The True Leader of Men
"Yes, there are happy ways near to God’s sun;
But few are they who tread the sunlit path;
Only the pure in soul can walk in light.
An exit is shown, a road of hard escape
From the sorrow and the darkness and the chain;
But how shall a few escaped release the world?
The human mass lingers beneath the yoke.
Escape, however high, redeems not life,
Life that is left behind on a fallen earth.
Escape cannot uplift the abandoned race
Or bring to it victory and the reign of God.
A greater power must come, a larger light.
Although Light grows on earth and Night recedes,
Yet till the evil is slain in its own home (The Task of last Avatar.)
And Light invades the world’s inconscient base
And perished has the adversary Force
He still must labour on, his work half done." Savitri-448-449
The True Leader of Men
“After I knew that God was a woman, I learned something from far-off about love; but it was only when I became a woman and served my Master and Paramour that I knew love utterly.”¹
Sri Aurobindo
“There are two who are unfit for greatness and freedom, the man who has never been a slave to another and the nation that has never been under the yoke of foreigners.”²
Sri Aurobindo
“As the servant and disciple of the Master he (a Sadhaka) has no business with pride and egoism because all is done for him from above, so also he has no right to despond because of his personal deficiencies or stumblings of his nature. For the Force that works in him is impersonal –or superpersonal- and infinite.”⁸
Sri Aurobindo
The Mother observed in a letter to the disciple in 1939, “I do not see anybody in the world more qualified than Sri Aurobindo to lead you to the feet of the Mahashakti.”²⁰
The Mother
Sri Aurobindo confirms in The Synthesis of Yoga that a 'strong (man) but crude vital natures’¹⁷ cannot become the true leader of men. The Divine demands from him ‘subordination and service’¹⁸ for annulment of his ego and 'service and obedience'¹⁹ for taming the lower Nature. He must be 'truthful, pure, sincere, straightforward.'²⁷ His leadership depends on the development of pure womanhood, slavehood, and discipleship to the Divine Master.
The False Leader of Men
“Alarmed for her rule and full of fear and rage
She prowls around each light that gleams through the dark
Casting its ray from the spirit’s lonely tent,
Hoping to enter with fierce stealthy tread
And in the cradle slay the divine Child.”
Savitri-224
"Always the dark Adventurers seem to win;
Nature they fill with evil’s institutes,
Turn into defeats the victories of Truth,
Proclaim as falsehoods the eternal laws,
And load the dice of Doom with wizard lies;
The world’s shrines they have occupied, usurped its thrones."
(Thus the Spiritual shrine acts as a cradle to slay the Divine Children, dvija.)
Savitri-225-226
“Inconscient traders in bundles of contraries,
They did what in others they would persecute;
When their eyes looked upon their fellow’s vice,
An indignation flamed, a virtuous wrath;
Oblivious of their own deep-hid offence,
Moblike they stoned a neighbour caught in sin.”
Savitri-209
"The corruption of the best (the best Souls of earth) produced the worst by that strange chemistry of the power of life which generates evil out of good even as it can also generate good out of evil….Yet even in the earthward life a higher knowledge (Psychic and Spiritual knowledge) is indeed the one thing that is throughout needful, and without it the lower sciences (of arts, of literature, of religion and of modern science) and pursuits, however fruitful, however rich, free, miraculous in the abundance of their results, become easily a sacrifice offered without due order and to false gods; corrupting, hardening in the end the heart of man, limiting his mind’s horizons, they confine in a stony material imprisonment or lead to a final baffling incertitude and disillusionment."³⁰
Sri Aurobindo
The leader of men who has not realised and seen ‘the One and Eternal’³ in all things, may be eminent in a larger and lesser circle and feels himself full of power, extraordinary increase of mentality and vitality which drives his thought and action and builds his life as a phenomenon of creative genius. He can act as a scourge, bringer of light, healer, a creator of beauty or the messenger of knowledge, a prolific writer, a server of humanity and the cosmic force which seeks to move him, seems often to surpass the measures of ordinary human limitation and relativity. When he speaks of God, he erects an image of Him which is a huge shadow of his nature, will, thought, quality and force. He serves the Master as his glorified ego and in Spiritual life this leadership turns towards ambition, pride, desire of greatness and a magnified individual personality. Although he has a larger sight and greater knowledge than ordinary men and advances a step beyond the limited physical and vital intelligence, a divided individualised life and force prevent him from really becoming master of the world. A light of superior consciousness acts within his narrow mental limits, but his being is not opened towards the plenary Light, Vision and Power and direct Divine realisation and neither ‘comes face to face with the Master’³ and the Lord, or capable of vast, comprehensive self-existent joy and multitudinous field of mystic Spiritual experience, or ascend into the original luminosity of overhead Consciousness, or descent of immense ranges of powers, influences and phenomena, or aware of a sea like downpour of masses of spontaneous Knowledge. The Divine force acts in his imperfect nature more intensely than in others with flashes of inspiration and revelation and still an exalted ego stands between him and the Integral Truth and his fragmentary personality imposes and dominates the surroundings. So, a leader who has less purity and absence of a complete Spiritual emergence can use too often the Divine’s Name and may become His instrument but serves unconsciously His black masks and the powers of dark demons and titans or introduce dangerous falsity or he assumes a Divine Name¹⁰ or proclaims to be Divine Messenger or believes himself as spokesperson of God to guide and rule others.
Those who are slaves to the physical mind, tamasic mind, and vital mind, rajasic mind, or slaves to the lower instinct-driven nature can easily become servants to others. They cannot become the slave of an external human form and still more difficult to become slave of inner Psychic being and the spiritual being. Most of the human beings live in their physical and vital mind and are obedient to their dominating murmurs, whispers and promptings which circumscribe life within the narrow walls of apparent possibility. Obedience, subordination and service to immediate authorised human recipients is an intermediate house of training which is felt indispensable in order to discipline the inertia of the physical and perversion of vital mind which later culminates in the obedience and consecration to the supreme Will and do whatever It dictates. The experience of slavehood is identified as two steps ahead of God's conscious servant and instrument. Those who have gone through the experience of utter obedience to immediate human authority or it is an exceedingly good fortune for them to obey an individual who has realised Divine, can easily go through the experience of manhood, soulhood, slavehood and childhood and become the God’s instrument, slave and child and can obey the Spirit’s wide and Omnipotent urge.
A servant serves and works for his Master but he is categorised firstly, that he is having his own emotion, will and thought process of separate identity; in the second category he nurtures secretly hostility, perverted ill will, narrow carping and wrong thought, bivranti, and these influence make him crooked, dry, hard hearted, hollow and cruel; lastly, he cannot tolerate and destroys what is higher than him; so he even grows the impatient desire to become the successor, quarrels and conspires to end the life of his Master. So, the servants of the latter two types have little Spiritual future and of the former type can go through long training of experience of motiveless love, obedience, honesty, nobility of character, sincerity, straightforwardness, unselfishness, disinterested consecration to work. Thus, depending on the collaboration of untransformed Nature, he either arrives at the higher stage of instrument and slave or recoils into old life of brute inhumanity. A slave identifies himself with the will of the Master, does excessive and arduous labour and his separate identity is lost in the utter oneness. The attitude of his mind must not be, “This is my strength” or “Behold the God’s power in me,” but rather, “A Divine Power works in this mind and body and this is the same that works in all men and in the animal, in the plant and in the metal, in all conscious and living things and things apparently inconscient and inanimate.”⁴ If this large view of the One working in all becomes the entire experience, then the ego-sense will begin to be eliminated. Experience shows that, in proportion as one delivers oneself from the limiting mental and vital ego, he commands a wider life, a larger existence, a higher consciousness, a happier Soul state, even a greater knowledge, power and ceaseless consecrated action.
Women are hated by mediaeval ascetic as a creation of God for the temptation of Monk and to shun all women is considered its panacea. If a woman has tempted him then the sense declares ‘he loves her.’ But a liberated Soul loves all beings equally and the Soul experiences unity with God. That is the all-embracing and all-exceeding formula of existence. So, in order to know God’s love utterly one has to treat God and Woman nobly and adore, love and regard them equally. By becoming a virgin bridal, representing the purity of a woman, the softness, tenderness, sweetness and plasticity to change becomes predominant; the distance between Soul and Divine or Lover and Beloved is annulled and the ego is vanished to realise His Oneness.
The Liberated Soul Centre
There are two types of liberated Souls. The first type of liberated Soul or a Sadhaka of traditional Yoga, ‘may be content with a subtle and limited action within the old human surroundings which will in no way seek to change their outward appearance.’¹³ The second type of liberated Soul or a Sadhaka of integral Yoga, who ‘will not only alter the forms and sphere of its own external life but, leaving nothing around it unchanged or unaffected, create a new world or a new order.’¹³ Sri Aurobindo insists that the second type of liberated Souls remain accountable for their Sadhana through large Divine action, record the descending overhead Divine Wisdom and enrich Earth's atmosphere through the descent of Divine Love, Delight and Beauty.
