SAIEN

Old habits die hard, especially old habits of thinking The doors of possibility beckon, and dying intellectual dogmas dig in their heels The Heart of the One Beloved pours love on us like rain, nourishing the tender seeds of our awakening We stay hunched over our calculators and spreadsheets, adding and subtracting an endless round of figures Each soul cries to express, to embody its eternal radiant essence Every heart aches to be seen and to sing its own notes in the universal harmony Truth gleams like a jewel inside all beings We ignore it all, fixated and fascinated by our dissections and inspections, our rubrics and rearrangements Throughout time, people have dallied with realities beyond the material Mystics and poets, seers and saints have traversed unseen worlds and come back to us with tales of wonders beyond imagining We call their experiences myths, archetypes, interesting symbols, fanciful imaginings We call them unreal, insubstantial, fictional What will turn the tide? What

“Psychic love can have a warmth and a flame as intense and more intense than the vital …  it is a white flame, not a red one; but white heat is not inferior to the red variety in its ardour,” said Sri Aurobindo in one of his letters to a disciple while talking about friendship between man and woman.* Essentially what he has said in the letter is that in such friendships the intrusion of the lower vital (the sexual instinct) is natural and frequent, but at the same time it is not inevitable. The love between man and woman can be mental or psychic rather than vital. In keeping with the general approach in integral yoga, one might say that the mental can prevent the vital love from degenerating to the level of lower vital; the higher mental can station the love at the level of the higher vital; and that the love can be eventually transformed into psychic love. What is the difference between the intensity of vital love, which has a red flame, and psychic love, which has a white flame? The

Scalding words hurled, Roaring   flames   of   anger   hungry   to   devour   and   negate For a moment   the   fall   into   the   abyss   of   inadequacy Then   a   memory   stirs, A   wordless   voice   reminds, “Hurt   not   if   the   arms   of   this   fickle   world   withdraw Other   arms     await   you, Unseen   arms   of   love   that   never   judge Arms   that   are   awaiting   just   one   turn   of   attention   away.” Pulled   into   the   refuge   of   those   arms   wholeness   is   restored, A   wholeness   that   unflinchingly confronts   the   snarls With   a   transcendence   that   knows   itself   to   be   beyond   their   reach, And   smiles   at   the   dream   identity   the   snarls   target And   laughs   with   abandon   in   the   security   of   the   emptiness   that   is   its   heart.  - Anahita Sanjana (India)

It  was mid of year 2005 when I was 45 years old and we went for an outstation trek with a group of employees in the Himanchal region as an annual outstation pleasure-cum-fitness trip. As a member of the team, I  had to climb a cliff which was rather steep. It became a tiring task causing breathlessness with an increase in heart beats and signs of restlessness in spite of congenial ambience. I also had a sleepless night with uneasiness continuing throughout the night. It was probably an indication that all is not well with my physical health. Upon my return home, I got a medical check-up done and was diagnosed with high cholesterol. I took is as s signal for revamping my daily habits which comprised of spicy food with high Fat content and no insufficient measures to keep Physically Fit. Medication started and I was advised to have a conscious re-look on my Daily Habits. I had read on Mindful walks in the ambience of Nature at early morning time and Breathing exercises.     Practising t