21 February - Darshan
Who can ever reach Thou, Mother Divine?
Active, puissant and immobile, Thou art all around us, within and above.
Who can ever contain Thee, Mother Divine?
Like water through the mesh, Thou escapest from the strongest wit,
Yet choosest to abide in the heart of Thy children.
Mother Divine, Thou only art, Thou only hast been,
And Thou only shalt be, Origin self-born, Supreme.
In Thee we move and live and have the bliss of our being.
My heart in gratitude bows down at Thy feet.
*****
The Divine Love only can redeem.
The Divine Love It will not become operative, it will not act unless we are willing to surrender our humanity, its obscurity and ignorance, its animal life, its ego‑bound existence. The new life cannot be realised within the human framework. For the aspirant to the divine life, it is very important to understand that nothing in him must hanker even in the least degree after the human existence. He must utterly renounce the human world, if to live the divine life be his intention. One who is fortunate to have a glimpse of the divine life, its peace and joy, its beauty and harmony, its vast unity, its abiding sense of infinity, the concreteness of eternity and above all, the fulfilling experience of the divine Presence, feel no difficulty at all in giving up the human existence. But for most, the fascination of the human love and relation seems to be the insuperable difficulty. A thousand times deceived and duped, tortured and humiliated, torn to shreds and massacred, love seems to survive in the human breast. Be it blessed. For the human love, though disfigured and made ugly and brutal beyond recognition, has its origin in the divine love. It is only the divine love that can redeem it and release it from its dreadful limitations. It is only the true divine love descending from the transcendental heights that can transform matter progressively. It descends if there is an exclusive call to the Divine. In simple words, all our love must be turned exclusively to the Divine and only then there can be a transforming response from Above.
Our whole being must be unified in a single call for the Divine. The Divine must become the sole reality by the breaking down of all veils and barriers. In every being and thing we meet the one limitless Person, the Friend and the Beloved, the Mother and the Source. Our heart, mind, body and soul join in a single yearning for the constant flow of love that streams from Anandamayi, the Mother of Love and Felicity. When She descends, then matter at her contact will gradually undergo the divine transformation.
May we live for Thee alone, O Divine Mother
Niranjan Guha Roy 1985
The Mother and Sri Aurobindo speak of a divine life and divine body
In my early youth, I became aware of the tremendous suffering of the human race. I observed that every one suffered big or small, rich or poor, young or old, even the very best had some hidden cancer and I used to wonder and pray how this suffering could be alleviated, eliminated. The Mother and Sri Aurobindo have given the answer. The human consciousness must be sublimated, transformed and replaced by the spiritual and divine consciousness. The suffering is an inseparable intrinsic attribute and substance of the normal human consciousness. That is to say, as long as we are human with the human consciousness, the suffering is inevitable. True happiness, delight, ananda is an attribute, an intrinsic dynamic principle and substance of the spiritual and Divine Consciousness. Unconditional, unalloyed, ever present, luminous joy is inherent in the spiritual and divine consciousness, its very substance. It is only by the discovery of the Divine Consciousness and by the gradual and increasing union with the Divine that we become ultimately free from suffering once for all. The suffering is the inevitable result and consequence of all our inferior human attributes, qualities and actions and of unillumined movements of mental and vital consciousness. Desires, search and satisfaction of sensual pleasures, attachment to sex, greed, jealousy, ambition, search for power, position and name, falsehood, self assertion, anger, cruelty, violence, all these elements are natural attributes of the human consciousness and they cannot be eliminated or suppressed, controlled by the mental vital effort alone. Even by high spiritual powers, high spiritual consciousness, they are refIned, controlled but not eliminated. Only the Grace of the Mother Divine, the supramental consciousness, the Divine Consciousness, gnosis has the absolute power of transmuting them into its own substance of force, delight and consciousness, its inalienable unity and oneness. Man must become divine in order to be entirely free from the mental, vital consciousness and its natural attributes and qualities. That means, to be entirely divine, his mind, life and the body too must be divinised. Even if we attain spiritual peace and calm and other higher realizations our body remains subject to pain, thirst, hunger, disease, decomposition and death. Even in the Vedas, we find recorded such lamentations. So, to be truly happy, we must have a body free from pain, thirst and hunger, fatigue