Winter 2011 Journal of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother Vol. 36, No. 3

Mild mukti by August Timmermans • A manifestation sheathed in Light by Rick Lipschutz Current Affairs • AV Almanac • Source Material • Book Reviews • Poetry • Apropos

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 1 About the cover This grayscale copy of a watercolor painting by Table of contents the late Usha R. Patel, an Ashram painter, is from Collaboration, vol. 36, no. 3, Winter 2011 her book Love Treasures, paintings based on Sri Aurobindo’s book The Mother, published by the From the office ofCollaboration Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1985. The passage in- spiring it is: “In Yoga also it is the Divine who is Notes on this issue...... Larry Seidlitz 3 the Sadhaka and the Sadhana; it is his Shakti with her light, power, knowledge, consciousness, Ananda, acting upon the Adhara and, when it is Current affairs opened to her, pouring into it with these divine AUM: From an organizer’s perspective...... Dakshina Vanzetti 4 forces that makes the Sadhana possible.” Matagiri building plans...... Julian Lines 5 The authors Skyroot: A budding integral community...... Karen Liftin 5 Maria Alicia Angel (fundacionauromira@ News from East-West Cultural Center–The Sri Aurobindo Center hotmail.com), dedicated to the Integral Yoga since of Los Angeles...... Anie Nunnally 6 1993, was a collaborator of Swami Brahmdev at Auro- News from the Institute for Wholistic of Education...... Santosh Krinsky 6 valley Ashram, India where she lived for 10 years. In 2003, together with Camila Esguerra she created The Auromira Center in Colombia...... Maria Alicia Angel 6 Fundacion Auromira in Villa de Leyva, Colombia. Briefs ...... 7 Santosh Krinsky ([email protected]) is the founder of Lotus Press, publisher of US editions of Sri Aurobindo’s writings, and the President of the AV almanac Institute for Wholistic Education. Karen Liftin ([email protected]) is a peace Striving for social empowerment ...... Carel Thieme 7 activist and Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington in Seattle. Along with Bill Leon, she started the UW Auroville Program and Chronicles has been bringing students to Auroville since 2001. Mild Mukti...... August Timmermans 10 Julian Lines ([email protected]) is a board member of Matagiri Sri Aurobindo Center, a member of the International Advisory Council of Au- Essays roville, and is Chairman of Auroville International. Rick Lipschutz ([email protected]) is a A manifestation sheathed in Light ...... Rick Lipshutz 13 member of the Cultural Integral Fellowship in San Francisco, and has attended retreats at Sri Aurobindo Sadhana Peetham in Lodi, CA. Now retired and re- Source material locating to Massachusetts, he is devoting himself to Supermind and the Mind of Light...... Sri Aurobindo 29 sadhana, engagement with family, and writing. Anie Nunnally ([email protected]) has The supramental consciousness...... The Mother 30 served on the board of the Foundation for World Ed- ucation and is a long-time member of the East-West Book reviews Cultural Center in Los Angeles, where she resides. Larry Seidlitz ([email protected]) facilitates Three publications by Anurag Bannerjee of the Overman Foundation...... online courses on Integral Yoga at the Sri Aurobindo ...... Reviewed by Larry Seidlitz 32 Centre for Advanced Research, Pondicherry, and is editor of Collaboration. Carel Thieme ([email protected]) is from The poetry room the Netherlands and joined Auroville in 1986. He is one of the editors of Auroville Today and recently Jivanmukta...... Sri Aurobindo 33 joined the Auroville Fund Raising cell. Nirvana ...... Edmond Gore Alexander Holmes 34 August Timmermans (augusttimmermans@ya- hoo.com) lives in Bangkok, Thailand since 1988 and From Aurora Leigh...... Elizabeth Barrett Browning 34 works for a private university. He lived in India from St. Peter...... Christina Rosetti 35 1977 to 1985, mainly in Auroville. He has travelled La vie profonde...... Edmond Gore Alexander Holmes 35 through southeast Asia, especially attracted to cul- tures based on Buddhism and Hinduism. From The winter morning walk...... William Cowper 35 Dakshina Vanzetti ([email protected]) From The task...... William Cowper 35 is the director of Sri Aurobindo Sadhana Peetham, an ashram in Lodi, CA. She has also been helping to coordinate the activities of various centers. Apropos ...... 36

2 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 The poets From the office of Collaboration Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 –1861) was one of the most prominent poets of the Victorian era, very popular both in England and America. n this issue we feature in our Chronicles section an essay by August Timmermans, a William Cowper (1731 – 1800) was one of the Dutch disciple who has been living in Thailand for the past 23 years. The article de- most popular poets of his time, in many ways a fore- scribes some of his psychic and spiritual experiences in the Integral Yoga, and their runner of the Romantic poets. Edmond Gore Alexander Holmes (1850–1936) Iconnection with the opening of the chakras, the centers of subtle energy in the body. As was an educationalist, writer and poet who was born he notes, chakras are seldom discussed in this Yoga, though they are mentioned by Sri at Moycashel, co. Westmeath, Ireland. Aurobindo and the Mother, and seem to be importantly related to spiritual experiences. Christina Rosetti (1830 –1894) was a leading His first experience of the Self occurred spontaneously while he was a young boy and 19th century English woman poet; she wrote a va- knew nothing about yoga, and though passing, it stimulated a curiosity as to its mean- riety of romantic, devotional, and children’s poems. ing. He later discovered this when reading books by Ramana Maharishi and Satprem Publisher: Collaboration (ISSN 0164-1522) which led him to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Other experiences of the opening is published by the Sri Aurobindo Association of heart chakra followed, leading to experiences of the psychic being. These kinds of (SAA), a California nonprofit religious corpora- tion, 2715 W. Kettleman Lane, suite 203-174, Lodi experiences of the higher and inner being stood in contrast to the continuing difficulties CA 95242 USA; e-mail: [email protected]. in his outer being, but nevertheless they continued and their influences gradually grew Editor: Larry Seidlitz, 39 Vanniar Street, stronger, diminishing the tensions of the surface consciousness, and extending their Vaithikuppam, Puducherry, 605012, India; email: control over the nature. His experiences suggest the possibilities and natural course of [email protected]. The opinions expressed in the Integral Yoga, and inspire us all to persist in our spiritual aspirations. Collaboration are not necessarily those of the edi- tor or the SAA. In Essays, we feature an in-depth article by Rick Lipschutz, which is part of a book Copyrights: Copyright © SAA, 2011. Pho- that he is working on pertaining to the supramental consciousness and transformation tos of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, passages that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have brought into the earth manifestation. The article from their works, and excerpts from the books is fascinating on a number of levels. Perhaps most importantly, it brings home to us the published by the Sri Auro­bindo Ashram Trust are incredible audacity and far-reaching aims and accomplishments of Sri Aurobindo and © Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust unless otherwise noted, and are used here with the kind permission the Mother. We all understand this at some intellectual level, but this article helps us to of the Ashram. feel it in our bones. Next, it helps us to understand better the crucial differences between Subscriptions: Send requests to: 2715 W. the overmind and the supermind, and thus the need for the supramental realization. It Kettleman Lane, suite 203-174, Lodi CA 95242 also helps us to better appreciate the importance and nature of the intervening levels USA, or call Auromere (209-339-3710 ext. 2) with of consciousness between our normal mental consciousness and these higher ranges. your credit card information; A one-year subscrip- tion (three issues) is $25 ($35 for airmail outside Rick takes us through the process of Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s realization and the USA; a patron subscription is $50 or more). integration of these supramental heights of consciousness with the earth nature leading For India residents, send requests along with Rs. to its eventual transformation. We also learn about the Tamil saint Swami Ramalingam 200 in the name of Larry Seidlitz, 39 Vanniar St., (1823-1874), who lived not far from Pondicherry and who also independently had Vaithikuppam, Puducherry 605012. scaled the peaks of the supramental consciousness, and is believed to have transformed Submissions: Collaboration welcomes writ- ing, photos, and artwork relevant to the Integral his body. His extensive poetical writings have parallels to Sri Aurobindo’s writings on Yoga and spirituality. Submit material by email the Supermind. Rick also helps us to better understand the significance of the Mind of to: [email protected]; or by post to Collab- Light, which Sri Aurobindo wrote about in his last year, and according to the Mother, oration, 2715 W. Kettleman Lane, Suite 203-174, transferred to her when he left his body. Finally, we get a better appreciation of the Lodi, CA 95242 USA. Collaboration cannot be continuing work of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on the transformation of the earth held responsible for loss or damage of unsolicited material. Letters and articles may be edited for consciousness, and its effects in many fields. style and space considerations. Rounding out these main articles, we have in Source Material writings by Sri Auro- About SAA: The Sri Aurobindo Asso- bindo and talks by the Mother about the Supermind and the Mind of Light. In Current ciation distributes information about Sri Auro- Affairs we have an article by Dakshina Vanzetti about the process of organizing the bindo, the Mother, and Auroville, and supports AUM 2011 conference, which is of general interest, but will also be helpful to future projects related to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Au- roville, and Integral Yoga activities in America. organizers of such conferences. We also have updates on a variety of different centers Current officers: Lynda Lester, president; John and study circles, including an interesting center in South America, and a new initiative Robert Cornell, secretary; Kalpana Patel, treasurer. for a living community in Washington State. In AV Almanac we have an interesting Collaboration work volunteers include Vishnu article on the various activities of the Auroville Village Action Group, which previously Eschner and Lucie Seidlitz. had been headed by the late Bhavana Dee, and is currently in need of funding. In Book Contributions: Donations for the work of the SAA, Auroville, and the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Reviews we have reviews of three new edited books by Anurag Banerjee of the Overman may be sent to SAA. Donations are tax exempt Foundation. We conclude with a selection of spiritual poems in the Poetry Room, and under section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Rev- inspiring quotations in Apropos. enue Code.

