Learning from Durga Stotra
Table of Content
Introduction
DURGA STOTRA is one of the important Mantras of Integral Yoga Sadhana. We can unite with the Supreme Mother using the powerful mantras written by Sri Aurobindo. Each mantra has a very specific action. If we really aspire and act through this Mantra, it will help in the hastening of the transformation of the Earth. Although it was written by Sri Aurobindo in Bengali at the height of independence movement in 1909, in adoration of Mother Durga, urging people to collectively pray for Durga to eliminate the enemies, later this powerful mantra had been given a different meaning by the Divine Mother. These hymns have a far-reaching impact even today.
What The Mother says About Durga Stotra:
One would like to see in all countries the same veneration for the national soul, the same aspiration to become fit instruments for the manifestation of its highest ideal, the same ardour for progress and self-perfection enabling each people to identify itself with its national soul and thus find its true nature and role, which makes each one a living and immortal entity regardless of all the accidents of history.
Bulletin, August 1952
- Durga Stotra is not for India Alone but for entire Earth.
- Durga Stotra is not for awakening the Youth of India, but for awakening the people of the whole world.
- Durga Stotra is an inspiring call for the Divine Mother to wake up the ignorant and inconscient nations.
- Durga Stotra helps us to identify with the national soul but also discover our true highest inner nature.
- Durga Stotra should be used to awaken in us the living and immortal entity of soul of our being.
Mother belongs to whole universe and the Divine
I belong to no nation, no civilisation, no society, no race, but to the Divine.
I obey no master, no ruler, no law, no social convention, but the Divine.
To Him I have surrendered all, will, life, self; for Him I am ready to give all my blood, drop by drop, if such is His Will, with complete joy; and nothing in His service can be sacrifice, for all is perfect delight.
What is India?
Sri Aurobindo: For what is a nation? What is our mother-country? It is not a piece of earth, nor a figure of speech, nor a fiction of the mind. It is a mighty Shakti, composed of the Shaktis of all the millions of units that make up the nation, just as Bhawani Mahisha Mardini sprang into being from the Shakti of all the millions of gods assembled in one mass of force and welded into unity. The Shakti we call India, Bhawani Bharati, is the living unity of the Shaktis of three hundred million people, but she is inactive, imprisoned in the magic circle of Tamas, the self-indulgent inertia and ignorance of her sons….
The Mother: From a spiritual point of view, India is the foremost cou0+-+ — ntry in the world. Its mission is to give the example of spirituality. Sri Aurobindo came on earth to teach this to the world.
This fact is so obvious, that even a simple, ignorant farmer here is in his heart closer to the Divine than all the intellectuals of Europe.
All those who want to become Aurovilians must know that and behave accordingly, otherwise they are unworthy of being Aurovilians.
What is India’s True Role for the Divine?
Sri Aurobindo: India is the guru of the nations, the physician of the human soul in its profounder maladies; she is destined once more to new-mould the life of the world….
Spiritual power in the present creates material power in the future and for this reason we always find that if it is material force which dominates the present, it is spiritual which moulds and takes possession of the future….
Since the spiritual life of India is the first necessity of the world’s future, we fight not only for our own political and spiritual freedom but for the spiritual emancipation of the human race…. For it is not among an enslaved, degraded and perishing people that the Rishis and great spirits can long continue to be born.
…that India was arising, not to serve her own material interests only, to achieve expansion, greatness, power and prosperity, though these too she must not neglect-, and certainly not like others to acquire domination of other peoples, but to live also for God and the world as a helper and leader of the whole human race.
When the word of the Eternal has gone abroad, when the spirit moves over the waters and the waters stir and life begins to form, then it is a law that all energies are forced to direct themselves, consciously or unconsciously, willingly or against their will, to the one supreme work of the time, the formation of the new manifest and organised life which is in process of creation….
Durga Stotra has the power to shake all the nations, not just India
The Iron Age is ended. Only now
The last fierce spasm of the dying past
Shall shake the nations …
Sri Aurobindo, “In the Moonlight”
Sri Aurobindo Puts the Mother’s Questions Before Us?
The Mother’s feet are on the threshold, but she waits to hear the true cry, the cry that rushes out from the heart, before she will enter…. The Mother asks us for no schemes, no plans, no methods. She herself will provide the schemes, the plans, the methods better than any we can devise. She asks us for our hearts, our lives, nothing less, nothing more.
Regeneration is literally re-birth, and re-birth comes not by the intellect, not by the fullness of the purse, not by policy, not by change of machinery, but by the getting of a new heart, by throwing away all that we were into the fire of sacrifice and being reborn in the Mother. Self-abandonment is the demand made upon us. She asks of us, “How many will live for me? How many will die for me?” and awaits our answer.
Who is Supreme Divine Mother?
“For the Mother is one but she comes before us with differing aspects; many are her powers and personalities, many her emanations and Vibhutis that do her work in the universe. The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates. But something of her ways can be seen and felt through her embodiments and the more seizable because more defined and limited temperament and action of the goddess forms in whom she consents to be manifest to her creatures.”
(Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, Vol. 32, p. 14)
Why the Presence of Divine Mother is Crucial for the Evolution of Earth
The supramental change is a thing decreed and inevitable in the evolution of the earth-consciousness; for its upward ascent is not ended and mind is not its last summit. But that the change may arrive, take form and endure, there is needed the call from below with a will to recognise and not deny the Light when it comes, and there is needed the sanction of the Supreme from above.
The power that mediates between the sanction and the call is the presence and power of the Divine Mother. The Mother’s power and not any human endeavour and tapasya can alone rend the lid and tear the covering and shape the vessel and bring down into this world of obscurity and falsehood and death and suffering Truth and Light and Life divine and the immortal’s Ananda.
– Sri Aurobindo
Stanza 1
1. Mother Durga! Rider on the lion, giver of all strength, Mother, beloved of Shiva! We, born from thy parts of Power, we the youth of India, are seated here in thy temple. Listen, O Mother, descend upon earth, make thyself manifest in this land of India.
Meaning: O Mother Durga, who rides a lion, the most powerful of all Gods, The Mother who is beloved of Shiva. We the Youth of India, are born from your parts of Power, are seated in your temple. Listen, O Mother, descend upon earth, make thyself manifest in this land of India.
Everything is identified with the One.
ü Brahman is the Consciousness that knows itself in all that exists;
ü Brahman is the Force that sustains the power of God and Titan and
Demon,
ü the Force that acts in man and animal and the forms and
energies of Nature;
ü Brahman is the Ananda, … Brahman is the inner Soul in all.
Brahman is the Only Temple where all exists. We are all seated in Her Temple, in the Temple of Brahman.
Terms in the Mantra:
1. Who is Mother Durga?
Goddess Durga, the conquering and protecting aspect of the Universal Mother….
Durga combines the characteristics of Maheshwari and Mahakali to a certain extent…
The Mother: When you invoke Durga, it is I you invoke through her, when you invoke Shiva, it is I you invoke through him — and in the final analysis, to the Supreme Lord go all prayers. — December 17, 1958
You are my Light, my Force
and my Joy
You are my sovereign
Realization.
O Lord, You are my peace, my force and my joy,
You are my sovereign realization.
Om
Supreme Lord,
You are my Light, my Force
and my Joy
You are my sovereign Realization.
Sri Aurobindo: Durga is the Mother’s power of Protection. 15 April 1933
Durga combines the characteristics of Maheshwari and Mahakali to a certain extent, — there is not much connection with Mahalakshmi. The combination of Krishna and Mahakali is one that has a great power in this Yoga and if the names rise together in your consciousness, it is a good sign.
21 March 1938
What aspect of the Mother’s personality comes out on Prosperity day? Is it something like the goddess Annapurna, who satisfies one’s material needs?
I suppose it would be some aspect like that — an aspect of Durga.
2 March 1934
Descend upon Earth
Why Mother should Descend upon Earth?
The word “Descend upon Earth” is given so much importance in Hymns to Durga. It is written not once but for multiple times.
Why Earth?
Earth is the chosen place of mightiest souls;
Earth is the heroic spirit’s battlefield,
The forge where the Archmason shapes his works.
Thy servitudes on earth are greater, King,
Than all the glorious liberties of heaven.
The Earth will not be destroyed.
The earth is a representative and symbolic world, a kind of crystallization and concentration of the evolutionary labor giving it a… more concrete reality. It has to be taken like this: the history of the earth is a symbolic history. And it is on earth that this Descent takes place (it’s not the history of the universal but of the terrestrial creation); the Descent occurs in the individual TERRESTRIAL being, in the individual terrestrial atmosphere.
Reason 1:
Descend upon Earth to finish Her Work
Let’s take Savitri, which is very explicit on this: the universal Mother is universally present and at work in the universe, but the earth is where concrete form is given to all the work to be done to bring evolution to its perfection, its goal. Well, at first there’s a sort of emanation representative of the universal Mother, which is always on earth to help it prepare itself; then, when the preparation is complete, the universal Mother herself will descend upon earth to finish her work. And this She does with Satyavan — Satyavan is the soul of the earth. She lives in close union with the soul of the earth and together they do the work; She has chosen the soul of the earth for her work, saying, ‘HERE is where I will do my work.’ Elsewhere it’s enough just to BE and things Simply ARE. Here on earth you have to work.
There are clearly universal repercussions and effects, of course, but the thing is WORKED OUT here, the place of work is HERE. So instead of living beatifically in Her universal state and beyond, in the extra-universal eternity outside of time, She says, ‘No, I am going to do my work HERE, I choose to work HERE.’
The Supreme then tells her, ‘What you have expressed is My Will.’….
I am only realizing what He has conceived.
I am the protagonist
and the continuator of His work. — The Mother
‘I want to work HERE, and when all is ready, when the earth is ready, when humanity is ready (even if no one is aware of it), when the Great Moment comes, well… I will descend to finish my work.’
Reason 2:
Descend upon Earth for Change of Consciousness
Descent upon earth for Change of Consciousness — Prepare us for Superconscience descent
Each time new forces descend upon earth, a change of consciousness is produced; and a change of consciousness must have a corresponding change of movement. The earth is being charged more and more with forces coming from regions that are faster and faster.
For example, it is said that for a certain period the terrestrial world was ruled by “overmental” forces and that this rule is going to be transcended, that the world will be governed by supramental forces; You say that the movement of expansion becomes more and more swift; this means that the world is filled with a consciousness which makes the movements of the world more and more rapid. This would be altogether the material transcription of the spiritual phenomenon. The earth is being charged more and more with forces coming from ever higher regions (for our consciousness), which means that they come faster and faster, giving more and more the sense of the instantaneous. What has been discovered is a kind of physical symbolism of this phenomenon which would tend to prove scientifically that the universe is in progress.
In order that the involved principles of Overmind and Supermind should emerge from their veiled secrecy, the being and powers of the superconscience must descend into us and uplift us and formulate themselves in our being and powers; this descent is a sine qua non of the transition and transformation. This is referred to in the Vedas as the birth of the gods in men, devanam˙ janimani; Sri Aurobindo regards it as indispensable for supramental realisation on earth.
Reason 3:
Descend upon Earth of the Age of Truth:
Truth: Truth is the rock on which the world is built. Satyena tisthate jagat. Falsehood can never be the true source of strength. When falsehood is at the root of a movement, that movement is doomed to failure. — Sri Aurobindo
In this age of superconscient conscisousness, humanity has to be ready by living in harmony and integrally with the Will of the Divine, the Universal Person present within us. A Force of Unity will come into being by integrating knowledge, devotion and work.
The day the Self-born unity will come into being by the harmony and integration of knowledge, devotion and work, as impelled by the Will of the Virat Purusha, the Universal Person, on that day the chariot of Jagannath will come out on the avenues of the world, radiating its light in all directions. Satya Yuga, the Age of Truth will descend upon earth; the world of mortal man will become the field for the play of the Divine, the temple-city of God, the metropolis of Ananda.
