Friday, February 27, 2009

Yothu Yindi-Djapana



Djäpana wlutju
Dhurulama ngunhawarrtji djäpana
Warwu galanggarri
Rripa ngunhawarrtji djäpana
Warwu golungnha

Look at the sun
Falling from the sky
And the sunset
Takes my mind
Back to my homeland
Far away
It’s a story
Planted in my mind
It’s so clear
I remember
Oh my, oh my, sunset dreaming

Wo-o-o djäpana
Wo-o-o warwu
Wo-o-o rramani
Wo-o-o galanggarri

Hey, you people
Out there
How come
You ain’t fair
To the people
Of the land
Try my, try my, sunset dreaming

Wo-o-o djäpana
Wo-o-o warwu
Wo-o-o rramani
Wo-o-o galanggarri

Djäppana warwu
Djekulu dhurulangala
Wlutju warwu
Rripa ngunhawarrtji
Dhurulama – dhurulama
Djäpana warwu golungnha

Wo-o-o djäpana
Wo-o-o warwu
Wo-o-o rramani
Wo-o-o galanggarri

Hey, you children
Of the land
Don’t be fooled
By the Balanda ways
It will cause
Sorrow and woe
For our people
And our land

Wo djäpana
Wo warwu
Wo rramani
Wo galanggarri

So live it up
Live it up
Live it up
Live it up
With sunset dreaming

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Eternal Dawn



[Yusufali 113:1] Say: I seek refuge with the Lord of the Dawn

She follows to the goal of those that are passing on beyond, she is the first in the eternal succession of the dawns that are coming, - Usha widens bringing out that which lives, awakening someone who was dead.... What is her scope when she harmonises with the dawns that shone out before and those that now must shine? She desires the ancient mornings and fulfils their light; projecting forwards her illumination she enters into communion with the rest that are to come.

Kutsa Angirasa - Rig Veda, I. 113. 8, 10.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Kazi Nazrul Islam's Poem Bidrohi (The Rebel)

I'M THE MADNESS OF THE RECLUSE,

I'M THE THE SIGH OF GRIEF OF A WIDOW,

I'M THE ANGUISH OF THE DEJECTED,

I'M THE SUFFERING OF THE HOMELESS,

I'M THE PAIN OF THE HUMILIATED

WEARY OF BATTLES, I ,THE GREAT REBEL,

SHALL REST IN PEACE ONLY WHEN,

THE ANGUISHED CRY OF THE OPPRESSED

SHALL NO LONGER REVERBERATE IN THE SKY AND THE AIR,

AND THE TYRANT'S BLOODY SWORD

WILL NO LONGER RATTLE IN BATTLEFIELDS

READ THE REBEL IN FULL

KAZI NAZRUL ISLAM WIKIPEDIA



Sunday, February 22, 2009

The Principle Of Evil

The Principle of Evil

by Sri Aurobindo
The problem of evil is one that has taxed human thought and evolved various and conflicting solutions. To the rationalist who does not believe in anything not material, the problem does not exist. Everything is in nature as the result of evolution. Nature is blind and unintelligent and has therefore no conception of good or evil; the conception belongs to the human mind and is the result of the social sense and the ideas of pleasure and pain developed in human beings by a perfectly intelligible natural process. It is to men who believe in Intelligence as governing and developing the world that the problem exists. Why did evil come into existence and what is its purpose? The unwillingness of the devout soul to admit that evil can have its existence in God, has led to variations of the Manichean theory which sees a double control in the world, God as the Principle of good and Satan as the Principle of evil...

Sr Aurobindo's letter To Barin




"Let me tell you in brief one or two things about what I have long seen. My idea is that the chief cause of the weakness of India is not subjection nor poverty, nor the lack of spirituality or dharma [ethics] but the decline of thought-power, the growth of ignorance in the motherland of Knowledge. Everywhere I see inability or unwillingness to think - thought-incapacity or thought-phobia. Whatever may have been in the middle ages, this state of things is now the sign of a terrible degeneration. The middle age was the night, the time of the victory of ignorance. The modern world is the age of the victory of Knowledge. Whoever thinks most, seeks most, labors most, can fathom and learn the truth of the world, and gets so much more Shakti. If you look at Europe, you will see two things: a vast sea of thought and the play of a huge and fast-moving and yet disciplined force. The whole Shakti of Europe is in that. And in the strength of that Shakti it has been swallowing up the world, like the tapaswins [ascetics] of our ancient times, by whose power even the gods of the world were terrified, held in suspense and subjection. People say Europe is running into the jaws of destruction. I do not think so. All these revolutions and upsettings are the preconditions of a new creation.