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 3 Current affairs

AUM: from an organizer’s perspective

by Dakshina Vanzetti

ell, to back-up a bit… It was 18 months earlier and the monthly retreats at Lodi Ashram had been going along for 12 years; the routine was smooth, a chil- Wdren’s program was just being added, the format allowed for a variety of activities throughout the day. But there was a bit of a feeling of cruising along on auto-pilot and the social element Attendees at AUM 2011 in Lodi, CA (Photo courtesy Chetena Deorah) was happily thriving (perhaps at the expense of the spiritual?), and so a question was posed at the 12 year anniversary: “Can we New World is Born) so that we could move ahead as the name of make a better use of this monthly opportunity for our individual the theme could not be agreed upon!) and collective spiritual progress?” Out of that question, a new Not to say that we didn’t agree on anything. Actually, there inspiration seemed to rise and a collective: “Yes! Let’s try.” And were several aspects of the conference that we all shared hopes out of that assent, a proposal was made to take up the theme of for: It should be about a change of consciousness; there should “Gnostic Collectivity” as an ideal to explore and aspire for. So we be more interactive and audience participatory formats; there embarked upon the journey and, soon discovering that a month should be activities for all the parts of the being, not just the or two of this focus was not going to be enough, extended the mind; there should be continuity between the presentations and theme for a year. activities and coherence with the theme; the presenters should be At the end of the year, a group feeling emerged that it would well-steeped in the subject matter due to their ongoing work and be great to have a collective project of some kind, a practical way interest (so that the presentations would be less theoretical, and to try and experience something of what we had been study- more based on experience and deeply held interest. Despite our ing from different angles all this while—perhaps a quilt that we sometimes frustrating and cumbersome process, which many would all work on from month to month? ...a garden project? times looked like the furthest thing from a “Gnostic” collective ...renovating the children’s play area? ...well, what about hosting consciousness, we persevered and struggled through the months the annual AUM conference? It was 18 months away; there would and sometimes even experienced beautiful moments of collec- be ample opportunity for many forms of collective participation; tive breakthroughs. it would be sufficiently challenging and would benefit not just In the weeks leading up to the conference, just as the tasks our retreat group, but be of service to the wider community of Sri seemed to multiply and the enormity of the on-the-ground lo- Aurobindo devotees in North America. gistics during the days of the conference started to press upon And so Sri Aurobindo Sadhana Peetham, along with the re- us, more and more helping hands and offers from volunteers treat group, took up the “honorous” (combining honorable with started to appear, though not lessening the need to stretch our onorous) task of hosting and organizing AUM 2011 and formed limits to the almost breaking point. The feeling of the AUM as a a planning committee including anyone willing to collaborate collective enterprise began to gain momentum, snowballing full for the long haul. We 10–12 people that showed up each month speed right up to the opening day, up to the opening moment… came into it with our aspirations high—after all, this would be and then, the wonderful feeling of the AUM taking on a life of its the chance to put our Gnostic collectivity study into practice. We own, out of that organizational structure we had so long labored would all aspire sincerely for Divine’s guidance in the matter at upon, emerging into a beautiful collective reality all its own, hand and, centered in the psychic consciousness, the vision of made manifold by all those who attended and participated. what should be done would, in that state of oneness, be perceived And so, it feels to me as though, despite our shortcomings by all in a smooth flow of Divine Grace and Harmony… well, not and oh so human limitations, the Divine did take up our original quite. We all tried sincerely to perceive that higher Vision, and aspirations, and Grace poured down and streamed through each yet time after time emerged with a variety of visions, sometimes day, bathing all of us—organizers, presenters, volunteers, and complementary, but often times quite in opposition to each other. attendees alike, from the toddlers to the elders—in that Supra- (In fact the discussion on the conference theme alone took over mental Golden Light of the New World, planting in its wake 3 months and in the end we had to settle for a “working title” (A many seeds of future realizations to come.

4 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 Matagiri building plans by Julian Lines

We now have the architectural plans and permission from the Town of Woodstock to build new infrastructure so we can:

• host Darshan observances in a large activity room and a communal dining area with guest rooms for speakers and visitors • host workshops on Integral Psychology, Awareness Through the Body and other practices inspired by Sri Aurobindo and Mother¹s vision • offer regular yoga classes and evening study groups • teach raw, vegan, vegetarian and ayurvedic food preparation Site of SkyRoot, on Whidbey Island, WA. (Photo courtesy Karen Liftin) along with other healthy lifestyle classes • provide space for individuals, couples and families to come drop of the Divine Consciousness entering into the conscious- on retreat and make use of the meditation room, library and ness of the earth could change everything here. the beautiful environment of the Catskills ~The Mother, 5 May 1929 • present talks and videos about Auroville, its mission and projects to better raise awareness and support for this re- The time is ripe to germinate new seeds within the husk markable experiment in human unity of the old. As prevailing structures collapse under their own weight, people the world over are crafting new ways of living We have identified an excellent innovative building system with one another on our home planet. Some of these experi- which will allow us to create a low carbon footprint construction ments are primarily ecological, some social, some spiritual. A where heating and cooling energy expenditures will be kept to few, most notably Auroville, encompass an integral vision of a minimum. The building itself will be part of our educational inner and outer transformation. outreach to the local community and beyond. In 2007, I set out on a global journey to write a book about Hand in hand with this new structure will be a new medita- these harbingers of a new world—my first nonacademic book. tion room and the repair and maintenance of the existing build- My goal was to share my gleanings with ordinary people who ings on the property to preserve Matagiri¹s special atmosphere. want the information about how to transform their lives and What is critical now is receiving donations of any amount in the inspiration to actually do so. That book is now coming to the form of cash, stocks, real property or legacies so we can start fruition. building. If you or someone you know is sympathetic to our goals, Along the way, I took a huge leap of faith in purchasing an ex- please let us know. Please lend us your helping hand and heart to quisite 20-acre farm on Whidbey Island in order to help germi- help us move forward to turn our dreams into reality. nate one more seed for a viable human future. The land—mostly For futher information, contact Matagiri, 1218 Wittenberg rolling pasture, with a view of the Olympics—abounds with Road, Mount Tremper NY 12457; www.matagiri.org; email: wildlife yet is accessible to Seattle by mass transit. [email protected]. We envision a multi-generational co-housing community dedicated to an integral spirituality, with an emphasis on deep solidarity, organic farming, simple living, and a spirit of adven- SkyRoot: A budding integral ture. We are seeking seven co-owners to build seven duplexes, community with the accessory dwellings serving as low-income housing for young farmers who embrace our integral vision. SkyRoot, or whatever name our members eventually decide upon, will be by Karen Litfin a field of work in service to the evolutionary unfoldment of the Earth consciousness. If we had to wait for the mass of humanity to reach a state of If the SkyRoot vision resonates with your own, please contact harmony, unity and aspiration strong enough to bring down the me at [email protected]. You can learn more about me at http:// Light and change the material conditions and the movement of faculty.washington.edu/litfin. And if you’re curious about my Nature, there would be little hope. But there is a possibility that forthcoming book, Being the Change: Ecovillage Experiments an individual or a small group or limited number may achieve Around the World, you can watch this video: http://www.you- the descent. It is not quantity or extension that matters. One tube.com/watch?v=MtNjZaXDGqM

