers burns high, The Mother Divine comes down in the soul in Her splendor and lifts the soul from the half-light of mind and reason, into vast luminous tracts of the eternal supermind.
The Iron Age of darkness, hatred, violence has come to a close. A new Sun that never sets has risen in the inner sky of earth. The Mother's love will transmute the race, even the soil of this earth, all forms, faces and figures will radiate a heavenly glow.The calyx of the heart will be filled with the liquid gold of Her sweetness. Life on earth will be a benediction for all.
Once you have seen Her face, you become Her adoring priest and slave.
Niranjan Guha Roy -1980
Images - Yoga of the body
Abnegation
Aspiration
Meditation
Prayer
Opening to the Light
Welcoming the Mother
Lila
N-A Guha Roy
The Mother Bountiful
In our search for the Divine we set an ideal of all beauty, absolute felicity, all power and a total knowledge, all these usually combined in some known form of incarnation, or some divine Personality described in the spiritual Scriptures midst legends and traditions, Still, the Divine remains a mysterious personality, There are always some fears and doubts. We do not have really full confidence in his absolute goodness, love and wisdom. We are fearful of his all-mighty power. The Divine seems to be sometimes too great, too splendid, too high to be approached. The past Incarnations do not help much for they are too far away, too much clothed in myths and legends to be fully credible.
To me, the Divine was really something nebulous, a mixed image of doubtful reality, a Person who always remained distant and awesome until I saw the Mother. In Her, and through Her, I saw the face of the Eternal who is all-truth, all-goodness, all-beauty and felicity. I saw the majestic nobility of the Divine. I understood why when He incarnates himself among the human beings, He is always a King, a Prince, a Queen, a Princess by the very aristocracy inherent in the divine soul. I understood why the Divine is called the Healer by watching and experiencing the Mother. How She healed in an instant, by a mere glance of that captivating felicity the wounds and pangs and the accumulated suffering of ages in a soul seeking her healing touch. I know now why the Divine is called the light, the supreme light, the supreme understanding and wisdom.
I went to the Mother and laid before her my whole being full of , violence and darkness. Not a single syllable of reproach, not even the slightest sign of distrust or dismay in her face. A radiant, all compassionate smiling sun took me in her intimate embrace and all became pure, tranquil and grateful. We have only read in Scriptures, in fairy-tales that the Divine is all merciful and forgiving. I had my doubts. How can He forgive me for my enormous obscure thoughts and actions in my consciousness, I who have crucified the Divine a thousand times in my blind violence during periods of utter inward rebellion? With the hell fire burning in my heart, I have approached the Mother. Nothing is hidden from Her, She said to me " Play the violin, it will give you peace”
Not the violin but her words of utter understanding, utter forgiveness, Her words of an unimaginable magnanimity gave me the felicitous taste of peace for which the souls aspire. I have understood now why the Divine is called the Bountiful, how He alone can bring to us all the wealth of nature and earth and the spiritual domains. The Mother has poured her nectar in my heart, transformed the poison that was in it and made it a running fountain from which her sweetness flows silently over the barren rocky, rich and fertile soils without preference, without choice, with its delight of existence and fulfillment. We have read in Scriptures that the Divine is seated in the mystic center of the heart in the solar plexus. There is hidden in that sanctuary the rose of God. Yes, it is true, her Presence and perfume, her sweetness and her light flow out from that center and inundate the whole being in order to transform this insensitive mind into a divine substance. It is said in the Scriptures that the sleepless power, the Transcendent Divine, the Eternal, the Supreme Shakti, the Supreme Power, Para-Shakti, the one original Power is housed in the thousand-petal lotus at the crown of the head. Our Rishis and Seers are absolutely right, the Mother has broken the golden lid, that separates our life from the divine life, the intellect from the sun of truth: not by any human effort or tapasya could this ever have been achieved.
Now I know, She is the Eternal, the One and the Original Power, Adya-Shakti. She has revealed to me in Her and through Her the most sublime form of the Creator, that supreme light which She ever is. " She is, She was, and She will be " is a very ancient declaration but more true is her proclamation in Devi Parana " I alone exist in this universe, who else is there apart from Me" The Mother has revealed the true face of the Eternal. She alone is and there is no one else. This ceaseless mystic procession of myriads of names, faces and forms is her triumphal march through eternal time.
There is only one being, one will, one existence and one single rapture of movement. It is only through her grace, her infinite compassion that we have been permitted to see, feel and know the Divine as He is or as He has been experienced by the great Seers and Rishis throughout the ages. It is She who has made the Divine Presence real and concrete in our consciousness. It is She who has brought us out once for all from the chaos, disorder, agony and frustration, unrelenting struggle and conflict within and without by revealing to us the true face of the Eternal. Having seen Her, we have seen and above all felt the Eternal, the Friend, the Guide, the Mother and we have entered into the constant vision and awareness of the Divine who forever is everything, everywhere.
Blessed be the sacred name of the Mother Divine, so humble, so simple, so magnificently divine and who is always now present and real to our consciousness. Without Her we have no reality, no existence.
