A strong aspiration for the truth is essential to enter the spiritual life
Often when we are very ill, we become detached from everything in this world and Ihave a very strong aspiration to belong only to the Divine. His Will becomes the only worthwhile motive of life, His Presence the only reality in this life and forever. But too often when we are well, we lose that intense aspiration. A thousand little things of life assert their importance and we get submerged in them and I have to constantly remind ourselves of the unimportance of the material things and events and draw back our concentration from these things to the essential aspiration. Uptil now all spiritual disciplines laid an exclusive accent on the inner development and left the natural man or the ordinary human consciousness, untouched and untransformed. They imposed on the outward existence a minimum of discipline for they were convinced that the human nature could never be transformed, so they sought liberation in extinction in the Absolute or in some distant Heaven. Our yoga is extremely difficult for it lays an equal accent on the transformation of the human nature. Here the difficulty is great, complicated by two factors: Firstly, we are as if enamoured of our present self or physical makeup, of its perfection and beauty, of its great value, we are unwilling to admit the necessity of any change in are character and nature. Secondly, until the light grows, we have no precise idea of the transformation to be. We are told that one day through transformation we would acquire a divine nature, but on the practical field we equate the divine nature with our ideal of moral and ethical perfection.
True spirituality exceeds by far the moral and ethical ideal and is entirely something different from and vastly superior to the human consciousness and its ideals. So where to begin in order to have a clear understanding of the spiritual demand? When there is a simple and strong aspiration for the Truth, for the Divine, then we have in us the only qualification for admission into the spiritual life. Truly nothing else is required. The presence of the aspiration in a human soul is the presence of the rising Godhead, the Divine Mother aspiring for the manifestation of Truth in a human body in the material universe. This aspiration is also an all seeing and all knowing divine power. Our aspiration will gradually reveal to us the true meaning of our life, show us exactly what we are and what we have to be. In the aspiration we shall discover the presence of the Mother Divine. To be true to our aspiration, to follow its guidance, to work out its demands will gradually lead us into deeper and wider regions of higher consciousness.
The path of yoga is extremely difficult and long. What has been built in us over thousands and thousands of years has to be undone and newly made by the Divine Power within a lifetime or in a few lives, so the pace is alarmingly high and a little mistake, one flies off the highway like a car running at very high speed. There is only one security in yoga and truly there is nothing else which can protect us. It is the sincerity of our aspiration. Our imperfections do not matter. Our limitations and incapacities are of little consequence as long as there is a little flame burning day and night in the secret chamber of our life aspiring for the Divine, for the Truth, the good and the beauty for the most mysterious person who forever calls and draws us to his charm and love, we cannot fail to recognise Him, serve and love Him. We shall be liberated in His infinity and eternity of wonder and delight. We shall discover Him in all forms yet ever self-existent, wonderful and intimate person without any name or form. This realisation will be just the beginning of other great realisations as man will evolve into a greater and greater divine being. Such is the inevitable destiny of the aspiring soul.
There is one little thing - if we wait always for the right moment and the opportunity to do what we want to do we might as well wait for eternity. On the other hand if there is a strong inner urge and we begin to do straight away in the given circumstances, even a little of what we want to do some day, then miraculously what is far comes near and becomes realisable.
The world is entering an era of growing illumination. May we some day become true childs of the Mother Divine, selfless disciples of the supreme Teacher and Lord, humble and dedicated servants full of love and gratitude for the Master of Existence.
N.Guha Roy
In a future evolution, a better body will appear.
When we are young and full of energy we do not think of our body, we utilise it thoughtlessly, in the most careless way, drive it like a racing horse or a rocket forgetting the extreme fragility of the human body. During the last war when I was a pilot, I realised that my body was the weakest part in the plane. The mind and the vital push the body like a slave driver without ever considering its limits and its modest demands. Once we are passed sixty, seventy we begin to realise the extreme fragility of the body. With the growing age we become gradually immobilised. The spirituality has always condemned the body and the tragic life on earth – the body and the earth cannot be transformed. All our dreams and visions of a better world must end in the death of the body. As a matter of fact, the health of the strongest man is precarious, at any moment anything can happen – accidents or diseases can break the body. So is there no hope of a better body? Sri Aurobindo says, yes there is hope. In a future evolution a body will appear which will be free from fatigue, disease and decay with old age, even death at will will be possible, one could prolong the span of life at will. All this will come by following a new psychic spiritual physical discipline. Unless the psychic being is sufficiently developed through evolution, this transformation may not be possible. When we become conscious of the Supreme Spiritual reality, the primordial creative power, supramental Mahashakti through the psychic being, then by a progressive surrender to the Mother Divine there is a possibility of having a partial transformed body. The mind and the vital being must be already much transformed by the Divine Force through the intervention of the psychic being, then only the Divine Force can work on the transformation of the body cells. This is a very long, laborious and difficult discipline with its ups and downs, but Sri Aurobindo says that however difficult it may be, there is no other way of transforming the body.
The Divine help is always there, will always be there for all those who undertake this strenuous difficult journey under the leadership of the supramental Mahashakti, our Mother. This is the work She has undertaken to accomplish in whatever degree possible as Her next step in the evolution of the Gnostic being.
Om Mother Divine, may our surrender be perfect.
Give us faith and trust in Your luminous leadership.
Om Sri Aurobindo, Pranam, pranam, pranam
July/25/04 N. Guha Roy