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 5 News from East-West Cultural News from the Institute for Center–The Sri Aurobindo Center Wholistic Education of Los Angeles by Santosh Krinsky by Anie Nunnally We continue the daily systematic review online of The Life The center continues with its study programs and the obser- Divine at http://sriaurobindostudies.wordpress.com. We are vance of the four major darshans each year. We also hold special deep into Book 2 and all the posts are available for anyone wish- meditations on the Mahasamadhi days of Sri Aurobindo and ing to start from the beginning. We have been also working our the Mother. In our satsang gatherings, each Saturday from 4-6 way through The Synthesis of Yoga at www.twitter.com/santoshk1 p.m., we are currently studying Essays on the Gita and after the on a daily basis. beginning of the year we will begin, each Wednesday evening, the We continue our program of offering free donated books to reading and study of Savitri followed by group meditation. any Sri Aurobindo Center who needs or can use them. Currently Our membership continues to increase and Darshan days are we have various volumes of Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s well attended with people coming from many other counties in writings available for just the cost of postage. We also have a free the Los Angeles area. Sri Aurobindo’s birthday darshan brought copy of the Sri Aurobindo Selected Writings CD Rom available close to 40 people. On that day we also had very special music for centers who need one on a postage only basis. offered by Indian classical singer Meera Srinivasan. We have developed the M.P. Pandit website www.mppandit. This year brought many visitors and presentations: com to include a number of audio lectures including a series on Savitri and a series on The Synthesis of Yoga, as well as a number • In February we hosted Lynda Lester who gave a power point of chants by M.P. Pandit and singing by Vasanti. presentation on the Integral Yoga Most of Sri Aurobindo’s major works are now available for • In March we had visits from Angelo and Dakshina from Sri Amazon Kindle readers. One need not own a Kindle to be able Aurobindo Sadhana Peetham (SASP) in Lodi, CA to access these books. Free Kindle reader software is available for • In May we had a book signing and presentation by well PC, IPAD, Android, Blackberry and numerous other formats. known author Philip Goldberg, featuring his new book “The Go to www.amazon.com to the Kindle Store to download the American Veda” free e-readers and search for books. • In June some of us attended the AUM Conference in Lodi, For further information, contact the Institute for Wholistic CA, beautifully hosted by the SASP Education, 3425 Patzke Lane, Racine, WI 53405; ph. 262-619- • In July, coming to us from that conference, we hosted some 1798; or visit its websites: www.wholisticinstitute.org and insti- of those speakers who made presentations here. They were [email protected]. Aster Patel (accompanied by her neice Rohini Verma), Narad Eggenberger and Loretta Shartsis. The Auromira Center in Colombia • On a daily basis there are visitors for meditation, book sales and just sometimes people want to come and be quiet in our magnificent garden. We continue our renovation and by Maria Alicia Angel beautification of the gardens and the interior of the house. • Other new programs initiated recently are an OM choir that Auromira (www.fundacionauromira.org) is located three meets each Saturday from 3:30-4:00 and a Cultural Series hours away from Bogota (Colombia, South America), at the once a month for showing DVD films of classical movies, foothills of the Flora and Fauna Sanctuary of Iguaque and on the filmed stage productions, classical music performances, cho- outskirts of the small village of Villa de Leyva. ral works, ballet and films on science. Auromira has a meditation hall (Sri Aurobindo´s relics were enshrined in 2008 by Tara Jauhar), a multi-purpose asanas/ Dr. Tyberg’s (Jyotipriya’s) Sanskrit books continue to sell and library/conference room, a flower house for silent reading or we have many calls for Sanskrit classes. We are honored to carry meditation, a hammock room for reading and videos, an art on the mission she had set out for the center for the work of Sri house, a therapy room, kitchen/dining hall and rooms for 20 Aurobindo and the Mother in the USA. guests. It is immersed in gardens, greenery and nature and has For further information, contact the East West Cultural Cent- an organic vegetable garden, a cat, some chickens and two cows. er—The Sri Aurobindo Center of Los Angeles, 12329 Marshall Guests are coming for few days or weeks and at present there are Street, Culver City, CA 90230; ph. 310-390-9083; or visit ewcc@ three sadhaks permanently living at Auromira. sriaurobindocenter-la.org or www.sriaurobindocenter-la.org. There are four hours of daily practice open to the community:

6 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 • 6:00 a.m. Collective Meditation • 6:45 a.m. Physical consciousness (Yoga asanas, pranayama, AV almanac relaxation) • 5:00 p.m. Reading, Mantras or Video • 6:00 p.m. Collective Meditation. Striving for social empowerment Auromira has several activities for visitors to perform as volun- tary Karma Yoga, and holds a 15 day retreat every year with Swami by Carel Thieme Brahmdev as well as other workshops on Integral Yoga. Auromira translates and publishes Spanish editions of the writings on the Reprinted from the August 2011 issue of Auroville Today. Integral Yoga of Mother and Sri Aurobindo, and of Swami Brah- mdev (see our web page). Volunteers can apply for internship or almost 30 years, Auroville Village Action has been work- periods of up to 15 days. If accepted, they are expected to partici- ing in the surrounding villages, focusing on empowering pate in the 4 hours of daily practice and take up 6 hours of karma men and women and on promoting the social, economic, yoga per day. Books from SABDA and Auroshikha incense and Fpsychological and environmental transformation of the villages. essential oils are sold. For further information, contact Maria at “Auroville’s Village Action (AVAG) works through Self-Help Auromira ([email protected]). Groups (SHGs),” says Anbu, who, together with Moris, is direct- ing AVAG’s activities. “They have become a vital and integral part its work. Our programmes are only effective because of Briefs their cooperation.” The figures confirm her statement. Since 1995, when the first Women’s Self-Help Group was formed, the The Seattle study circle has been meeting since the early number of SHGs has expanded steadily. Today, AVAG works 1980s. It was formally founded in July of 1996 for the purpose of with 3,726 women organised in 197 Women SHGs, and with 701 studying the works of Sri Aurobindo and Mother, encouraging men in 42 Men SHGs. They cover 80 villages and dalit hamlets members in their sadhana, and meeting regularly for meditation. with a combined population of 90,000 people. Study groups are held on Sunday evenings in Seattle or Lake For- The SHGs are organized into two federations. In 2000, the est Park. In addition, there are occasional meetings for special Women’s SHG Federation was formed, followed by a Men’s SHG studies, the observance of Darshan days, and retreats. Inquir- Federation in 2007. “The Federations share responsibility for col- ies and drop in visitors are welcome. Please contact Bill Leon lective decision-making and give us feedback and suggestions on ([email protected]; 206-364-6665 or 206-914-6663) or the planning and implementation of our programmes. We have Morgan Kellock ([email protected]; 206-367-6591) to developed a symbiotic relationship with guidance and advice confirm meeting location. freely exchanged, even though we maintain a formal oversight The Lotus Center in Enumclaw, WA is undergoing renova- over the federations,” says Anbu. “Their formation marks a cru- tion to enable visits here as soon as we can be ready. Intimation cial step in handing over responsibility and decision-making to will be sent out the moment we have a definite date for that. In the local beneficiaries of AVAG’s programs. The Federations have the meantime, the library and bookstore are in active service. become another key factor in the successful performance of the Loans and purchases of books by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother programmes of AVAG.” (including compilations) and M.P. Pandit are available by mail. What are these programmes? “We categorise them into four Inquiries will be gladly answered. For further information, con- main groups,” says Moris. “These are community development, tact Ron Jorgensen at [email protected]; 360-825-3413. economic development, capacity building and psychosocial ser- The Integral Life Center, founded by Sri M. P. Pandit in 1976 vices. All programmes correspond to the direct needs of our provides weekly study, meditation and hatha yoga classes to the target population.” greater Columbia MO community. We are currently studying Sri Aurobindo’s Essays on the Gita. Hatha yoga classes are offered in Community development various locations in Columbia, including a health center, a uni- versity and Shanthi Mandir, a Hindu temple. Visitors are welcome “We work on a number of community issues,” says Anbu. and can contact [email protected] or call 573-657-9277. “One of the most important projects is to bring together women AUM 2012 will take place August 9th-12th at the Sirius Com- and men and groups from different castes.” The purpose is to try munity in Amherst, MA. This meeting will focus on the Auroville and rectify prejudices that are endemic to India, such as fear of experience and invites the extended family of those who have Dalits (formerly ‘Untouchables’) and other ‘Scheduled Castes’, visited or are inspired by the vision of Auroville. The meeting is as well as India’s particular forms of gender discrimination. Par- planned in collaboration with Living Routes which has sponsored ticipants learn to see each other as unique human beings. “These many student programs in Auroville over the years. programmes have led members from different groups to form

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 7 friendships. Some villages have developed inter-community rela- tionships and groups got inspired by hearing of another group’s projects and activities.” Another project is encouraging people to take collective re- sponsibility for improving and maintaining their village infra- structure. AVAG organizes one-day work camps for doing small projects, such as removing trash on the roadside or fencing a children’s play area. It also does micro- projects that may take a week to complete. “AVAG’s Micro-Project and Work Camp pro- gramme has attracted the attention of neighbouring NGOs who want to copy the model,” says Anbu. A third activity is the health, eye, veterinary and awareness camps that are carried out in the villages. AVAG facilitates the contacts with hospitals, NGOs, and government departments who send people to the villages to treat people and conduct awareness camps on social issues. Lastly, AVAG helps the villages to get access to government A section of Self-Help Group members in the Women’s Seminar at the resources and schemes, such as the Life Insurance Corporation, Auroville Village Action building, Irumbai. scholarship programmes, and toilet and housing schemes. appeal and acceptability of this product will now be tested in Economic development partnership with NGOs working with rural and urban marginal- ised women. If the product is found to be acceptable it will have The economic development programme comprises three a huge potential impact. Women SHG members will be able to components: the Micro-Finance Programme, the Livelihood stitch these simple tailored products and in the process generate Training programme and the Social Enterprise Creation. The a sustainable livelihood.” Livelihood Trainings teach skills in tailoring and embroidery In parallel, AVAG is preparing an educational training pro- that can be performed in between household duties, providing gramme for NGO staff to expose rural women in India to the women—especially those who live in extreme poverty and those topic of menstrual hygiene management. Using stories and who are dalits or widows—with some income. group-based activities, this educational package will deeply ex- The Social Enterprise Creation Programme is of a more recent plore the myths and taboos that result in lifestyle restrictions and date. Since late 2009, AVAG has been working on creating social feelings of shame and impurity. enterprises to provide livelihood opportunities to women SHG members and to generate income to support the work of AVAG. Capacity building Under the slogan ‘Affordable Eco technologies for a better future’ an EcoLife Store has started, where eco-friendly products can AVAG’s Capacity Building Programme aims at expanding be bought that are suitable for rural communities. The products the social perspectives and technical abilities of SHG members. include CFL bulbs, activated EM, low-cost water filters, different “We organise what we call ‘mixed-gender exposure trips’ in the kinds of solar torches and solar lights, crank lights and solar mo- surrounding regions to foster solidarity and increase awareness bile phone chargers. The EcoLife Store is now ready for the next of essential issues,” says Kathy. “On each of these trips men and phase: training interested SHG members as retail entrepreneurs women from different villages get a chance to be together for one to become EcoLife sales representatives. full day and this experience helps them to understand each other. Eco Femme, another project, focus on menstrual hygiene We also conduct workshops covering subjects such as gender management, a poorly-addressed area of public health that in- and caste analysis, domestic violence, environmental awareness; volves social, cultural, economic, environmental, health and and train people to develop leadership skills so that that the gender issues. “Eco Femme is AVAG’s attempt to produce a leadership of each SHG can rotate every two years.” cloth menstrual pad which is washable, re-usable and thus eco- In so-called ‘cluster meetings’, representatives from 10–15 friendly,” explains Kathy Walkling, an AVAG executive. “So far, SHGs meet twice a year to discuss common issues such as roads, three prototype pads have been designed which we found to be transport, water and needs relating to other shared infrastruc- appealing to the women in our area. The women find the pads ture. “Cluster meetings are also an opportunity for members attractive and say they generate a feeling of dignity, unlike the to know women from different clubs and to advise and suggest old cloth they normally use or the disposable pads which are strategies for solving problems that arise within the clubs. These growing in popularity. They appreciate that there is no waste meetings are another opportunity to foster solidarity among and understand that such a product can save a lot of money. The women beyond their own club,” says Kathy.