Then look at India. Except for some solitary giants, everywhere there is your "simple man," that is, the average man who does not want to think and cannot think, who has not the least Shakti but only a temporary excitement. In India, you want the simple thought, the easy "word." In Europe they want the deep thought, the deep "word"; there even an ordinary laborer or artisan thinks, wants to know, is not satisfied with surface things but wants to go behind. But there is still this difference: there is a fatal limitation in the strength and thought of Europe. When it comes into the spiritual field, its thought-power can no longer move ahead. There Europe sees everything as riddle - nebulous metaphysics, yogic hallucination. They rub their eyes as in smoke and can see nothing clear. Still, some effort is being made in Europe to surmount even this limitation. We already have the spiritual sense - we owe it to our forefathers - and whoever has that sense has at his disposal such Knowledge and Shakti as with one breath might blow away all the huge power of Europe like a blade of grass. But to get that Shakti one must be a worshiper of Shakti. We are not worshipers of Shakti. We are worshipers of the easy way. But Shakti is not to be had by the easy way. Our forefathers dived into a sea of vast thought and gained a vast Knowledge and established a mighty civilization. As they went on in their way, fatigue and weariness came upon them. The force of thought diminished and with it also the strong current of Shakti. Our civilization has become an achalayatana [prison], our religion a bigotry of externals, our spirituality a faint glimmer of light or a momentary wave of religious intoxication. And so long as this sort of thing continues, any permanent resurgence of India is improbable

In Bengal this weakness has gone to the extreme. The Bengali has a quick intelligence, emotional capacity and intuition. He is foremost in India in all these qualities. All of them are necessary but they do not suffice. If to these there were added depth of thought, calm strength, heroic courage and a capacity for and pleasure in prolonged labor, the Bengali might be a leader not only of India, but of mankind. But he does not want that, he wants to get things done easily, to get knowledge without thinking, the fruits without labor, siddhi by an easy sadhana [discipline]. His stock is the excitement of the emotional mind..."

READ MORE

Watch This Movie



NAAN KADAVUL

Aghori


Friday, February 20, 2009

Monday, February 16, 2009

Sri Aurobindo's Sadhaks Must Be Reminded!!

February 1951
(Note written by hand two months after Sri Aurobindo's departure)


The lack of the earth's receptivity and the behavior of Sri Aurobindo's disciples
1 are largely responsible for what happened to his body. But one thing is certain: the great misfortune that has just beset us in no way affects the truth of his teaching. All he said is perfectly true and remains so. Time and the course of events will make this abundantly clear.

Constant Aspiration


O mon doux Seigneur,
suprême Vérité
j'aspire à ce que
cette nourriture que
j'absorbe, infuse
dans toutes les cellules
de mon corps
Ta toute-connaissance,
Ta toute-puissance,
Ta toute-bonté.
(translation)
O my sweet Lord supreme Truth,
I aspire
that this food I take may infuse into all the cells of my body Your all-knowledge, Your all-power, Your all-kindness.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Neoliberalism And Hindutva



Neoliberalism and Hindutva - Fascism, Free Markets and the Restructuring of Indian Capitalism



Wednesday, 29 October 2008


Shankar Gopalakrishnan


Over the 1980s and 1990s we witnessed the simultaneous rise of two reactionary political projects, Hindutva and neoliberalism, to a position of dominance in India. Such a combination is not unusual, in that neoliberalism is usually allied with and promoted by socially reactionary forces (such as the hyper-nationalism of the "bureaucratic-authoritarian" dictatorships in Latin America, the implicit racism and jingoism of Thatcher and Reagan, etc.). Yet the Indian experience, while sharing this broad tendency, also contains some very distinct characteristics. We on the left have tended to understand this simultaneous rise as a straightforward cause-effect relationship. Hindutva is seen as an effort by neoliberalism, or perhaps more broadly by capitalism, to divert attention from class conflict, to divide and weaken working class struggles and to deflect class-driven anxieties on to minority communities. This approach is problematic in two senses. First, it does not explain why Hindutva organisations are able to develop a mass base, except to the extent that they are seen to be appealing to "historical identity" or "emotive" issues. This is undoubtedly true. But it is also insufficient, for by definition any right wing project will appeal to "emotions"; it does not take our understanding of the actual appeal of Hindutva forward. Second, it fails to provide us much understanding of why this specific historical conjuncture has taken place. Hindutva is seen as simply an "available" reactionary ideology that capital has picked up for its purposes...read more

Deadly Alliance:Hindutva and Zionism


In this paper, I look at some features of Hindutva and compare it to Zionism. As ideological currents that are both powerfully placed with respect to U.S. imperialism’s global ambitions, this comparison is meant to sound a warning to all peace-loving and democratic minded people; fascism is on the rise again, and with alliances developing like those between Hindutva and Zionism, lack of knowledge about either could lead to catastrophic consequences. The struggle of Palestine for freedom and self-determination is tied to the struggle of India for freedom from the neo-colonial order being imposed at the behest of the IMF-WTO regime and its U.S. sponsors and domestic lackeys. Zionism and Hindutva are global movements with a history that is both fascistic and pro-imperialist. Here are some reflections. I use lengthy quotes for the simple reason that it is better to allow authors to speak for themselves rather than paraphrase them; hopefully this curtails monologue and allows for a richer representation of the issues. The sources at the end of the document are to be treated as resources, many of them available over the internet for more in-depth study...read more