and disease, degeneration and if possible death, at least, accidental death, that is to say forced or unwilling exit from life. Death too must become a willful act of the soul, not imposed on us. It is here that the yoga of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo is fundamentally different from the traditional spirituality in India and elsewhere. Just because nobody could find a real way of divinising mind, life and especially the body, the handy solution of illusionism was adopted, which completely paralyzed life and eventually all spiritual endeavour. To be really happy, we must have a divine body, transformed radically in its form and function, in its very substance and constitution. Up till now some yogas have attempted to achieve the physical immortality. In ancient Egypt the attempt was made over thousands of years to find the secret of physical immortality, which they achieved but in a sad way, through mummifcation of dead bodies. In Greece, there was an attempt to find physical perfection and beauty and harmony. In ancient China, Japan, there have been various attempts of prolonging the life of the body through physical and spiritual means, specially by bringing a universal calm and tranquility and peace in their mind, life and body. Though man has always dreamed of an immortal glorious body, in actual practice in all these attempts, we find that there is no conception of transforming the actual body and its functionings, but only an attempt of prolonging the life of this body as it is, probably with a little refining of its actions, reactions and functions. The Mother and Sri Aurobindo tell us that if we can get in contact with the divine consciousness beyond mind, the supramental Truth Consciousness and open ourselves to the supramental Divine Shakti, then She will gradually transform our mind, life and finally the body into a divine mind, a divine life and a divine body. Through much experience it has been found that the body of an aspirant, though animal in its character and origin, can open and receive the Divine Shakti far more easily and with greater positive consequences and effectivity than the mind and the vital part in an ordinary man can do. Since we are primarily embodied souls, that is to say, our soul, mind consciousness, vital consciousness are expressed or manifested through the body, the body itself is the expression of the soul and the mental and the vital consciousness in evolution. So, if we can open the body directly to the infuence and power of the Divine Consciousness, the body will necessarily be transformed though gradually and extremely slowly by the descent of the higher consciousness into the body. The mental and the vital powers and faculties can be considered as attributes of the present body and if the transforming Divine Shakti comes in the body, they too will be necessarily transformed. The mental and the vital consciousness in man being nearer to the subtle substance of the Divine Consciousness can and will undergo a relatively quick transformation. The body though it is more receptive has been built on such a solid and stable basis, that transformation may take centuries. Though once started the process will lead to the final result inevitably, if that be the intention and destiny of the individual soul. The problem here is two-fold, first and foremost, to prepare the body and the consciousness in such a way as one would be able to live long enough to get in touch with the supramental Divine Shakti. The second part of the problem is the natural consequence of the spiritual realization. Once we are in contact with the supramental Divine Shakti and once Her Power, Force, Light and Consciousness are pouring down into the body, how best to collaborate with the supramental transforming Power is a vital problem, for the simple reason that this has not been done before and many attempts will have to be made till a general line of development and evolution is clearly seen. But this second problem, that is to say, transformation of this present body into the divine body is not our principal preoccupation for the moment, at least for the majority. Our problem is how to prepare the body, how to make it more and more receptive without risk and danger, immune and free from unpleasant even disastrous consequences. How to prolong the life in good, strong and healthy condition, at least so long as required for getting in contact with the supramental divine Shakti, for, once the contact is established the first indispensable phase of the great journey, the ascent to Truth will be accomplished. It is this first phase which is of utmost importance to us as a community of spiritual seekers. We will discover that if we are sincere in our aspiration, the Power will begin to work perceptively in our body from the very first day we turn towards the Divine Mother. The Power is our teacher, guide and master. The supreme Shakti, the Mother Divine will take us step by step, each one towards the great fulfllment and all She requires from us is an illumined obedience, a conscious collaboration and a joyful confident surrender to the Divine Force and Her working.
Niranjan Guha Roy 1967