SAIEN

There have been many paths propagated by sages and saints and one has to choose the path most appealing to oneself. My journey on the spiritual path from a mundane life lived at sensory gratification level, tossed around by attractions of various types, has been largely influenced by listening to talks by  sadhaks  on Sri Aurobindo and The Mother through webinars organized by NAMAH and Sri Aurobindo Society. This could be because of seeds which were sowed in my younger days through study circles which elucidated the thoughts of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo. With my experience on this journey, I have realised that   Perseverance and Practice   have been the key driving factors. Regularity of Practice by devoting a few hours in a day in the morning and late evening makes a lasting impact on our lifestyle by raising our consciousness from surface level to higher level. Awakening of the Psychic self and its harmonisation with Mental, Vital and Physical self has made...

The following was written for a presentation at one of La Grace (USA) webinars. I share this here as many of us are actively engaged in Integral Education at school or university level. (Anuradha)   What do we mean by Subjective Age and what is meant by Spiritual Education? How do these connect with Integral Education? What is the Paradigm Shift needed? This is what I would like to unpack. What I share today is based on Sri Aurobindo’s chapters in ‘The Human Cycle’ on the Subjective Age.   When reason no longer suffices, the Subjective Age begins. When there is a turn towards a deeper way of knowing, a turning inwards or upwards, or both, the Subjective Age is in process. There is a turning within to find deeper powers. There is an aspiration towards self-consciousness and self-realisation. The rationalistic model begins to subject itself to the ideal of Intuitional knowledge and self-awareness.   We see that in Education, something of this shift began in the early...

Our normal human observation sees individual objects as if they are separate forms or beings, and does not, other than through an intellectual exercise, make the connection that all these forms are really one and unified in a coherent field. No matter how intensely we develop the physical sight, this limitation still holds back our seeing and our understanding of the material creation within which we exist and move. We take on the role of the observer and the forms of the world are the objects of our observation. The separation is the primary experience. For the spiritual sight, however, another dimension is added, a dimension of what has been called “psychic” or “mystic” or “spiritual” vision. This dimension integrates all the forms we observe, and all the patterns of movement that take place between and among these forms, as part of the “unified field” of a unitary existence that constitutes everything that IS. Sri Aurobindo notes:  "There is at the same time a subtle change...

I am myself. I exist here within the frame of my individuality, looking out at a world populated by others, each enclosed within their own selves. I reach out and touch them and they touch me, but we remain separate, isolated. I see a tree, a frog, a lake and observe their colors, shapes. I measure their distances and compare them to other others, mining their data, compiling their uniqueness. I walk around amid a throng of self-contained others, touching and then pulling apart, knocking into each other like billiard balls on a field of felt. Then something breaches the fortress. An intruder scales the wall and sneaks past the guards. I look into the eyes of another, and I find that they are inside me. First my mother, then a beloved friend, a lover, a child. I notice the lines of self-definition blurring, or perhaps they were always a bit smudged in places. I look at the majestic ocean and its waves enter me, seamlessly joining the sea within. The impossible rays of a splendid sunset ...

The human body is a symbolic representation or projection of the entire creation and carries in its material parts and faculties all cosmic principles and powers; and there is continuity of the involutionary and evolutionary paths. Speech in its fullness is the only faculty which exists in the human but in no other material/life form. In the creative process from ether, vibration is the first step; hence ‘word’ represents Brahman’s creative power towards form. The five elemental states are different, progressive degrees of self-modification of the spaceless, timeless and formless One consciousness, the first of which is the etheric self-awareness of itself as vibration. Brahman, hidden inside every phenomenon, needs to be extricated through a different perception from the ordinary through suitable upasana or seeking. This applies to human speech, as to everything else. We do not understand or properly utilize the creative power of speech because of our ignorance of its causal roots. T...