India's Killing Fields


Neo-Liberal Terrorism in India:
The Largest Wave of Suicides in History
By P. SAINATH

The number of farmers who have committed suicide in India between 1997 and 2007 now stands at a staggering 182,936. Close to two-thirds of these suicides have occurred in five states (India has 28 states and seven union territories). The Big 5 – Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh– account for just about a third of the country’s population but two-thirds of farmers’ suicides. The rate at which farmers are killing themselves in these states is far higher than suicide rates among non-farmers. Farm suicides have also been rising in some other states of the country..read more

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Sister Nevidita Was A Revolutionary Leader

SARADA MA AND SISTER NEVIDITA
Disciple: I heard that Nivedita also was a revolutionary, is it true?
Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean? She was one of the revolutionary leaders. She went about visiting places in India to come in contact with the people. She was open and frank and talked about her revolutionary plan to everybody. When she used to speak on revolution it was her very soul that spoke, her true personality used to come
161
out. Yoga was yoga of course, but it was as if that sort of work was intended for her: that was fire if you like. Her book "Kali--the Mother" is very inspiring, but it is revolutionary and not non-violent. She went about among the Thakurs of Rajputana trying to preach them revolution. At that time everybody wanted some sort of revolution. I met several Rajput Thakurs who had revolutionary ideas, unsuspected by the Government. One Thakur Ramsingh was afterwards caught in our movement and put to jail. He suddenly died out of fright. But he was not a man to be frightened. They may have poisoned him. You know Moropant afterwards turned moderate. More than one Indian army were ready to help us. I knew a Panjabi Sentinel at Alipore who spoke to me about the revolution.
Once Nivedita came to Baroda to see the Gaekwad and told him that his duty was to join the revolution and she said to him: if you have anything to ask you can ask Mr. Ghose. But the Gaekwad never talked politics with me afterwards. But thing I could not understand about Nivedita was her admiration for Gokhle. I wondered how a revolutionary could have any admiration for him. Once she was so much exercised when his life was threatened. She came to me and said: Mr. Ghose, it is not one of your man that is doing this. I said: No. She was much relieved and said: then it must be a free lancer.
The first time she came to see me she said, "I hear Mr. Ghose, you are a worshipper of Shakti?" There was no non-violence about her. She had an artistic side too. Khaserao Jadhav and myself went to receive her at station at Baroda. She saw the Dharamshala on the station and exclaimed: "how beautiful!" Looking at the new College buildings she uttered: "how ugly!" Khaserao said: She must be a little mad!

Disciple: What about her Yogic Sadhana?
Sri Aurobindo: I don't know; whenever we met together we spoke about politics and revolution. But her eyes showed power of concentration and a capacity for going into trance. She had got something in her spiritual life.
Disciple: She came to India with idea of doing Yoga.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. But she took up politics as part of Vivekananda's work. Her book is one of the best on Vivekananda. Vivekananda himself had ideas about political work and fits of revolution. Once he had a vision which corresponded to something like Maniktola Garden. It is curious that many Sannyasins at that time had thought of India's freedom. Maharshis young disciples were revolutionaries. Yoganands' Guru had also such ideas. Thakur Dayananda was also one such. (turning to a disciple)
Do you know one Mr. Mandal?
Disciple: The one with spectacles.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it is he who introduced me through someone else to the Secret Society, where I came in contact with Tilak and others.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Bagha Jatin @Jatindranath Mukherjee

JATIN AFTER THE FINAL BATTLE IN BALASORE

Inspired by Swami Vivekananda, Jatin expressed his ideals in simple words: "Amra morbo, jat jagbe" — "We shall die to awaken the nation"..... READ MORE HERE