The aim of the liberated Soul⁹ Centre is not to become great, luminous, strong and powerful, an aggrandisement of the personal force and motives of self-assertion but he must be self-fulfilled by Yoga and is capable of accepting and transforming all negation and infirmity in his extended universalised Consciousness. His sole aim is a pure Spiritual perfection, a shadowless Bliss, a finding of the true Self and union with the Divine by putting on the Divine Consciousness and Divine Nature and a life governed and formed from within outwards in which the source of all thought, will and action shall be the Spirit working through the Truth and the Divine law which are self-existent and spontaneous in their self-fulfilment. Discovery of the truth of one's own Being, followed by All-Being, must be the master motive. He must be capable of the eternal unity between the Self and all existences. In the Spiritual order of things, the greater he projects his views, ideas and aspirations, the greater the Truth that seeks to descend upon his life and he has the responsibility to manifest much more of that which he secretly is. With the increase of purity, an overhead luminous Consciousness begins to penetrate and the gate lies wide open to the possibility of extending his Consciousness beyond the present limit. He realises himself as an embodied Soul through whose sacrificial action the cosmic Nature seeks to fulfil itself, and he emerges from the darkness of Ignorance towards a light of Knowledge that is growing upward towards an unforeseen culmination.
The Universalised Liberated Soul Centre
“...If thou canst not be the slave of all mankind, thou art not fit to be its master, and if thou canst not make thy nature as Vasishtha’s cow of plenty with all mankind to draw its wish from her udders, what avails thy leonine supermanhood?”⁵
Sri Aurobindo
“To be the master of the world would indeed be supreme felicity, if one were universally loved; but for that one would have to be at the same time the slave of all humanity.”⁶
Sri Aurobindo
"She (Savitri) made herself the diligent serf of all,"
Savitri-470
The Spiritual man is equal Souled to all things and he lives with the sense of oneness with all creatures. Through above message, integral Yoga issues injunction on developed Soul to serve mankind arduously by becoming its slave or does good of all creature by movement of universal Consciousness.
The personality of a mere man is only a formation of superficial mental consciousness with limited, restricted formations of powers, qualities and habits. To lose surface personality is necessary if we are to gain our true Soul personality, still more necessary if we are to gain universality and rise into transcendence. The Psychic personality of a man flowers as the Saint, the Sage and the Seer and when it reaches its full strength, it turns the being towards Supreme Truth, Beauty, Love, Bliss and Largeness and opens towards Spiritual Compassion, Universality and Oneness. If the Individual can become one with the All-Will then he can be the master of All-Force and the evolution of all the faculties of the Spirit, immense ranges of Powers, Influences, phenomena begin to descend covertly upon him and some of them can realise immediately in the order of the physical world and the rest await their time and proper circumstance for revelation in physical term and form.
An integral Yogi’s experience of slavehood and womanhood will be extended towards all humanity with the Impersonalisation and Universalisation of the Consciousness. He will simultaneously live himself as the follower, seeker of integral truth, disciple, instrument and child of the Supreme as everything descends constantly to him from above as divine Will, divine Wisdom and divine Love. The above seven-fold self-concentration of the Spiritual man is subordinated by seven-fold self-expansion as discussed below.
A liberated Soul can extend his relation with the brother Souls by rising in Consciousness and developing a fragment of the Divine’s self-expansive sevenfold personality of Master, Teacher, Father, Mother, Friend, Lover and the Playmate. As he ascends in Yoga or in Consciousness, he moves towards the complete perfection of the above-mentioned personalities. Then for him there is no need of escape into Heaven and he exceeds the emancipation of the Adwaitin, extinction of Buddhist Nirvana, siddhis, perfection of intermediate planes of Consciousness of the Tantric, Sadharmya Mukti, liberation of Nature of Karma Yoga, Sajujya Mukti, experience of Oneness with the Divine of Jnana Yoga and Samipya Mukti, dwelling of the Soul in the Divine of Bhakti Yoga. The universal Man, the cosmic Purusha in humanity, is developing in the human race the power that shall grow to Supermind and Spirit and become the Godhead in man who is aware of his true and integral Self and the Divine universality of his nature.
The transformation of the whole race from Mental into Spiritual being is possible by general admission of the self-law of supreme Truth which is above all standards, a supreme and universal self-existent Good, a widespread endeavour, a pure plasticity of luminous Consciousness, conscious concentration and constant upward effort and can be extraordinarily effective if it can find a powerful individual to embody, express, lead and organise it.
Recapitulation
“For the seeker of the integral Yoga… will meet him (the Divine) in the faces of the Gods, his cosmic personalities supporting the World-Play, detect him behind the mask of the Vibhutis, embodied World-Forces or human Leaders, reverence and obey him in the Guru, worship him in the Avatar.”⁷
Sri Aurobindo
“Help men, but do not pauperise them of their energy; lead and instruct men, but see that their initiative and originality remain intact; take others into thyself, but give them in return the full godhead of their nature. He who can do this is the leader and the guru.”¹⁵
Sri Aurobindo
“It has always been said that to take disciples means to take upon yourself the difficulties of the disciples as well as your own. Of course, if the Guru does not identify himself with the disciple, does not take him into his own consciousness, keeps him outside and only gives him upadesa, leaving him to do the rest himself, then the chance of these effects is much diminished, made practically nil.”¹⁶
Sri Aurobindo
If thou hast become an ‘ardent slave’¹² of thy ‘sensuous will,’¹² then thou art fit to be an instrument of desire and lead an ordinary worldly life. If thou hast become a slave of any intermediate living human Consciousness,² then thou art fit to be an instrument of the highest Divine Consciousness and lead a Spiritual life. If thou hast become the slave of the Divine or the Spirit, then thou art fit to serve and become the slave of humanity. If thou hast become a slave of the whole of mankind, then thou art fit to become its Master. If thou hast gone beyond all pride and egoism then thou art fit to become the disciple of the Divine. If instead of loving woman thou canst become a virgin woman, then thou art fit to hold the Divine’s Love.
The true leader of men must radiate the double perfection of (1) union with the Supreme and (2) its universalised individuality that must radiate from him Oneness with the Universe and its Beings. This experience culminates in his Spiritual experience of Oneness with all creatures and his Oneness with the Eternal. He will lead the human race forward Spiritually through his Influence and large world action. He becomes a light and a power of the Truth to which he has climbed and a means of others’ ascension. The pathfinder or the path-leader is one who has realised the Truth and is able to communicate the light and the experience. He is a strong guide and instructor who takes by the hand and carries over difficult passages and points out the way. According to his place, he would take 'equal delight'²⁸ to rule and lead all those who are behind him in Consciousness and subordinating himself to all those who are ahead of him in cognition or ‘Of mastery’s joy and the joy of servitude.’'²⁹
Thus, the triple status of womanhood extended as virgin Mother to become God’s love utterly, slavehood extended as Divine Worker to become one with the Divine Master and Lord concealed in all humanity and discipleship to the Supreme from whom he receives all immaterial and material things constantly, becomes the secret of true life and is extended as true leadership.
Avataras are also individual strong brother¹¹ Soul power on the surface, Yantra, and manifestation of special Divine Force from behind the veil, Vibhuti. Similarly, in Yantra and Vibhuti, the strong Avatara force can be active intermittently. King Aswapati, Satyavan and Savitri are symbolically identified here as the developed Souls of egoless, consecrated, faithfully pure leaders, instruments, emanations, and incarnations, destined to drag ahead the whole of humanity by the sheer Power of Their slavehood, discipleship and womanhood through the accumulation of Yoga Shakti, Chetana Shakti and Matri Shakti.
Thus, Savitri as leader¹⁴ of Men, Gods and Asuras walked behind them and they, as obedient followers of her Will walked in front and onward they travelled in this Spiritual journey through drifting time and glimmering mists. When she stumbled as Guide, all her disciples too stumbled behind her steps and each and every stumble was a Spiritual necessity on the unknown path leading towards an unknowable Goal. As Master of the world, she serves earth from below like a slave and from above like a strong Sun-Light and the whole world is held within her supreme Consciousness.
Thus, in integral Yoga, the gathering together of devotees, the lokasamgraham of the Gita is further modified into three parts. The first part confirms that a Sadhaka of integral Yoga must adher to ‘no propaganda whatsoever, of course, and above all, above all, no attempt to make people understand: the maximum effect one can obtain is the effect of the Consciousness at work in the world (universal gesture), because in everyone it produces the utmost the person can do – the utmost of what he can understand, he understands through the influence of the pressure of the Consciousness.’²² He should not ‘be too eager to help others’²⁵ that ‘draws away from the inner work’²⁵ and he should not be surrounded with any human admirers, which will lead him towards the Spiritual fall.²³ In order to open towards the ingress of new Spiritual material and new realisation,‘It is necessary to stand apart from the rest of the world so as to separate ourselves from the ordinary consciousness.’²⁴ The second part confirms that he ‘should in no way try to influence others and make them share’²² his ‘own effort: that would be quite unjust – not only unjust, but extremely clumsy because it would alter the universal – or at least terrestrial – rhythm and movement, and instead of helping, it would cause conflicts and result in chaos.’²² The third part confirms that if he is surrounded with few instruments of Truth, dvija,²⁶ that will help him towards Spiritual upliftment and fulfilment. The ‘perfect utility of our perfection is, having realised in ourselves the divine symbol, to reproduce, multiply and ultimately universalise it in others,’²¹ not by the aid of any external machinery but by the movement of invisible universalised Consciousness.