Her name is truly written luminously on each petal of rose.
O Mother Divine Thy love and benediction for one and all forever and ever
Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Niranjan Guha Roy -1978
O Wonder Spiritof Beauty
O wonder Spirit of Beauty, Joy and Harmony,
Asleep in the mystic chamber of the aspiring soul,
Awake and spread wide your peaceful wings
On our warring passions, senseless thoughts and actions.
Let our mind be a vast sanctuary of unbroken felicity.
Let our emotions be warm and sustained notes of vibrating strings.
Let our actions be at good times, at odd times, a symphony of solidarity.
O wonder Spirit of Beauty, Joy and Harmony,
Strip away from our heart, mind, body and soul,
The hard layers of ugly violence, endless cruel suffering
And release the dancing fountains of sparkling song and laughter.
We are as yet only partly divine even at our greatest summit moments,
Waning and waxing like the moon, ever unreliable, inconstant.
The human retreats slowly before the steadily growing Light within.
The age-old prophetic manifests of the Kingdom of God on earth.
O wonder Spirit of Beauty,
Your active Presence is now a reality.
A new muted race still wearing the human face
Glowing with the psychic Fire
Appears on the horizon to change this nightmare
Into an exquisite radiant dream.
N.Guha Roy- 1950-1966
The line of no return
Up till now I have been involved in various activities which may be called as spiritually oriented, keeping the sadhana as a personal affair. Now I have come to a point where all my values have radically changed. I have crossed a line of no-return. The spiritual Ideal of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo has become profoundly real for me. I do not find any affinity with the human world. There is an irrevocable break. A total consecration to the embodiment of the Divine Consciousness has become the only aim and preoccupation in life. Any project or plan does not interest me in the least. I feel I have no time to waste. Up till now my life was made up of half-measures. Now I realise that only a fundamental change in the consciousness is the sole worthwhile pursuit in life. These long excursions in various human activities have finally convinced me that they lead nowhere. Unless the human consciousness is basically transformed, really nothing much is achieved. There has to be a new approach, an exclusive concentration on the development of yoga - union with the Divine Consciousness. Nothing less than that would satisfy me. There is necessarily a change in the outlook of the work. In the Western World very few people have a real understanding of the process and discipline required for the attainment of the aim of Yoga. Having sipped a little the nectar of Immortality, the best drink, what the human life can offer seems flat and tasteless. We set out to find a new Heaven and we have found it. Of course, it is invisible to the human eye just as the majestic Buddha in meditation is invisible to King Kong. We are still in the downtown area, not very far from the center.
Transformation of this unhappy Earth into an unimaginable world of light and felicity, beauty and harmony, love and unity is no longer a mere hypothesis or possibility but an inevitable divine destiny. The sapling of Paradise is yet very tender and young on the earth soil. All the events are shaping the Oneness to come by breaking down systematically all egoistic and sectarian barriers. Let us join our prayers for the constant victory of the Mother Divine.
Niranjan Guha Roy
Poem - Listen With Your Heart
My heart is like a huge cathedral, a temple rising to the sky,
Illumined with Love, filled with the perfume of Love.
Softly resounding with the organ-choir music of Love.
An invisible breeze refreshing, healing all the agonies and wounds
Greets one and all, good ones, bad ones, prophets and monsters,
The sick and healthy, the nuns and harlots, the hard and the gentle ones
With a silent adoring Love which sees the Divine in all.
The cathedral Temple needs constant expansion in all direction
To house birds, animals, living beings on land, sea and air,
For whom to reject: In the tiniest worm and flower and pebble
Shines the Lord, the Great One who puts on the humblest robes.
Love circulates unseen through all hearts, unhindered by any wall.
Your violence, selfishness, blind littleness, your grief and shame
Will disappear forever, if you come out of your cocoon in the open,
Break the rock fortress of ego, your self-made prison of hatred,
Anger, disdain, your born distrust of others, even of your own brother.
Love in disguise is at your door begging,
Invite Him to your table.
Darkness will be swallowed up by the radiant yet soothing Love,
Division cured by Love,
Becomes myriad souls throbbing with a single impulse.
Suffering faints in the mighty embrace of a sublimating sweetness,
The psyche in man and beast, plant and stone
Yearns for Love day and night.
Love is knocking at your door.
Listen with your heart.
Welcome the Mother.
Niranjan Guha Roy
correspondance with the Mother
Hermitage Auroville June 2, 1972
Douce Mère,
Since a few days, there is an incessant warning so that we may be ready inwardly and on the material plane for the great change. We have swept all preconceived projects from our consciousness so that the vision of the Mother Divine may be accomplished. We want to be absolute slaves of the Lord, just as He has asked us to be. The Mother Divine is almost in entire possession of our active consciousness. The vision is clear - She is the only Reality, the single Will of life, the sole manifestation. You are quite near. We know that at each step You direct us.