Bengali Revolutionaries


Vivekanada Visiting Sri Aurobindo In Alipore Jail


CELL AT ALIPORE JAIL
From Nirodbaran's "Talks with Sri Aurobindo" (volume 1) pages 245-24625 January 1939S
(disciple): Vivekananda had a sort of Nirvanic experience. He has himself mentioned something about it.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, that experience is the only one definitely known.
Purani: He also had visions at Amarnath. But he seemed always torn between two tendencies: world-work and direct sadhana.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. And he used to put more intuitive flashes into his conversations than into his writings. That's what I found on reading Nivedita's book "Vivekananda - The Master As I Saw Him". As a rule too, it is in talk that such flashes come - at last in his case it was so.
Nirodbaran: You said the other day that his spirit visited you in Alipore Jail and told you about the Higher Consciousness from where, I suppose, these intuitive flashes come.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, he did tell me. I had no idea about things of the Higher Consciousness. I never expected him and yet he came to teach me. And he was exact and precise even in the minutest details.
Nirodbaran: That is very interesting. He has nowhere in his books or conversations spoken of those things. Could his spirit know after death what he didn't know in life?
Sri Aurobindo: Why not? He may have got it afterwards.
S (disciple): Can the spirit evolve after death?
Sri Aurobindo: Of course. But either he may not have known in life or else he may have known and kept silent. A Yogi doesn't say all that he knows. He says only what is necessary. If I wrote all that I know, then it would be ten times the amount I have written.
S (disciple): People will judge you by what you have written.
Sri Aurobindo (laughing): That doesn't matter.
Nirodbaran: Then we shan't know all that you know?
Sri Aurobindo: Well, realise first what I have written.

Khandana Bhava




Unlooser of Our Bonds
(translation of Khandana Bhava Bandhana by
Swami Vivekananda)
We adore you, one beloved of all hearts,
Love Incarnate, blessing all by your life.
Stainless Godhead, freely taking a human form,
You have conquered human bondage and fear.
We adore you, brightest jewel of creation,
Taking from us every blemish and shame;
Form of spirit, eyes illumined with God-sight,
By your pure glance our delusion is gone.
We adore you, surging ocean of God's bliss,
Ever radiant with the nectar of love.
When we seek you with unswerving devotion,
We pass safely through the forest of life.
We adore you, come to earth in our time,
Guide to Oneness, leading us in Truth.
When, by your grace, our inner tumult ceases
Dawns the pure light deep within our hearts.
We adore you, lifter of our sorrow,
Futi or mercy, giving us your life.
By awesome effort for the good of mankind
You destroy all bondage in this age.
We adore you, greatest of renouneers,
Wholly free from passion and possession.
0 man divine, bestow on us devotion;
Grant us strength to follow after you!
we adore you, tree from doubt, ever tearless,
Standing steadfast in the vision of God,
Giving refuge to all seekers who come to you,
Caring nothing for their station or race.
We adore you, our unshakable refuge
In this ocean of delusion and pain.
At your pure love, freely showered on all alike,
Strife and sorrow dwindle down to a drop.
Victory to you, 0 Lord!
Speech and thought cannot hold you,
Yet without you we cannot think or speak.
Victory to you, 0 Lord!
Come to the heart's dark cave;
Reveal yourself in great radiance of light.
Victory to you, 0 Lord!
Remover of our pain,
Unlooser of our bonds,
Supreme and eternal good, we adore you!





RAMAKRISHNA SONGS


On the importance of Ramakrishna for India
From a lecture delivered under the auspices of the Bombay National Union by Sri Aurobindo to a large gathering at Mahajanwadi, Bombay, on Sunday, the 19th January, 1908.
The title is "The present situation".
The Bengali has the faculty of belief. Belief is not a merely intellectual process, belief is not a mere persuasion of the mind, belief is something that is in our heart, and what you believe, you must do, because belief is from God. It is to the heart that God speaks, it is in the heart that God resides. That saved the Bengali. Because of this capacity of belief, we were chosen as the people who were to save India, the people who were to stand foremost, the people who must suffer for their belief, the people who must meet everything in the faith that God was with them and that God is in them. Such a people need not be politically strong, it need not be a people sound in physique, it need not be a people of the highest intellectual standing. It must be a people who can believe.In Bengal there came a flood of religious truth.Certain men were born, men whom the educated world would not have recognised if that belief, if that God within them had not been there to open their eyes, men whose lives were very different from what our education, our Western education, taught us to admire.One of them, the man who had the greatest influence and has done the most to regenerate Bengal, could not read and write a single word. He was a man who had been what they call absolutely useless to the world. But he had this one divine faculty in him, that he had more than faith and had realised God. He was a man who lived what many would call the life of a madman, a man without intellectual training, a man without any outward sign of culture or civilisation, a man who lived on the alms of others, such a man as the English-educated Indian would ordinarily talk of as one useless to society. He will say, "This man is ignorant. What does he know? What can he teach me who have received from the West all that it can teach?"
But God knew what he was doing. He sent that man to Bengal and set him in the temple of Dakshineshwar in Calcutta, and from North and South and East and West, the educated men, men who were the pride of the university, who had studied all that Europe can teach, came to fall at the feet of this ascetic.The work of salvation, the work of raising India was begun.
Sri Aurobindo
from "Speeches", booklet edition pages 26-27also in SABCL, volume 1published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Pondicherrydiffusion by SABDA







Sunday, February 8, 2009

The Mother Explains...Part4



529. Self-pity is always born of self-love; but pity for others is not always born of love for its object. It is sometimes a self-regarding shrinking from the sight of pain; sometimes the rich man's contemptuous dole to the pauper. Develop rather God's divine compassion than human pity.
530. Not pity that bites the heart and weakens the inner members, but a divine masterful and untroubled compassion and helpfulness is the virtue that we should encourage.


