Posts

The Need to Organize and Arrange the Actions of the External Being Around the Aspiration of the Psychic Being

To transform the life into one of spiritual focus and purpose, the various parts of the being need to be organized and ordered systematically to match the aspiration with the outward action. The thoughts, emotions, feelings, responses should be both coherent and arranged to present a harmonious relationship between the aspiration and the action. It does not help one if the aspiration is for one thing, but the mind, life or body chooses a different objective! To hold an aspiration, but not to undertake the process of bringing the body-life-mind complex into harmony with that aspiration leads to a very partial result, and it undermines the aspiration’s impact. The Mother notes: “Organise your life, your work, your consciousness. Organisation consists in putting each thing in its true place. … The centre of the human being is the psychic which is the dwelling-place of the immanent Divine. Unification means organisation and harmonisation of all the parts of the being (mental, vital and phy...

In Another's Eyes

Shining accolades won at the cost of tears in another eyes, At the cost of the soul’s betrayal through scheming lies, Can they bring to my heart the joy they promise, Can they ever compensate for the camaraderie I miss. Give me instead a star that shines less brightly, A dream in ambition less sprightly, That I may savor a different prize, The gratitude and love in another’s eyes. - Anahita Sanjana (India)

The Unprecedented Leela

“It is the lesson of life that always in the world everything fails a man – only the Divine does not fail him, if he turns entirely to the Divine. It is not because there is something bad in you that blows fall on you, – blows fall on all human beings because they are full of desire for things that cannot last and they lose them or even if they get, it brings disappointment and cannot satisfy them. To turn to the Divine is the only truth in life.” – Sri Aurobindo I was guided to write this short essay on life lessons pointing to “failures”. My blog points to the daily undulations of life processes which appear darker than we perceive, leading us to live and roam like hapless creatures on this Earth. We, by the nature of cognitive hierarchy, are primed to this negativity. But is human birth equivalent to failures? Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga points to the reality of life with much more depth than one can imagine. In His own words – “All Life is Yoga” and every chunk of our life (good,...

Follow your Swadharma!

“Each man has a swadharma, a law of his inner being which he must observe, find out and follow. The action determined by his inner nature, that is his real Dharma. To follow it is the true law of his development; to deviate from it is to bring in confusion, retardation and error.” — SRI AUROBINDO Essays on the Gita, ‘Swabhava and Swadharma’   I have always had a tendency in this life to weigh more heavily on the spiritual which has probably been a pattern over lifetimes. If one is on the path of the Integral Yoga, we have to be very vigilant to not fall into the ascetic path as ‘All life is yoga’. I hadn’t realized that with all the spiritual classes and meditations I was doing, how reclusive I had become, meeting very few friends, not going to music concerts I loved or painting or listening to my favourite music. I was totally immersed in studying the books of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and was living in a beautiful mental formation of the ideal spiritual life! Not engaging with...

Inspirations from Mother’s Voice

It is a wonderful thing that we have recordings of Mother’s voice spanning many years on a wide variety of topics such as messages, conversations, readings, and instructions. Of these what I listen to regularly are The Agenda  and the Playground talks. It is part of my morning routine to listen to each of them for a few minutes. And as both The Agenda  and Playground talks are only in French, it requires me to follow along reading the French editions of these. Although my French is good, to get the full benefit and completely understand what Mother is saying, I have the book alongside. I find the time spent listening to Mother to be quite uplifting. Because it is in French, I have to listen more closely or I miss the words. As a result, my mind becomes attentive, focused and still. And as I listen to Mother, the words in the book become alive with the added quality of her presence and personality. It is like listening to a person tell me something rather than just reading a te...

Beyond Thy Gifts

What use will all the praise and applause be, If He who I yearn for I can no longer see. What joy can achievement and acclaim bring, If the tongue can spew wonders but the heart can no longer sing. In the outer changing spaces of shadow and light, Where will I find thy loving delight? O Ancient of the Worlds who silently lifts, Give to me thy self beyond thy gifts. - Anahita Sanjana (India)

Seeing Oneself and Others With Open Eyes

To the extent we fail to see the underlying motivations and desires that drive our thoughts and our actions, we tend to take a relatively benign view of who we are and how we respond to life. Similarly, to a great degree we tend to assign a similar motivation to others, although, it must be said, we tend to be more critical of others than of ourselves, and we do tend to project our own faults upon others. We do not actually enjoy digging into the deeper vital motivations that drive us, as we prefer to remain ‘blissfully ignorant’ and have a measure of deniability through ignorance, of what is really going on. All of this changes when we start to become conscious and can observe both our own external nature, our thoughts, feelings, desires, drives, motivations, etc. and, by extension, those of others with whom we interact in the world. What an eye-opener it is! Of course, not everything is bad or evil, and we can also observe the true movements of compassion, aspiration, consecration th...