It was this that occurred on the 24th November, 1926, and it is only then that Sri Aurobindo started his Ashram, being sure that with the cooperation of the gods, the supermind can descend upon earth. What happened on the 24th November prepared the possibility of this descent and on that day he retired into seclusion and entered into deep and powerful meditation.
Reason 4:
Descend upon Earth for the permanent replacement of Old World:
While practising this yoga, we all initially eager to join, some declare to dedicate their life for this Yoga. But after sometime, the zeal fizzles out like a foaming surface of human mind. We all come and join with “with the psychic in front”. But when the freshness of that new experience fades away, the old world nature comes back to the haunt the surface with all its habits, preferences, small manias, shortcomings and misunderstandings, lower nature’s desires, lusts, ambitions, wealth; the peace is replaced by restlessness, the joy vanishes, the understanding is blinded. The situation again becomes distressing, a veritable ladders-and-snakes operation: a little rise, and a sudden stumble, and a steep fall. People alas were caught in a vicious circle, and were cut off from the psychic. The crux of the problem, therefore, was not to allow the psychic to recede into the background, but rather to bring it into the open and make it “the leader of the march” and give it the control of the rest of the human faculties. The cardinal problem of education was thus to keep the psychic awake, endow it with effective sovereignty, and leave it to reorganise one’s life.
The Mother says: The conditions in which men live on earth are the result of their state of consciousness. To seek to change these conditions without changing the consciousness is a vain chimera… collective progress and individual progress are interdependent. A way must therefore be found so that these two types of progress may proceed side by side. All impulsions of rivalry, all struggle for precedence and domination must disappear and give way to a will for harmonious organisation, for clear-sighted and effective collaboration.
The thinking ´elite in India even identifies her with one of the aspects of the universal Mother, as the following extract from the Hymn to Durga illustrates:
“Mother Durga! Rider on the lion, giver of all strength,… we, born from thy parts of Power, we the youth of India, are seated here in thy temple. Listen, O Mother, descend upon earth, make thyself manifest in this land of India. …
Rider on the Lion
O Supreme Mother, rider on the lion.
Sri Aurobindo: The lion is the attribute of the Goddess Durga, the conquering and protecting aspect of the Universal Mother.
12 July 1929
*
The lion with Durga on it is the symbol of the Divine Consciousness acting through a divinised physical-vital and vital-material force. November 1933
The lion is the symbol of power. It would be better to say that under the control of the Divine Will, power is beneficent, while without that control it harms everyone and becomes terrible. 10 April 1933
The Lion is the vital force.
*
The lion means vital force, strength, courage — here full of the light, illumined by the spiritual consciousness.
*
The lion indicates force and courage, strength and power. The lower vital is not lionlike.
The Death’s Head is the symbol of the Asura (the adversary of the gods) vanquished and killed by the Divine Power.
Sri Aurobindo: Before you can be the Lord’s lion, you should first be the Lord’s lamb,’’
Enough of being the lamb! Now become the lion.”
Sri Aurobindo: The ordinary Bhakta is not a lion heart. The lion hearts get
experiences comparatively soon but the ordinary Bhakta has often to feed on his own love or yearning for years and years — and he does it.
O Supreme Mother, You are the giver of all strength.
When we immerse ourselves in your love, we get all the strength.
In this love lie peace and joy, the fount of all strength and all realisation. It is the infallible healer, the supreme consoler; it is the victor, the sovereign teacher.
When we find the Supreme Mother within us, we will get the ultimate strength. Our Aim should be eternal Strength.
Eternal Strength:
For it is in the spirit that strength is eternal and you must win back the kingdom of yourselves, the inner Swaraj, before you can win back your outer empire. There the Mother dwells and She waits for worship that She may give strength. Believe in Her, serve Her, lose your wills in Hers, your egoism in the greater
ego of the country, your separate selfishness in the service of humanity. Recover the source of all strength in yourselves and all else will be added to you, social soundness, intellectual preeminence, political freedom, the mastery of human thought, the hegemony of the world. — Sri Aurobindo
The deeper we look, the more we shall be convinced that the one thing wanting, which we must strive to acquire before all others, is strength — strength physical, strength mental, strength moral, but above all strength spiritual which is the one inexhaustible and imperishable source of all the others. If we have strength everything else will be added to us easily and naturally. In the absence of strength we are like men in a dream who have hands but cannot seize or strike, who have feet but cannot run….-Sri Aurobindo
Above us, within us, around us is the All-Strength and it is that that we have to rely on for our work, our development, our transforming change. — Sri Aurobindo
Why We lost this Inner Strength?
India, the ancient Mother, is indeed striving to be reborn, striving with agony and tears, but she strives in vain. What ails her, she who is after all so vast and might be so strong? There is surely some enormous defect, something vital is wanting in us, nor is it difficult to lay our finger on the spot. We have all things else, but we are empty of strength, void of energy. We have abandoned Shakti and are therefore abandoned by Shakti. The Mother is not in our hearts, in our brains, in our arms.
The wish to be reborn we have in abundance, there is no deficiency there. How many attempts have been made, how many movements have been begun, in religion, in society, in politics! But the same fate has overtaken or is preparing to overtake them all. They flourish for a moment, then the impulse wanes, the fire dies out, and if they endure, it is only as empty shells, forms from which the Brahma has gone or in which it lies overpowered with Tamas and inert. Our beginnings are mighty, but they have neither sequel nor fruit.
What is our Real Strength?
While others look upon their country as an inert piece of matter — a few meadows and fields, forests and hills and rivers — I look upon my country as the Mother. I adore Her, I worship Her as the Mother. What would a son do if a demon sat on his mother’s breast and started sucking her blood?… I know I have the strength to deliver this fallen race. It is not physical strength — I am not going to fight with sword or gun — but the strength of knowledge.
- Sri Aurobindo
How to get this Strength?
If we proceed with the faith in the work, in our instrumentality for the work, in the Power that missions us, then in the very act of trial, of facing and surmounting difficulties and failures, the strength will come and we shall find our capacity to contain as much as we need of the All-Strength of which we grow more and more perfect vessels.
When you believe in God, when you believe that God is guiding you, believe that God is doing all and that you are doing nothing, — what is there to fear?… There is nothing to fear…. What can all these tribunals, what can all the powers of the world do to that which is within you, that Immortal, that Unborn and Undying One, whom the sword cannot pierce, whom the fire cannot burn, and whom the water cannot drown? Him the jail cannot confine and the gallows cannot end. What is there that you can fear when you are conscious of him who is within you? Courage is then a necessity, courage is natural and courage is inevitable…. You are protected through life and death by One who survives in the very hour of death, you feel your immortality in the hour of your worst sufferings, you feel you are invincible….
Try to realise the strength within you, try to bring it forward, so that everything you do may be not your own doing, but the doing of that Truth within you. Try so that every hour that you live shall be enlightened by that presence, that every thought of yours shall be inspired from that one fountain of inspiration, that every faculty and quality in you may be placed at the service of that immortal Power within you…. The leader is within yourselves.
Let there be no fainting of heart and no depression, and also let there be no unforeseeing fury, no blindly-striking madness. We are at the beginning of a time of terrible trial. The passage is not to be easy, the crown is not to be cheaply earned. India is going down into the valley of the shadow of death, into a great horror of darkness and suffering. Let us realise that what we are now suffering, is a small part of what we shall have to suffer, and work in that knowledge, with resolution, without hysteria…. The first need at the present moment is courage, a courage which knows not how to flinch or shrink.
Sri Aurobindo repeatedly called on his countrymen to develop the Kshatriya spirit, almost lost during our centuries of subjection. “The Kshatriya of old must again take his rightful position in our social polity to discharge the first and foremost duty of defending its interests. The brain is impotent without the right arm of strength.”
Mother, beloved of Shiva!
Sri Aurobindo: Shiva is the Lord of Tapas. The power is the power of Tapas.
The Mother: And as you know, the serpent is the power of evolution, it is Shiva’s own creature; he always puts them on his head and around his neck because they symbolize the power of evolution and transformation.
Shiva the white and pure, the ascetic, the still, contemplative Yogin holds them in himself as Prajna, theWise One, God ideal.
But Shiva is tamasic and rajas is necessary to induce motion before things can exist.
Sri Aurobindo: What is intended in the first place to fill the void was indicated in the peace and joy which came to you as the touch of Shiva — naturally, this would not be all but a beginning, a basis for a new self, a new consciousness, an activity of a greater nature; as I told you, it is a deep spiritual calm and peace that is the only stable foundation for a lasting Bhakti and Ananda. In that new consciousness there would be a new basis for relations with others; for an ascetic dryness or isolated loneliness cannot be your spiritual destiny since it
is not consonant with your Swabhava which is made for joy, largeness, expansion, a comprehensive movement of the lifeforce. Therefore, do not be discouraged; wait upon the purifying movement of Shiva.
Mother’s Conversation with Shiva
The Mother: I knew how it was with her because I remember the days when Sri Aurobindo was here and I used to go downstairs to give meditations to the people assembled in the hall. There’s a ledge above the pillars there, where all the gods used to sit — Shiva, Krishna, Lakshmi, the Trimurti, all of them — the little ones, the big ones, they all used to come regularly, every day, to attend these meditations. It was a lovely sight. But they didn’t have this kind of adoration for the Supreme. They had no use for that concept — each one, in his own mode of being, was fully aware of his own eternal divinity; and each one knew as well that he could represent all the others (such was the basis of popular worship, and they knew it). They felt they were a kind of community, but they had none of those qualities that the psychic life gives: no deep love, no deep sympathy, no sense of union. They had only the sense of their OWN divinity. They had certain very particular movements, but not this adoration for the Supreme nor the feeling of being instruments: they felt they were representing the Supreme, and so each one was perfectly satisfied with his particular representation.
Except for Krishna…. In 1926, I had begun a sort of overmental creation, that is, I had brought the Overmind down into matter, here on earth (miracles and all kinds of things were beginning to happen).
I asked all these gods to incarnate, to identify themselves with a body (some of them absolutely refused). Well, with my very own eyes I saw Krishna, who had always been in rapport with Sri Aurobindo, consent to come down into his body. It was on November 24th, and it was the beginning of ‘Mother.’
Shiva, on the other hand, refused. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I will come only when you have finished your work. I will not come into the world as it is now, but I am ready to help.’ He was standing in my room that day, so tall (laughing) that his head touched the ceiling! He was bathed in his own special light, a play of red and gold… magnificent! Just as he is when he manifests his supreme consciousness — a formidable being! So I stood up and… then he told me, ‘No, I’m not tying myself to a body, but I will give you ANYTHING you want.’ The only thing I said (it was all done wordlessly, of course) was:
‘I want to be rid of the physical ego.’
Well, mon petit (laughing), it happened! It was extraordinary!… After a while, I went to find Sri Aurobindo and said, ‘See what has happened! I have a funny sensation (Mother laughs) of the cells no longer being clustered together! They’re going to scatter! He looked at me, smiled and said, Not yet.
And the effect vanished.
But Shiva had indeed given me what I wanted!
Not yet, Sri Aurobindo said.
No, the time wasn’t ripe. It was too early, much too early.
We, born from thy parts of Power, we the youth of India, are seated here in thy temple
O Mother, we are in essence created from the Divine only. We are part of the Supreme. Our Souls are the creations from the Supreme. Our souls carry the Divine spark within us. Our Souls sit and take rest in your Supreme Divine Temple.
In Mother’s terms, youth does not symbolise an age group from 15–40. Our Aim should be for eternal youth.
Eternal youth: it is a gift the Divine gives us when we unite ourselves with Him.
Youth — Are we Youth in the true sense of the word?
Are we growing in our consciousness every second?
Are we growing in our consciousness every minute?
Are we growing in our consciousness every hour?
Are we growing in our consciousness every day?
Are we growing in our consciousness every month?
Are we growing in our consciousness every year?
Are we growing in our consciousness every decade?
