Some teps on the Way of the Integral Yoga
Written by Niranjan Guha Roy at Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1980
When I first came to the Ashram, to settle down in 1946, I had one single clear aspiration: to realise the Divine. I was aware of some absolute Being all around me, infinite and eternal, but I had no contact with It. Then, by the grace of the Mother Divine, I followed a dangerous and extremely challenging path of yoga. There were periods of light, followed by periods of the darkest night, revolt and despair, all that was hidden in my nature was thrown out like an erupting volcano. Often it seemed that I had strayed away from the path of yoga caught up in the whirlpools of passion, violence and ambition. Often I had the feeling that one more step in that direction and I would go up in an explosion and smoke. Then gradually I could see my way through all this terrible upheaval for the darkest night was followed by the most glorious dawn each time. The comforting Presence, the smile and the tender guiding hand were always there to take me over the most unfriendly countries peopled with dangerous visible and invisible beings with their death dealing fascination and fierce opposition to everything divine. Slowly the veil broke down revealing the Supreme Godhead in all forms, in all beings, everything became just a mask for the great Player. These high moments would last for a short while and then I would fall back again into the dark prison of human consciousness. There is no sin or act in the world, no perversity, no diabolic act, nothing that happens here that I did not find in myself. On the other hand, the Power was constantly at work in my consciousness, in my awareness, in my body with an ever increasing intensity though there had been periods, long ones where its action was not perceptible. Even this action of the Power was a foreign sensation in the body. It could be sometimes very painful and agonisingly unbearable. At other times or most of the times, it was like a quiet flow of a liquid force from above which penetrates the entire body, the nerves and the cells. The lower part of the body still seemed like a stone, impervious to the action of the Force. In short the satyr had yet to be fundamentally transformed. On the positive side, there was a simple and constant experience. There is only the Divine. One infinite eternal Being forever manifesting Itself in the time and space movement.
The praying animal
When we go behind the relativity of forms we find the eternal Mother Divine. Hers is this world-play of delight. The vision recedes in the background but comes back with a greater intensity with new dimensions of insight. One might say I am on the threshold of an entirely new Country, a new World. This is just the elementary beginning, the birth into a new consciousness like a newborn baby, which has yet to grow and manifest its latent divine powers and capacities.
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a touch of the supramental Force
The energy flowed, I couldn’t contain it. The whole body was like a powerful dynamo. I thought I would blow up, but gradually things subsided, energy was always there, light, light, everywhere. The Power sometimes receded, then came back, almost with an explosive violence. I felt as if all the cells were burnt out, but relieved. I felt I have crossed the bar and been admitted in the supreme spiritual Reality - everything, everyone, anything in my mind became ravishingly Divine. The whole world, all the beings were only the Divine in His splendour. In that light, intolerable ecstasy going through the body like a gigantic generator, the inner being has been crushed out of existence as if it has passed through a massive sugarcane crushing machine. Nothing is left of the personality, everything has been scattered into the infinity of God, into the vast boundless, vibrating ocean of love, the Mother. There is nothing but the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. They are one supreme Being, everywhere in everything - staggeringly powerful, devastating Presence.
Our human body, even our inner being, all taken together is extremely weak, and at the mere touch of the divine Force, or with a drop of that golden liquid, all the being can end up in an explosion – it will take centuries to prepare bodies which can safely hold the sacred fire. The evolution will proceed by slow steps, very slow steps, otherwise it will collapse.
From then onwards there was a fundamental change in my vision. There is no longer any human living being - each one is utterly eternally Divine. That vision has not left me, only sometimes it is a little faint. Sometimes I felt as if a train was in my body, a huge powerful flow of divine felicity, too strong for my body. Then I sat at the organ. As I was playing I heard a sound as if a thousand organs were playing, filling up the whole world or universe. I had never heard anything like that in my life, so powerful, penetratingly ravishing, intolerable ecstasy. I had to stop playing. Now the presence of the Supreme is constantly present – there is nothing to worry about – the world is utterly Divine. Whatever shadows I see will disappear. Each one is the Divine Himself, not less. Absolute, no one else but the Divine, nothing to be done, just the Divine manifesting Himself in his utter glory.
There is still in my consciousness the awareness of our human life and society. It is an old habit and utter ignorance. Still the old world comes back from time to time, but it has no reality. There is only the Supreme Mother, love, delight. My soul, my whole body enters into a state of gratitude, utter self-giving. Now when I look around I do not see any human being. Behind the thin veil stands the splendour of the supreme glory. When I play music, it becomes a hundred times more intense. The body can hardly sleep, but now it will be stabilized, peace is coming. It is not an ordinary peace – but the peace of the himalayan mountains, in order not to be blown out of existence. There is far more in that experience, far more, too long, too deep, too difficult to be expressed in words.
Om namo Bhagavate. Om Sri Aurobindo, Om Douce Mère. All mantras will not be able to express Their love and compassion for all, for each one. Thy Will Be Done.
N.Guha Roy 1999