OM TAT SAT
The Post Thesis
After the first birth from the Mother’s womb, there is a second birth of the Soul, known as twice born, dvija. A dvija is in need of Spiritual Father, Spiritual Mother, Spiritual Master and Spiritual Guru for his survival and is in need of a Playmate, Friend and Lover for Soul flowering otherwise his Soul will suffer decay and death. Then he leads an ordinary earthbound life.
Divine Centre is the cradle of Superman. At its centre there must be an individual Soul Centre who is having direct contact with the Divine and his brotherhood status must be fulfilled by development of sevenfold Divine personality. Without this condition Divine Centre can deform as soul slaying cradle where the newborn dvijas are killed ("And in the cradle slay the divine Child.” Savitri-224) and they are forced to lead an ordinary earth-bound life.
Ashram is an ancient Indian terminology used for collective Divine living and if one individual at its centre is having direct contact with the Divine, then this collective living around this Soul Centre is identified as the Divine Centre.
Sri Aurobindo pointed out (CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1096) that Divine Centres through religious movements in the past did not succeed due to the want of complete Spiritual experience and evolved collectivity. This gives birth to a vision 'Beyond the Divine Centre' where the change will be neither dependent on the man of Spiritual attainment nor on the truthfulness, honesty and integrity of collectivity but on the direct pressure of the Time Spirit (Savitri-509-510) that is active now on earth's atmosphere and its crushing circumstances.(The Mother's Agenda-5/46) We will be in direct contact with the sole triple identity of the Divine (Time-Spirit) revealed to us through the concentration, contemplation and meditation of the strong subtle-physical Presence of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo, who reside very close to earth's atmosphere and are the symbol of the comprehensive movement of Divine Consciousness.
The Scope of helping humanity: “Patriotism, cosmopolitanism, service of society, collectivism, humanitarianism, the ideal or religion of humanity are admirable aids towards our escape from our primary condition of individual, family, social, national egoism into a secondary stage in which the individual realises, as far as it can be done on the intellectual, moral and emotional level, —on that level he cannot do it entirely in the right and perfect way, the way of the integral truth of his being, — the oneness of his existence with the existence of other beings. But the thought of the Gita reaches beyond to a tertiary condition of our developing self-consciousness towards which the secondary is only a partial stage of advance.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-136
The Necessity of Leadership: “The best, the individuals who are in advance of the general line and above the general level of the collectivity, are the natural leaders of mankind, for it is they who can point to the race both the way they must follow and the standard or ideal they have to keep to or to attain. But the divinised man is the Best in no ordinary sense of the word and his influence, his example must have a power which that of no ordinarily superior man can exercise.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-138
The Necessity of Spiritual Leadership: “This too the divinised man becomes in the measure of his attainment, impersonal in his personality, unbound by quality or action even when maintaining the most personal and intimate relations with men, unbound by any dharma even when following in appearance this or that dharma. Neither the dynamism of the kinetic man nor the actionless light of the ascetic or quietist, neither the vehement personality of the man of action nor the indifferent impersonality of the philosophic sage is the complete divine ideal. These are the two conflicting standards of the man of this world and the ascetic or the quietist philosopher, one immersed in the action of the Kshara, the other striving to dwell entirely in the peace of the Akshara; but the complete divine ideal proceeds from the nature of the Purushottama which transcends this conflict and reconciles all divine possibilities.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-141
The Necessity of Supramental Leadership: “The supramental man on the contrary will think more with the universal mind or even may rise above it, and his individuality will rather be a vessel of radiation and communication to which the universal thought and knowledge of the Spirit will converge than a centre. The mental man thinks and acts in a radius determined by the smallness or largeness of his mentality and of its experience. The range of the supramental man will be all the earth and all that lies behind it on other planes of existence...Ordinarily the supramental knowledge will be organised first and with the most ease in the processes of pure thought and knowledge, jnana, because here the human mind has already the upward tendency and is the most free. Next and with less ease it will be organised in the processes of applied thought and knowledge because there the mind of man is at once most active and most bound and wedded to its inferior methods. The last and most difficult conquest, because this is now to his mind a field of conjecture or a blank, will be the knowledge of the three times, trikaladrsti.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-837, 839
The Permanent Help: “Someone had written to (the) Mother, “I want my money to be used exclusively to conquer the causes of our sufferings and misery.” (The) Mother had replied, “That is what we are working towards here, but not in the artificial way of the philanthropists, who only deal with the outward effects. We want to eliminate forever the CAUSE of suffering, by divinizing matter through integral transformation.” The Mother's Agenda/10th April-1968. The permanent help and panacea of all problems of existence is possible through a triple reversal of Consciousness and inner change of Nature. All of the issues of humanity can be resolved by the permanent elevation of individual and collective Consciousness through Integral Evolution and Supramental Influence initially dynamised through a few individuals (A few can climb to an unperishing sun, (Savitri-689)) and finally spreads to elevate the general Consciousness of the race (His gates to the world were swept with seas of light. (Savitri-236)).
OM TAT SAT
References
1: SABCL-17/The Hour of God/p-129,
2: “There are two who are unfit for greatness and freedom, the man who has never been a slave to another and the nation that has never been under the yoke of foreigners.” SABCL-17/The Hour of God/p-115,
3: "This perception, this sense of a greater Power in us or above and moving us, is not a hallucination or a megalomania. Those who thus feel and see have a larger sight than ordinary men and have advanced a step beyond the limited physical intelligence, but theirs is not the plenary vision or the direct experience. For, because they are not clear in mind and aware in the soul, because their awakening is more in the vital parts than into the spiritual substance of Self, they cannot be the conscious instruments of the Divine or come face to face with the Master, but are used through their fallible and imperfect nature. The most they see of the Divinity is a Fate or a cosmic Force or else they give his name to a limited Godhead or, worse, to a Titanic or demoniac Power that veils him. Even certain religious founders have erected the image of the God of a sect or a national God or a Power of terror and punishment or a Numen of sattwic love and mercy and virtue and seem not to have seen the One and Eternal. The Divine accepts the image they make of him and does his work in them through that medium, but, since the one Force is felt and acts in their imperfect nature but more intensely than in others, the motive principle of egoism too can be more intense in them than in others. An exalted rajasic or sattwic ego still holds them and stands between them and the integral Truth." CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-249,
4: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-250,
5: SABCL-17/The Hour of God/p-95,
6: SABCL-17/The Hour of God/p-142,
7: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-130,
8: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-62,
9: “Hard is it to be in the world, free, yet living the life of ordinary men; but because it is hard, therefore it must be attempted and accomplished.” SABCL/17/The Hour of God-91,
10: “The kings of evil and the kings of good,…
And all believed themselves spokesmen of God:” Savitri-30
“Assuming names divine they guide and rule.” Savitri-226,
“An ignorant Power took charge and seemed his Will
And Death’s deep falsity has mastered Life.” Savitri-629
“I, Death, am He; there is no other God.” Savitri-553,
“In me all take refuge, for I, Death, am God.” Savitri-635,
(Savitri said to Death) “Surely thy boons are great since thou art He!” Savitri-647
"Even this is something, a beginning, although far from the true and perfect experience. A much worse thing may befall those who break something of the human bonds but have not purity and have not the knowledge, for they may become instruments, but not of the Divine; too often, using his name, they serve unconsciously his Masks and black Contraries, the Powers of Darkness." CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-250, “Equally a man who sets out to be a Yogi or Guru and has no spiritual consciousness or no power in his spiritual consciousness — a Yoga force or spiritual force — is making a false claim and is either a charlatan or a self-deluded imbecile; still more is he so if having no spiritual force he claims to have made a path others can follow.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-179, “Distrust a man who has never failed and suffered; follow not his fortune, fight not under his banner.” Sri Aurobindo/SABCL/17/The Hour of God/115, “One can have a guru inferior in spiritual capacity (to oneself or to other gurus) carrying in him many human imperfections, and yet, if you have the faith, the bhakti, the right spiritual stuff, contact the Divine through him, attain to spiritual experiences, to spiritual realisation, even before the guru himself. Mark the “if”, — for that proviso is necessary; it isn’t every disciple who can do that with every guru. From a humbug you can acquire nothing but humbuggery. The guru must have something in him which makes the contact with the Divine possible, something which works even if he is not himself in his outer mind quite conscious of its action. If there is nothing at all spiritual in him he is not a guru — only a pseudo. Undoubtedly, there can be considerable differences of spiritual realisation between one guru and the other; but much depends on the inner relation between guru and shishya. One can go to a very great spiritual man and get nothing or only a little from him; one can go to a man of less spiritual capacity and get all he has to give — and more. The causes of this disparity are various and subtle; I need not expand on them here. It differs with each man. I believe the guru is always ready to give what can be given, if the disciple can receive, or it may be when he is ready to receive. If he refuses to receive or behaves inwardly or outwardly in such a way as to make reception impossible or if he is not sincere or takes up the wrong attitude, then things become difficult. But if one is sincere and faithful and has theright attitude and if the guru is a true guru, then, after whatever time, it will come.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-199, “I do not know if his Guru falls far short in any respect, but with the attitude he has taken, her deficiencies, if any, do not matter. It is not the human defects of the Guru that can stand in the way when there is the psychic opening, confidence and surrender. The Guru is the channel or the representative or the manifestation of the Divine, according to the measure of his personality or his attainment; but whatever he is, it is to the Divine that one opens in opening to him, and if something is determined by the power of the channel, more is determined by the inherent and intrinsic attitude of the receiving conscious- ness, an element that comes out in the surface mind as simple trust or direct unconditional self-giving, and once that is there, the essential things can be gained even from one who seems to others than the disciple an inferior spiritual source and the rest will grow up in the sadhak of itself by the Grace of the Divine, even if the human being in the Guru cannot give it.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-201, “A great sincerity is asked for and has to be imposed not only on the conscious mind but still more in the subliminal part of us which is full of hidden movements. For there is there, especially in our subliminal vital nature, an incorrigible charlatan and actor. The sadhaka must first have advanced far in the elimination of desire and in the firm equality of his soul towards all workings and all happenings before he can utterly lay down the burden of his works on the Divine. At every moment he must proceed with a vigilant eye upon the deceits of the ego and the ambushes of the misleading Powers of Darkness who ever represent themselves as the one Source of Light and Truth and take on them a simulacrum of divine forms in order to capture the soul of the seeker.” CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga-230
11: “Reared with my (Satyavan’s) natural brothers in her house.” Savitri-404
Savitri became the Mother of Satyavan’s natural brothers in the forest land.
