The eternal Presence
During my stay in the Ashram, there was a small quotation by Sri Aurobindo displayed in all the offices and departments of the Ashram including the dining room. The text is more or less,
“Behave as if the Mother is looking at you, for indeed She is always present.”
It was a constant reminder to the sadhaks that the Mother in Her universal aspect is always present everywhere.
The Mother in Her physical being was looking at everybody and at any moment through concentration would respond to the call of any disciple in the Ashram or elsewhere. But also, The Mother or the Divine Consciousness is always around us anywhere, through eternity. It was there before the formation of the stars, it has presided over the growth and development of the stars and universes, and even if all this material universe were to disappear, She would be totally present filling all time and space with Her mighty, unalterable, absolute, infinite Presence. Millions and millions of universes rise and fall like waves on a vast ocean, on Her vast boundless bosom of love and beauty and felicity. She is the changeless, immutable, unfathomable, the mysterious, eternal Presence, stable, unalterable, eternally the same, absolute Presence and Being. She is the ocean, calm, immobile, the waves are Her own movements, all the beings, forms, names, movements, energies, all that we can see, feel, touch and hear, all that we can conceive of, all that we cannot conceive of, all that was, all that is, all that will be, is that Supreme Divine, the Mother, always present, always looking at us. We are part of Her, part of Her own body and existence. We have no existence outside Her. All these million names and forms all around us are only fugitive mysterious, marvellous faces, forms and dramas of our infinite, eternal Mother. All is She. If we cannot see Her, it is because She hasn’t as yet opened our eyes. We are like the baby cats just born, we can feel the Presence of the Mother, Her touch, Her warmth, Her love, we are nourished by Her. One day She will open our eyes. Then we shall be admitted into the Reality which is forever. God, God alone everywhere in the minutest worm and insect, in the saint and the titan, the murderer and the slain. All the sweet and terrible dramas of life, the clash of galaxies and communities and nations are His own play with Himself, like mountain waves racing with passionate fury against one another, whipped up by the hurricane, embracing, crashing, tearing, destroying one another, sending up iridescent clouds of mist and sprays of hopes and desires, dreams and nightmares, soon falling into a vast meditative peace like a giant reverential carpet spread over a glass floor inviting the daring pilgrims to explore the infinity. Images, dreams, delirium, God without limit, without bounds, playing with Himself, breaking Himself in a million fragments, combining Himself in impossible combinations. Everywhere the vast infinity so intimate, all you touch is That, is all around you, pressing you, crushing you, life of your life, breath of your breath, love and vision of your heart and mind and soul. You lose yourself in that boundless, vibrating, single existence. Whomever you see is your God, whatever you feel is His very body.
Yet the yearning heart full of gratitude and love and adoration prays-
O Lord, Thou art the only existence beyond all our comprehension, the Fathomless.
I do not know who You are, nor do I care to know.
May I sing Thy name as long as you permit me to be.
May I be allowed to live in this illusion of a separate being as if a cell has any individual existence in a body or apart from the body.
May I love You, adore You, above me, below me, all around me.
Thy name be hallowed, Thy name be echoed and reechoed in all aspiring souls. Like an immense choir, the whole existence sings a hymn of glory to thee, O thou forever unknown, no one yet everyone, still, above everyone, O Mother Divine.
May we become conscious of the vast luminous love and felicity overseeing the whole creation.
Om Sweet Mother, Om Sri Aurobindo.
O Lord Supreme Thy will be done, Thy dream of a kingdom of Love Divine be realized...
Only those who realize the Divine will find true peace and harmony. Only by realizing the Divine we can bring some solace and comfort to people around us. We must learn to surrender ourselves to the Divine Will, otherwise we only create complications by wishing wrong things in the wrong way.
The best attitude in all circumstances is, “Thy Will be done, not mine.”
In this way life can become smooth and luminous.
May the Divine do whatever is best for us.
May the Divine give peace and equality.
Niranjan Guha Roy 1992
A Love vast, impersonal
A Love vast, impersonal, omnipuissant penetrates all life on earth, and by its subtle penetrating rays increases light and power of the psychic elements in people and where there is a psychic being a little crystallized the penetrating rays of the Divine Love increase enormously the light and the divine consciousness and power in their inner being. Read more
The Passing Note
O Master Magician, no artist can paint thy elusive face
No sculptor can carve thy silhouette, no one can bind thee in a hame.
Thou O ever unknown stanger, my soul, my love
This magic of unfolding creation is only Thyself.
My life a passing note, O supreme musician, of thy symphony
One, individual, inalterable, absolute, immobile, silence
Infinite rays, mobile fragments, perpetual motion, delight.
This stupendous Presence pervades immeasurably all existence
O Mother Divine in Thy eternity
I discover my continuity
*****
L'Âme de Beauté
O Âme de Beauté, sur Toi repose une responsabilité lourde et sans prix. Il y a trop de souffrance trop de violence et cruauté, trop de cœurs brisés et des vies cassées, trop de misère et bassesse dans le monde. Read more
The Inner Attitude of Surrender
What is most important is the development of that inner attitude of surrender. True surrender is a state of consciousness - it does not mean that all our efforts and struggles are over and we work on the red carpet. It is a fundamental state of confidence in the Divine and an unconditional loyalty and faithfulness to the Divine, an anxious loving willingness to collaborate with the Divine and do only His Will. It is an awareness that the whole existence is a single movement, a single plan and project of the Divine's own manifestation. Whatever is permitted to happen only happens because that is seen as the necessary step in His all-wise vision. It is not so much important the work we do for our work will be completely decided by our inner inclinations, general propensities, and developing capacities and faculties. It is the attitude of the God-Lover, attitude of the faithful soldier to the Supreme Queen, attitude of the devoted disciple towards the supremely benevolent teacher, master, father, guide and friend. We should not rely on our own capacity and own strength - which is finally zero - but ask that Infinite, that Eternal, that unique Power, Mother to help us, to shape us, to remold us in her vision, for her service and her utility. Seen in this way by realising our non-existence, face to face with the Eternal and his Eternity, the Infinite with His infinity, the state of surrender becomes possible and real. The more we give ourselves to the Divine, the more we are possessed by his light, peace, joy, consciousness, and his mysterious. tangible Presence.