Can there be any greater misfortune than to live without knowing the Supreme Lord? And yet this almost universal ill rarely excites any pity. Because one who knows that he is suffering from it also knows that the cure depends on him alone-for the Lord's compassion is infinite
.
1 June 1970- The Mother

531. Love and serve men, but beware lest thou desire their approbation. Obey rather God within thee.
532. Not to have heard the voice of God and His angels is the world's idea of sanity.
533. See God everywhere and be not frightened by masks. Believe that all falsehood is truth in the making or truth in the breaking, all failure an effectuality concealed, all weakness strength hiding itself from its own vision, all pain a secret and violent ecstasy. If thou believest firmly and unweariedly, in the end thou wilt see and experience the All-true, Almighty and All-blissful.
By tireless constancy in effort and faith, we can unite with the Divine Consciousness which is constant and perfect beatitude.
2 June 1970- The Mother
534. Human love fails by its own ecstasy, human strength is exhausted by its own effort, human knowledge throws a shadow that conceals half the globe of truth from its own sunlight; but divine knowledge embraces opposite truths and reconciles them, divine strength grows by the prodigality of its self-expenditure, divine love can squander itself utterly, yet never waste or diminish.


Can human love change into divine love, human strength into divine strength and human knowledge into divine knowledge?
There is only one love.
Human love is nothing but divine love perverted and distorted by the instrument through which it is expressed. The same holds true for strength and knowledge. In their essence they are eternal and unlimited. It is the limitations and deficiencies of human nature which distort them and alter them beyond recognition.
3 June 1970- The Mother


535. The rejection of falsehood by the mind seeking after truth is one of the chief causes why mind cannot attain to the settled, rounded and perfect truth; not to escape falsehood is the effort of divine mind, but to seize the truth which lies masked behind even the most grotesque or far-wandering error.


What is the divine mind?


What Sri Aurobindo calls the divine mind is the prototype of the mental function which is totally and perfectly surrendered to the Divine and works only under divine inspiration.
When a human being exists only by and for the Divine, his mind necessarily becomes a divine mind
.
4 June 1970- The Mother


536. The whole truth about any object is a rounded and all-embracing globe which for ever circles around but never touches the one and only subject and object of knowledge, God.
537. There are many profound truths which are like weapons dangerous to the unpractised wielder. Rightly handled, they are the most precious and potent in God's armoury.


One drop of true knowledge can create a revolution if it falls into a world of ignorance.
5 June 1970- The Mother


538. The obstinate pertinacity with which we cling to our meagre, fragmentary, night-besieged and grief-besieged individual existence even while the unbroken bliss of our universal life calls to us, is one of the most amazing of God's mysteries. It is only equalled by the infinite blindness with which we cast a shadow of our ego over the whole world and call that the universal being. These two darknesses are the very essence and potency of Maya.


Until, tired of the ignorance and stupidity of the ego, we lay ourselves at the feet of the Lord and ask Him to become the sole master.
6 June 1970- The Mother


539. Atheism is the shadow or dark side of the highest perception of God. Every formula we frame about God, though always true as a symbol, becomes false when we accept it as a sufficient formula. The Atheist and Agnostic come to remind us of our error.
540. God's negations are as useful to us as His affirmations. It is He who as the Atheist denies His own existence for the better perfecting of human knowledge. It is not enough to see God in Christ and Ramakrishna and hear His words, we must see Him and hear Him also in Huxley and Haeckel.


All mental ways of knowing the Divine are incomplete and insufficient, even if we accept them all. Only a knowledge that is lived can give us a glimpse of the truth.
7 June 1970- The Mother


541. Canst thou see God in thy torturer and slayer even in thy moment of death or thy hours of torture? Canst thou see Him in that which thou art slaying, see and love even while thou slayest? Thou hast thy hand on the supreme knowledge. How shall he attain to Krishna who has never worshipped Kali?

All is the Divine and the Divine alone exists.
8 June 1970- The Mother

Saturday, February 7, 2009

The Mother Explains..Part3


362. O soul of India, hide thyself no longer with the darkened Pandits of the Kaliyuga in the kitchen and the chapel, veil not thyself with the soulless rite, the obsolete law and the unblessed money of the Dakshina; but seek in thy soul, ask of God and recover thy true Brahminhood and Kshatriyahood with the eternal Veda; restore the hidden truth of the Vedic sacrifice, return to the fulfilment of an older and mightier Vedanta.