“Thou (Savitri) shalt not shrink from any brother soul.” Savitri-701,
The Creator asks Savitri to become one with creation, her brother Souls.
“He (Teacher of integral Yoga) is a man helping his brothers, a child leading children, a light kindling other lights, an awakened Soul awakening souls,…” CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga-67,
12: Savitri-615,
13: Ref: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-268
14: “The mortal (Savitri) led, the god (Death) and spirit (Satyavan) obeyed
And she behind was leader of their march
And they in front were followers of her will.” Savitri-639,
“She (Savitri) walked in their (disciples) front towards a greater light,
Their leader and queen over their hearts and souls,” Savitri-363,
15: CWSA-13/Essays in Philosophy and Yoga-p-208,
16: CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-197,
17: “This magnified image of their ego is the Master whom they serve. This happens only too often in Yoga to strong but crude vital natures or minds too easily exalted when they allow ambition, pride or the desire of greatness to enter into their spiritual seeking and vitiate its purity of motive; a magnified ego stands between them and their true being and grasps for its own personal purpose the strength from a greater unseen Power, divine or undivine, acting through them of which they become vaguely or intensely aware. An intellectual perception or vital sense of a Force greater than ours and of ourselves as moved by it is not sufficient to liberate from the ego” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-249,
18: "The acceptance of the law of sacrifice is a practical recognition by the ego that it is neither alone in the world nor chief in the world. It is its admission that, even in this much fragmented existence, there is beyond itself and behind that which is not its own egoistic person, something greater and completer, a diviner All which demands from it subordination and service.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-106,
19: "Through four soul-stages a man must pass before he can be perfect; first, as a Sudra, by service and obedience to tame the brute in his being; then, as a Vaishya to satisfy within the law of morality the lower man in him and evolve the higher man by getting the first taste of delight in well-doing to others than himself and his; then, as the Kshatriya, to be trained in those first qualities without which the pursuit of the Eternal is impossible, courage, strength, unconquerable tenacity and self-devotion to a great task; last, as the Brahmin, so to purify body & mind and nature that he may see the Eternal reflected in himself as in an unsoiled mirror. Having once seen God, man can have no farther object in life than to reach and possess Him." CWSA-17/Isha Upanishad/p-195,
20: The Mother’s Centenary Works/Vol-16/p-207,
21: “The divine soul reproduces itself in similar liberated souls as the animal reproduces itself in similar bodies. Therefore, whenever even a single soul is liberated, there is a tendency to an extension and even to an outburst of the same divine self-consciousness in other individual souls of our terrestrial humanity...” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-45, “We have to recognise once more that the individual exists not in himself alone but in the collectivity and that individual perfection and liberation are not the whole sense of God’s intention in the world. The free use of our liberty includes also the liberation of others and of mankind; the perfect utility of our perfection is, having realised in ourselves the divine symbol, to reproduce, multiply and ultimately universalise it in others.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-29,
22: “In all contacts what you have to do is to remain within, keep a detached attitude and not allow yourself to be troubled by the difficulties that arise in work or the movements of people, but keep yourself the true movement. Do not be caught by the desire to “help” others — do and speak yourself the right thing from the inner poise and leave the help to come to them from the Divine. Nobody can really help — only the Divine Grace.” CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-325, “Sri Aurobindo was very, very conscious of this general confusion, and so he didn’t much like … he wanted absolutely no propaganda, but he also didn’t much like attempts to “explain things” to people and make them “understand,” because he very well knew how useless it is. He very, very often said it to me: no propaganda whatsoever, of course, and above all, above all, no attempt to make people understand: the maximum effect one can obtain is the effect of the Consciousness at work in the world (universal gesture), because in everyone it produces the utmost the person can do – the utmost of what he can understand, he understands through the influence of the pressure of the Consciousness. As soon as words intervene, the whole mind makes a mess of it.” The Mother’s Agenda- 08.02.1969, “Then there were the few—the rare individuals— who are ready to make the necessary effort to prepare themselves for the transformation and to attract the new forces, try to adapt matter, seek the means of expression and so forth. Those are ready for Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga. They are very few. There are even those who have the sense of sacrifice and are ready have a hard and difficult life, as long as it leads them or helps them towards this future transformation. But they should not, they should in no way try to influence others and make them share their own effort: that would be quite unjust – not only unjust, but extremely clumsy because it would alter the universal – or at least terrestrial – rhythm and movement, and instead of helping, it would cause conflicts and result in chaos.” The Mother/The Mother Agenda/27th November, 1965,
23: “I suppose I myself am accused of rude and arrogant behaviour because I refuse to see people, do not answer letters, and a host of other misdemeanours. I have heard of a famous recluse who threw stones at anybody coming to his retreat because he did not want disciples and found no other way of warding off the flood of candidates. I at least would hesitate to pronounce that such people had no spiritual life or experience. Certainly, I prefer that sadhaks should be reasonably considerate towards each other, but that is for the sake of collective life and harmony, not as a siddhi of the Yoga or an indispensable sign of inner experience.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-656, “You must not hunger after any relations with anyone. The relations of the sadhaka with others must be created for him from within, when he has the true consciousness and lives in the Light. They will be determined within him by the power and will of the Divine Mother according to the supramental Truth for the divine life and the divine work; they must not be determined by his mind and his vital desires. This is the thing you have to remember. Your psychic being is capable of giving itself to the Mother and living and growing in the Truth; but your lower vital being has been full of attachments and sanskaras and an impure movement of desire and your external physical mind was not able to shake off its ignorant ideas and habits and open to the Truth. That was the reason why you were unable to progress, because you were keeping up an element and movements which could not be allowed to remain; for they were the exact opposite of what has to be established in a divine life.” CWSA-32/The Mother and Letters on the Mother/p-142, “It is not safe to listen to or be influenced by the mental of other sadhaks. The Yoga aims at union with the Divine which will bring a spiritual oneness with other sadhaks, but a oneness in the Divine, in the Truth, not in the ignorance of the mind and the vital.” CWSA-23/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-11,
Death said to Para-prakriti Savitri:
“If Satyavan had lived, love would have died;
But Satyavan is dead and love shall live
A little while in thy sad breast, until
His face and body fade on memory’s wall
Where other bodies, other faces come.” Savitri-610, (human admirers will replace Paramatma)
(Death said) “What knowst thou of earth’s rich and changing life
Who thinkst that one man dead all joy must cease?
Hope not to be unhappy till the end:
For grief dies soon in the tired human heart;
Soon other guests the empty chambers fill.” Savitri-637, (human admirers will replace Paramatma)
Death said to Para-prakriti Savitri: “Return and try thy soul!
Soon shalt thou find appeased that other men (human admirers)
On lavish earth have beauty, strength and truth,
And when thou hast half forgotten, one of these
Shall wind himself around thy heart that needs
Some human answering heart against thy breast;
For who, being mortal, can dwell glad alone?
Then Satyavan shall glide into the past, (Satyavan is the symbol of Paramatma)
A gentle memory pushed away from thee
By new love and thy children’s tender hands,
Till thou shalt wonder if thou lov’dst at all.