This is the work. The rest has no value if that cannot be a means for arriving at this realisation. When we undertake any work with this attitude, the work will be given to us and her guidance and love and presence will be undeniably always with us. The surrender is extremely difficult to achieve with the mind. To become simple, humble, throw away all pride. To be sincere, full of love and dignity for her sake and for Her. To forget the animal, forget even the humanity in us, in all. Just to be ready at every moment to fulfill her least desire, to be at her beck and call with a total self-forgetfulness, to love Her so that her interest and your interest have become identical, same, indivisible in love. This is the crown promised to us through playing with the Eternal Mother, living in her unveiled presence and radiance.
*****
Niranjan Guha Roy
Sri Aurobindo Ashram 1977
The vase of God
There is a dense veil in our consciousness which prevents us from seeing the existence in the true light. Our beginning is accidental, microscopic. We are really nothing but zero , yet we live in the illusion of a false capacity and power of our own. We are just a vase formed by the artist God in a fanciful moment for His delight. We are what we are only by His Grace. We shall be only what He has intended us to be. If we let go of the illusion of our personal authority and surrender to the Divine in a simple, humble way - "Thy will be done" then a loving and unerring Hand begins to organise our life and action. All the time we should be in a peaceful attitude of receptivity. Every time we do what we deeply feel as the right thing to do in the Presence of the Mother, we take a bound forward. Our capacity of discrimination constantly increases. Fear disappears. Since She is our Mother, She knows best what is good for us, and whatever She does for us is for our highest good. She is the best judge of what is good for us. So we must not burden Her with our unillumined demands and desires, but be content with whatever She gives us or decides for us. We must have confidence in the Mother. She is far, far above the human beings and their ignorant ways. She only wants to take us out of our dark, ignorant and painful consciousness.
When I am in the right consciousness, then I feel Her presence all around me,filling the earth and the sky, filling me with a profoundly sweet happiness. Nothing matters at that moment. Even death becomes unreal and meaningless. What a blessing if we could live always in that consciousness! I see how everything is bound to change. Nothing can stop this transformation. The Mother, that infinite sweetness and love, is our real substance. It is just a question of time. As soul after soul will be awakened by Her magic touch, a new race, a new earth will be born. We must forget our little, miserable, insignificant life, and become aware of the magnificent Glory that is eternally around us.
Let us allow That to penetrate us, purify us, prepare us as its instruments for Her manifestation. Our sole aspiration is to be as much as possible conscious of it; to be guided and moved by it as fully as possible. All our acts are a means of expressing our joy and gratitude to the Divine Mother.
Let us remain very peaceful and inwardly keep the fire burning
Niranjan Guha Roy 1989
The creation of the divine race
I have understood, rather realised, something profoundly fundamental. It is the descent of the supramental consciousness which will create the divine race and the divine life on earth. It is the dynamic Truth Power of the Divine, now active on the earth which will manifest the divine consciousness in the souls long prepared by it in the course of evolution. The descent of the Supramental consciousness will naturally result in the manifestation of a supramental world on earth, just as the descent of the mental consciousness or the mind resulted in the manifestation of human beings. The human world will remain human with a possibility for perfection, but the main preoccupation of the Supramental Power is the transformation of the beings who are ready and not so much the salvation of humanity. These beings will naturally move away from the human society and try to gather islands of Light. There may be only a few islands in the beginning. We are only at the initial stage of the evolution. The Mother and Sri Aurobindo embodied the Supramental consciousness and made the descent possible. Throughout their life, they have helped and prepared many souls to receive the higher consciousness. They continue the work as the supreme Godheads of the Supramental manifestation. By a growing aspiration and an increasing surrender, we shall participate in the creation of a Supramental world on earth. The Divine will takes each aspiring soul to the destined place, It is the manifestation of a new divine world, not the transformation of the old human world.
A supramental being must descend in the soul just as a mental being descended in the evolved monkey. It is, in fact, the descent of the Mother in the aspiring souls which makes the manifestation of the life divine possible and inevitable. The descent of the Mother Power is gradual and its results are irreversible, and sooner or later the soul which has received the touch of Grace will rise out of humanity to his new found divinity. Our sole duty and work is to receive the descending rays and currents and forces of the Supramental Consciousness. Without this descent there is no transformation, no fundamental change. But in the beginning, the Power works for a long time behind the veil and as our aspiration becomes sincere and one pointed, the veil disappears and one can consciously feel the inflow of the Divine Power and Light. Gradually the Mother Force replaces our conscious effort and pours Herself more and more in the consecrated instrument.
From that point, our divine destiny is assured by the Supramental Mahashakti. We become witness of a vast miraculous process of transformation of the human consciousness into a radiant, limitless, infinite divine consciousness. We are in the arms of the Eternal Mother, never to be separated again. Her Presence fills every nook and corner of our life, every bit of the boundless ocean and sky forever. This is the magnificent destiny of every soul who aspires to be a true child of the Mother.
Niranjan Guha Roy 1989
21 February
In Peace and Silence the Eternal manifests
Allow nothing to disturb you
And the Eternal will manifest.
No haste, no inquietude, no tension
And Thou art there without a doubt
For all becomes a Holy Peace
And a Sacred Silence.
THE MOTHER
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