What is Yoga
In India from the most ancient times, the view is held that one needs many, many years to be in contact with the Divine. One has to do a long and difficult sadhana to arrive even at a partial realisation.
We can read the lives of great Saints in all countries, the God-lovers, and they all tell us the same thing: there is no easy road to Heaven. The greatest and the most arduous effort with limitless patience and endurance is promised to those who would undertake the discovery of the Divine. We want something that would radically change the human life into a spiritual li.fe The call on us is a rare privilege granted to daring and dedicated souls.
With all the hope and ardour and love we have to look up at the golden sun and open ourselves, all our centers, all the cells of our body to its transforming, divine rays. This is the true liberation, true regeneration. The plant is a visible symbol of the spiritual aspiration. How it reaches out to the sunlight, how it depends on the light for its existence, how it struggles to catch a glimpse of light of the sun.
For the sadhak of the integral yoga, there is no repose, no rose-bed, no cosy inn or tavern where he can rest too long. We have many battles to wage, many wars to face. So let us steer our determination, march forward unburdened by the load of desires and attachments, fired by the inextinguishable flame of divine conquest. This is the role that has been assigned for the disciples of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.
Too often, there are some persistently wrong ideas about yoga. The yoga in India means union with the Divine or the Absolute and the discipline followed in order to arrive at the Realisation. The aim of personal happiness, to be happy, to love and distribute love all in a human way belong at best to ethics and has nothing to do with the yoga.
The Gita is the synthesis of all forms of yoga practiced in India. Sri Aurobindo's yoga begins where the Gita ends. To be aware of the Divine, the spiritual reality, to be aware that all is divine, to be aware that the earth and the evolution are a conscious self-manifestation of the Divine, to become aware of the One Divine and his will in the world, to be moved by Him, to live in Him, to be possessed by Him, to be progressively transformed by the divine consciousness into a divine being, these are the steps in ascension towards the divine life. This is a vast and complex subject.
More than any intellectual knowledge contained in a thousand books, a single true and profound experience, the touch of grace is far more convincing to the seeker of truth. One should constantly cultivate humility, self-offering to the Divine. Submission and a glad surrender to the divine guidance, once He is seen and recognised, is the most secure way for the seeker. Only the fortunate soul which has been prepared through a thousand births can readily take this path of dependence on the Divine and surrender to his will, love and knowledge.
ut we can all prepare ourselves, make ourselves fit for the state of grace which the surrender brings, the presence of the Eternal, his possession of our being, our life and action.
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N.Guha Roy
Prayer for the animals
Om Douce Mère
May Your protection be with all the animals on this earth.
Shelter them all in Your Heart and give them the protection
And love they need on this violent earth.
True Humility
Humility in spiritual life is the synonym of receptivity. It is a state when one is open and willing to receive and retain
When we do not know, when we do not have the pride and arrogance of knowing, then only, knowledge can come. Pride, arrogance, feeling of self-suffciency, obstinacy, refusal to admit a superior truth, a greater power, a blind resistance, an obstinate limiting self-confdence are, what can be called the opposites of humility. On the other hand, mere politeness, modesty, tepid acquiescence or acceptance of falsehood through fear or in order to avoid diffculty, agreement without understanding are far from true humility.
True humility is a spiritual state:
When we are thoroughly convinced of our ignorance, then only the knowledge comes in.
When we are utterly aware of our impotence, then only, the power comes in.
When we are truly empty, then only, we have the possibility of becoming full.
At its highest, humility reveals to us that we are nothing; we can do absolutely nothing.
When we are face to face with God, the Eternal, the mysterious One, when we will be able to say in absolute sincerity, in all humility, like the Mother in an evening class: “I am nothing, absolutely nothing, I know nothing, absolutely nothing,” then only we will realize our indivisible unity with God, the Eternal, the Absolute. That is why in all religions the great leaders have said: “Only the humble shall see the Face of God.” And, we have found that all those who are truly great are very humble. The Mother mentioned that there could be no one more humble than Sri Aurobindo.
True humility prepares the being for a state of constant self-surrender to the Divine.
Humbly, we admit also our ignorance and also the help and the protection of the Divine in all our past and present ignorant thoughts, emotions, actions, without trying to justify them. This is the hardest diffculty to face and to admit even to ourselves that we were wrong, that we are wrong. But if we can do this in a true spirit of humility, then a huge load is taken off our consciousness and we can enter into a state of self-surrender far more easily. Truly, there cannot be any justifcation for our ignorant actions as long as we are in the ignorance, and humility helps us to emerge from the ignorance into light.