This is to free us from so-called religious conventions which tell us what to do and what not to do. We must recover the true wisdom and receive directly from the Divine the precise indications for living in and for the Truth.
2 March 1970- The Mother

The Mother Explains...Part2



358. Men run after pleasure and clasp feverishly that burning bride to their tormented bosoms; meanwhile a divine and faultless bliss stands behind them waiting to be seen and claimed and captured.
359. Men hunt after petty successes and trivial masteries from which they fall back into exhaustion and weakness; meanwhile all the infinite force of God in the universe waits vainly to place itself at their disposal.
360. Men burrow after little details of knowledge and group them into bounded and ephemeral thought-systems; meanwhile all infinite wisdom laughs above their heads and shakes wide the glory of her iridescent pinions.
361. Men seek laboriously to satisfy and complement the little bounded being made of the mental impressions they have grouped about a mean and grovelling ego; meanwhile the spaceless and timeless Soul is denied its joyous and splendid manifestation
.


This state of things must change for the supramental consciousness to reign on earth. But although the supramental consciousness has been at work on earth for more than a year, has anything changed in this miserable condition?
28 February 1970


Since the supramental consciousness is at work on earth, won't these miserable conditions change in spite of everything?


Naturally, the first effect will be a change of consciousness, first among the most receptive, and then in a greater number of people.
A change in the general conditions of collective life can only come later, perhaps long after individual reactions have been transformed. The first noticeable result is a heightening of the general confusion, because the old principles have lost their authority, and men (except for a very few) are not ready to obey the Divine Command, because they are incapable of perceiving it.

1 Match 1970- The Mother

The Mother Explains...Part1



414. To fear God really is to remove oneself to a distance from Him, but to fear Him in play gives an edge to utter delightfulness.
415. The Jew invented the God-fearing man; India the God-knower and God-lover.
416. The servant of God was born in Judaea, but he came to maturity among the Arabs. India's joy is in the servant- lover.
417. Perfect love casts out fear; but still keep thou some tender shadow and memory of the exile and it will make the perfection more perfect.
418. Thy soul has not tasted God's entire delight, if it has never had the joy of being His enemy, opposing His designs and engaging with Him in mortal combat.
419. If you cannot make God love you, make Him fight you. If He will not give you the embrace of the lover, compel Him to give you the embrace of the wrestler.
420. My soul is the captive of God, taken by Him in battle; it still remembers the war, though so far from it, with delight and alarm and wonder.


What does Sri Aurobindo mean by "the joy of being His enemy"?


Here too I have to say that I do not know exactly, because he never told me.
But I can tell you about my own experience. Until the age of about twenty-five, all I knew was the God of religions, God as men have created him, and I did not want him at any price. I denied his existence but with the certitude that if such a God did exist, I detested him.
When I was about twenty- five I discovered the inner God and at the same time I learned that the God described by most Western religions is none other than the Great Adversary.
When I came to India, in 1914, and became acquainted with Sri Aurobindo's teaching, everything became very clear.

24 March 1970- The Mother

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Come On Baby Light My Fire


Astonishing Incongruities
Is It Time to Bail Out of America?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
California State Controller John Chiang announced on January 26 that California’s bills exceed its tax revenues and credit line and that the state is going to print its own money known as IOUs. The template is already designed.
Instead of receiving their state tax refunds in dollars, California residents will receive IOUs. Student aid and payments to disabled and needy will also come in the form of IOUs. California is negotiating with banks to get them to accept the IOUs as deposits.
California is often identified as the world’s eighth largest economy, and it is broke...continue reading

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Prophet Muhamad And The Monk