Are we growing in our consciousness every life?
We have to ask ourselves this question again and again?
Are we in our old thoughts in a young body?
Or
Are we in our young thoughts in an old body?
The Mother:
What I want to bring about in the material world, upon the
earth.
1. Perfect Consciousness.
2. Integral Knowledge, omniscience.
3. Power invincible, irresistible, ineluctable; omnipotence.
4. Health, perfect, constant, unshakable; perpetually renewed
energy.
5. Eternal youth, constant growth, uninterrupted progress.
6. Perfect beauty, complex and total harmony.
7. Inexhaustible unparalleled riches, control over all thewealth
of this world.
8. The gift of healing and giving happiness.
9. Immunity from all accidents, invulnerability against all adverse
attacks.
10.Perfect power of expression in all fields and all activities.
11.The gift of tongues, the power of making oneself understood
perfectly by all.
12.And all else necessary for the accomplishment of Thy work.
23 October 1937
How to become Eternal Youth?
To know how to be reborn into a new life at every moment is the secret of eternal youth. — The Mother.
If India is to survive, she must be made young again. Rushing and billowing streams of energy must be poured into her; her soul must become, as it was in the old times, like the surges, vast, puissant, calm or turbulent at will, an ocean of action or of force.
Whether you become a sannyasin or a philanthropist or a patriot, first you must become a man. Vivekananda welcomed the manifestation of the Brahman in any form, be it in the strength of the sannyasin or in the power of the leader of men, in self-abnegation or in self-reliance. — Swami Vivekananda
The Mother says:
“Sri Aurobindo does not belong to the past nor to history.
“Sri Aurobindo is the Future advancing towards its realization.
“Thus we must shelter the eternal youth required for a speedy advance, in order not to become laggards on the way.”
The Mother:
If one remains eternally young and if one can smile eternally, then one has taken a great step towards transformation. When one is above the fetters of the ego and the desires, one begins to smile and when one can constantly aspire to progress, then one remains young. Here are two sure means to reach the goal. Do not waste time. Become an optimist and follow the direct path. There is nothing to ponder about.
We are not seeking holiness but youth — the eternal youth of an ever-progressing being;
We are not seeking a lesser being but a better being and above all a vaster one. Satprem
Sri Aurobindo: “Our first necessity, if India is to survive and do her appointed work in the world, is that the youth of India should learn to think — to think on all subjects, to think independently, fruitfully, going to the heart of things, not stopped by their surface ….
We must begin by accepting nothing on trust from any source whatsoever, by questioning everything and forming our own conclusions. We need not fear that we shall by that process cease to be Indians or fall into the danger of abandoning Hinduism. India can never cease to be India or Hinduism to be Hinduism, if we really think for ourselves. It is only if we allow Europe to think for us that India is in danger of becoming an ill-executed and foolish copy of Europe. We must not begin by becoming partisans, our first business as original thinkers will be to accept nothing, to question everything.”
Make thyself manifest in this land of India.
Supreme Mother was already present in this universe from time immemorial, from the beginning of this universe.
If She is already present from the inception of this universe, why Sri Aurobindo has emphasised again for Her to manifest in India.
Prayer to manifest Her in our life:
Om, Supreme Lord, God of kindness and mercy
Om, Supreme Lord, God of love and felicity
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Will
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Truth
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Purity
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Perfection
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Oneness
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Eternity
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Infinity
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Immortality
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Silence
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Peace
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Existence
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Consciousness
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Omnipotence
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Felicity
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Knowledge
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Omniscience
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Wisdom
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Equality
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Intensity
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Light
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Harmony
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Compassion
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Beauty
Om, Supreme Lord, manifest Your Love
Stanza 2
2. Mother Durga! From age to age, in life after life, we come down into the human body, do thy work and return to the Home of Delight. Now too we are born, dedicated to thy work. Listen, O Mother, descend upon earth, come to our help.
Our souls get an opportunity to be born again and again. We forget that we are making a timeless journey of our soul here. We do not know about our actual birth. Our birthday is only for this life’s journey. Our souls never die. They pass on from one life to another with a progressive form. The choice is on us how far we can take our soul to the highest Divine consciousness.
This is the moment when great things are done. One must not miss the opportunity. Our souls should not miss this opportunity.
We must allow our Psychic to grow inwardly from the thumb size shape to the complete Divine Light or Bliss or Knowledge.
Every birth we come from you and return to the Divine’s abode based on our soul’s aspiration. Soul decides the parents, family, society, country, religion, etc. We consciously or unconsciously do your work. Work is given by you only., not for our mental seeking or fame success prestige. The work is meant only to realise you alone. Work done in right attitude is meditation.
From age to age, that Light comes down on the earth to help it become sooner what it always was and seeks after in its troubled heart; and that Light is clothed in one word or another, it takes on a sweet or a terrible face, or a vast and powerful one like an all-embracing sea, but it is the same Light always, and the soul that opens itself in that ray secretly recognizes a Face it has loved many a time. From century to century it uncovers itself — the same child with folded hands, gazing at the world with love.
What is Thy Work?
In thy works there are always these three, the Master, the Worker and the Instrument. To define them in oneself rightly and rightly to possess them is the secret of works and of the delight of works.
Learn thou first to be the instrument of God and to accept thy Master. The instrument is this outward thing thou callest thyself; it is a mould of mind, a driving-force of power, a machinery of form, a thing full of springs and cogs and clamps and devices. Call not this the Worker or the Master; it can never be the Worker or the Master. Accept thyself humbly, yet proudly, devotedly, submissively and joyfully as a divine instrument.
There is no greater pride and glory than to be a perfect instrument of the Master.
The world is the eternal Play of God, the eternal manifestation of the Self. Then it becomes possible to fully know and fully realize God — to do what is said in the Gita, “To know Me integrally.” The physical body, the life, the mind and understanding, the supermind and the Ananda — these are the spirit’s five levels. The higher man rises on this ascent the nearer he comes to the state of that highest perfection open to his spiritual evolution. Rising to the Supermind, it becomes easy to rise to the Ananda. One attains a firm foundation in the condition of the indivisible and infinite Ananda, not only in the timeless Parabrahman [Absolute] but in the body, in life, in the world. The integral being, the integral consciousness, the integral Ananda blossoms out and takes form in life. This is the central clue of my yoga, its fundamental principle.
We are again born to do thy work and we need your help.
An Eternity BEYOND TIME (not something that lasts forever: something timeless), yes, the word would be: “manifesting,” “making itself perceptible,” or “becoming active” — that’s not it, because.
Each moment of the Supreme is a whole in itself.
And “moment,” what does it mean? What does it correspond to in the truth of the Supreme? I don’t
know — for us, that’s how it is translated, because everything is translated that way for us. All change is
translated for us as the sense of time — ONE sense of time, a certain sense of time, which may be
infinite and eternal, but is a time all the time. And for Him, the change is timeless.
Because the consciousness [Mother’s] is outside time and space, completely, and yet there is this.
Just as each individual has a psychic being which is his true self and which governs his destiny more or less overtly, so too each nation has a psychic being which is its true being and moulds its destiny from behind the veil: it is the soul of the country, the national genius, the spirit of the people, the centre of national aspiration, the fountainhead of all that is beautiful, noble, great and generous in the life of the country. True patriots feel its presence as a tangible reality. In India it has been made into an almost divine entity, and all who truly love their country call it “Mother India” (BharatMata) and offer her a daily prayer for the welfare of their country. It is she who symbolises and embodies the true ideal of the country, its true mission in the world.
Stanza 3
3. Mother Durga! Rider on the lion, trident in hand, thy body of beauty armour-clad, Mother, giver of victory. India awaits thee, eager to see the gracious form of thine. Listen, O Mother, descend upon earth, make thyself manifest in this land of India.
Mother Durga comes riding on a lion, symbolising Power, is also armed with a trident in hand and annihilates the enemies of God. When we have this gracious form of beauty armour-clad Mother with us, what is there for us the Aryan children, to fear of anything. The country has waited for long, to see her gracious form. Let us all invoke the Divine Mother to descend upon Earth and make Her manifest in this land of India.
Remember that, though you cry out to the Heavens for help in your misery, it is not the blue sky that hears, it is nothing outside you that comes to save, but He within you alone can protect. Art thou oppressed, O man, by ogre & giant, by fiend & foeman? Seek His mighty Shakti, Bhavani Mahishamardini, in yourself and She will externalize armed with sword & trident to crush the triumphing Asura. This is the law & the gospel. — Sri Aurobindo
How Savitri Met Durga in Her Ascent
Savitri ascends further and meets a woman in gold on a throne-like boulder, armed with trident and thunderbolt, with her feet upon a lion lying below. She is the Mother of Might guarding the hosts of Light from the forces of Night and Death. She tells Savitri that she is her own secret soul come down into the human world to protect and save the threatened, to reward the strong. She topples down tyranny and injustice. She is Durga, she is Lakshmi, she is Kali, who is charged to do God’s mighty work. She awaits the advent of God.
From Huta:
Tuesday 5.11.57 once more a card came from the Mother displaying Durga with her eighteen hands; holding various kinds of symbolic objects. With a trident in one of her right hands she is piercing the chest of a demon who is sitting on a buffalo and holding a short broad sword The lion is digging its nails into his chest.
The legend goes that the buffalo opposing Durga tried to kill her. But, when Durga cut off its head, the real being who had taken the form of the buffalo emerged. The being was an Asura and was called Mahisasura.
To Durga’ s left is another demon whose dagger‐holding hand
the Goddess is thrusting back with another of her hands.
The whole picture was full of significance and strength.
The Mother had written on the card: Durga, She will fight until there are no more anti-divine forces upon earth. 5.11.57
India awaits thee, eager to see the gracious form of thine. Listen, O Mother, descend upon earth, make thyself manifest in this land of India.
It would be a tragic irony of fate if India were to throw away her spiritual heritage at the very moment when in the rest of the world there is more and more a turning towards her for spiritual help and a saving Light. This must not and will surely not happen; but it cannot be said that the danger is not there. There are indeed other numerous and difficult problems that face this country or will very soon face it. No doubt we will win through, but we must not disguise from ourselves the fact that after these long years of subjection and its cramping and impairing effects a great inner as well as outer liberation and change, a vast inner and outer progress is needed if we are to fulfil India’s true destiny.
-Sri Aurobindo
Giver of victory
To the most stubborn goes the victory. — — The Mother
Stanza 4
4. Mother Durga! Giver of force and love and knowledge, terrible art thou in thy own self of might, Mother beautiful and fierce. In the battle of life, in India’s battle, we are warriors commissioned by thee; Mother, give to our heart and mind a titan’s strength, a titan’s energy, to our soul and intelligence a god’s character and knowledge.
We should know and realise that
All our knowledge belongs to Her alone.
All our love belongs to Her alone.
All our force belongs to Her alone.
All our strength belongs to Her alone.
All our wealth belongs to Her alone.
All our intelligence belongs to Her alone.
Our Soul is only made up of Her Divine Spark.
In the process of evolution, we have forgot all the above essence of life. We ignorant humans feel that everything belongs to us, our knowledge, our money, our intelligence belongs to us only. We forget that we are living our life on loan to Supreme Divine. It is Her Gift. Her Decision to bring us here. We did not come here by accident. She sent us to carry out Her task. Instead we indulge in Ego, Desire, and all the mindless and useless battles within and without. Ego falsifies everything, Desire takes us away from the Divine Grace.
Mother expects us to be warriors, to fight all the adverse forces of the world which are trying to stop the Divine Kingdom.
We instead indulge in fighting among ourselves, showing our little ego and limitless vital desires, anger, jealousy, ambition, hatred, competitiveness.
Mother has commissioned us as hero warriors. Mother expects the most powerful and conscious animal — humans will support Her to perform her operation through us for the transformation of the world.
Instead we are sacrificing ourselves to our little ego and get all the satisfactions from our vital fights. We have forgot our goals completely.