Since this change is inevitable and seems to be imminent would it not be desirable that this is effected without drama, noise or pain, in silence and in love. In fact, we do not know anything about what is waiting for us. But all we know is that the Divine Mother, in Her infinite Grace would give us a marvelous opportunity to serve Her, love Her in all who love Her, in all beings, in all existence, for She is the sole existence. A ravishing flow of fugitive names and forms of a single Person, Love personified. What happiness to know, to see that at each instant, everything is a harmony ineffably perfect, mysterious; that at each instant Thou art supremely Victorious. You will call us when it would seem to You that the hour has come. We are under Your orders and wait for Your command. Victory, Victory to Thee, O Douce Mere. May all the beings recognise Thee, love and adore Thee and find the true durable happiness that is Thyself.
Amita-Niranjan
Answer given by the Mother
Yes, the moment has come. But it is a long moment and we will need much patience.
It is precisely in silence and in love that this change will best take place and most rapidly. I am with you.
The Mother
The Divine Will or the Law of Love
The highest wisdom from all points of view is to give oneself to the divine will. Because after all, it is the divine will which is being accomplished at every moment through apparent collaboration, non-collaboration, resistance and revolt. What is this divine will? It is the absolute law of love based on the vision of the indivisible supreme divine Reality, the Being, the Lord, the Mother, the Eternal, where one sees nothing but the Divine in everything and the substance of everything, where there is no moment except of the Divine, where there is no other aim than the enjoyment of the felicity and love. How can we be certain of this law of love, the divine will? Unless we have become identified with the Divine entirely, exclusively, it is difficult to perceive and realize this law in action. So the ultimate wisdom is to call upon the divine will, His Law of Love, His sacrifice of Oneness to take possession of us entirely, to do its work without consent and collaboration or in spite of them and even against their refusal and resistance. If our call is sincere the law of love is accomplished however poor might be the instrumental being. By our passivity to the law we can allow it to be fulfilled. As we become more and more open to the divine Reality our participation in this law of love becomes more and more active, dynamic and effective. In the first stages even if we do not feel the love so much there can be a peace of infinity which is invariable, impartial, equal and works for the highest good for all the beings, and as our contact with the divine reality increases and as we become more and more possessed by the divine reality and identified with it, the law of love becomes operative and effective and all embracing. We need not bother about the worthiness of any being or beings to receive and respond to this law of love - according to the development of the beings and their response to this highest Love there will be automatically, spontaneously, inevitably formation of a collectivity or groups like the galaxies around each divine inspiration and the blossoming would be spontaneous, everything directed by, presided over by the Lord of sacrifice of love, by the Divine Mother Herself through Her active Presence in all things and beings and beyond.
N.Guha Roy
Experience with the Force 3
26 6 99
All around me, everything was like a vast desert. The earth that I had known was gone forever and still that state is there. It is not an arid desert, but a huge boundless land where the new crop, the new creation will gradually manifest. So there is no planning, no project, no writing, no birth or death. Gradually what has to manifest will manifest, effortlessly, spontaneously.
Then I started feeling as if a train was in my body, a huge powerful flow of divine felicity, too strong for my body. Then I sat at the organ. As I was playing I heard a sound as if a thousand organs were playing, filling up the whole world or universe. I had never heard anything like that in my life, so powerful, penetratingly ravishing, intolerable ecstasy. At the same time a thousand orchestras seemed to be playing. This music was filling the whole earth and sky, the whole creation. I myself never heard such powerful harmonious, intolerable Felicity. When I played , I was not playing, it was a tremendous power of harmony flowing through me, playing through me. All I can say, I do not know how I have survived. It was only by the grace of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo constantly present protecting me, so that I would not explode.
Now the body has slowly regained a stability, but even now at times that power suddenly invades the whole being. It is not a suffering, but a flow of unbearable currents of the supreme divine love and gratitude. Now I feel the body won’t break down, it is becoming more peaceful by the downpour of a pacifying force. But that power behind, of supreme harmony, is always there.
The Mother and Sri Aurobindo are the Supreme, who came down on the earth behind a thick veil, almost impenetrable of humanity. Now they are constantly present – there is nothing to worry about – the world is utterly Divine. Whatever shadows we see will disappear. Each one is the Divine Himself, not less. Absolute, no one else but the Divine, nothing to be done, just the Divine manifesting Himself in His utter Glory. There is still in my consciousness the awareness of our human life and society. It is an old habit and utter ignorance. Still the old world comes back from time to time, but it has no reality. There is only the Supreme Mother, Love, Delight. My soul, my whole body enters into a state of gratitude, utter self-giving. Now when I look around I do not see human being. Behind the thin veil stands the Splendor of the Supreme Glory. When I play music, it becomes a hundred times more intense. The body can hardly sleep, but now it will be stabilized, Peace is coming. It is not an ordinary Peace – but the Peace of the Himalayan Mountains, in order not to be blown out of existence. There is far more in that experience, far more, too long, too deep, too difficult to be expressed in words.
Om namo Bhagavate. Om Sri Aurobindo, Om Douce Mère.