SAIEN

Sri Aurobindo provides a detailed overview of the causes and types of suffering we experience and how to transcend the suffering through a shift in standpoint away from the external nature to the Self above or the psychic being within. Sri Aurobindo writes:  "It is not the soul that suffers; the Self is calm and equal to all things and the only sorrow of the psychic being is the sorrow of the resistance of Nature to the Divine Will or the resistance of things and people to the call of the True, the Good and the Beautiful. What is affected by suffering is the vital nature and the body. When the soul draws towards the Divine, there may be a resistance in the mind and the common form of that is denial and doubt — which may create mental and vital suffering. There may again be a resistance in the vital nature whose principal character is desire and the attachment to the objects of desire, and if in this field there is conflict between the soul and the vital nature, between the Divine ...

Sterile impressions hurled against an eternal Might, Projections of matter cast on a screen of light, The light absorbed in a mystic trance,   Sanctions in play, matter’s grim appearance. Exceeding the indifference of a screen’s stance, It embraces in love the projected substance. The sterility of the impressions is revealed, By the effulgence of the light hitherto concealed.   The grimness of the projection weakens As the screen of light unveils and beckons, Melted down the gnome, the dwarf, the troll, By the sweet dance of light that consumes all. - Anahita Sanjana (India)

Death remains one of the greatest truths of Life. Not really THE truth, but one of them, relevant till it is conquered, necessary because through the passage of death Life continues, renews itself. Witnessing the death of a loved one teaches so much. That one moment ends up giving so much as it takes away so much. The moment of earthly goodbye becomes a moment of lifelong blessing. That moment changes something deep inside, even awakens something as a deep sense of peace begins to emerge in the midst of the pain. A faint remembrance of the eternal truth becomes a source of calm strength. Death is not the opposite of Life. Death is the opposite of Birth. Life goes on. Only Form changes. All this and more which is mere book learning, becomes real and living only in that moment of death. Months and years continue to pass. For many months after my mother’s death in 2013, she came to me often. At night when I would close my eyes. In the wee hours of the morning when I wasn’t yet fully a...