That’s why to break these mindless game and vital desires, Mother has sent here Her Mahakali force to deal with those who are unwilling to change, for the Divine Mission. She strikes those who are unwilling to progress, who untimely slumbers, idles, loiters mentally, vitally and physically. She destroys those who are unfit for Mother’s Mission. She destroys and acts terribly against them who refuse to accept the new advent, new way of living, obstructs the supramental descent over the entire world. She is very severe and terrible against those who are Self’s enemy, India’s enemy and Divine’s enemy. She destroys fiercely who are dishonest, indifferent, sloth to the Divine Work. Her wrath is immediate and dire against treachery, falsehood, malignity, ill-will. Her wrath hastens the work of Transformation.
My Lord, I will not try to escape from the work Thou hast given me. Wherever Thou placest my consciousness, it will remain without any attempt to rise to the blissful heights. Even if Thou willest it to be in the mud of the most material nature, it will stay there peaceful and at rest. But wherever it is, it cannot but be without aspiring towards Thee, opening to Thy influence and calling Thee down into itself as the sole reality of its existence.
The Mother
7 March 1932
Mahakali
Thine is the fiery will that mocks
Faint-hearted compromise;
Ruthless thou shearest all that blocks
Our path to Paradise.
The thunders whirl at Thy command,
O flaming, beautiful Mother!
Thou smitest with one mighty hand,
And savest with the other.
Pervasive of Thy tameless ire
Is an all-puissant love;
It leads us through the test of fire
To immortal gates above.
- Anil Baran
We have to invoke Mahakali by two ways:
· Strengthen the base, to build ourselves on a solid foundation, physically, mentally and vitally, so that we can withstand her pressures, support her action without shrinking.
· A continuous aspiration, a sincerity to push forward whatever resists change, whatever is to be eliminated without mercy, without self-deception, to scrutinise and bring out from oneself whatever stands in the way and expose it to her workings.
Why we should pray to the Mother to give us a Titan’s strength, a Titan’s energy?
Or a Titan passion goads to a proud unrest: (from Savitri)
Titan means Danav. One positive and learning aspect of Titans or Asuras was that they used to pray to Lord Brahma for many years, relentlessly deep inside Jungle, without food, without rest, with single minded devotion, dedication and focus. Unlike Devas, they never break from their path. They used to apply that tremendous energy to get some siddhi for their own personal efforts or fulfil their desire to win over death. They have a passion to win over death, That’s why they used to convince Shiva or Brahma to fulfil their wishes. Even Gods used to be afraid of their relentless focus in achieving their goal. They used to send apsaras to stop their Tapasya. Unfortunately, the titans used to misuse their Tapasya for their narrow intention.
Sri Aurobindo here is urging humans to have that relentless passion of Titans, to utilise that great strength within us, lying unused. But here He expects us to use the energy for a positive and divine Cause. If we pray to the Mother to give that titan energy to our mind and heart, we can utilise to its full potential.
Stanza 5
5. Mother Durga! India, world’s noblest race, lay whelmed in darkness. Mother, thou risest on the eastern horizon, the dawn comes with the glow of thy divine limbs scattering the darkness. Spread thy light, Mother, destroy the darkness.
India, world’s noblest race is suffering from darkness.
When India suffers, the world suffers. When India rises, world rises.
When India forgets its rich past, culture, heritage, the world will forget is true goal.
We all have a responsibility not only towards our county, but also for the whole world.
India should be torch bearer of Truth, Light, Knowledge and Bliss across the world. Instead it is completely blind by the universal forces of vital and ignorance and falsehood.
It is going away from Truth, the Truth of our own existence, for which our Rishis Munis have given up their life.
We all have to invoke the Supreme Mother to emerge again in everyone’s hearts, show us the Truth of our Being, the Soul or Spark within.
If we think ourselves as true children of the Supreme, we all have a big responsibility for the earth. We should not act or speak or think anything
which will help in the propagation of falsehood, darkness or suffering.
When we start carrying the Divine Mother within, we will be full of light and real knowledge within, we will throw our utter selfishness, greed, pride, lust, jealousy, anger, hatred. We should not be like those ordinary human race who indulge in all such destructive and anti-divine activities.
To be a saint, seer or sage is not enough for man. He must be a god. Indeed when he has succeeded to be a god then only would it be possible for him to become what a saint or a seer or sage has to be in order to fulfil himself totally and integrally. The human race as a whole is progressing along the same line towards the same consummation. That is the secret purpose and end of Nature, to evolve a growing developing material form housing, embodying higher and wider ranges of consciousness, integrating all elements into a more and more intimate and inviolable unity and harmony.
This progress towards ever higher and wider consciousness means also in man’s social or collective life the formation of larger and larger aggregates, unification of mankind in ever widening groups. From man the solitary animal, through the family, the clan, the tribe to the nation the race has been increasing the circle of its sympathy and kinship. The birth of the modern nation out of regional and local groupings is a triumph of the emerging consciousness in humanity pointing to another signal and supreme triumph, the emergence of the global sense hi man that is to bind humanity as a single indissoluble indivisible unity in actual life.
What you have seen is true — but what you call an evil force is only the ordinary nature. This nature makes man do almost anything — in the sadhana one has to overcome its influence, but it cannot be easily done. By quiet and determined effort, in the end it is entirely overcome.
When the sadhak begins to live in the true consciousness, the other parts still continue to exist; only in proportion as the power of the true consciousness increases, does it gradually weaken the others.
What else but an evil force can pull you down so low, make you so weak and agitated? Many forces of this nature
This sense of one’s own person is as though someone had put you in a very hard shell and you were compelled to stay there. You feel yourself stifled, crushed, and then you begin pushing from inside, pushing, pushing so that it may break.
Mother says:
ü It is I who mark time waiting for you to be ready!…
ü They don’t know how to live, there’s not one in a million who knows how to live!
ü Pride, vanity — that’s the worst trap. And when they feel that sort of vital force in them [as Y. does], they believe all at once that they have caught the Thing….
ü I regard the spiritual history of mankind and especially of India as a constant development of a divine purpose, not a book that is closed and the lines of which have to be constantly repeated. Even the Upanishads and the Gita were not final though everything may be there in seed…. I may say that it is far from my purpose to propagate any religion, new or old, for humanity in the future. A way to be opened that is still blocked, not a religion to be founded, is my conception of the matter.
August 18, 1935
Stanza 6
6. Mother Durga! We are thy children, through thy grace, by thy influence may we become fit for the great work, for the great Ideal. Mother, destroy our smallness, our selfishness, our fear.
We are the children of the Supreme Mother. The Supreme has sent his Grace into the world to save it. We should pray to the Divine Grace alone, nothing else. We all have a role to play for the Divine Mission, for the Great Divine Mission. We all carry within us a power, a force and knowledge to carry out that Mission, for the great ideal.
O, my Lord, my Lord!
What you want of me, let me be.
What you want me to do, let me do.
The Mother: Each one here represents an impossibility to be solved, but as for Thy Divine Grace all is possible. Thy Work will be, in the detail as in the whole, the accomplishment of all these impossibilities transformed into divine realisations. Through the Mother’s Grace, we have passed a decisive turning point and that there is a beginning of real consecration.
Our actual enemy is not any force exterior to ourselves, but our own crying weaknesses, our cowardice, our selfishness, our hypocrisy, our purblind sentimentalism. — The Mother
We have to root out all our ignorance, and darkness with Her help alone from our inconscience level.
The Yoga having come down against the bed-rock of Inconscience which is the fundamental basis of all resistance in the individual and in the world. Sri Aurobindo
You must begin from above: first purify the higher then purify the lower. One is blocked. Most of the time one is full of oneself. You put yourself in prison and then you are astonished that in your prison you feel nothing, it is the contrary that would be surprising!
If we start following the footprints of the Supreme Divine Mother, it will take us towards immortality.
And yet I know my footprints’ track shall be
A pathway towards Immortality. — Sri Aurobindo
One minute of that and you can prepare years of realisation.
There is a moment, in the collective life, when one belongs to a group, when the choice must be made, when the purification must be done. Sometime this becomes very serious; it is almost a question of life and death for the group: it must make a decisive progress if it wants to survive.
What is that Great Work, Great Ideal: To aim to become Superman.
Our Only Aim now is to be ready for the Great Work — To become Superman
The supermind shall be his nature’s fount,
The Eternal’s truth shall mould his thoughts and acts,
The Eternal’s truth shall be his light and guide.
All then shall change, a magic order come
Overtopping this mechanical universe.
A mightier race shall inhabit the mortal’s world.
On Nature’s luminous tops, on the Spirit’s ground,
The superman shall reign as king of life,
Make earth almost the mate and peer of heaven,
And lead towards God and truth man’s ignorant heart
And lift towards godhead his mortality.
A power released from circumscribing bounds,
Its height pushed up beyond death’s hungry reach,
Life’s tops shall flame with the Immortal’s thoughts,
Light shall invade the darkness of its base.
Then in the process of evolving Time
All shall be drawn into a single plan,
A divine harmony shall be earth’s law,
Beauty and joy remould her way to live:
Even the body shall remember God,
Nature shall draw back from mortality
And Spirit’s fires shall guide the earth’s blind force;
Knowledge shall bring into the aspirant Thought
A high proximity to Truth and God.
The supermind shall claim the world for Light
And thrill with love of God the enamoured heart
And place Light’s crown on Nature’s lifted head
And found Light’s reign on her unshaking base.
Stanza 7
7. Mother Durga! Thou art Kali, naked, garlanded with human heads, sword in hand, thou slayest the Asura. Goddess, do thou slay with thy pitiless cry the enemies who dwell within us, may none remain alive there, not one. May we become pure and spotless, this is our prayer. O Mother, make thyself manifest.
We should take the help of Mother Durga to slay all the Asuras present within us. In this Yuga, all the enemies are not external, but internal. We have to fight those internal enemies who are hell bent on opposing Divine Kingdom on Earth. The Adverse Forces are working overtime so deeply to take our attention from our indwelling God, present in the soul. They engage us in all the mental constructions, mindless logic, speculation, calculation, comparison, complaining against the universe. They make us forget our goal from true aspiration for the divine by making us indulge in satisfying our infinite desires, greed, lust, anger, jealousy, hatred, infightings etc. Those inner enemies take us away from the true perfection of physical, by making us idle, and inflexible, and imperfect. These inner enemies keep their tentacles around the real Divine Presence within our psychic, make it ineffective and inactive. We should take the help of the soul to take charge of our life by overcoming those inner enemies. We have to live in the purity of our soul, purity of our thoughts, purity of our aspiration. We should make the Divine manifest within us by allowing our soul to be only driven by only Divine breath, by leaving behind all the blind adverse ignorant forces present within, by not succumbing to the greater power of those adverse forces any more.
For this we need to pray to the Supreme Mother, to make us more pure and spotless. We should seek Her help to remove all the Asuras present within us, so that we should not give them any chance to live, grow and prosper within us.
As long as there is death, things always end badly. Only victory over death will make it possible for things not to end badly.
There is only one true guide: the inner guide.
We must come out of words and get into action: get into the experience.
Why Time has come for Humans to live only in the Psychic
In the beginnings of humanity, the ego was the unifying element. It is around the ego that the various states of being were formed. But now that a superhumanity is about to be born, the ego must disappear and leave place for the psychic being which has slowly developed through divine agency to manifest the Divine in man.
The Divine manifests in man under the psychic influence, and that is how the coming of superhumanity is prepared.
The psychic being is immortal, so through it immortality can manifest on earth.
Hence, the important thing now is to find one’s psychic being, unite with it, and allow it to replace the ego, which will be forced either to convert itself or disappear.
Stanza 8
8. Mother Durga! India lies now in selfishness and fearfulness and littleness. Make us great, make our efforts great, our hearts vast, make us true to our resolve. May we no longer desire the small, void of energy, given to laziness, stricken with fear.
ü India (and consequently the world) lies low in selfishness, fearfulness and littleness. If India lies low, world lies low.