8 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 Psychosocial services AVAG has meanwhile trained 15 members from different SHGs in counselling alcoholics and acting as contact persons between According to the report ‘Accidental Deaths and Suicides in the de-addiction centre in Chennai, AVAG and the village.” India – 2008,’ the suicide rate in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry is among the highest in the country. The number of suicides per The funding one lakh population (a population of 100,000), was in 2008 46.9 in Puducherry and 21.7 in Tamil Nadu, against a national average The most critical challenge AVAG is facing is funding. “We of 10.8. The overall male : female ratio of suicide victims for the lack sufficient funds. In fact, we are eating into our capital,” says year 2008 was 64:36. Moris. “At the end of March 2009, the institutional funding for “We became aware that in our area, on average 6 to 8 SHG our activities ceased and in spite of our efforts we have not been members a year had committed suicide and that around the same able to find another donor. Funding is now a critical priority, number of women had attempted it,” says Anbu. “This motivated not only to continue our work, but also to be able to expand. We us to look for ways to offer psychosocial support to the SHG mem- are under pressure to add 30 Women and 20 Men SHG groups, bers. We are happy that, as a result of this and other interventions, which would mean 800 new beneficiaries. But we don’t have in 2009 and 2010 there were no suicides among the SHG members.” the means.” One way in which AVAG would be able to enhance One of these interventions was the Energy Healing activity. In its income, he says, is by enlarging its micro-finance corpus 2010, two counsellors from the USA, trained in Somatic Experienc- fund. Funding may also materialise from the Ministry of Rural ing, provided individual sessions and trained interested women. Development for the project ‘Sustainable Enterprises Develop- Traumatized women were also offered individual sessions. Also a ment for the Auroville Bioregion.’ This project, which aims at group from Langara College in Canada offered trainings to staff, providing livelihood and enterprise possibility for the people in Federations and SHG members in Energy Healing. “We find that the bioregion, would also alleviate some of the financial pressure these trainings in self-healing and stress reduction are a great help AVAG has been facing in the last few years. But the approval for in addressing emotional problems,” says Anbu. “This, together with this project is still pending. the counselling we are offering to individuals who have difficulty in “We are constrained, but we are confident that the funds will coping with their life situation or who are victims of human rights be raised for us to continue our work,” says Anbu. “It is impor- abuses, has helped to reduce the high prevalence of suicide.” tant for the villages and it is a necessary component of the work AVAG’s counselling work is increasing in importance. “Know- of Auroville. Therefore we trust that people will respond to our ing of the possibility to get counselling, SHG members come to call for help.” AVAG on their own or are brought here by other members,” says Anbu. “Family members and sometimes non-members of the SHGs also utilize our service.” Depending upon the case, they are Auroville Village Action sometimes helped to contact other organizations. needs help Another intervention is AVAG mediation between disputing parties. “We are called upon to mediate disputes between SHG members, between husband and wife, employer and employee, From Auroville Today, August 2011 etc.,” says Moris. “In 2010, interestingly three men – two alcohol- ics – approached us to settle problems with their wives. It shows The VFAVR, the sister organisation of Auroville Interna- that AVAG is more and more seen as a neutral organization ca- tional Germany, which has been set-up to help the development pable of giving support to people, irrespective of their gender.” of Tamil villages around Auroville, wants a 1 crore [approx. Alcoholism is one of the biggest threats to the health of the $195,000] expansion of the microfinance corpus fund used by families and community. It leads to violence, indebtedness, abuse the Auroville Village Action Group. Can you help? of women and children, stress and trauma. Because of alcoholism, Donations for the AVAG microfinance corpus expansion village communities also lose many potential contributors. And can be made either to the Auroville International Centre in your in quite a few cases the families lose the bread winners. country or to: “We are discussing this issue extensively with both women Verein zur Förderung der Auroville Region (VFAVR) and men SHG members as we have been requested to try and Bank für Sozialwirtschaft find some way to help,” says Kathy. “We have made contacts with Internationl transfers: Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) members and different de-addiction Account No IBAN: DE34100205000003289300 centres. Last year AVAG organized three seminars for men and Bank ID BIC: BFSWDE33BER women SHG members with the support of the de-addiction cen- Transfers within Germany: tre ‘Concern,’ based in Chennai. The response from the mem- Account No: 3289300 bers was overwhelming. Both Federations are now planning to Bank ID: 10020500 make the reduction of alcohol- abuse a priority for the next year. Donations should not be sent to Auroville

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 9 in—Non, je ne regrette rien, Car ma vie, car Chronicles mes joies, Aujourd’hui, ça commence avec toi (No, I don’t regret anything, Because my life, my joys, Today, they begin with Mild Mukti you), as I rediscovered it later in life. Only when I found myself in the state The effects of the opening of the chakras in of a struggling adolescent I began to come the Integral Yoga: A personal journey back to the memory of this early child- hood experience. I know it had always by August Timmermans remained with me in the background as I was wondering what the real meaning of life was. And it must have been this initial [Mukti] Liberation is the first necessity, to experience of the Infinite that intuitively live in the peace, silence, purity, freedom led me to certain books. One of the first of the self. Along with that or afterwards, books that made me realize that it had if one awakens to the cosmic conscious- been an Atman experience was one on Ra- ness, then one can be free, yet one with all Photo courtesy August Timmermans mana Maharshi who describes his realiza- things.1 —Sri Aurobindo was Sri Aurobindo’s Letters on Yoga, and tion of Self in honest and simple language. Conversations with Sri Aurobindo, by the My interest in Indian philosophy and yoga One can speak of the chakras only in refer- disciple Pavitra. The latter gives a direct began to grow as these explained not only ence to yoga. In ordinary people the chakras and descriptive picture of Pavitra’s efforts my experiences but also pointed to the are not open, it is only when they do sad- in developing his inner consciousness and real aim of life. One day, a friend suggested hana that the chakras open. For the chakras Sri Aurobindo giving his comments and the book Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of are the centres of the inner consciousness advice, indicating the importance of the Consciousness by Satprem. TheAdventure and belong originally to the subtle body. So opening of the lotuses. captivated me intensely, here one enters a much as is active in ordinary people is very It is maybe by luck that my experience wide and detailed description of our spir- little — for in them it is the outer conscious- of Atman, also known as Spirit or true itual reality. However, the Integral Yoga ness that is active.2 —Sri Aurobindo Self, came at a very early age as it would of Sri Aurobindo states that liberation set out my life line later on, and I believe is the first step in realizations and many The centres of consciousness, the chakras. It that some of the chakras were partly open more levels of consciousness need to be is by their opening that the yogic or inner then. I was about four years or younger, attained. This, to become able to change consciousness develops—otherwise you are while my father carried me on his arms the mental-vital-physical reality with the bound to the ordinary outer consciousness.3 at a busy fair I was captivated by a solid supramental consciousness, leading to a —Sri Aurobindo woman standing at the entrance of a cir- new creation. To paraphrase it as simply cus. She sang with a forceful voice the song as possible, he takes the yoga into another hakras are rarely mentioned by Non, je ne regrette rien, a song that would direction, the integration and change of sadhaks in the Integral Yoga and become famous through the French singer the physical reality. I assume from the responses from Edith Piaf. Her emotional and penetrat- My brief assessment of myself would Cfriends on this matter that not many know ing voice at one point cut through my be a person more or less self-contained about chakras, or do not really experience emotional center and my consciousness and with a natural tendency to be de- them although they might be open. It is was abruptly lifted into the Infinite. I -ex pressed. My first guide then became the different for those who are involved in the perienced Silence, Peace and Wideness, booklet Bases of Yoga, a compilation of art of subtle healing as they work with the the latter a limitless and peaceful space. Letters on Yoga by Sri Aurobindo. One energies of the chakras to stimulate the I remember that I was fully at ease and evening I made a conscious effort to find physical healing process. In my own case, naturally assumed, as a child does, that the psychic being during a meditation, due to the Yoga force or the Mother’s force everyone around me was experiencing and when I had gone deep within myself the chakras have been opening up gradu- the exact same thing as all and everything via the heart centre there was a sudden ally from the time that I began to practice was One. It is striking to me now that this movement lifting me out of the depth, as the Integral Yoga, and I am becoming in- spiritual experience did not happen in a if I had come out of a deep well, I told a creasingly aware of the positive effects they quiet and remote place, but happened in friend afterwards. Almost the exact same have on my state of being. The most help- clear daylight at a noisy and crowded town image I found years later mentioned in ful literature for me in understanding the square. And that it was triggered by the the Letters on Yoga: It is evidently the chakras in the context of the Integral Yoga voice of a woman singing a song that ends psychic—it is often seen as a deep well or