True humility widens the seeker, increases our capacity of receiving and makes it possible for the Infnite to pour itself into a finite being, into a living ardent vessel.
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Niranjan Guha Roy
Experence with the Force
26 6 99
All around me, everything was like a vast desert. The earth that I had known was gone forever and still that state is there. It is not an arid desert, but a huge boundless land where the new crop, the new creation will gradually manifest. So there is no planning, no project, no writing, no birth or death. Gradually what has to manifest will manifest, effortlessly, spontaneously.
Then I started feeling 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. At the same time a thousand orchestras seemed to be playing. This music was filling the whole earth and sky, the whole creation. I myself never heard such powerful harmonious, intolerable Felicity. When I played , I was not playing, it was a tremendous power of harmony flowing through me, playing through me. All I can say, I do not know how I have survived. It was only by the grace of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo constantly present protecting me, so that I would not explode.
Now the body has slowly regained a stability, but even now at times that power suddenly invades the whole being. It is not a suffering, but a flow of unbearable currents of the supreme divine love and gratitude. Now I feel the body won’t break down, it is becoming more peaceful by the downpour of a pacifying force. But that power behind, of supreme harmony, is always there.
The Mother and Sri Aurobindo are the Supreme, who came down on the earth behind a thick veil, almost impenetrable of humanity. Now they are constantly present – there is nothing to worry about – the world is utterly Divine. Whatever shadows we 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 human being. Behind the thin veil stands the splendor 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.
Niranjan Guha Roy
A poem of Sri Aurobindo - Liberation
Liberation
I have thrown from me the whirling dance of mind
And stand now in the spirit's silence free;
Timeless and deathless beyond creature kind,
The centre of my own eternity.
I have escaped and the small self is dead;
I am immortal, alone, ineffable
I have gone out from the universe I made
And have grown nameless immeasurable.
My mind is hushed in a wide and endless light,
My heart a solitude of delight and peace,
My sense unsnared by touch and sound and sight,
My body a point in white infinities
I am the one Being's sole immobile Bliss;
No one I am, I who am all that is.
Sri Aurobindo
Behind the Veil
As we become silent, peaceful, vast and impersonal to the point of being non-existent;
when we can truly say that we do not exist,
then an unbelievable, unsuspected veil is lifted, permitting us to see the Divine, the Eternal, the Infinite
Who unfolds Himself eternally for His delight of existence in various dimensions of time and space.
All is verily He, She, the marvellous, mystic, eternal, infinite Being
He is fully in the tiny spect of pollen as He is in the most brilliant sun.
For His delight of existence, He is hidden here, a little manifested there or more fully revealed elsewhere.
But, behind everything, comprehending everything and beyond everything,
He is the ever-unattainable, ineffable absolute.
Forever He runs vastly in front of any manifestation however high and magnificent;
yet, He is fully present in His absolute perfection in the heart of each little blossom in creation.
We must become profoundly silent, we must enter a state of complete self oblivion, and become truly zero.
then will be revealed to us that unalterable massive, concrete Divine Reality
Each heart and soul is His abode, each body and form is His living image
Each name and face is His self-creation.
In this material universe the utmost transcendence is packed in the heart of man.
That is why when our eyes are unsealed by His Grace, a spontaneous prayer comes from our soul.
"You are forever eternally the Supreme Good, the most auspicious Benediction, the boundless Love.
May we never lose sight of You, may we give ourselves entirely with love and confidence into your hands.
May we be fully plastic and docile to your transforming influence and action;
for through every act, through every event and circumstance, through every feeling and thoughts,
we are coming nearer and nearer to You
May I desire nothing but Your Presence
that is the supreme Benediction,
May we call You in constantly until You stand eternally unveiled before us.
O supreme most auspicious Benediction, Benediction, Benediction.."
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Niranjan Guha Roy
The mysterious call
Why do I want the Divine, what is my aim?
The noblest and truest aim of the yoga is the irresistible attraction that one feels somewhere deep in oneself, an attraction for the Mystery, for the Origin, the Source of our existence, God, the Eternal, the Mother who calls us from beyond, a call so irresistible that no price is too high to pay, no attachment too great to break, no undertaking too heavy to undertake.