ü We have to be fearless Hero Warriors.
ü We have to make our efforts great — We have to stop being humans anymore.
ü We have to aim for psychic and spiritual transformation, prepare the base for supramental beings to descend fast.
ü We are all very united in this Great adventure, and have to work now with more intense zeal, passion, direction, commitment, and have to be extraordinarily attentive towards our true purpose of human existence.
Why we have littleness, selfishness and fearfulness?
The Mother: Human consciousness is so corrupt that people prefer the misery and ignorance of the ego to the luminous joy that comes from sincere surrender to the Divine. Their blindness is so great that they refuse even to attempt the experience and prefer to be subjected to the misery of their ego rather than make the necessary effort to free themselves from it. Their blindness is so total that they would not hesitate to make the Divine a slave to their ego, if such a thing were possible, just to avoid giving themselves to the Divine.
The Mother: Many of us, utterly overcome by Tamas, the dark and heavy demon of inertia, are saying nowadays that it is impossible, that India is decayed, bloodless and lifeless, too weak ever to recover; that our race is doomed to extinction. It is a foolish and idle saying. No man or nation need be weak unless he chooses, no man or nation need perish unless he deliberately chooses extinction.
But that’s the ego’s last days, the last stage. When it’s gone, you are no longer anything! In other words, you don’t have that feeling of being something bad or good — it’s all gone. You have such a feeling of ONE existence, and all the rest… all the rest is something that has become twisted like that, twisted in the consciousness. That’s becoming so concrete….
Many of us, utterly overcome by Tamas, the dark and heavy demon of inertia, are saying nowadays that it is impossible, that India is decayed, bloodless and lifeless, too weak ever to recover; that our race is doomed to extinction. It is a foolish and idle saying. No man or nation need be weak unless he chooses, no man or nation need perish unless he deliberately chooses extinction.
The love of solitude is a sign of the disposition towards knowledge; but
knowledge itself is only achieved when we have a settled perception of solitude in the crowd, in the battle and in the mart.
If when thou art doing great actions and moving giant results, thou canst perceive that thou art doing nothing, then know that God has removed His seal from thy eyelids.
If when thou sittest alone, still and voiceless on the mountain-top, thou canst
perceive the revolutions thou art conducting, then hast thou the divine vision and art freed from appearances.
The love of inaction is folly and the scorn of inaction is folly; there is no inaction. The stone lying inert upon the sands which is kicked away in an idle moment, has been producing its effect upon the hemispheres.
Human vision is very linear whereas the march of the Divine is a global march which takes in the whole universe in its entirety and goes forward on the most direct road in relation to this universe, and the most direct road may be circular.
When you become conscious of that in yourself, you become conscious of that in everything.
Make us true to our resolve
The Mother: No half measures, no compromises, no halfways, no…”
And that’s how it is for the body. Every instant is imperative: life or death.
No halfways. You know, we have spent centuries being neither too uncomfortable nor too comfortable. Well, that time is over.
The body knows this is necessary for the supramental body to be formed: it must be ENTIRELY under the Influence of the Divine. No compromises, no half measures, no “It will come later.” Just like this: a dreadful Will.
And that’s the only way for things to go fast.
Make our hearts vast
Our soul is an element of Eternity. We must be vast, and expand our consciousness from individual to universal to transcendent, feel the Divine Presence in every level.
The Mother: You are not here to represent your own interests. You are
all one and the same” — they just don’t understand. Lack of unity is the cause of all the difficulties.
Learn to live in spiritual vastness
Sri Aurobindo: The Theosophists are wrong in their circumstances but right in the essential. If the French Revolution took place, it was because a soul on the Indian snows dreamed of God as freedom, brotherhood and equality.
This is simply to show us that the power of the spirit is far greater than all material powers. But both are indispensable for the realisation.
Make us great, make our efforts great
1. Feel the Divine Presence and Divine Vibration each moment
Our Only effort is to feel the Divine Presence within us and within all.
That is our only Great Effort. That effort will only make us great.
The Mother:
· This Divine Presence is in all things. It is a Vibration — a Vibration containing everything.
· A Vibration containing a sort of infinite power, infinite joy, infinite peace, and immensity, IMMENSITY, IMMENSITY: it’s boundless…. But it is solely a Vibration, it doesn’t…. Oh, Lord!
· It can’t be thought, so it can’t be described. If you think… as soon as you start thinking, it’s the same old mess again. That’s why you can’t say anything.
· Indeed, He is far because you think He is far. If you could just, you know, think of Him being right here, like this (gesture close to the face), touching you… if you could feel this. It’s not like touching another person, it’s not like that. It’s not something foreign, external, coming to you from outside — no! It’s… everywhere…
· And you feel Him everywhere, everywhere, everywhere — within, without, everywhere. Him, nothing but Him — Him, His Vibration.
2. Open the Inner Being to the Divine Presence in the Psychic
· We should open our inner being to the divine Presence in the psychic centre,
· there you know at every moment not only what must be done but why it should be done and how it should be done, and you have the vision of the truth of things behind their appearances.
· Instead of seeing things in the usual way, that is, from outside, and so much from outside that, except in a few rare cases, one is incapable even of knowing what another person thinks (you must make a great effort, you see only the surface of things and nothing of what goes on behind);
· Well, after this inner opening and this identification with the Presence in the psychic centre, you see things from within outwards, and the outer existence becomes an expression, more or less deformed, of what you see within: you are aware of the inner existence of beings and their form; their outer existence is only a more or less deformed expression of this inner truth.
· And it is because of this that I say that the basic equilibrium is completely changed. Instead of being outside the world and seeing it as something outside you, you are inside the world and see outer forms expressing in a more or less clumsy fashion what is within, which for you is the Truth. 4 January 1951
3. Remove the Spiritual Ego:
· There is a spiritual ego even as there is a physical, vital and mental ego. There is a spiritual ego.
· There are people who have made a great effort to overcome all their egoism and all their limitations, and attained a spiritual consciousness; and there, they have all the vanity and the sense of their importance and contempt for those who are not in the same condition as they.
· Indeed, all that is ridiculous and bad in the ego, they find there once again. There are many, many like that.
· They have overcome what was there in the physical or vital consciousness but the very effort they have made to master themselves and this victory they have gained give them the sense of their extreme importance.
· So they become puffed up and assert their authority. This happens so frequently that it is not even noticed.
4. Distinguish the True from falsehood and knowledge from ignorance
We live in a world of falsehood, of ignorance and an effort is needed, an aspiration; one must come in contact with one’s inmost being — a conscious and luminous contact — if one is to distinguish the true from the false, the good influence from the bad. If you let yourself go, you sink into a hole.
May we no longer desire the small, void of energy, given to laziness, stricken with fear.
When we have no longer any desire, neither small desire to big desire, when we no longer feel lifeless, energyless without you, when we no longer are lazy and fearful, we can keep in touch with the Divine.
How to renew our energy?
When we enter into the state of pure Existence. First mental silence, then pure Existence, Existence outside of the Manifestation: the state of Sat.
It is pure Existence, outside of the Manifestation.
A state of blissful silence; it’s something permanent, yes, but not an annihilation. It’s Sat — the Sat that comes before Chit-Tapas. In other words, it can last an eternity with no sense of time, and be an infinity with no sense of space.
But I tell you, it also has an EXTRAORDINARY utility: it automatically renews all the energies. Actually, that’s the true reason for sleep: to be able to enter that state. And that’s why those who can enter it consciously in meditation need much less sleep. Much less. It’s what enables the body to last: Sat.
How to get rid of laziness, physical disturbances, tamas or discomfort?
One should have the feeling of Sat. One should always keep this in the background of the consciousness and refer to it automatically to correct or avoid or annul… all disturbances.
It’s what I use, for example, when the body has some trouble (I use it for the most ordinary and minor things: coughing when something goes down the wrong way, hiccups, things like that). All these minor problems of the body can be stopped almost instantly by entering that state. It takes a few seconds. It should be kept in the background all the time, all the time, all the time, as if supporting everything from behind. By nature it is absolutely silent, immobile, luminous…. Yes, it gives the sense of Eternity and Infinity. It is eternal, infinite, outside of time, outside of space, it’s… it’s Sat.
If one can keep that constantly in the background of one’s consciousness, there’s no further need to take off anywhere (ethereal gesture towards the heights): all you have to do is this (gesture of stepping back), and there it is.
And it is the root cure of disorder. It is anti-disorder.
That’s how you can cure somebody, if he’s able to receive it. It’s the antidote to disorder, the perfect antidote to disorder.
Stanza 9
9. Mother Durga! Extend wide the power of Yoga. We are thy Aryan children, develop in us again the lost teaching, character, strength of intelligence, faith and devotion, force of austerity, power of chastity and true knowledge, bestow all that upon the world. To help mankind, appear, O Mother of the world, dispel all ills.
We must pass on to a higher species. Men are transitional beings.
Only through Yoga, connecting our soul to the Divine, we can experience the Divine. We should not be hopeless about the current situations. Sri Aurobindo and The Mother have assured us about the great victory over adverse forces and its certainty.
“Three things you must have, consciousness, plasticity, unreserved surrender. For you must be conscious in your mind and soul and heart and life and the very cells of your body, aware of the Mother and her Powers and their working; for although she can and does work in you even in your obscurity and your unconscious parts and moments, it is not the same thing as when you are in an awakened and living communion with her”
The Only reason of Human Ills and Suffering?
…Almost all human miseries come from the fact that human beings are almost always persuaded they know better than the Divine what they need and what life is supposed to bring them…. The Mother
We have to rediscover, get back that Shakti again.
If we can become a role model for our country, we can be a torch bearer for rest of the world. But if we waste our precious God-gifted life in petty things, and waste our precious God-gifted energy in useless Ego and desire trap, we wont be able to utilise our true knowledge, power, faith, devotion or intelligence for Mother’s Misison. Our soul will be without any aspiration.
We have to create strength where it did not exist before; we have to change our natures, and become new men with new hearts, to be born again…. We need a nucleus of men in whom the Shakti is developed to its uttermost extent, in whom it fills every corner of the personality and overflows to fertilise the earth. These, having the fire of Bhawani in their hearts and brains, will go forth and carry the flame to every nook and cranny of our land.
When Can we Receive Her Power & Force?
When we learn to be silent -
Supreme Lord, teach us to be silent, that in this silence we may receive Your force and understand Your will.
Stanza 10
10.Mother Durga! Slay the enemy within, then root out all obstacles outside. May the noble heroic mighty Indian race, supreme in love and unity, truth and strength, arts and letters, force and knowledge ever dwell in its holy woodlands, its fertile fields under its sky-scraping hills, along the banks of its pure-streaming rivers. This is our prayer at the feet of the Mother. Make thyself manifest.
Slay the enemy within
All the enemies are present within us in this Yuga. All those Asuras or Rakhasas or Pishachas or Danavs who were present outside, now are present within us. Problem is human little mind is unable to identify them mushrooming and increasing with every passing day and with every passing birth.
Only Divine Mother can save us from those dangerous enemies.
After slaying all the enemies within, she will root out all obstacles of the Divine path that are present outside.
Sri Aurobindo on Obstacles:
Do not be afraid of obstacles in your path, it does not matter how great the forces are that stand in your way…. Do not think that anything is impossible when miracles are being worked on every side. If you are true to yourself there is nothing to be afraid of. There is nothing unattainable by truth, love and faith. This is your whole gospel which will work out miracles.
Difficulties matter little. They are nothing but what exists in the outer nature of human beings. Gradually they will be driven out by the Force of the Mother. So there is no cause for anxiety or depression.
Always remember the Mother. Call upon her. Then the difficulties will go away. Do not be afraid, do not be perturbed by the difficulties. Call upon the Mother steadily.
However infinite the difficulties may seem to be, this appearance is not real. It is merely the demoniac illusion. Treading the way of truth the path becomes clear at last.