10 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 abyss into which one plunges ...4 This state observing what was happening and could the better the inner state becomes. In the made me inwardly and outwardly quiet contain myself. I clearly observed that the beginning years of meditating I experi- and gave the experience of being eter- emotions came from outside and were not enced the descending force not more than nal, as a matter of fact, really. It felt like from myself. After the ceremony I had to as different degrees of pressures coming this is It, like coming home, as if a heavy take the bus, while this emotional force of into the being, especially in the head, but burden was lifted from me. It brought a gravity kept pressing deeper and deeper. over time this changed into experiencing renewed and more loving interest in life The bus was crowded and I had to stand, light and peace, and peace changed into and people. I remember that I was able and when at the point that I thought I was peaceful bliss. As Sri Aurobindo states, the to understand individuals with only ex- going to cry amidst the bus passengers, the chakras relate to the subtle body, and to changing a few words because of the natu- psychic being was unexpectedly touched me, the more they open and develop the rally deeper concentration and interest I and I instantly thought there is no death, better the inner being can let its presence had then. Although this state also became there is only eternity! A deep relief and be felt. However, in my case this has been overpowered by human nature and the joy dissolved the suffocating pressure that a long term process, covering a period of undeveloped external being, something I had gone through for the past hour and about 30+ years with on and off intense remained in the background, sometimes instead of crying I ended up radiant and experiences until something more stable vaguely, sometimes more prominent—the smiling. This is another experience that manifested. For most of the time there was sense of something stable and eternal. happened in most contrasting conditions a frustrating division between the inner At a later age, I observed that in situa- and I can only guess what this gravitating and outer being. The external being did tions in which I communicated with peo- force had been. not clearly benefit from the developments ple for longer periods, I often felt exhaust- As there is such a result of open that happen within, and while the inner ed afterwards, sometimes even feeling sick chakras being invaded by negative forces, being was experienced during medita- for hours or longer. It took many years to the opposite is also true, the invasion of tions, it was only felt in the background understand that when the chakras open positive energies. Two telling examples later on, or not at all. they open to everything that is in the di- for me relate to my first time arriving in An experience of the cosmic con- rect environment. Crowded public places India and in Pondicherry in 1977. I had sciousness came to me one night at the All would make me feel exhausted because of come overland from the Netherlands and USA Meeting 2001 (AUM), when I could their heavy-loaded atmospheres. Some- was on my way to Auroville. The journey not sleep and was inwardly told forget times I experienced extreme nervous- was emotionally challenging but also a about yourself and you will become the ness, depression, or a feeling of insecurity fascinating mind-opener, a confrontation divine being, and my head area opened when talking with someone in particular, of cultural differences from country to and widened to such an extent that I did to later find out, on reflection, that it was country, with the real contrasts starting in not experience my physical head any- not me but the state of being of the other Afghanistan and Pakistan. When finally more. There was infinite space and peace person, and myself ignorant and passive standing at the border of Pakistan with and subtle colored light, my consciousness to the invasion of energies coming from India, not more than a white line across expanded and the physical body seemed outside. Of course, here comes yoga into the road, an inviting border officer said increasingly far away. I assume that due to the picture and I began to try to be more welcome to India, sir, and stepping over the, to me, evident presence of Sri Auro- conscious in interchanging with people, the line into India was like stepping into bindo and the Mother’s forces during such like trying to apply “stepping back.” Often light, and into joy, and into timelessness. an uplifting event as AUM, the experience it was a vain attempt. The atmosphere of India was incompa- was deeply harmonious. In the Letters on There was once an invasion of the rable to any other country I had gone Yoga I found this: “The cosmic conscious- heart chakra that resulted in the re-emer- through. In early December of the same ness is that in which the limits of ego, per- gence of the psychic being. I was attend- year I arrived in Pondicherry, near the sonal mind and body disappear and one ing the cremation of the father of a senior bus stop at the Botanical Gardens, and I becomes aware of a cosmic vastness...”5 colleague who had died. As I had never was quickly aware of the subtle uplifting And then such an intense experience just met the man, there was no emotional con- atmosphere of the town. The next day I fades away again. nection, but I felt sympathy for the family. discovered that this pristine atmosphere When I was once inwardly told about During the Buddhist ceremony, I experi- emanates from the Samadhi at the Sri changing my regular meditation timings, enced an increasing sadness pressing on Aurobindo Ashram. the result was that the following medita- my heart which gradually felt like a heavy As mentioned earlier, it is the Yoga tions gained in intensity. I found out later force of gravity trying to sink down into force that works on the chakras and in the that the new timings were the same as the heart center. This caused an uncom- Letters on Yoga it is indicated that the force those on the weekly Sri Aurobindo Ash- fortable feeling in me and the pressure to works to open and purify the different ram meditation schedule: 6 a.m. morning burst into tears. At the same time I was parts of the being. The more this advances meditation and 7.30 p.m. evening medita-

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 11 tion, except that the evening medi- concrete motion...”7 It is now relative- tations on Thursdays and Sundays ly easy to concentrate on the chakras start at 7.45 p.m., and no evening and experience how they palpably meditations on Saturdays. They last expand beyond the physical body, 20 to 30 minutes. Since then I have in front and back, each manifesting, been meditating at those exact times, albeit subtly, the peaceful bliss that adjusted to the time difference with is becoming part of the inner being Thailand. These Ashram medita- and which is inherent to the Yoga tions have been uniquely helpful as force. However, it is all an ongoing there is the readily descending force development, there is no fixed end- at such times, often clearing me of result. The Mother mentions in the the troubles of the day and uplifting Agenda the fact that there are more the consciousness. And over time, chakras, above and below the body: particularly over the past few years, there have been breakthroughs that The tantrics recognize seven directly affect the external being. chakras, I believe. Theon said he Looking at my vital where the most knew of more, specifically two below resistances are to change, an often the body and three above. That is my overly sensitive and irritable state, experience as well—I know of twelve strongly disliking certain situations chakras. And really, the contact with and conditions—this has changed the divine consciousness is there to a wider and a more detached vital (Mother motions above the head), that can keep itself quiet when it is not here (at the top of the head). One called for, thanks to the increasing must surge up above.8 peace and widening of the being due to the chakras opening up. Painting by Usha R. Patel. (From her book Love Treasures, Sri Aurobindo often indicates in I was fascinated when the Mother published by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram) his Letters that certain openings are repeatedly advises Satprem (recorded open chakras, simply conscious breath- rather progressive than definite and in the Mother’s Agenda) to concentrate ing affects all the chakras and cleans the what I see happening is that the chakras above the head. Especially when pointing surface consciousness. Breathing seems to provide a progressive integration of the to the future being the Mother indicates happen with the whole being. In this way external being with the inner conscious- that this is the major effort to do: “To take I have come to understand from within ness. There is a gradual development of this step towards the new creation, one how pranayama works. Prana has a direct their positive and enriching effects on the must learn to silence the mind and rise effect on the chakras and its complex sys- different parts of the being. At this stage above into Consciousness.”6 To concen- tem of nadis that run from head to feet, and when conditions are optimal the trate above the head during meditation is giving the sense of lightness and wholeness chakras give the experience of mild mukti. one thing but to remain there is another. when the condition is optimal. For most However, once the Sahasradala lotus, the of the time now I perceive myself as being References crown chakra, opens up it becomes evi- the observer and at times feeling inwardly dent to do. With the opening of the crown completely free. I say Integral Yoga works! 1. Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga. Sri chakra I experience an extension of the Yet, this current state is not a full Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry, consciousness above the head and not be- and unshakable liberation or Mukti, as 1970/1995, p. 1073. ing locked up anymore. This state brings described in the more traditional yogas 2. Ibid., p. 369, a freedom from the body, especially the where the kundalini force shoots through 3. Ibid., p. 316. head and the thinking mind that are now the crown and triggers the whole being 4. Ibid., pp. 1114-1115. more contained, and the sense of wide- awake. In contrast, I experience at times 5. Ibid., p. 316. ness and the subtle experience of peaceful subtle waves of energy coming from the 6. The Mother,Collected Works of the bliss. This new state has dissolved the ten- Muludhara, the physical center, moving Mother, Vol. 17, Sri Aurobindo Ashram dency there was in my nature to become to the crown chakra, like Sri Aurobindo Trust, Pondicherry p. 372. depressed. Invasions of unwanted energies mentions: “In our yoga it is not a special- 7. Letters on Yoga, p. 992. still happen but there is now more con- ised process but a spontaneous uprush of 8. Mother’s Agenda. Vol. 1, Institut de sciousness to deal with this. There is also a the whole lower consciousness sometimes Recherches Evolutives, Paris, 1979, p. 443. practical remedy. Because of the relatively in currents or waves, sometimes in a less