Such is the life earth’s travail has conceived,
A constant stream that never is the same.” Savitri-637-638,
“In moments when the inner lamps are lit
And the life’s cherished guests are left outside,
Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.” Savitri-47
24: “That is all right in the ordinary karmayoga which aims at union with the cosmic Spirit and stops short at the Overmind — but here a special work has to be done and a new realisation achieved for the earth and not for ourselves alone. It is necessary to stand apart from the rest of the world so as to separate ourselves from the ordinary consciousness in order to bring down a new one… It is not that love for all is not part of the sadhana, but it has not to translate itself at once into a mixing with all — it can only express itself in a general and when need be dynamic universal goodwill, but for the rest it must find vent in this labour of bringing down the higher consciousness with all its effect for the earth. As for accepting the working of the Divine in all things that is necessary here too in the sense of seeing it even behind our struggles and difficulties, but not accepting the nature of man and the world as it is — our aim is to move towards a more divine working which will replace what now is by a greater and happier manifestation. That too is a labour of divine Love.” CWSA-35/Letters on Himself and the Ashram/p-812-813,
25: “To concentrate most on one’s own spiritual growth and experience is the first necessity of the sadhak — to be too eager to help others draws away from the inner work. There is also likely to be an overzeal and haste which clouds the discrimination and makes what help is given less effective than it should be. To grow in the spirit is the greatest help one can give to others, for then something flows out naturally to those around that helps them.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV-317, "This “helping others” is a perilous business — it brings the “guru” ego or else you very uncertainly rid others of their difficulties and very certainly get them yourself. “Why do you have all these disciples?” said a sage to some Maratha saint (I have forgotten the names); “to have disciples means to add all their difficulties to your own.” “Helping others” has the same disadvantage." CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-318, "In “helping” one often gets part of the other’s inconvenience and many Yogis refuse to take disciples because they will have to assume others’ burdens as well as their own. There are also other dangers — growth of ego etc." CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-319, "It [trying to help someone through words] is a relative and partial help, of course, but it is sometimes useful. A radical help can only come from within through the action of the Divine Force and the assent of the being." CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-317 “This, no doubt, is the root of the injunction imposed in the Gita (The Gita-3.29) on the man who has the knowledge not to disturb the life basis and thought basis of the ignorant; for impelled by his example but unable to comprehend the principle of his action, they would lose their own system of values without arriving at a higher foundation.” CWSA/21/The Life Divine/p-58, “Those who are bewildered by the modes, get attached to the modes and their works; dull minds, not knowers of the whole, let not the knower of the whole disturb them in their mental standpoint.” CWSA/19/Essays on the Gita-214,
“In the long ever-mounting hierarchy,
In the stark economy of cosmic life
Each creature to its appointed task and place
Is bound by his nature’s form, his spirit’s force.
If this were easily disturbed, it would break
The settled balance of created things
The perpetual order of the universe
Would tremble, and a gap yawn in woven Fate.” Savitri-689-90,
“And the slow evolution’s sluggard steps,
Lead not the spirit in an ignorant world
To dare too soon the adventure of the Light,” Savitri-693
26: “An Influx presses from the closed Beyond
Forbidding to him rest and earthly ease,
Till he has found himself he cannot pause.” Savitri-339, “But still evoutionary Nature keeps alive her ulterior intentions in the minds of a few and uses man’s greater mental evolution to raise them to a higher plane and deeper issues.” CWSA/22/The Life Divine-900, “What the evolutionary Power has done is to make a few individuals aware of their souls, conscious of their selves, aware of the eternal being that they are, to put them into communion with the Divinity or the Reality which is concealed by her appearances: a certain change of nature prepares, accompanies or follows upon this illumination, but it is not the complete and radical change which establishes a secure and settled new principle, a new creation, a permanent new order of being in the field of terrestrial Nature. The spiritual man has evolved, but not the supramental being who shall thenceforward be the leader of that Nature.” CWSA/22/The Life Divine-923, “The Psychic transformation and the first stages of the spiritual transformation are well within our conception; their perfection would be the perfection, wholeness, consummated unity of a knowledge and experience which is already part of things realised, though only by a small number of human beings. But the supramental change in its process carries us into less explored regions; it initiates a vision of heights of consciousness which have indeed been glimpsed and visited, but have yet to be discovered and mapped in their completeness. The highest of these peaks or elevated plateaus of consciousness, the supramental, lies far beyond the possibility of any satisfying mental scheme or map of it or any grasp of mental seeing and description.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-953-54,
27: “(Q:) I have been here for one and a half years but I know nothing of the sadhana. I meditate, but nothing happens in the meditation. I feel there is no love in me towards the Mother. What shall I do to feel this love?
(Ans.) Become truthful, pure, sincere, straightforward.” Sri Aurobindo/1 July 1935/ CWSA-32/The Mother with letters on the Mother/p-462, “Brahmacharya (celibacy) is not binding in bhaktimarga or karmayoga, but it is necessary for ascetic jnanayoga as well as for Raja and Hatha yogas. It is also not demanded from Grihastha yogis. In this (integral) Yoga the position is that one must overcome sex, otherwise there can be no transformation of the lower vital and physical nature; all physical sexual connection should cease, otherwise one exposes oneself to serious dangers. The sex-push must also be overcome but it is not a fact that there can be no sadhana or no experience before it is entirely overcome, only without that conquest one cannot go to the end and it must be clearly recognised as one of the more serious obstacles and indulgence of it as a cause of considerable disturbance.” CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-542, "I have tried many things, a great many, I have looked a great deal, and I see only one that’s absolute – only one that’s absolute and can bring the absolute result, it’s this (gesture turned Upward): the complete annulment of all that, leaving it all, "To You, Lord – You, You, to You." And it isn’t a being with a form, that’s not it; it isn’t a formless force, it’s ... It has nothing to do with thought, only with this: the contact. And the contact, an unmistakable contact, which nothing can imitate – nothing, nothing at all has the power to imitate it. And for every difficulty, every time, whatever it is, simply this: "Everything to You, Lord. Everything for You, to You. You alone can do it, You, You alone, You alone. You alone are the Truth; You alone are the Power." And those words are nothing, they are only the very clumsy expression of something ... a stupendous Power....It’s only the incapacity, the clumsiness, the lack of faith we mix into it that takes away His power. The minute we are truly pure, that is, under His influence alone, there are no limits, no limits – nothing, nothing, there is nothing, no law of Nature that can resist, nothing, nothing.... Only, the whole thing is that the time must have come, there must be only That left – all the rest spoils, whatever it is, even the highest, purest, noblest, most beautiful and marvelous things: all that spoils. Only That.” The Mother's Agenda/ March 26, 1966,
28: “A spiritual or gnostic being would feel his harmony with the whole gnostic life around him, whatever his position in the whole. According to his place in it he would know how to lead or to rule, but also how to subordinate himself; both would be to him an equal delight: for the spirit’s freedom, because it is eternal, self-existent and inalienable, can be felt as much in service and willing subordination and adjustment with other selves as in power and rule.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1069,
29: Savitri-125,
30: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-140-141,
India’s True Destiny as the Leader of Men
“India's true destiny is to be the Guru of the world.”⁷²
The Mother
“The future of India is very clear. India is the Guru of the world. The future structure of the world depends on India. India is the living soul. India is incarnating the spiritual knowledge in the world. The Government of India ought to recognise the significance of India in this sphere and plan their action accordingly.”⁷³
The Mother
“I do not want hundreds of thousands of disciples. It will be enough if I can get a hundred complete men, purified of petty egoism, who will be the instruments of God. I have no faith in the customary trade of the guru. I do not wish to be a guru. If anybody wakes and manifests from within his slumbering godhead and gets the divine life – be it at my touch or at another's – this is what I want. It is such men that will raise the country.”⁷⁴
Sri Aurobindo
“I am not eager to be the Guru of anyone. It is more spontaneously natural for me to be the universal Mother and to act in silence through love.”¹⁰⁴
The Mother
“And this time it is the full light and not a noble part, unlike Buddhism which, expressing Vedantic morality, yet ignored a fundamental reality of Vedanta and was therefore expelled from its prime seat and cradle. The material result was then what it will be now, a great political, moral and social revolution which made India the Guru of the nations and carried the light she had to give all over the civilised world, moulding ideas and creating forms which are still extant and a living force. Already the Vedanta and the Yoga have exceeded their Asiatic limit and are beginning to influence the life and practice of America and Europe; and they have long been filtering into Western thought by a hundred indirect channels. But these are small rivers and underground streams. The world waits for the rising of India to receive the divine flood in its fullness.”⁹⁹
Sri Aurobindo
India is a land of ancient rich Spiritual heritage. Its air, water and land are full of the Divine Presence and as per The Mother’s personal experience⁷⁷ Indians are ‘heaven-blessed, these people, because it takes very little for them to be oriented in the right way.’⁹¹ No other Nations can compete with them.
India is a land where, from Sinner to Saint, from the most foolish to the wisest, the people of all faith and religion, atheists, people with modern education and modern Science, Women and Children are permitted to live with equal opportunity, without oppression, with love, dignity and respect.