The two obstacles that stand in the way of a smooth and harmonious working in and through the sadhaks are:
(1) the preconceived ideas and mental constructions which block the way to the influence and the working of the conscious force;
(2) the preferences and impulses of the vital which distort and falsify the expression.
Both these things are the natural output of the ego. Without the interference of these two elements my physical intervention would not be necessary.
Let’s All Pray to Supreme Divine Mother to usher in us love, unity, truth, and strength.
Love: Love for the Divine and everyone should be unconditional, with zero expectations. The Divine’s love is an eternal truth. The Divine Love is the essence of Truth and cannot be affected by human confusions.
Unity:
We have to DRUM into this body the consciousness of Unity: the absolute,
EXCLUSIVE unity of the Divine — exclusive in the sense that nothing exists apart from this Unity, even the things which seem most repulsive.
Truth: The truth is neither in separation nor in uniformity. The truth is in unity manifesting through diversity.
May the noble heroic mighty Indian race, supreme in love and unity, truth and strength, arts and letters, force and knowledge ever dwell in its holy woodlands, its fertile fields under its sky-scraping hills, along the banks of its pure-streaming rivers.
So let’s become and conquer as Rishi Agastya said:
“Let us have the taste of even all the contesting forces, Let us conquer indeed even here, Let us run this battle-race of a hundred leadings…” (Rig-Veda I. 179)
The greatest crimes and the greatest betrayals have always been committed in the name of Truth, it goes without saying.
We must choose, you must know what we want and on which side we stand. Are we standing in the path of Truth, Unity, Freedom, Light, Knowledge?
It is this courage that is needed.
The game of the Asura is always the same, throughout all of human spiritual history: it catches a bit of the Truth, and with the very force of the Truth it has swallowed, it develops its Falsehood. The danger of the Falsehood is not Falsehood, if I dare say, but the portion of Truth that has been swallowed and that helps strengthen the Falsehood. The true Asura is not the “devil” whom everybody knows is dark and wicked, but the little saint who uses the Truth and utters the words of Truth for his selfish ends. In the name of Christ’s “Love,” more than one “heretic” was imprisoned and tortured and burnt. Biggest mass killings, longest war happened in the name of church. In the name of “nonviolence,” they betrayed the true Khatriya Shakti of India and encouraged a mass of coward traitors to enlarge the rot of the country.
The idea that one is born with a certain character and one can do nothing about it is a stupidity.
Yoga of Self-Perfection: it’s a very new thing which has to do with
action, feeling, sensation and consciousness all at the same time; it’s all of them together — none of those things, yet all of them)
Now we are beginning in another direction; we have started a great industrial movement which is to enrich and regenerate an impoverished land. Untaught by experience, we do not perceive that this movement must go the way of all the others, unless we first seek the one essential thing, unless we acquire strength.
Is it knowledge that is wanting? We Indians, born and bred in a country where Jnana has been stored and accumulated since the race began, bear about in us the inherited gains of many thousands of years…. But it is a dead knowledge, a burden under which we are bowed, a poison which is corroding us, rather than as it should be a staff to support our feet and a weapon in our hands; for this is the nature of all great things that when they are not used or are ill used, they turn upon the bearer and destroy him….
Is it love, enthusiasm, Bhakti that is wanting? These are ingrained in the Indian nature, but in the absence of Shakti we cannot concentrate, we cannot direct, we cannot even preserve it. Bhakti is the leaping flame, Shakti is the fuel. If the fuel is scanty how long can the fire endure?…
The deeper we look, the more we shall be convinced that the one thing wanting, which we must strive to acquire before all others, is strength — strength physical, strength mental, strength moral, but above all strength spiritual which is the one inexhaustible and imperishable source of all the others. If we have strength everything else will be added to us easily and naturally. In the absence of strength we are like men in a dream who have hands but cannot seize or strike, who have feet but cannot run….
Stanza 11
11.Mother Durga! Enter our bodies in thy Yogic strength. We shall become thy instruments, thy sword slaying all evil, thy lamp dispelling all ignorance. Fulfil this yearning of thy young children, O Mother. Be the master and drive the instrument, wield thy sword and slay the evil, hold up the lamp and spread the light of knowledge. Make thyself manifest.
Let’s Pray to Mother Durga to give Her yogic strength. The force of all Gods and Goddesses should be invoked. We have to become Her True Instruments, working for the Divine Mission. Let us allow our soul’s light to be our true guide, permanent and fearless guide, which will dispel all ignorance and darkness, falsehood from life.
O Lord, awaken my entire being that it may be for Thee the needed instrument, the perfect servant. The Mother
27 March 1936
To become Mother’s Instrument, we have to:
1. Keep ourselves free from all taints of the perversion of the ego.
2. Must not allow any demand or insistence to creep in to stain the purity or self-giving and the sacrifice.
3. Must have no attachments to the work or the result
4. Must not lay down any conditions.
5. Must have no claim to possess the Power that should possess us.
6. Must have no pride of the instrument.
7. Must have no vanity or arrogance.
8. Must not allow your mind, body and vital parts to suffer to distort for their own personal use and separate satisfaction of greatness of the forces that are acting through you.
9. Your faith, sincerity, purity of aspiration should be absolute and pervasive of all the planes and layers of the being.
10. Every disturbing element and distorting influence must progressively fall away from your nature.
After becoming Mother’s Instruments, we will:
1. Feel ourselves to be no longer another and separate being, instrument, servant, or worker.
2. Feel ourselves to be truly a child and eternal portion of the Divine Mother’s Consciousness and Force.
3. Feel Her Presence always inside us and We are inside Her.
4 Feel that all our thought and seeing and action, our very breathing or moving come from her and are hers. →This should be our constant, simple and natural experience 24x7
5. Know, see and feel that
-> We are a person and power formed by Her out of herself.
-> We are put out from Her for the play and yet always safe in her
-> We are being of Her being
-> We are consciousness of Her consciousness
-> We are force of Her force
-> We are Ananda of Her Ananda.
6. When this condition is entire and Her supramental energies freely move us, we will be perfect in Divine works,
7. Feel that all our knowledge, will, action will become sure, simple, luminous, spontaneous, flawless, an outflow from the Supreme, a Divine Movement of the Eternal.
Only Divine Mother will then
ü Master and drive the instrument,
ü Wield thy sword and slay the evil,
ü Hold up the lamp and spread the light of knowledge.
ü Make thyself manifest
What India needs especially at this moment is the aggressive virtues, the spirit of soaring idealism, bold creation, fearless resistance, courageous attack; of the passive tamasic spirit of inertia we have already too much. We need to cultivate another training and temperament, another habit of mind. We would apply to the present situation the vigorous motto of Danton, that what we need, what we should learn above all things is to dare and again to dare and still to dare.
Where the will of a higher Power is active in a great upheaval, no individual is indispensable.
Wield thy sword –
Sword of Light:
Carry the sword of light of Supreme. The white light of the Supreme Mother.
Sword of Knowledge:
The Mother: From age to age great beings come amongst us to hew a great opening of Truth in the sepulchre of the past. And in actuality, these beings are the great destroyers of the past. They come with the sword of Knowledge to shatter our fragile empires.
Sword of God:
The sword of God is the power that nothing can resist.
7 October 1969
Stanza 12
12.Mother Durga! When we possess thee, we shall no longer cast thee away; we shall bind thee to us with the tie of love and devotion. Come, Mother, manifest in our mind and life and body.
The supramental transformation is hard labour and needs a strong body. For some time more, probably more than a hundred years, the physical body will need to eat in order to keep its strength; and we have to comply with this necessity. December 1972
Actually, one makes all kinds of discoveries when the mental machine stops, and first of all one realizes that if the power to think is a remarkable gift, the power not to think29 is a far greater one yet; let the seeker try it for just a few minutes, and he will soon see what this means! He will realize that he lives in a surreptitious racket, an exhausting and ceaseless whirlwind exclusively filled with his thoughts, his feelings, his impulses, his reactions — him, always him, an oversized gnome intruding into everything, obscuring everything, hearing and seeing only himself, knowing only himself whose unchanging themes manage to give the illusion of novelty only through their alternation In a certain sense we are nothing but a complex mass of mental, nervous and physical habits held together by a few ruling ideas, desires and associations — an amalgam of many small self-repeating forces with a few major vibrations.
The first task of yoga is to breathe freely, to shatter that mental screen, which allows only one type of vibration to get through, in order to discover the multicolored infinity of vibrations; that is, the world and people as they really are, and another “self” within ourselves, whose worth is beyond any
mental appreciation.
We have to be more disciplined.
To act according to a standard of Truth or a rule or law of action (dharma) or in obedience to a superior authority or to the highest principles discovered by the reason and intelligent will and not according to one’s own fancy, vital impulses and desires. In Yoga obedience to the Guru or to the Divine and the law of the Truth as declared by the Guru is the foundation of discipline. 12 June 1933
Stanza 13
13.Come, Revealer of the hero-path. We shall no longer cast thee away. May our entire life become a ceaseless worship of the Mother, all our acts a continuous service to the Mother, full of love, full of energy. This is our prayer, O Mother, descend upon earth, make thyself manifest in this land of India.
Let’s invoke the Mother Durga to show us the Heroic Path. Time has come for all of us not to forsake the Divine anymore, any longer. We cant waste a single moment of our life
We shall no longer cast thee away. May our entire life become a ceaseless worship of the Mother, all our acts a continuous service to the Mother, full of love, full of energy.
In this grave crisis of our destinies let not our people lose their fortitude or suffer stupefaction and depression to seize upon and unnerve their souls. The fight in which we are engaged is not like the wars of old in which when the king or leader fell, the army fled. The King whom we follow to the wars today, is our own Motherland, the sacred and imperishable; the leader of our onward march is the Almighty Himself, that element within and without us whom sword cannot slay, nor water drown, nor fire burn, nor exile divide from us, nor a prison confine.
All our acts a Continuous Service to the Mother
Sri Aurobindo: The leaders can only deserve reverence by acting in the spirit of the chief servants of their country and not in the spirit of masters and dictators. December 31, 1906
Make Thyself Manifest
There are other great Personalities of the Divine Mother, but they were more difficult to bring down and have not stood out in front with so much prominence in the evolution of the earth-spirit. There are among them Presences indispensable for the supramental realization, — most of all one who is her Personality of that mysterious and powerful ecstasy and Ananda9 which flows from a supreme divine Love, the Ananda that alone can heal the gulf between the highest heights of the supramental spirit and the lowest abysses of Matter, the Ananda that holds the key of a wonderful divines” Life and even now supports from its secrecies the work of all the other Powers of the universe. — Sri Aurobindo, The Mother
(A disciple:) Sweet Mother, what is this Personality and when will It manifest?
The Mother: My answer is ready.
I knew you would ask me this question because it is indeed the most interesting thing in the whole passage — so my answer is ready, along with my answer to another question. But first let me read you this one. You asked, ‘What is this Personality and when will She come?’ Here is my answer (Mother reads):
‘She has come, bringing with Her a splendor of power and love, an intensity of divine joy heretofore unknown to the Earth. The physical atmosphere has been completely changed by her descent, permeated with new and marvelous possibilities.
But if She is ever to reside and act here, She has to find at least a minimal receptivity, at least one human being with the required vital and physical qualities, a kind of super-Parsifal gifted with an innate and integral purity, yet possessing at the same time a body strong enough and poised enough to bear unwaveringly the intensity of the Ananda She brings.
Thus far, She has not found what is needed. Men remain obstinately men and do not want to or are unable to become supermen. All they can receive and express is a love at their own dimension: a human love — whereas the supreme bliss of divine Ananda eludes their perception.
At times, finding the world unready to receive Her, She contemplates withdrawing. But how cruel a loss this would be!
It is true that at present, her presence is more rhetorical than factual, since so far She has had no chance to manifest. Yet even so, She is a powerful instrument in the Work, for of all the Mother’s aspects, She holds the greatest power to transform the body. Indeed, those cells which can vibrate at the touch of the divine Joy, receive it and bear it, are cells reborn, on their way to becoming immortal.