12 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 for India’s complete independence.4 It is Essays also not well known or widely recognized that Sri Aurobindo never has stopped be- ing a revolutionary. Through his own form of yoga he conducted a revolution to over- A manifestation throw an existing government (that of our sheathed in Light cosmos) by forceful means and replace it by a new form of government. He needed by Rick Lipschutz for this the instincts of a master politician, prepared every instant to confound his Author’s note: This chapter deals specifi- own categories. He would subtly subvert cally with some aspects of the difference even the most sacred convention forward between Overmind and Supermind, its to unfold its hidden purpose, rolling back crucial significance, and attempts to out- the boundaries of what could be with line some steps in Sri Aurobindo’s ongoing revolutionary grace. “You must know that fourth great realization: “The higher planes this is not a simple affair at all. It is not of consciousness leading to the Supermind.” Photo courtesy Rick Lipschutz a revolt against the British Government (Note well: once the Supermind is reached, which anyone can easily do. It is, in fact, a as he reached it and exercised it even while them. His body the British could jail but revolt against the whole universal Nature still in his body, the further stages of this him they could not hold; his conscious- and so one must think deeply before en- realization and its embodiment continue, ness could not be incarcerated. Even when rolling oneself with me.”5 even now.) laid on a cot, having stopped breathing, he On March 28, 1908 Sri Aurobindo refused to play the role of a dead man. He wrote in Bande Mataram journal: “The Foreword stepped out of every thought this less than movement of which the first outbreak was whole world thinks about death. Over a political, will end in a spiritual consum- ut don’t we always bolt backwards, hundred hours, his skin got pinker, suf- mation.”6 The revolution turns into one in like Arjuna? The Supramental fused more than ever with that gold red which the overmental heights of this uni- Form of Krishna is too bold for hu- supramental flush, and the palpable force- verse, all the overmental regions, would Bman brainpans, much too bright for these field of energy that emanated from him no longer overtop the abyss, but—each eyes, beautiful beyond our pale aesthesis: grew stronger than any around him ever gap a passage, every break down a break- it includes far too much and transcends had felt.2 What was he all about? What has through—joins the golden bridge that it all too well. No! we shout with Arjuna; branded him, core to crust, is what has connects the worlds. How can the opposi- oh please, Krishna, present yourself to called him to undergo an inner revolution tion be so overruled that it is no longer the us the way we like you, in that wonder- so complete it would change the world. opposition? ful unitarian universal form, massage our What is the nature of this revolution, how And these regions of Overmind, so prejudices, make yourself acceptable to did he go through it? In what ways are we lustrous, intense and universal—so seem- us. We, mental beings that we are, choose related to this revolution so that our own ingly divine, and one would think, and the national congress of the Overmind; we constitution can be completely rewritten many have thought, divinely transforma- have too little soul in us, nothing all that in entirely different script? tive—why did and do they require such much like Supermind which might, had “When Sri Aurobindo was 11 years interminable effort, to transform them? we but just that little, enable us to respond old, he had a sort of premonition that Sri Aurobindo has been charged with both to those flute-calls of our more-dynamic great revolutions were going to take place the task, and the offense, plotting to make identity. Other-than-wise, we unfriend in the future and that he had a part to heaven a better place to live, and of includ- you. Give us back the old regime. Not play in some of them. Not a mental idea, ing Earth in its extended boundaries, so to ready! Not ready!1 but a kind of inner feeling was growing make “in the formula of the Veda, ‘Heaven within that he had some great work to do, and Earth equal and one.’”7 He was jailed Sri Aurobindo’s revolution a mission to fulfill.”3 We may know that Sri for sedition against the British Raj; now Aurobindo pursued a revolutionary pro- alas, he has grown even more seditious, Who is Sri Aurobindo? What does gram to free India from British rule. We having hatched a plot against the very he stand for? So many have tried to put may not know that he was first among his spirit that has made us separate, that has him in a box, this package or that one, or countrymen to articulate, both through subjected us to times and circumstance, press him tightly between the covers of a the pages of Bande Mataram and at the and that left us like this, narrow of breath book. But he never could fit inside any of Nationalist party congress at Surat, the call and brain.

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 13 Now, the effects of the dynamic spirit- realization, “the higher planes of con- where Overmind effectively is at the top) ual-mind planes though profound are, in sciousness leading to the Supermind”11 its power diminishes, the intention devi- the old creation, only an influence. The -su (italics mine). They had always been ates and diverts. It loses focus, disperses permind consciousness-force works pow- there; part of his job was back then and and dissipates. So goes the story of the old erfully for “unity, mutuality and harmony” still is now to connect them, as bridges, creation. (as Sri Aurobindo expressed, discussing or rungs, leading to the Supermind. That So how can the straight path be re- what the divine life means near the end of being done, they can then receive ener- stored, the arrow remain golden-true The Life Divine).8 His own “ascent towards gies, formerly unmanifest, through the through all the worlds of its passage? To Supermind”—ascent to and integration Supermind, and be more-perfect trans- ascertain this we need to retrace in brief making dynamic the Higher Mind, Illu- mitters of those energies into the material some steps of the path taken by Sri Auro- mined Mind, Intuition, and Overmind9— world, and also harmonize more happily bindo. took place in Pondicherry (though he vis- with each other. Necessary to his fourth Sri Aurobindo trained his focus onto ited them in vision in Alipore Jail in 1908 realization was his early ascent towards the realization of “the higher plane of or 1909) before 1915. He knew whereof Supermind before 1915; what would make consciousness leading to the Supermind” he spoke quite early on in this journey. He this realization sufficient, enable and after the Parabrahman realization of 1912. was not at all content with this early ascent “functionalize” the Supermind to trans- But this is no sequenced listing of novas, and preliminary integration, necessary for form ourselves and earth nature, would no linear, mind-forged progression. In him to begin the Arya which contains the consume the rest of his life in Pondicher- the incalculable way of the Shakti—and earliest versions of the bulk of his major ry, and still consumes him now that he with his tireless experimental spirit—he writings barring Savitri: after all, what he is based and operating for the most part was “on the way” to Supermind even in was after was Supermind’s advent, its full in a supramentalized golden portion of Alipore Jail in 1908. Vivekananda’s spirit, function on earth and in ourselves as a nat- the subtle-physical layer of the Earth.12 he tells us, came to him in his cell and ural faculty (natural the same way we flex All the spiritual-mind planes, though they spent “a fortnight” teaching him about the our brains to think). With Supermind’s ad- make valiant forays, utterly fail to achieve Intuitive Plane, everything Vivekananda vent, Overmind, intuition, and illumined the essential integration needed for us to wanted him to know, exhaustively, before and higher mind would become more become whole beings living divine earth- he would consent to leave him be. Vive- than influences: they’d become dynamos lives. It is not till one realizes and as it were kananda also pointed out to him the other whose pure transmission of Supermind’s climbs into the Supermind, then proceeds planes above the Intuitive; this includes force helps stabilize its dynamic unity and to live in its full sun-blaze and not in those the Supermind.15 And the Mother has light-bringing harmony, establishing it in remoter lusters, and function there as that stated that Sri Aurobindo’s realization of our physical consciousness, bodies, and only and fully, that one can possess that the Cosmic Consciousness in Alipore Jail this physical world. These planes, formerly one power which completely integrates was “Supramental.”16 Furthermore, even top-heavy with light that dwarfs their own and fully controls the other powers. in his Silent Brahman realization (his inherent power, and liberated for their To return to our narrative: The highest first great realization, in Baroda in Janu- true action by being linked to the splendor energies, which have not yet come to any ary 1908, four months before his yearlong of their supramental source, then begin to full extent into this world, emanate from imprisonment), Sri Aurobindo describes, act according to Sri Aurobindo’s descrip- the Unmanifest, and the first step from the in recorded conversation in 1940, that tion of them as dynamic: live force of dy- Unmanifest towards any manifestation, is there had been an “indispensable positive namic spiritual overhead consciousness. That: the Supreme Reality, Parabrahman. element,” a sense of “mere being”—but The steps of the World-Stair (discussed Parabrahman is not the Absolute, but yet, being—even in the Silent Brahman in the first canto of Book II, “The Book of the first step from the Absolute towards realization, that led him to the Supermind. the Traveller of the Worlds” in Savitri)10 manifestation.13 Parabrahman in its full, Silent Brahman for him was more com- become well connected, and the energy of extended sense is like a drawn bow and prehensive, he said in this conversation, the entire manifestation begins to move Supermind the arrow that sends any in- than the experience of the Self; for it was a freely and without abysmal gaps. tention focused from the Supreme Reality “Laya” experience.17 Now, “Laya,” which is These dynamic spiritual mind-planes straight to the mark. To quote M. Alan sometimes interpreted as dissolution into are not a goal in themselves where we Kazlev from his “Kheper” website, Su- Nonbeing can, in a deeper sense, signify are “finished,” but an adjunct of the Su- permind “contains within itself the entire fusion (into greater Being inclusive of, but pramental, and its advent now acts to sequence from Unmanifest to Manifesta- not limited to, Being and Nonbeing). join them to its source: luminous links, tion, or in other words the archetypal pat- In other words, this pioneer, following burning grades of its joint, generative, dy- tern of Reality as a whole.”14 The pathway along his unique line of Brahman-Nirvana namic activity. They become, in the words proceeds through the Overmind, and as the experience through Cosmic Conscious- he used to describe his fourth principal arrow passes through (in this old creation ness (Vasudeva), abiding in that supreme