A single occupation,a single aim,a single joy—the Divine.
- The Mother

The Early Years




It was time for the annual trip to Syria. Even though Hashim had secured pacts with tribes along the caravan route many years before, the journey was arduous and not without danger. With this in mind Abu Talib decided to leave his nephew behind thinking it was better for him to remain at home with Fatima and his other children. When the time came for the caravan to depart, Muhammad, who was now twelve years old, rushed up to him and threw his arms around him. Abu Talib never had the heart to refuse his nephew anything at all and so it was agreed that he would join him on the long trip north to Syria. Buhairah, the Monk
After many weeks of arduous travel the caravan reached a place called Tayma, a village on the outskirts of Basra. It was there that a monk by the name of Buhairah lived alone in a hermitage that had been inherited by a succession of hermit monks. Over the centuries, important religious documents had been brought to the hermitage and left by his predecessors so Buhairah had made it his life's work to study them well and had become very knowledgeable.
In the documents were prophecies that told of another prophet to come after Jesus, peace be upon him. The prophecies described in detail the time in which he would be born, his appearance, character and background and it was Buhairah's dearest wish to be blessed to live long enough to see him. One day as Buhairah was meditating outside his hermitage he noticed a caravan in the distance making its way towards the city. It was a common sight to see caravans making their way there, but as he gazed towards it he noticed there was something very different about this one. In the blue sky was a lone white cloud that floated just above the caravaners heads, when the caravan changed direction the cloud would follow. He watched the caravan more intently and when it started to descend the neighboring hills he witnessed the palm tress bow their branches as the caravan passed by. He noticed something else even more strange, when the caravan came to rest under the trees the cloud disappeared and the palm branches bowed down still further to provide a dense and cooling shade. Just before the caravan reached the market place it halted again under the shade of the trees and Muhammad, being the youngest, was asked to tend to the camels whilst the others went to the marketplace.
Buhairah made haste to greet the caravaners and invited them to eat with him; caravans had stopped there many times before, but Buhairah had never invited them nor yet any other caravaners to join him. As they sat down to eat Buhairah looked at each one in turn, then asked if there was anyone missing from the party. They informed him that there was another, a boy, whom they had asked to tend the camels. Buhairah insisted that the boy should join them, and the caravaners felt embarrassed at their unintentional forgetfulness and so Muhammad was invited to join them.
When he arrived, Buhairah observed his appearance and manners closely. After a while he questioned him and then asked him to swear by the idols of Mecca -- which was common practice amongst the Arabs. Muhammad refused saying, "There is nothing more hateful to me than to do that." The answers Muhammad gave Buhairah convinced him ninety-nine percent that the young boy, in whose company he was, was none other than the one prophesied in the scriptures to become the last Prophet of Allah. However, one thing bothered him, Abu Talib had referred to Muhammad as being his son, and the scriptures stated quite clearly that the last prophet would be an orphan, so he inquired about Muhammad's parents and was told that indeed Muhammad was an orphan, and that Abu Talib was not his real father, rather, he was his paternal uncle.
Now, Buhairah knew for certain that his dearest wish had been fulfilled and that he had been blessed to live long enough to meet the boy destined to be the last Prophet of Allah. He was overcome with joy but at the same time a great sense of fear struck deep within his heart. He told Abu Talib that he must take great care of Muhammad and advised him not to continue onto Basra as he feared the descendants of the Jews that had migrated to Arabia many years before to await the arrival of the last prophet would also notice his signs and try to harm him as he was not of their race. Abu Talib took Buhairah's advice and they returned to Mecca.
Early Character
Muhammad had grown into a quiet, thoughtful youth preferring to look after his uncle's sheep rather than playing with the other children of Mecca. He loved the peace and tranquility of the valleys and mountainside and whilst tending his uncle’s flock would pass his time observing and marveling at the wonders of the creation of Allah. Like all boys of the Koraysh tribe he was taught the art of manhood and how best to defend himself. Muhammad had very keen eyesight and so it wasn't surprising that he became an excellent archer like his ancestor Prophet Ishmael. His reputation for being honest, trustworthy and among other fine qualities, intelligent, was recognized by all who knew him, however, it wasn't until after his prophethood that he learned to read or write.

Prophet Muhamad And The Two Angels

He who chooses the infinite has been chosen by the infinite.
- Sri Aurobindo



The Two Angels

Little Muhammad loved to play with his brothers but also enjoyed sitting alone by himself. Several months had passed since his return from Mecca when one day as his brothers were playing not far away among the sheep and he sat alone, two angels, having taken the appearance of men, dressed in pure white robes came to him with a golden bowl containing snow. Muhammad was neither afraid nor yet concerned when they miraculously opened his chest, felt around his heart, washed it, then sealed his chest and left leaving no trace whatsoever of an incision. His brothers saw the two men, and watched in awe what had happened and as soon as they left ran as fast as their legs could carry them to tell their mother.
Halima and her husband rushed to Muhammad and found him standing alone. His face looked somewhat pale and Halima held him gently in her arms and asked what had happened. He told them about the two men and how they had opened his chest and looked for something, but what it was they were looking for he told them he did not know. Halima looked at his chest but there were no signs of an opening whatsoever, nor yet were there any traces of blood. She looked for the two men, but there was no sign of them either.
The only difference she could find was that the small mark she had taken to be a birth-mark between his shoulders appeared to be raised a little more than usual. Halima and her husband questioned their sons repeatedly, but none deviated from the account they first related and were convinced that the boys had spoken the truth. Halima and her husband were extremely worried by the incident and feared that bad jinn were trying to harm their beloved foster son. Fearing for his safety, it was decided to return the young Muhammad to Lady Amina, so once again Halima set off with Muhammad to Mecca.
Halima's Decision
Halima decided not to tell Lady Amina the real reason for his early return but Lady Amina was quick to realize she was concealing something. At last Lady Amina persuaded Halima to tell her the real reason for her son's hasty return. Lady Amina listened intently to the account of the opening of his chest and of Halima's fear that some bad jinn may be trying to harm him. Lady Amina comforted her and told her that no harm would come to him because she had been told that he was destined for an important role.
She also told Halima about her blessed pregnancy and of the light that had shone from her womb. After hearing this Halima's heart was at peace once more and greatly relieved to know her fears for her beloved foster child were unfounded. Lady Amina thanked Halima for the loving care she gave her son and once again Halima and her foster son returned to their home in the desert where he lived with his extended family until he reached five years old at which time he returned to live with his mother in Mecca.
The event of his chest opening was described in detail by Prophet Muhammad, (sa) in later years. He told his companions that the men were angels and when they opened his chest they were looking for a speck of black. Upon finding it they removed it and washed his heart in pure snow from the golden bowl then resealed his chest. He also said that each son of Adam, except Mary and her son, is touched by satan at birth.