But the vibrations of divine Bliss and those of pleasure cannot cohabit in the same vital and physical house. We must therefore TOTALLY renounce all feelings of pleasure to be ready to receive the divine Ananda. But rare are those who can renounce pleasure without thereby renouncing all active participation in life or sinking into a stern asceticism. And among those who realize that the transformation is to be wrought in active life, some pretend that pleasure is a form of Ananda gone more or less astray and legitimize their search for self-satisfaction, thereby creating a virtually insuperable obstacle to their own transformation.’
Now, if there is anything else you wish to ask me … Anyone may ask, anyone — anyone who has something to say — not just the students.
Mother, even if we have not previously succeeded, can’t we still try?
What? (the disciple repeats his question)
The Mother: Oh! You can always try!
The world is recreated from minute to minute. If you knew how — I mean if you could change your nature — you could recreate a new world this very minute!
I didn’t say She HAD gone. I said She was CONTEMPLATING it … at times, now and then.
Q. But Mother, if She came down, She must have seen a possibility!
She came down because there WAS a possibility — because things had reached such a stage that it was her hour to come down. But in truth, She came down because … because I thought it was possible for her to succeed.
Possibilities are still there — only they have to materialize.
This is borne out by the fact that her descent took place at a given moment and for two or three weeks the atmosphere — not only of the Ashram but of the Earth — was so highly charged with such a power of such an intense divine Bliss creating so marvelous a force that things difficult to do before could be done almost instantly.
There were repercussions the world over. But I don’t believe that a single one of you noticed it … you cannot even tell me when it happened, can you?
When did it happen?
I don’t know dates. I don’t know, I never remember dates. I can only tell you this … that it happened before Sri Aurobindo left his body, that he was told about it beforehand and that he … well, he acknowledged the fact.
But there was a formidable battle with the Inconscient, for when I saw that the level of receptivity was not what it should have been, I blamed the Inconscient … and tried to wage the battle there.
I don’t say it was ineffectual, but between the result obtained and the result hoped for, there was a considerable difference. But as I said, you who are all so near, so steeped in this atmosphere … who among you noticed anything? — You simply went on with your little lives as usual.
I think it was in 1946, Mother, because you told us so many things at that time.
Right.
A child:) Sweet Mother, now that She has come, what should we do?
You don’t know?
(silence)
Try to change your consciousness.
(silence)
The Mother: So some of you people have been here since the time you were toddlers — everything has been explained to you, the whole thing has been served to you on a silver platter (not only with words, but through psychic aid and in every possible way), you have been put on the path of this inner discovery … and then you just go on drifting along: ‘When it comes, it will come.’ — If you even spare it that much thought!
So that’s how it is.
But I’m not at all discouraged, I just find it rather laughable. Only there are other far more serious things; for example, when you try to deceive yourselves — that is not so pretty. One should not mix up cats and kings. You should call a cat a cat and a king a king — and human instinct, human instinct — and not speak about things divine when they are utterly human, nor pretend to have supramental experiences when you are living in a blatantly ordinary consciousness.
If you look at yourselves straight in the face and you see what you are, then if by chance you should resolve to … But what really astounds me is that you don’t even seem to feel an intense NEED to do this! ‘But how can we know?’ Because you DO know, you have been told over and over again, it has been drummed into your heads. You KNOW that you have a divine consciousness
within you. And yet you can go on sleeping night after night, playing day after day, doing your lessons ad infinitum and still not be … not have a BURNING desire and will to come into contact with yourselves! — With yourselves, yes, the you just there, inside (motion towards the center of the chest) … Really, it’s beyond me!
As soon as I found out — and no one told me, I found out through an experience — as soon as I found out that there was a discovery to be made within myself, well, it became THE MOST IMPORTANT thing in the world. It took precedence over everything else!
And when, as I told you, I chanced upon a book or an individual that could give me just a little clue and tell me, ‘Here. If you do such and such, you will find your path’ — well I charged into it like a cyclone … and nothing could have stopped me.
And how many years have you all been here, half-asleep? Naturally, you’re happy to think about it now and then — especially when I speak to you about it or sometimes when you read. But THAT that fire, that will which plows through all barriers, that concentration which can triumph over EVERYTHING …
If you had made just one little decision to try to feel your psychic being, my time would not have been wasted.
Q. When will Her Presence be Permanent Within Us?
The Mother: It is only when the supramental manifests in the physical mind that its presence can be permanent. Very difficult. It’s very difficult.
First, one must be able to obtain silence at will — at any time at all, to obtain silence. I think that’s the starting point.
Durga Puja in the Ashram
September 29, 1971
(Last day of the Durga festivals, Vijaya dashami, marking the Victory of the Universal Mother over an
Asura.)
Do you want a [blessing] packet?
You had Sujata give me one yesterday.
Another one!
If you like!
It’s not the same!
It was clear, very clear today, a sort of Pressure to say: Victory is Harmony; Victory is the Divine; and for the body, Victory is good health. Any, any discomfort, any disease is a falsehood. It came this morning. It was very CLEAR. It was convincing, you know.
So it’s all right.
It’s as if, through the Pressure, all the Falsehood had been brought out (gesture surging up from below). The most unexpected things. In people, things, circumstances. It’s really…. No imagination can equal it. It’s incredible.
But it’s a good sign, isn’t it?
Later on in this class, a child asks Mother about her action on ‘Victory Day’, the day of Durga Puja. Durga is the goddess who embodies the conquering and protecting aspect of the Divine Mother in her universal action on earth. And this is of course in the Indian spirituality. Sri Aurobindo spoke about four aspects — or four powers — of the Divine Mother, which the Mother brought with her into this embodiment. The reason she brought them is that each one of these has qualities which she brought for us to attain and perfect.
The four pillars of the Matrimandir are named for these four powers. In Indian spirituality, they were also the names of four goddesses who had these attributes. They are: Kali, Lakshmi, Saraswati, and Maheshwari. No pillar is named for the goddess Durga. But in one of his letters, Sri Aurobindo explains that the goddess Durga has all the characteristics of Maheshwari, but with a very little bit of the character of Lakshmi.
So when Mother named the pillars in the Matrimandir, she named them ‘Maha’. ‘Maha’ means ‘great’. Mahasaraswati, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi, Maheshwari.
Sri Aurobindo gives a full explanation of all the qualities of each one of these in his book The Mother. And The Mother, it’s interesting to note, is the very first book ever published in the Ashram. And people say that it contains everything that one needs to do the Yoga. There’s a letter from Sri Aurobindo where he says ‘not quite — it contains something more’. But it contains a lot — a lot of really good guidance for people doing the Yoga.
Sri Aurobindo says that Durga is the Mother’s power of protection. The Indian tradition tells stories of Durga fighting and slaying an evil, adverse being, called an Asura. In this way, she is protecting mankind. Supposedly each year she does this work; and Durga Puja is performed to celebrate her victory over evil for mankind.
The Devi is the Divine Shakti — the Consciousness and Power of the Divine, the Mother and Energy of the worlds. All powers are hers. Sometimes Devi-power may mean the power of the universal World-Force; but this is only one side of the Shakti.
Mahakali and Kali are not the same, Kali is a lesser form.
Mahakali in the higher planes appears usually with the golden colour.
In the Ashram, all four of the goddesses had their own special puja day. It was the date that was fixed for the whole country; and the date was fixed according to the Hindu calendar, which varies each year according to the moon. During the 1950s, Mother would come downstairs dressed as the goddess — after having done her own inner thing — and all the ashramites would receive something special from her.
During this time, Mother gave a daily darshan in the mid-morning. Every day she would sit in a chair in the Ashram meditation room. Each ashramite would come before her, and receive flowers from her. So on the four puja days, she’d come downstairs in that special sari; and at that time the ashramites would decorate her chair with beautiful silks folded in special ways, and all around the chair they would put beautiful flower arrangements.
The Ashram sells four beautiful photographs of Mother, for each one of the four puja days. And each one has a name: it’s named for the goddess of the puja that she’s done. And now still, each year, on each puja day, Mother’s chair is again brought down and decorated, and flower arrangements are made. People can go into the Ashram and see this, and then sit there for meditation.
Since Mother and Sri Aurobindo came here to bring the new consciousness into the manifestation, all of this was part of her work at that time and place, in India. So the child’s question, which comes at the end of the class, is asking Mother what did she do on this particular day in 1955, when Durga’s victory is celebrated all over India.
The very first lesson in this yoga is to face life and its trials with a quiet mind, a firm courage and an entire reliance on the Divine Shakti.
Remain firm and turned in the one direction — towards the Mother.
SRI AUROBINDO
One who fears monotony and wants something new would not be able to do yoga or at least this yoga which needs an inexhaustible perseverance and patience. The fear of death shows a vital weakness which is also contrary to a capacity for yoga.
The divine perfection is always there above us; but for man to become divine in consciousness and act and to live inwardly and outwardly the divine life is what is meant by spirituality; all lesser meanings given to the word are inadequate fumblings or impostures.
I am even later than usual: these are the puja days. Lots of people come here for their puja.
Did I tell you the story of Durga?
Recently?
It didn’t happen recently; I can’t recall if it was last year or the year before, at the time of the puja.
You once told me that Durga had “surrendered.”
That’s it.
She surrendered. That is to say, she was perfectly independent in her movements and didn’t feel the need to depend on anyone, and that year … I don’t remember if it was last year or the year before — she used to come every year when I went downstairs for the puja darshan: I would go downstairs and she would come and stay there throughout all the pujas; since I came upstairs, we haven’t been doing it anymore. But once, she came, and I told you what followed.
But it has made an enormous difference. People naturally didn’t notice anything, no one, but it has made an ENORMOUS difference in the atmosphere.
I was still feeling it very strongly these last few days.
A difference, in what sense?
All those who do the puja sincerely (sincerely, of course, not mechanically but with devotion) always attract an emanation or a representation, a representative form, which is present at the puja and responds: it responds to the puja. Every family that worships Kali, for instance, has its own Kali. And it’s true, they are little entities that aren’t quite independent, but have their own lives. And in Durga’s case, it was very clear. So when I say it makes a big difference, it’s because now, in a general way, all those representations of Durga are themselves also in a movement of collaboration.
Naturally, all those entities were more or less spontaneously doing the Supreme’s work, but … (how can I explain it?) without their having a conscious will: they did it simply and spontaneously, because they were beings of harmony, working harmoniously. But now, in Durga’s case it’s very clear — very clear: she is like this (gesture turned upward, awaiting the Supreme’s Command). In her relationship with the hostile beings, in her legendary yearly battle (which is of course symbolic), she is like this (same gesture), eager to know the direction, the indication, the gesture to be made.
When Sri Aurobindo was here, every year at the time of Durga’s battle, I used to receive from him the very clear indication of the aspect of the adverse forces that had to be vanquished and subdued. (It was very interesting, and I generally noted it down, but I don’t know where all that has gone.) It went on like that for thirty years. And after his departure … there only remained the Supreme.
She would come, she was absolutely present during the six days of pranam downstairs. But now, since … I don’t know (I don’t remember because for me time isn’t quite clear anymore, it no longer has the same value), but I remember it happened while I was walking for my japa. I told her there was something more important than that semireligious recollection people have, that what was more important was the deeper nature of the Work and the choice of the adverse aspect (represented by a universal difficulty, or, at any rate, if we only consider the earth, a human difficulty), the aspect that had to be vanquished, dominated in order to lead it to the transformation. And it’s in this connection that I told her that receiving the indication from the Supreme was the true thing; that He saw better than we did what had to be done and the order in which it had to be done. And I felt … (she was very concrete [Mother makes a gesture as if Durga was in her]), I felt she was immensely interested. Then I told her, “Well, you see, hasn’t the time come” (I am putting it into words, but there weren’t any words), “hasn’t the time come to receive from Him the direct impulsion for your action?” And she responded joyfully and spontaneously.