We are ready to do anything and everything, whatever is required from us, however long the journey might be, however difficult the path might be. We feel the irresistible urge to leave behind everything, to follow blindly, joyously the supreme Piper of Hameline. Then, we are sure to reach Him. Unless we have heard his call, the strains of his flute playing his music; unless we have felt his intoxication, that mysterious call which goes out to the explorers for the adventures, for the fathomless Infinities; unless we have had a glimpse of his ravishingly beautiful face and limbs molded from the substance of delight; unless we have heard his voice which takes away all smug peace , his command, which is a persecution and a frightful torment unless executed; unless the Eternal has touched us with his magic wand, we cannot be awakened, we cannot pursue the path.
So, for this yoga, one has to be absolutely sure that one has been called, that one is predestined, that one has eventually no other work, no other commitment, no other duty except to follow the yoga, to serve the Divine, to become a simple and pure instrument. This must be the goal, whether achieved in a short time, or even in a few lifetimes.
But if one has even in the smallest degree the aspiration to belong to the Divine, to obey and serve the Divine, to surrender to Him his life and works, his past, present and future, a willingness to be broken and gradually remolded by his vision and power, a yearning to be close to Him, to live in his Presence, to serve and love Him, to possess nothing, to be nothing, then also is justified the undertaking of the yoga - for the little submerged aspiration will grow with the true attitude, a glowing fire of self-sacrifice.
The right attitude is so important in this yoga that we have to constantly re-establish it in various parts of our being until finally our whole being would be in a state of glad surrender and total submission to the Divine. We must have patience for it is a long and difficult work
The Success is for the one who can endure says the Mother
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N.Guha Roy
gratitude to the Mother Divine
O Mother Divine, you have lifted the curse of evil fate over my soul
My heart kneels down before you in gratitude.
Inside, outside, above and below wherever I look I meet Your reassuring eyes.
Peace has flowed into my body, life , mind and soul.
In all contacts I feel Your gentle hands
Everywhere I find the same familiar Person made up differently for the play.
There is no more need of a distant heaven or extinction.
A handful of sand withholds in it unborn divinities
O Mother Divine, my life is now an unbroken song of glory
Pulsating somewhere in the immeasurable Spirit-space.
Mystery beyond all existence You are the resplendent Reality.
My heart kneels down before you in loving adoration.
All faces are Your reflections, countless rays of an original Sun.
All sounds weave the universal symphony of delight
Under the ever shifting wizard fingers of the lone Organist
You live in all forms, in all dimensions from matter to the absolute.
In all mouvements, changes, dissolution and transformation
You are the Truth, the Stable, the Permanent, the Immortal One,
The constant Friend and Companion in life and death through eternity
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N.Guha Roy
blessed are the souls
Blessed are the souls
Who have recognised the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, the Avatars of tomorrow
Who have consecrated their heart, mind, body and soul to Them
Who do their yoga and aspire for a life divine
Who feel inspired by their words , uplifted by their touch
Bless them
Who have given everything to follow the light of the Supreme
Who feel zero and God is all, One in all.
Who are willing to play their part in the divine symphony
Who see , hear, touch smell enjoy God in all
Adore Him and serve Him in all existence even in nothingness
Who find their joy, their strenght their hope only in the Divine
Who see the emerging God in all efforts high and low
Bless them
who bring peace and harmony in a world of agony,
Who have become happy responding harps in the hands of the Mother Divine .
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N.Guha Roy
Lila
Behind each name and form is the absolute Presence of the Eternal
unaffected, undiminished, untarnished by the actual names or forms
There is magic all around us. The All Powerful Being becomes anything and everything.
All around is a sacred greatness, the marvellous face of the mysterious Mother.
In the color of the rusty leaves, in the fireworks of a sunset, in the iris of a stranger,
we catch a glimpse of a Mystery which forever eludes us,
yet irresistibly draws forever the same love and beauty of a mysterious Presence.
The One is continuously taking all these million forms.
There is no haste, there is no death, there is only change, transformation., transmutation.
In a dim light you see only a little around the room, in the starlight a little more and in the sunlight the clear continents.
But there are eyes which go through wall after wall in unexplorable mystic dimensions
Let your mind be strong, your heart steady, your nerves and body peaceful
then you will not be afraid when the Eternity from its fathomless depths will begin to look at you .
When Moses saw the Divine he too was afraid.
The Eternal has to hide Himself from our eyes for a long, long time.
He has to strenghten our path, fortify our spirit and steel our nerves s
So that one day we can bear His compassionate touch.
Niranjan Guha Roy