A Nation will always be surrounded by the animal brutality, division, quarrel and narrowness of the primitive, uncultured man and Divine compassion, equality, oneness, and love for all beings of the spiritual man. India will be Guru of the World through its select individuals through whom incalculable quantum of overhead Divine Love, Wisdom, Peace, Force, Silence, Delight can rush into the world and enrich earth’s atmosphere.
Who are these select individuals? Can the Spiritual man of different religions be the Guru of the world? Can the few select proletariat⁸⁶ who are dedicated hard working nation builders, leaders of men and pioneers in different fields be the Guru of the world? Can the women who have renounced the sense enjoyment of the short-lived kind be the Guru of the world? Can the few select rich people and landlords who want to serve the Divine and Humanity be the Guru of the world? Can the Sannyasin, later Vedantist, Nirvanists of India be the Guru of the World? Yes, they are in the making.
The Four Theories in Support of India becoming the Guru of the World
First Support: Guru is a Force and a personality of the Divine. It is one of the seven attributes of the Divine. If India wishes to be the Guru of the world, then this also includes of becoming the seven-fold personality of the Divine of the Creator Father, Creatrix Mother, all-embracing Lover, hidden Master of all works, evolving as child God, the inner Guide and compassionate Friend of all creatures.
Second Support: A Spiritual man lives in direct contact and union with the Divine. He sees all creatures of existences with equality and is having sense of oneness with all existence. In his growing union with the Transcendence, the Divine’s seven-fold personality manifests in him.⁸⁷ If in India such a type of individual will emerge in each religion⁷⁶ and community, then it will help to unite the Nation. Thus, he emerges as a religious Teacher spreading the Spirituality of brotherhood and universal Love.
Third Support: The Guru of traditional schools of Yoga initially moves his consciousness between Kshara Purusha (sarvabhutani chatmani) and Akshara Purusha (sarvabhutastha chatmanam) and he can gather together the race, lokasamgraha, by all possible external aids or by Psycho-physical means. Finally, his consciousness moves to Purushottama Consciousness and from there he finds an exit⁹³ to the supreme Abode of Paramdham. Thus, he emerges as a precious, distinguished World Teacher.
Fourth Support: A Sadhak of integral Yoga initially moves his consciousness between the Psychic being in the heart and the Spiritual being above the head, superseding his earlier movement of Consciousness between the three Gunas. After being established in the waking trance of the Psychic plane and the non-waking trance of the Spiritual plane, he universalises the two Selves and does the good of all creatures by inner movement of universal Consciousness. For the perfection of two Selves and perfection of untransformed Nature, he finally, after long years of preparation, ascends to the Supramental plane and Supramentalises and Spiritualises the Psychic Self. Thus, he emerges as a precious Nameless World Teacher.⁹² His inner wandering of Consciousness from Inconscient Self to supreme Bliss Self can be pursued in secrecy and silence¹⁰⁶ and he can drag the human race ahead in its destined upward journey.
The Four Theories in Opposition of India becoming the Guru of the World
First Obstacle: India’s Soul is one but her body is mutilated.⁸³ So, she must multiply her collective Soul Force and by the accumulation of the Spiritual energy of her few children, she can learn the lesson of becoming one with the Divine and all existence. A boundless overhead Divine Love must dynamise and must capture the mind, life and body of the Indian subcontinent and its citizens must realise the falsity of division, long hatred, narrowness and enmity towards the brother souls and thus the Spirit will work out to retain the unity of her divided lands. Then India can teach the world the lesson of oneness and unity, thus leading the creation towards one and a united earth.⁸⁸
Second Obstacle: The Government machinery⁸⁴ has an important role in expediting Indian Spirituality to the world. One part of it has entered corruption and another part watches helplessly. Its root is in education. The education Sri Aurobindo received in England is not the same as the education the Britishers introduced in India. Their motive for education in India was to create a large number of clerks/employees with the purpose of ruling a big nation. After independence, these representative symbols of narrow Consciousness multiplied their numbers in every field, right from the highest administrative service to the lowest rung of the ladder. Now, the general mind of an average Indian is corrupt⁷⁵ and impure because he does not discover the Psychic Being in the heart or find a path to widen his Consciousness. Without finding the Psychic being, life becomes corrupt¹⁰⁷ and hazy. The Mother rightly noticed this deficiency and observed, “I know the conditions of the country (India). Even if one person could put himself faithfully at the disposal of the Truth, he could change the country and the world.”⁷⁹ From the above message, it appears that it is difficult to find a single truthful person in the country with possession of that Supramental Truth which is ‘supremely destructive of falsehood.’⁷⁸ The purpose of integral Education is to follow the best standard of the race, create employers, leaders of men, pioneers and inventors in different fields and finally the evolution of Spiritual men. To open constantly towards overhead descending Truth and to reject constantly the falsehood that is invading the human vessel from the surrounding world and from the Subconscient world below are the signs of true, uncorrupted and pure life. The emergence of an uncorrupted India can work towards the emergence of an uncorrupted Earth.
Third Obstacle: The state of consciousness of Indian women will influence this movement. Sri Aurobindo kept great hope¹⁰³ on women in building the future. Their main objective of life is not procreation, enjoyment of life with men but to accumulate Spiritual energy. The ‘virgin bridals of the dawn’⁸⁰ are identified as the future of the Nation and they can keep their mind, life and body untouched and pure to enter union with the Divine in all the ten planes of Consciousness and realise the full delight and perfection of all those planes or ‘virgin who comest perfected by joy.’⁸¹ These pure Souls are also a representative symbol of ‘citizens of that mother state.’⁸² Thus, Para-prakriti dominated Indian women can dream of the emergence of a virgin earth.⁹⁰
Fourth Obstacle: Money⁸⁵ is not meant to make more money. Money is a power of the Divine necessary for the perfection of material and vital life. Few affluent men are willing to collaborate and serve the Divine. They must be aware that apart of outer opulence of the outer world, there are nine inner worlds and in those inner worlds, inner opulence⁹⁴ has to be multiplied through the movement of Consciousness. The inner opulent perfected life and action of a Spiritual man 'will be even such a constant divine giving of itself and its powers, an outflowing of the knowledge, light, strength, love, joy, helpful shakti which it possesses in the Divine and by his influence and effluence on all around it according to their capacity of reception or on all this world and its creatures.'⁹⁴ His universal Nature is like Vasishtha’s cow of plenty,⁹⁴ Kamadhenu, from whose udder all mankind can draw its need and fulfil its deficiency. Thus, India can dream of an opulent earth.⁸⁹
Now this is a period of earth’s history, in which the movement of Consciousness through Yoga is identified as the crucial and outstanding unfinished task before the whole of humanity. Whoever learns the lesson to move the Consciousness in ten planes from Bliss Self to Inconscient Self, discharges his responsibility of helping humanity in perfecting and Divinising life.
