The eternal Presence
During my stay in the Ashram, there was a small quotation by Sri Aurobindo displayed in all the offices and departments of the Ashram including the dining room. The text is more or less,
“Behave as if the Mother is looking at you, for indeed She is always present.”
It was a constant reminder to the sadhaks that the Mother in Her universal aspect is always present everywhere.
The Mother in Her physical being was looking at everybody and at any moment through concentration would respond to the call of any disciple in the Ashram or elsewhere. But also, The Mother or the Divine Consciousness is always around us anywhere, through eternity. It was there before the formation of the stars, it has presided over the growth and development of the stars and universes, and even if all this material universe were to disappear, She would be totally present filling all time and space with Her mighty, unalterable, absolute, infinite Presence. Millions and millions of universes rise and fall like waves on a vast ocean, on Her vast boundless bosom of love and beauty and felicity. She is the changeless, immutable, unfathomable, the mysterious, eternal Presence, stable, unalterable, eternally the same, absolute Presence and Being. She is the ocean, calm, immobile, the waves are Her own movements, all the beings, forms, names, movements, energies, all that we can see, feel, touch and hear, all that we can conceive of, all that we cannot conceive of, all that was, all that is, all that will be, is that Supreme Divine, the Mother, always present, always looking at us. We are part of Her, part of Her own body and existence. We have no existence outside Her. All these million names and forms all around us are only fugitive mysterious, marvellous faces, forms and dramas of our infinite, eternal Mother. All is She. If we cannot see Her, it is because She hasn’t as yet opened our eyes. We are like the baby cats just born, we can feel the Presence of the Mother, Her touch, Her warmth, Her love, we are nourished by Her. One day She will open our eyes. Then we shall be admitted into the Reality which is forever. God, God alone everywhere in the minutest worm and insect, in the saint and the titan, the murderer and the slain. All the sweet and terrible dramas of life, the clash of galaxies and communities and nations are His own play with Himself, like mountain waves racing with passionate fury against one another, whipped up by the hurricane, embracing, crashing, tearing, destroying one another, sending up iridescent clouds of mist and sprays of hopes and desires, dreams and nightmares, soon falling into a vast meditative peace like a giant reverential carpet spread over a glass floor inviting the daring pilgrims to explore the infinity. Images, dreams, delirium, God without limit, without bounds, playing with Himself, breaking Himself in a million fragments, combining Himself in impossible combinations. Everywhere the vast infinity so intimate, all you touch is That, is all around you, pressing you, crushing you, life of your life, breath of your breath, love and vision of your heart and mind and soul. You lose yourself in that boundless, vibrating, single existence. Whomever you see is your God, whatever you feel is His very body.
Yet the yearning heart full of gratitude and love and adoration prays-
O Lord, Thou art the only existence beyond all our comprehension, the Fathomless.
I do not know who You are, nor do I care to know.
May I sing Thy name as long as you permit me to be.
May I be allowed to live in this illusion of a separate being as if a cell has any individual existence in a body or apart from the body.
May I love You, adore You, above me, below me, all around me.
Thy name be hallowed, Thy name be echoed and reechoed in all aspiring souls. Like an immense choir, the whole existence sings a hymn of glory to thee, O thou forever unknown, no one yet everyone, still, above everyone, O Mother Divine.
May we become conscious of the vast luminous love and felicity overseeing the whole creation.
Om Sweet Mother, Om Sri Aurobindo.
O Lord Supreme Thy will be done, Thy dream of a kingdom of Love Divine be realized...
Only those who realize the Divine will find true peace and harmony. Only by realizing the Divine we can bring some solace and comfort to people around us. We must learn to surrender ourselves to the Divine Will, otherwise we only create complications by wishing wrong things in the wrong way.
The best attitude in all circumstances is, “Thy Will be done, not mine.”
In this way life can become smooth and luminous.
May the Divine do whatever is best for us.
May the Divine give peace and equality.
Niranjan Guha Roy 1992