The difference is that, now, wherever she manifests, I feel the call to the supreme Truth, to manifest it, is truly there. October 19, 1966
* * *
This morning I had a visit from Durga. She pays me a visit every year, but this morning it was interesting because she explained to me her point of view, how she feels existence, and at the same time…. You know that she came last year, I told you the story. (Previously, when I used to go downstairs to give darshan, she would not only come but stay there for the whole time.) But when she came last year I told her, “Very good, it’s very good, you fulfill your universal function very well, but you are missing something….” And I explained to her the meaning of being in conscious and attentive contact with the supreme Will. She understood. She understood and adhered, she said yes. And during the year she must have tried, because when she returned this morning, there was really a difference, especially a difference in the understanding, and she explained it to me. Then I spoke to her about the physical human nature and its infirmity, and she told me, “There is in this body something we — all of us up above — do not have and cannot have: the possibility of a constant Presence of and a constant contact with the Divine.” She had never thought of it before! Only since a year ago. And she said it with such intensity — such intensity and understanding and meaning…. It was as though all human miseries instantly disappeared in front of this EXTRAORDINARY thing — the possibility of feeling in every cell the divine Presence.
It was really interesting. The morning was really interesting.
She stayed here while I was washing, and she told me, “See, you can do all this, and not for a minute, not for a second do you lose the contact with That, with the supreme wonder. And we who are full of power, without any of your petty miseries, any of your petty difficulties, we are so used to our way of being that we don’t see the value of it, it’s something obvious, almost inevitable.” And she said (Mother smiles), “We never think of the Divine, because we ARE the Divine…. So there isn’t that will to progress, that thirst for ever better, ever more — we totally lack it.”….
But the gods have a divine ego. That’s what was really interesting this morning…. They feel they exist in themselves, by themselves, for themselves (Mother clenches her fist). Only, of course, there’s no comparison with the sordidness of the human ego.
But that’s what was so interesting this morning…. Once these divine egos have abdicated, and to the extent of that abdication, it will mean an EXTRAORDINARY transformation in the creation. It was like a vision taking shape slowly (Mother closes her eyes), almost with pictures, as if I saw the whole earth (gesture of a ball) and the picture of Durga (gesture enveloping the earth)! and the two together, it was quite lovely.
The earth in her arms …
(silence, with eyes closed)
And in those visions (let’s take this one, for instance), Durga has a visible, defined form, while this body [Mother’s] isn’t there because this body belongs here, down to earth; so it’s a radiating center of white light that can take a form (but doesn’t have one), a radiance of light, a vibration of light, of consciousness — of conscious light. And that’s very interesting …. (Mother keeps her eyes closed) It was as if to see how this — this consciousness, this light — can manifest in precise forms on earth without losing something of the purity and radiance of the consciousness….
The Lord makes use of everything, and He isn’t afraid. He makes use of everything. It’s interesting, very interesting.
How He has used the gods, how He uses everything, how He has used the Adversaries … everything…. It’s all ways of being, and everything leads … where we must go. October 11, 1967
* * *
Oh, the other day, on Durga’s day, I went over there [to the music room where Mother sees people]…. I told you last year that she had come and made her surrender. This time, I went there (it was the first time I’d come out); as soon as I entered the room, I felt there was something, an impending attack. So I sat down, kept very still, and called the Lord as usual so He would fill the room with his light. And it was She who came in a golden light — a glory of adoration and consecration! She stood there (immense gesture). It was magnificent! Magnificent. And the whole morning was very good. Then, in the afternoon, things went wrong again.
Couldn’t you strike at these people a little?
I can’t strike! (Mother opens her arms) I no longer can!
I smile at them.
I tell them, “Come, come, what’s the use?”
Durga, too, I have taught her not to strike.
So, till Wednesday. I hope things will be better.
October 5, 1968
Yes, but what about the minor gods? You often speak of a “little Kali” or a “little Durga”; are these beings beneficent?
Ah, they aren’t from the vital at all! Not at all! They are manifestations of Overmind beings, projected into the vital world for a specific action. But they aren’t vital beings: they have an Origin, they are still linked to a being from another world. Oh, no, not at all!
The same goes for all those beings the Tantrics deal with — their origin is not vital, they belong to Nature. They are personified natural forces obedient to the laws of Nature. In other words, they originate from below, not from the vital but the physical world. They are vital forces in the physical, but not of vital origin.
The other day, didn’t I tell you the story of those entities working for me?… (It wasn’t you? I’d had a vision.) In fact, I very often see entities like Nature spirits when I enter the subtle physical and work there (usually for people here and the Ashram, and for the world at large), I very, very often have them with me, or else I meet them in the course of my work. They are forces, generally feminine in appearance, that do some work and have a great deal of power. They are usually the ones that respond to Tantric invocations (I don’t mean the Tantrics who call on Kali or Durga, that’s something else altogether, those belong to a totally different world). Most of the time these Nature forces are very willing to help — at any rate, they are wonderfully obliging with me! But they are limited beings, with their own ideas and laws, their own volition, and when vexed they can do unpleasant things. Yet they are not hostile beings, nor are they vital beings: they are personified forces of physical Nature, in the subtle physical. A world of things could be said….
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -
On the practical level, I have seen obvious examples of this; it was even my great argument with Durga (I told you, didn’t I, that she used to come at the time of the pujas and that, two years ago, she “surrendered”), that was my great argument, I said to her, “But the purpose of your existence in this form — in this form of combative action — would disappear if through identification you obtained the powers that render those forces unnecessary.” And it’s after I told her these things that she surrendered to the supreme Will; she said, “I shall do what the Supreme wants me to do.”
“Four great Aspects of the Mother, four of her leading Powers and Personalities have stood in front in her guidance of this universe and in her dealings with the terrestrial play. One is her personality of calm wideness and comprehending wisdom and tranquil benignity and inexhaustible compassion and sovereign and surpassing majesty and all-ruling greatness. Another embodies her power of splendid strength and irresistible passion, her warrior mood, her overwhelming will, her impetuous swiftness and world-shaking force. A third is vivid and sweet and wonderful with her deep secret of beauty and harmony and fine rhythm, her intricate and subtle opulence, her compelling attraction and captivating grace. The fourth is equipped with her close and profound capacity of intimate knowledge and careful flawless work and quiet and exact perfection in all things. Wisdom, Strength, Harmony, Perfection are their several attributes and it is these powers that they bring with them into the world, manifest in a human disguise in their Vibhutis and shall found in the divine degree of their ascension in those who can open their earthly nature to the direct and living influence of the Mother. To the four we give the four great names, Maheshwari, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi, Mahasaraswati.” (ibid., pp. 17–18)
“But be on your guard and do not try to understand and judge the Divine Mother by your little earthly mind that loves to subject even the things that are beyond it to its own norms and standards, its narrow reasonings and erring impressions, its bottomless aggressive ignorance and its petty self-confident knowledge. The human mind shut in the prison of its half-lit obscurity cannot follow the many-sided freedom of the steps of the Divine Shakti. The rapidity and complexity of her vision and action outrun its stumbling comprehension; the measures of her movement are not its measures. Bewildered by the swift alternation of her many different personalities, her making of rhythms and her breaking of rhythms, her accelerations of speed and her retardations, her varied ways of dealing with the problem of one and of another, her taking up and dropping now of this line and now of that one and her gathering of them together, it will not recognise the way of the Supreme Power when it is circling and sweeping upwards through the maze of the Ignorance to a supernal Light. Open rather your soul to her and be content to feel her with the psychic nature and see her with the psychic vision that alone make a straight response to the Truth. Then the Mother herself will enlighten by their psychic elements your mind and heart and life and physical consciousness and reveal to them too her ways and her nature.” (ibid., p. 25)
Stone Goddess
Once Sri Aurobindo visited a Kali Temple in a place called Chandod, on the bank of the Narmada. He said:
“With my Europeanised mind I had no faith in image-worship and I hardly believed in the presence of God.”
But he was compelled to do so when he looked at the image and saw a living Divine presence. As he wrote afterwards:
“[Y]ou stand before a temple of Kali beside a sacred river and see what? — a sculpture, a gracious piece of architecture, but in a moment mysteriously, unexpectedly there is instead a Presence, a Power, a Face that looks into yours, an inner sight in you has regarded the World-Mother.” (Source)
THE STONE GODDESS
In a town of gods, housed in a little shrine,
From sculptured limbs the Godhead looked at me, —
A living Presence deathless and divine,
A Form that harboured all infinity.
The great World-Mother and her mighty will
Inhabited the earth’s abysmal sleep,
Voiceless, omnipotent, inscrutable,
Mute in the desert and the sky and deep.
Now veiled with mind she dwells and speaks no word,
Voiceless, inscrutable, omniscient,
Hiding until our soul has seen, has heard
The secret of her strange embodiment,
One in the worshipper and the immobile shape,
A beauty and mystery flesh or stone can drape.
(Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, CWSA, Vol. 2, pp. 608)
Invoking of the Mother by the Earth
All Nature dumbly calls to her alone
To heal with her feet the aching throb of life
And break the seals on the dim soul of man
And kindle her fire in the closed heart of things.
All here shall be one day her sweetness’ home,
All contraries prepare her harmony;
Towards her our knowledge climbs, our passion gropes;
In her miraculous rapture we shall dwell,
Her clasp shall turn to ecstasy our pain.
Our self shall be one self with all through her.
In her confirmed because transformed in her,
Our life shall find in its fulfilled response
Above, the boundless hushed beatitudes,
Below, the wonder of the embrace divine.
(Savitri, Book III: Book of the Divine Mother, Canto II: Adoration of the Divine Mother, pp. 314–315)
Adoration of the Divine Mother
At the head she stands of birth and toil and fate,
In their slow round the cycles turn to her call;
Alone her hands can change Time’s dragon base.
Hers is the mystery the Night conceals;
The spirit’s alchemist energy is hers;
She is the golden bridge, the wonderful fire.
The luminous heart of the Unknown is she,
A power of silence in the depths of God;
She is the Force, the inevitable Word,
The magnet of our difficult ascent,
The Sun from which we kindle all our suns,
The Light that leans from the unrealised Vasts,
The joy that beckons from the impossible,
The Might of all that never yet came down.
(Savitri, Book III: Book of the Divine Mother, Canto II: Adoration of the Divine Mother, p. 314)
Overman
All those who make an effort to overcome their ordinary nature, all those who try to realise materially the profound experience that has brought them into contact with the divine Truth, all those who, instead of turning to the Hereafter or the On-high, try to realise physically, externally, the change of consciousness they have realised within themselves — all those are apprentice-overmen.
– the Mother (Questions and Answers 1957–58, p. 298)
All those who make an effort to overcome their ordinary nature, all those who try to realise materially the profound experience that has brought them into contact with the divine Truth, all those who, instead of turning to the Hereafter or the On-high, try to realise physically, externally, the change of consciousness they have realised within themselves — all those are apprentice-overmen.
– the Mother (Questions and Answers 1957–58, p. 298)
Yet it is He. There is nothing other than He! This should be repeated from morning to night, from night to morning, because we forget it every minute. There is only He, there is nothing other than He. He alone exists, there is no existence without Him. There is only He!
Learning from Victory Day
The first victory is to create an individuality. And then later, the second victory is to give this individuality to the Divine. And the third victory is that the Divine changes your individuality into a divine being. There are three stages: the first is to become an individual; the second is to consecrate the individual so that he may surrender entirely to the Divine and be identified with Him; and the third is that the Divine takes possession of this individual and changes him into a being in His own image; that is, he too becomes divine.
THE MOTHER
You must make grow in you the peace that is born of the certitude of victory.
SRI AUROBINDO
No human will can finally prevail against the Divine’s Will. Let us put ourselves deliberately and exclusively on the side of the Divine, and the Victory is ultimately certain.
THE MOTHER