OM TAT SAT
References:
72: The Mother’s Agenda-August-7, 1965 (Addendum),
73: The Mother’s Centenary Works/13/353/February 1954,
74: The Mother’s Agenda/July 21, 1962/Addendum,
75: “Even in India…And I am beginning to believe....That's what I observe when I am put in contact with the outside world, Europe…... But anyway, the Old World is an OLD world in the true sense of the word. India is much, much older, but more alive. Yet now it strikes me as so very rotten! They went rotten. You know what happens when a rotten apple is put next to a good one: England came and stayed much too long. It made things go quite rotten. Very, very rotten; it's difficult to heal. Otherwise, what's not rotten is truly good.” The Mother’s Agenda/July 14, 1962,
“And here, there's TOTAL corruption – total, to such a point that I'll give you an example. The government meddles in everything, you can't move a finger without its permission: you can't leave the country, you can't enter the country, you can't send money out, you can't open a shop, you can't ... nothing, nothing, nothing, not even plow your field without its permission. They meddle in everything, which in itself is pretty stupid. And then they make regulations – the more regulations you make, the more disobedience it creates, naturally… People no longer grow crops because it's too complicated and with all those taxes (they've scores of taxes to pay), it costs them much more than they can earn. And as there isn't enough food, there are naturally individuals who try and hoard as much as they can to sell it for as high a price as possible.” The Mother’s Agenda-August 14, 1964, “They're mad. No, the English made them thoroughly rotten. Those two hundred years of British rule left them completely rotten. Naturally, another effect is that some people have awakened, but they don't know anything; they know nothing either of administration or of government or anything – they've lost everything, and whatever they know is what they were taught by Britain, which means an absolutely corrupt business. So they don't know anything, they don't even know how to make a decision.” The Mother’s Agenda-August 12, 1967, “And the government is rotten. People whose very tactics and principle of action are falsehood: to deceive and deceive and deceive. And naturally, to deceive themselves.” The Mother’s Agenda-October 19, 1967,
76: “Islam was a return towards sensation, beauty, harmony in the form, and the legitimization of sensations and joy in beauty. From a higher viewpoint, it wasn't quite of a superior quality, but from a vital viewpoint, it was extremely powerful, and that's what gave them so much power to spread, to appropriate, seize, dominate. But what they did is very beautiful – all their art is magnificent, magnificent! It was a flowering of beauty Then there were others – it all comes one after another. And every religion came as a stage in the development and the relationship with the Divine, to lead the consciousness towards a oneness which is a totality and not a removal from a whole reality so as to obtain another. The need for totality, completeness, is what caused those religions to come like that, one after another.” The Mother’s Agenda- August 12, 1967, “To adopt a religion because one is born in that religion or because the people one loves and trusts practise that religion or because when one goes to a particular place where others pray and worship, one feels helped in one’s own prayer and worship, is not the sign of a very strong nature; I should say it is rather the sign of a weakness or at any rate of a lack of originality.” The Mother/The Mother’s Centenary Works (second edition)/8/p-246,
77: “I had this experience very, very strongly. When I left here [Pondicherry in 1915], as I got farther away, I felt as if emptied of something, and once in the Mediterranean, I wasn't able to bear it any longer: I fell ill. And even in Japan, which outwardly is a marvelous country – marvelously beautiful and harmonious (it WAS, I don't know what it is nowadays), and outwardly it was a joy every minute, a breathtaking joy, so strong was the expression of beauty – yet I felt empty, empty, empty, I absolutely lacked ... (Mother opens her mouth as though suffocating) ... I lacked the important Thing. And I found it again only when I came back here (Pondicherry).” The Mother’s Agenda-6/p-265,
78: The Mother’s Agenda/Vol-7/p-265,
79: The Mother’s Agenda/vol-10/p-148,
80: Savitri-401,
81: Savitri-424, “Since you feel that you are weak in regard to women, never touch a woman. Never allow a woman to touch you.” TMCW-17/More Answers from the Mother/p-13,
82: Savitri-262,
83: “But only if India is ONE can she fulfill this role (of becoming the Guru of the World), for how can one who is herself divided lead others? Thus the division of India is the first Falsehood that must disappear, for it is the symbol of the earth’s division. As long as India is not one, the world cannot be one. India’s striving for unity is the symbolic drama of the world’s striving for unity.” Satprem/The Mother’s Agenda/May-15, 1971 Addendum,
84: “I (The Mother) tell those who govern (the country):
“You leave free hands to the bandits and take insulting measures against the honest people.
It will be like that so long as the country is not governed by the wisest people.
The wisest people are those who can freely and correctly read the hearts and the minds of men.”
It was in the form of a conversation. I (the Mother) tell those who govern (the country):
"You leave free hands to the bandits and take insulting measures against the honest people.”
So the reply (from the Government of India):
"But how can we tell the bandits from the honest people until we see them at work?”
I (The Mother) said:
“Yes, it will always be like that, you will always commit the same sort of blunder ... until the country is governed by the wisest people."
(The Government of India asked): "Ah, but how can one know if they are the wisest people?”
(The Mother replied): “The wisest people are those who can freely and correctly read the hearts and the minds of men.”” The Mother/The Mother’s Agenda/23rd June 1965,
85: “But no one has yet dared to say: money is a force and belongs to nobody, but it must be used by the most disinterested and clear sighted person (or persons) in the country.” The Mother/The Mother’s Agenda/January 31, 1970,
“Money is not meant to generate money; money should generate an increase in production, an improvement in the conditions of life and a progress in human consciousness. This is its true use. What I call an improvement in consciousness, a progress in consciousness, is everything that education in all its forms can provide – not as it’s generally understood, but as we understand it here: education in art, education in ... from the education of the body, from the most material progress, to the spiritual education and progress through yoga; the whole spectrum, everything that leads humanity towards its future realization. Money should serve to augment that and to augment the material base for the earth’s progress, the best use of what the earth can give – its intelligent utilization, not the utilization that wastes and loses energies. The use that allows energies to be replenished.” The Mother’s Agenda-04.10.1958, “For in this ideal place, money would no longer be the sovereign lord; individual worth would have a far greater importance than that of material wealth and social position. There, work would not be for earning one's living, but the means to express oneself and develop one's capacities and possibilities, while at the same time being of service to the group as a whole, which would in turn provide for everyone's subsistence and field of action. In short, it would be a place where human relationships, ordinarily based almost exclusively on competition and strife, would be replaced by relationships of emulation in trying to do one's best, of collaboration and real brotherhood.” The Mother’s Agenda-18.01.1964,
86: “And in any society we should have all four types (Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Shudra), — even, for an example, if we create a purely productive and commercial society such as modern times have attempted, or for that matter a Shudra society of labour, of the proletariate such as attracts the most modern mind and is now being attempted in one part of Europe and advocated in others.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA/19/Essays on the Gita-523,
“In street and house, in councils and in courts
Beings he (King Aswapati) met who looked like living men
And climbed in speech upon high wings of thought
But harboured all that is subhuman, vile
And lower than the lowest reptile’s crawl.” Savitri-215
“I (Mother of Might) break the ignorant pride of human mind
And lead the thought to the wideness of the Truth;
I rend man’s narrow and successful life
And force his sorrowful eyes to gaze at the sun
That he may die to earth and live in his soul.” Savitri-510,
“The ascent to the divine Life is the human journey, the Work of works, the acceptable Sacrifice. This alone is man’s real business in the world and the justification of his existence, without which he would be only an insect crawling among other ephemeral insects on a speck of surface mud and water which has managed to form itself amid the appalling immensities of the physical universe.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-48,
87: “(The Divine is) the perfect Personality capable of all relations even to the most human, concrete and intimate; for he is friend, comrade, lover, playmate, guide, teacher, master, ministrant of knowledge or ministrant of joy, yet in all relations unbound, free and absolute. This too the divinised man becomes in the measure of his attainment...” CWSA/19/Essays on the Gita-141,
88: “August 15, 1947 is the birthday of free India… the old communal division into Hindus and Muslims seems now to have hardened into a permanent political division of the country. It is to be hoped that this settled fact will not be accepted as settled for ever or as anything more than a temporary expedient. For if it lasts, India may be seriously weakened, even crippled: civil strife may remain always possible, possible even a new invasion and foreign conquest. India’s internal development and prosperity may be impeded, her position among the nations weakened, her destiny impaired or even frustrated. This must not be; the partition must go… But by whatever means, in whatever way, the division must go; unity must and will be achieved, for it is necessary for the greatness of India’s future…” Sri Aurobindo/SABCL-26/On Himself/404, “I had the vision that India is the place where the fate of the earth will be decided.” The Mother/The Mother’s Agenda/10/145-19.04.1969,
89: “Our earth is a fragment and a residue;
Her power is packed with the stuff of greater worlds” Savitri-99,
“A bliss is felt that never can wholly cease,
A sudden mystery of secret Grace
Flowers goldening our earth of red desire.” Savitri-278,
“Arisen beneath a triple mystic heaven
The seven immortal earths were seen, sublime:” Savitri-672,
“In the collective gnostic life the integrating truth-sense, the concording unity of gnostic nature would carry all divergences in itself as its own opulence and turn a multitudinous thought, action, feeling into the unity of a luminous life-whole. This would be the evident principle, the inevitable result of the very character of the Truth-Consciousness and its dynamic realisation of the spiritual unity of all being.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine-1047, “The one rule of the gnostic life would be the self-expression of the Spirit, the will of the Divine Being; that will, that self-expression could manifest through extreme simplicity or through extreme complexity and opulence or in their natural balance, — for beauty and plenitude, a hidden sweetness and laughter in things, a sunshine and gladness of life are also powers and expressions of the Spirit. In all directions the Spirit within determining the law of the nature would determine the frame of the life and its detail and circumstance.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine-1104,
90: “Heaven’s joys might have been earth’s if earth were pure.” Savitri-123,
“The virgin forms through which the Formless shines,” Savitri-327,
91: “With Indians, it's very easy – they're heaven-blessed, these people, because it takes very little for them to be oriented in the right way. But there are two types of difficult religion, the Christian religion (especially in the form of Protestantism), and the Jewish religion.” The Mother’s Agenda- January 25, 1964,
92: “A dual Power at being’s occult poles
Still acted, nameless and invisible:
Her divine emptiness was their instrument.” Savitri-553
“He (Divine) dwells in me (Savitri), the mover of my acts,
Turning the great wheel of his cosmic work.
I am the living body of his light,
I am the thinking instrument of his power,
I incarnate Wisdom in an earthly breast,
I am his conquering and unslayable will.