14 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 harmony unifying all dualities like time of the complete Overmental De- steps in a dance, was led, inevitably, to scent in 1926, Sri Aurobindo and her- full positive expression of Being in the self were working primarily to bring bodily life, which in its integral plenary the Supermind into the Mind to trans- wholeness manifests as Supermind. So form it.20 (Yes, they were working on it seems, from the get-go, Sri Auro- this together even though thousands bindo was heading somewhere differ- of miles apart, during that period after ent from the aim of previous silent cos- she left Pondicherry in 1915 and did mic realizers in the realm of Supreme not return there until 1920.) They ob- Reality. viously had to have direct contact with Sri Aurobindo describes much of the Supermind in order to attempt and his early yoga, primarily from 1912 to succeed in this (she has also stated, 1920 (with some entries before and as mentioned earlier, that his contact after), in his Record of Yoga, his per- with Supermind began even back in sonal yoga journal. This was published the Alipore Jail, connected with his by the Ashram Press as two volumes second great realization, that of the in 2001. There we see that though he Cosmic Consciousness, the Divine ex- set up specific goals (or rather the perienced as Krishna in all things and Guru of the World, whom he experi- as all humans and living beings). In a enced as Krishna, set for him specific letter to his younger brother Barin, Sri goals and gave him concrete guidance Aurobindo21 confirms that it was not which it was up to him to apply), he until 1920 that he had climbed into the was, as it were, all over the map experi- lowest status of Supermind (“climbed menting, guided by Krishna and the into” connotes a further stage from Divine Shakti, and through his own Sri Aurobindo. (Photo courtesy Sri Aurobindo Ashram) having “contact” and from other prec- modification of the scientific method, edent, intermediate stages). Again, he along the “10 limbs of the yoga” and advance of his mastery of earlier elements had had direct contact before, and this the Sapta Chatushtaya (seven major ele- in the Sapta Chatushtaya. Thus, the pro- is evident from his Record of Yoga, but he ments each with four aspects) that was the gression had its own coherence of divine needed to stabilize this contact to possess preliminary stage of his own yoga of self- spirit, not the hubs and links of the human this state, which could bring to bear the perfection. These higher spiritual-mind mind. Still he moved through it all pretty supramental radiances, though not yet planes—the spiritual thought-knowledge quickly, perhaps not on the express train in their most powerful or fully integra- he called Higher Mind; the bright vision- of his earlier realizations, but nothing like tive forms (this would occur by “climbing ary light of Illumined Mind; the direct the mud of the Inconscient through which into” the second and third levels of the Su- touch of Truth itself he called Intuition; he was to experience some near full-stops permind in the 1930s and 1940s). and the globally comprehensive, lustrous in the 1930s and early 1940s. Little of Shortly after the Mother returned to Overmind—were very exalted planes, all his progression through the 1920s, none Pondicherry in 1920, to stay there the rest in the realm of Mauna, Silence, deepen- through the 1930s and 1940s is detailed in of her life, she states in recorded conversa- ing, intensifying, even as there passed the Record of Yoga. The Mother has stated tion22 that she told Sri Aurobindo that in through his “applied silence” infused with that his full supramental yoga is contained order to make further progress—they had Shakti all the experiences that poured in Savitri.18 And we will trudge with him, not yet fully transformed the mind—and down on him constantly in torrents, in the through the mud of the Inconscient, later because of the interlocked nature of the teen years of the twentieth century while in this chapter. planes and parts of being, they needed to he was in his forties. By “all over the map” descend into the vital, the region of our I mean (speaking only from a limited, The Mother’s collaboration energy and life passions, and bring the Su- one-thought-at a time, linear human per- permind into the vital to attempt its trans- spective, as there is nothing chaotic about The Mother is his equal, by his own formation. They met with some consider- the Divine Mother’s cosmic working or- statement, and since from the beginning able success in this part of the individual der as she moves Sri Aurobindo through she has followed the same path as Sri Au- journey, because it seems around this time the paces), for instance, that the “Ananda robindo,19 her words illuminate certain that she began to look radiant, with the Brahman,” an advanced aspect of one of subtle or spiritual matters as no others look of an 18-year-old; and as for him, two the later major elements, he possessed can. The Mother herself says that, appar- of his major disciples, T.V. Kapali Shastry23 fairly early, around 1915 or 1916, far in ently around 1915 and perhaps until the and A.B. Purani,24 noted the change in the

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 15 color of his skin to a more golden-red hue. sity of becoming aware of the world of force of Ananda, Bliss, Eternal Delight Sri Aurobindo told Purani, in answer to the gods—that it was about to make entry that is evolving the earth beyond mind his wonderment, that they were bringing in some dramatic fashion. Often during and Overmind into a Supramental world the Supermind into the vital (confirming these times in the Ashram (technically, that would begin to live a great and blissful what the Mother has said) and this was it became the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, life, somehow justifying all the millennia one of the effects. And Shastry, a Tantric, with Sri Aurobindo retiring to his rooms, of oppression, darkness, and death, mak- for his part was very impressed with these having handed over all administration of ing meaningful our many struggles. outward signs of a physical transforma- affairs to Mirra Alfassa, whom he then This was the full meaning of Krishna tion. named the Mother, after the events near to Sri Aurobindo’s yoga: not merely the However, never sitting on their re- the end of 1926) a powerful electric ener- Overmental being, Ovemental avatar, but alizations, the Mother and Sri Aurobindo gy could be felt over one’s head. Finally on behind and above this the Being or Lord then attempted to bring the Supermind November 24th the inevitable happened. of Ananda, with the ultimate mission to into the physical to try to transform it. It The Mother summoned all of the twenty- bring the full unbridled power of bliss may be that they mostly brought it into four ashramites of that time, and a medita- to bear this world in its embrace, and to the physical consciousness (necessary tion occurred where everyone could feel a grace all beings and things with a great but not sufficient to bring it fully into the palpable presence and a power descend- and blissful life, golden, sleepless, delight- physical proper) at that time, up to about ing in torrents. Some at the time believed ful, deathless, indestructible. This would 1926. This period, between 1910 or 1908, the Supermind had actually descended or certainly include supramentalization, and1926, could be referred to as the indi- manifested, though this belief proved to sought for all by Sri Aurobindo, as a nec- vidual stage of their Supramental transfor- be premature.27 essary stage and passage to the state and mation. Both Sri Aurobindo and Mother full action of Delight. But the immediate became very universalized, and came into Supramentalizing the Overmind action, on November 24, 1926, was the direct contact with the transcendent (as descent of the Overmind intimately into the Supermind is what manifests and even November 24, 1926 began the more- the entire consciousness and body of Sri dynamizes the transcendent); but, for universal stage of the fourth realization: Aurobindo.29 the most part, they did it as individuals, “the higher planes of consciousness lead- Yet, he realized, even his body real- bringing the beginnings of new possibility ing to the Supermind” (the key words ized, there are light-years of difference be- into the cosmic formula. (It was only later here, once again, are, “leading to”). The tween Overmind and Supermind. As he on, in the 1930s and 1940s that their yoga Overmind Realization, descending into moved beyond the mental consciousness, advanced to the stage where they began to his whole body on that Day of Siddhi, lit- and dredging and digging in the physi- consciously change this cosmic formula, erally brought home into Sri Aurobindo cal consciousness, he came to realize that as part of their spiritual revolutionary the full universality of the situation. It Supermind is like a distant star far beyond program.) For they had accepted, starting was an essential descent, another literally the firmament of Overmind.30 A passage from 1926 if not before, to surround them- crowning descent, that was followed by his in Savitri shows us: “The radiant world of selves with an ashram of varied capacities, full-fledged movement into the universal the everlasting Truth/ Glimmered like a each a representative type, each an “im- aspect of his yoga. He was always most faint star bordering the night/ Above the possibility to be solved.”25 They had ac- concerned with the “big picture,” and this golden Overmind’s shimmering ridge.”31 cepted to go through this transformation day of “Silence, absolute living silence— For Overmind, though divine in terms not merely as an individual achievement not merely living but overflowing with di- of static consciousness (realizing but not moving rapidly to full bodily transforma- vinity” (Purani28) all the twenty-four pre- manifesting), is merely the most universal tion, but as an ordinary human, moving sent felt this experience overwhelmingly plane of the mind. In static awareness it in evolutionary stages toward and through heralded Sri Aurobindo’s ongoing global may be divine but it cannot divinely “dy- the three layers of the Supermind, pains- mission would bear fruit and be met with namise the Transcendence”32 nor can it takingly applying, integrating each gain success. It was therefore called the Day of even lead the mind beyond itself. It cannot as they went, as pioneers opening the way Siddhi, the day of Victory: the full power bring Sachchidananda into the cells of the for those of different capacities. Theirs was of all past achievement, not as a finale but body; it cannot transform our Inconscient a “sadhana for the Earth-consciousness.”26 as a signal that the Divine willed him to base, our material foundation. It cannot, In 1926, perhaps especially since the move beyond these past achievement and as mentioned, lead the mind beyond it- summer, a great intensification of energy, work on all fronts to manifest Supermind self; that is, it cannot be that rung of the vital and otherwise, was felt in the Sri Au- as a new Shakti, a new power available to ladder that truly joins mind, with no gap robindo Ashram, as if some great descent all. For the power that produced this re- between them, to its “parent” Supermind. was imminent. Sri Aurobindo had spoken alization was not merely an Overmental One might say there’s a big break in the in recorded conversations of the neces- Power, but the full divine power of the ladder, a gap light-years wide, between