http://www.infinitelight.org/content/view/890/16/

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Aloneness


Feeling yourself alone in the midst of human beings is the sign that you have need now to find in your own being contact with the Divine Presence. You must then concentrate in silence and try to enter deep within so that you may discover the Divine Presence in the core of your consciousness, beyond all mental activity.
16 December 1971- The Mother

In The Name Of The Mother


Monday, February 2, 2009

The Triple Transformation

SRI AUROBINDO Letters on Yoga Volume 3
PART FOURSection One
The Triple Transformation: Psychic – Spiritual – Supramental



The fundamental realisations of this yoga are:
1. The psychic change so that a complete devotion can be the main motive of the heart and the ruler of thought, life and action in constant union with the Mother and in her Presence.
2. The descent of the Peace, Power, Light, etc. of the Higher Consciousness through the head and heart into the whole being, occupying the very cells of the body.
3. The perception of the One and Divine infinitely everywhere, the Mother everywhere and living in that infinite consciousness.
***
You know the three things on which the realisation has to be based:
(1) on a rising to a station above the mind and on the opening out of the cosmic consciousness;
(2) on the psychic opening; and
(3) on the descent of the higher consciousness with its peace, light, force, knowledge,
Ananda etc. into all the planes of the being down to the most physical.
All this has to be done by the working of the Mother's force aided by your aspiration, devotion and surrender.
That is the Path. The rest is a matter of the working out of these things for which you have to have faith in the Mother's working.
***
When one speaks of the divine spark, one is thinking of the soul as a portion of the Divine which has descended from above into the manifestation rather than of something which has separated itself from the cosmos. It is the nature that has formed itself
out of the cosmic forces – mind out of cosmic mind, life out of cosmic life, body out of cosmic Matter.
For the soul there are three realisations: – (1) the realisation of the psychic being and consciousness as the divine element in the evolution; (2) the realisation of the cosmic Self which is one in all; (3) the realisation of the Supreme Divine from which both individual and cosmos have come and of the individual being (
Jivatma) as an eternal portion of the Divine.

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There Are Moments When....


God gave the strength and He can take it away. He gave it power to act and He can baffle its action of the fruits the individual sought and turn it to quite other results. This is so common an experience that we do not see how any man with the power of introspection can deny it. Only at ordinary times, when things seem to be moving according to our calculations, we forget it, but on certain occasions He manifests Himself with such force either in events or in our own actions that unless we are blinded by egoism or by infatuation we are compelled to perceive the universality of the force that is acting and the insignificance of the individual. So also there are particular movements in particular epochs in which the Divine Force manifests itself with supreme power shattering all human calculations, making a mock of the prudence of the careful statesman and the scheming politician, falsifying the prognostications of the scientific analyser and advancing with a vehemence and velocity which is obviously the manifestation of a higher than human force. The intellectual man afterwards tries to trace the reasons for the movement and lay bare the forces that made it possible, but at the time he is utterly at fault, his wisdom is falsified at every step and his science serves him not. These are the times when we say God is in the movement, He is its leader and it must fulfil itself however impossible it may be for man to see the means by which it will succeed...read more
" examine carefully SRI AURBINDO'S writing in bande mataram and karmayogin..most of the time,SRI AUROBINDO refers The Supreme as "HE"...people in general normally refer the Divine as God ..but Sri Aurobindo does the "opposite"..the Holy Quran refers the absolute,the supreme as HE,THE LORD,ALLAH..in theVedas,The Supreme is also refered as HE,HIM,THE LORD,..[Yusufali 3:26] Say: "O Allah! Lord of Power (And Rule), Thou givest power to whom Thou pleasest, and Thou strippest off power from whom Thou pleasest: Thou enduest with honour whom Thou pleasest, and Thou bringest low whom Thou pleasest: In Thy hand is all good. Verily, over all things Thou hast power and SRI AUROBINDO also says GOD GAVE THE STRENGTH AND HE CAN TAKE IT AWAY..it is similar isnt it?.."