The formless Spirit drew in me its shape;
In me are the Nameless and the secret Name.” Savitri-634,
“One man who earnestly pursues the Yoga is of more value than a thousand well-known men.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-35/Letters on Himself And The Ashram/p-691, "Therefore, besides the great solitaries who have sought and attained their self-liberation, we have the great spiritual teachers who have also liberated others and, supreme of all, the great dynamic souls who, feeling themselves stronger in the might of the Spirit than all the forces of the material life banded together, have thrown themselves upon the world, grappled with it in a loving wrestle and striven to compel its consent to its own transfiguration." CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-27
93: “The psychic and the spiritual opening with their experiences and consequences can lead away from life or to a Nirvana; but they are here being considered solely as steps in a transformation of the nature.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-943,
94: “Our sacrifice is not a giving without any return or any fruitful acceptance from the other side; it is an interchange between the embodied soul and conscious Nature in us and the eternal Spirit. For even though no return is demanded, yet there is the knowledge deep within us that a marvellous return is inevitable. The soul knows that it does not give itself to God in vain; claiming nothing, it yet receives the infinite riches of the divine Power and Presence.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-109, “If mankind only caught a glimpse of what infinite enjoyments, what perfect forces, what luminous reaches of spontaneous knowledge, what wide calms of our being lie waiting for us in the tracts which our animal evolution has not yet conquered, they would leave all and never rest till they had gained these treasures. But the way is narrow, the doors are hard to force, and fear, distrust and scepticism are there, sentinels of Nature, to forbid the turning away of our feet from her ordinary pastures.” Sri Aurobindo/TMCW-10/On Thoughts and Aphorisms/p-10-11, "All the action of the perfected soul will be even such a constant divine giving of itself and its powers, an outflowing of the knowledge, light, strength, love, joy, helpful shakti which it possesses in the Divine and by his influence and effluence on all around it according to their capacity of reception or on all this world and its creatures. That will be the complete result of the complete self-giving of the soul to the Master of our existence." Sri Aurobindo/CWSA/19/Essays on the Gita/p-490-491, "If thou canst not be the slave of all mankind, thou art not fit to be its master and if thou canst not make thy nature as Vasishtha’s cow of plenty with all mankind to draw its wish from her udders, what avails thy leonine supermanhood?" Sri Aurobindo/TMCW-10/On Thoughts and Aphorisms/p-247,
“Amid the welcome-hum of many bees
Invade our honied kingdom of the woods;
There let me lead thee into an opulent life.” Savitri-402,
95: CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-115,
96: “The lower, present and deluding mental Maya has first to be embraced, then to be overcome; for it (Maya) is God’s play with division and darkness and limitation, desire and strife and suffering in which He subjects Himself to the Force that has come out of Himself and by her obscure suffers Himself to be obscured... Its literal meaning is cunning, fraud or illusion… an undivine Maya, that which creates false mental forms and appearances, -- and hence the later significance of this word which seems to have meant originally a formative power of knowledge, the true magic of the supreme Mage, the divine Magician, but was also for adverse formative power of a lower knowledge, the deceit, illusion and deluding magic of the Rakshasa.” The Life Divine-126, 109, 507,
97: CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-676,
98: Kena Upanishada-1.4, CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-72, CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-403,
99: CWSA-13/Essays in Philosophy and Yoga/p-10-11,
100: “As for spiritual knowledge, it consists of two elements, experience and a direct knowledge which is not mental but is of the nature of a light showing the deeper truth of things, a direct vision and perception of the Truth…The ordinary consciousness is not capable of receiving it as knowledge except in a fragmentary way because it belongs to a deeper consciousness within or a higher consciousness above the mind. The ordinary consciousness has therefore to open to the deeper and the higher consciousness. It has to receive the knowledge from within and above. It cannot do this if it does not open. There must, therefore, first necessarily be an opening, however small, before any direct knowledge can come. As the knowledge comes the opening also can widen and so admit a greater and greater direct knowledge and experience. In some, however, the opening comes first very wide and then the knowledge comes afterwards in a great stream, some light of the Truth and many experiences…If one has merely a mental idea about the Divine, that is not knowledge. It is with the experiences and the inner light of knowledge that the realisation of the Divine begins. As for example, one may have the mental idea of the Divine Peace but that is nothing, only a mental conception. It is only when one has the feeling of the Divine Peace descending from above or in oneself or surrounding one that one begins to know what it is. That is what is called experience. Afterwards one begins to have a direct vision in knowledge of what the Peace is and what is its place in regard to the Divine Realisation; that is direct knowledge.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-198-199,
101: ‘not merely a state withdrawn from the all consciousness of the outward, withdrawn even from all consciousness of the inward’ CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-321, “Mind, being an action of the Infinite, depieces as well as aggregates ad infinitum. It cuts up being into wholes, into ever smaller wholes, into atoms and those atoms into primal atoms, until it would, if it could, dissolve the primal atom into nothingness. But it cannot, because behind this dividing action is the saving knowledge of the supramental which knows every whole, every atom to be only a concentration of all-force, of all-consciousness, of all-being into phenomenal forms of itself. The dissolution of the aggregate into an infinite nothingness at which Mind seems to arrive, is to the Supermind only the return of the self-concentrating conscious-being out of its phenomenon into its infinite existence.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-178,
102: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-734,
103: “I am beginning to understand why Sri Aurobindo always said it was woman (Mother caresses Sujata’s cheek with her finger) that could build a bridge between the two. I am beginning to understand. One day, I’ll explain. I am beginning to understand. Sri Aurobindo used to say: it is woman that can build a bridge between the old world and the supramental world. Now I understand.” The Mother/The Mother’s Agenda-26.04.1972,
104: TMCW-13/Words of the Mother-I/p-82-83,
105: “All Yoga is in its nature an attempt and an arriving at unity with the Supreme, --unity with the being of the Supreme, unity with the consciousness of the Supreme, unity with the bliss of the Supreme,-- or, if we repudiate the idea of absolute unity, at least at some kind of union, even if it be only for the soul to live in one status and periphery of being with the Divine, salokya, or in a sort of indivisible proximity, samipya. This can only be gained by rising to a higher level and intensity of consciousness than our ordinary mentality possesses.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-528, “All Yoga proceeds in its method by three principles of practice; first, purification, that is to say, the removal of all aberrations, disorders, obstructions brought about by the mixed and irregular action of the energy of being in our physical, moral and mental system; secondly, concentration, that is to say, the bringing to its full intensity and the mastered and self-directed employment of that energy of being in us for a definite end; thirdly, liberation, that is to say, the release of our being from the narrow and painful knots of the individualized energy in a false and limited play, which at present are the law of our nature.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-530, “All Yoga is a turning of the human mind and human soul, not yet divine in realization, but feeling the divine impulse and attraction in it, towards that by which it finds its greater being.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-571,
106: “We may say that here in India the reign of Intuition came first, intellectual Mind developing afterwards in the later philosophy and science. But in fact the mass of men at the time, it is quite evident, lived entirely on the material plane, worshipped the Godheads of material nature, sought from them entirely material objects. The effort of the Vedic mystics revealed to them the things behind through a power of inner sight and hearing and experience which was confined to a limited number of seers and sages and kept carefully secret from the mass of humanity secrecy was always insisted on by the mystics.” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I/p-267,
“A still deep sea, he laughs in rolling waves;
Universal, he is all, — transcendent, none.
To man’s righteousness this is his cosmic crime,
Almighty beyond good and evil to dwell
Leaving the good to their fate in a wicked world
And evil to reign in this enormous scene.” Savitri-657,
“All person perished in its namelessness.” Savitri-308,
“Sri Aurobindo once said (jokingly, as it were), while talking with those around him (I was there and we were talking about Christianity and the "new Christ"), he told them, "Oh, if the new Christ comes, the Church will crucify him!"” The Mother’s Agenda-October-7, 1967,
“Hard is the world-redeemer’s heavy task;
The world itself becomes his adversary,
Those he would save are his antagonists:
This world is in love with its own ignorance,
Its darkness turns away from the saviour light,
It gives the cross in payment for the crown.” Savitri-448,
“Inconscient traders in bundles of contraries,
They did what in others they would persecute;
When their eyes looked upon their fellow’s vice,
An indignation flamed, a virtuous wrath;
Oblivious of their own deep-hid offence,
Moblike they stoned a neighbour caught in sin.” Savitri-209
“There is no necessity to reveal one’s plans and movements to those who have no business to know it, who are incapable of understanding or who would act as enemies or spoil all as a result of their knowledge. Secrecy is perfectly admissible and usual in spiritual matters except in special relations like that of the Shishya to the Guru. We do not let people outside know what is going on in the Ashram but we do not tell any lies about it either. Most Yogis say nothing about their spiritual experiences to others or not until long afterwards and secrecy was a general rule among the ancient Mystics. No moral or spiritual law commands us to make ourselves naked to the world or open up our hearts and minds for public inspection. Gandhi talked about secrecy being a sin but that is one of his many extravagances.” SABCL-26/On Himself/p-380,
107: "The corruption of the best (the best Souls of earth) produced the worst by that strange chemistry of the power of life which generates evil out of good even as it can also generate good out of evil….Yet even in the earthward life a higher knowledge (Psychic and Spiritual knowledge) is indeed the one thing that is throughout needful, and without it the lower sciences (of arts, of literature, of religion and of modern science) and pursuits, however fruitful, however rich, free, miraculous in the abundance of their results, become easily a sacrifice offered without due order and to false gods; corrupting, hardening in the end the heart of man, limiting his mind’s horizons, they confine in a stony material imprisonment or lead to a final baffling incertitude and disillusionment." CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-141,
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