16 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 Overmind and Supermind. This is the dif- education; and Swaraj, Self-rule) were physical-plant specifications, the cook- ference that makes all the difference be- translated into his spirituality: producing book, or using another metaphor, the tween the worlds. our own goods became owning and cou- spiritual DNA of the world of Ignorance We may begin, with this in mind, to rageously exercising our deepest aspira- (for only in the Supermind do true worlds get some sense or feeling of what Sri Auro- tions to divinity; boycott translated into of Knowledge begin). They describe in bindo meant when he said, year after year rejection of all that blocks the realization graphic detail what it was that Sri Au- after year, in the 1930s and 1940s, time af- of our aspirations; national education into robindo was conducting his revolution ter time, that what he was busy doing was developing the qualities of calm, strong against; they differentiate Overmind from “supramentalizing the Overmind” or “su- peace and surrender so that knowledge Supermind in great detail. pramentalizing the descended Overmind” can come to us fresh into a silent mind; Sri Aurobindo has referred to Over- (we recall that it had fully descended in and Swaraj to move beyond our egos into mind as a “protective double” of the Su- him in 1926).33 Sometimes he would add souls and higher Selves that can rule our permind, “a screen of dissimilar similar- that he was trying to lighten the resistance natures with grace. But in a deeper sense, ity”39—suggesting, perhaps, that it is a of the Inconscient. The Overmind was, he was pursuing a revolution against the vast region of worlds, in a way seemingly and for the most part still is, the summit of politics of the Ignorance. The inspiring almost as vast as Supermind, but stepping the universal nature. Changing its formula goal of his revolution is to bring full- divinity down to produce a secondary was monumental work that no one had formed into the earth plane a world no creation, far inferior to what Supermind tried before. The universal powers needed longer edged or tinged in shadow, dark- could manifest---should it ever become to be respected if only so their resistance ness, and obscurity. Even the highest overt and unveiled from this protective might be overcome. There were sensitive Overmind creation, he says, is like a realm screen. The lower hemisphere of Over- issues. There may have been more than of sunlight, but surrounded, sheathed in a mind is a “selective”40 Overmind where a few little talks with Shiva, Kali and all vast darkness, eventually to be swallowed various universal powers pursue their the rest of them, perhaps, who knows, to up by the surrounding obscurity that own powerful creations that often in their keep them from walking off the job. And seems to be the foundation of this ancient lower developing levels clash and come Supermind and its lower end, the Incon- creation we still live in. His object is to up against one another. Higher up in the scient—they are twins! Counterparts who, found and form on earth a manifestation lower hemisphere is the global Overmind, though they complete each other, hadn’t no longer sheathed in a protective coating a vast universal synthesizing conscious- been talking, for millennia. The Over- of darkness, veiled by ego and karma and ness still not yet integral in its actions. We mind with its business-as-usual religion limitations, but rather a new creation: a could relate it perhaps to the realm of the has been blocking the way, diminishing manifestation sheathed in light.36 All-Gods described in the Rig-Veda. The everything the Supermind radiated, veil- Tamil Nadu, the state which surrounds higher hemisphere of Overmind or Sum- ing it, and on lower levels, mastering evil the enclave of Pondicherry where the Sri mit Overmind is composed of four or five spells of deformation, turning things into Aurobindo Ashram was founded in 1926, planes or “ancient skies,” more in harmony their own opposite; Self and soul into ego- has been for more than a thousand years with Supermind and even potentially a ji, free divine graceful action into heaps of the cradle of Supermind. Within it was channel for its play and manifestation karma. The Supreme Shakti through Sri developed a yogic tradition whose most (Gnostic Overmind, Ananda Overmind, Aurobindo was attempting something im- advanced practitioners have transformed Chit-Tapo Overmind, Sat Overmind); but possible. He made it his business to trans- even the bodily life, while many dozens not equipped to bring It, not able to bring form the universe and since then, even the of Mahans and Tamil Siddhas have real- as only Supermind does, the Supreme angels of utter failure fuel the ultimate ful- ized their true individual selves and have Power with no impairment or impover- fillment of his whole daredevil enterprise. described the subtle and spiritual planes, ishment in its original intensity. At the When Sri Aurobindo said that anyone even the Overmind and Supermind (these top of Summit Overmind, seemingly one could carry on a revolution against the are Sri Aurobindo’s terms but he was not more step, and one would be in the worlds British, but that what was called for was the first to discover the realms to which of wholeness, the structures of integrality; a revolt against the entire Universal na- the terms refer).37 We find in this special but few if any seemed to take that step. ture, which is not so easy to do,34 he spoke branch of the Tantra, called Saiva Sid- The extensive “space” between Summit like the cosmic politician that in a way he dhanta beginning in the Middle Ages (but Overmind and the Supermind is a divine was. Although this is only a metaphor, it predating them), and which before that darkness across which certain powers of may bear some living resonance to what was practiced by Nayanmars (Vaishnavite the Supreme Shakti are needed to navigate Sri Aurobindo did.35 It seems to me that Tantric devotee poets were called Alwars), a prepared and purified soul—and only his revolutionary principles (Swadeshi or mapped out in some detail the worlds of a soul fully harmonized with its Higher producing our own goods; boycott against the Overmind as well as the Supermind.38 Self or Jivatman. Such a soul has merged foreign goods and jurisdiction; national They also describe what we may call the all the divine elements extracted from life

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 17 experiences in many bodies, up from its of relative compulsion far from our divine divisive and separatist movements initi- long swoon and mud-caked involvement freedom. It can take us very high but to ated, begun and allowed to develop, by su- in Inconscience, and its passage through a place that is still really very limited in pramental intent and for an evolutionary matter, life, and mind, and then the planes its spirit’s vision and unable to fulfill the purpose, by the Overmind. This was the where mind is mixed and mingles with spirit’s sacred thirst. Lower still, but high revolution he came to lead. Overmind, and Overmind proper— above Mind, in Spiritual Mind and Over- merged these divine elements freed from mind realms, are the foundations of ego The supramental action on earth ego and extracted from its living soul-ex- and karma, which, at still-lower levels, perience, with the full realization that the through many coiling modes and creative We hardly know all the details, as he Higher Self perpetually enjoys of the One, modifications, develop into these worlds was reticent and secretive about exactly of the Spirit beyond manifestation. In we are much too familiar with. Four what he was doing. But it’s reasonable to other words, to pass through the “divine high ruling overmental powers (Tirod- surmise that Sri Aurobindo, who did not darkness” (Avyakta Paratpara) into the hana, Kutilai or Kundalini, Karma, Ego) read Swami Ramalingam’s voluminous Ta- Supermind and Beyond, one must have are thus tied, inextricably, as if by some mil writings, came upon these same pow- become a fully integrated, intact soul- strange inevitability, all the way down to ers and principles and sought to transform and-higher-Self complex. This, impossible that dragon tail of our trailing depths that them. No, they cannot be destroyed; it’s solely by human effort, becomes inevitable lashes us severely whenever we strive to not that simple. The Kundalini allows for with the Grace of the Supreme Shakti.41 transform or even tame our foul inhuman a great intensity of knowledge, or of expe- This was the politics of Ignorance that parts of nature. But if we look back, above, rience in general, that is a necessary part Sri Aurobindo, the of a blissful divine supreme revolu- life. We will always tionary, came to Swami Ramalingam in particular completed the fine need in some form overthrow and details of this map of the Saiva Siddhanta tradition, the Kundalini. But supplant: The very it must somehow highest levels of our even as he transcended that tradition and practiced a be modified, or un- existing universal true supramental yoga. modified, as only nature have been a tactful politician rigged (originally can do, to allow by design of the Supermind or Vast Grace near the peak of the Overmind, we see, it to continue to function as a source of Light itself!) to force us to inhabit a sepa- according to Tirumoolar (an ancient su- great energetic intensity, in a new creation. ratist, ego-driven, guna-ridden creation pramental adept of Tamil Nadu) and to The force of Veiling, Tirodhana, cannot based in Inconscience, to become com- Swami Ramalingam, a great fissure or a be thrown away entirely, but again must pletely involved in order to evolve, slowly, “collapsible door”: the Para Apara Veli. be fine-tuned, to be used but in a differ- almost step by step: from mire to mind It was described by Swami Ramalingam ent fashion, with a changed function, in and beyond, from egos into souls and in 1872 in stanza 283 (sometimes listed supramental creations. The new creation selves, from slaves of karma and the gunas as stanza 284) of his inspired poem, “Joti will continue to include human beings, into adepts of a higher action possessing Agaval,”43 where he remarks, propheti- animals, plants, mountains as before, and the fivefold universal powers,42 from a cally, of that door, “it can be shattered into must be introduced slowly—because, oh, veiled obscure creation into a paradise of pieces.” Swami Ramalingam in particular that slowness is kind—to include as much supreme Grace Light. Grace in its thick- completed the fine details of this map of and as many as possible. Some may be est disguise! At a very high plane in the the Saiva Siddhanta tradition, even as he transformed, others purified to allow for Overmind flows the fountain force of Ti- transcended that tradition and practiced a a much happier life. Individual differences rodhana, “Veiling,” whose function seems true supramental yoga. In his vast poetry must always be respected! Again, the ego to be to dim, distort, limit, step down there are over a thousand pages where he and karma cannot be thrown away, but the great effulgence of grace at the lower puts in vision, rhythm, and song his direct refined, allowed a more harmonious ac- levels into these grey and painful worlds, supramental experiences.44 Here we find tion and more unified selfhood, much to allow very gradual spiritual evolution. finely etched the politics of Ignorance, the transformed so as to be suitable for be- This force of veiling casts its shadow even entire universal natural scheme it is Sri ings on many levels of attainment to grow over regions of the Summit Overmind or Aurobindo’s global mission to supplant. naturally into their higher correlates. Ego Overmind Gnosis! High also in Over- To free the universal movement from and karma, but turned back into the utter mind is the home of Kutilai, the force of bondage, Sri Aurobindo had to change truth of themselves, become the lever of Kundalini which, though full of power the government of the universe to be the Sri Aurobindo’s revolutionary program of and force, presides over restricted worlds integral and divine Supermind from the spiritual and material action; even as he

18 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 himself was said to be, “a decisive the individual expression of rela- action direct from the Supreme.”45 tions—just the opposite order of Although Sri Aurobindo came the way our mind proceeds, but here and still remains fully con- obviously superior in every way nected to Earth’s atmosphere to and closer to the innate, intimate bring forth a supramental earth, truth of things. in a new creation there will still be We find a corresponding many humans—more humane we terminology in Ramalingam’s hope! There will still be animals, writings.48 “I saw the Divine face happier ones, plants and flowers, to face.” This is the way Swami more green mountains, more blos- Ramalingam expresses his direct soms. There will be those whose experience of the Divine in the bliss will be to live primarily in third status of Supermind. It is the Higher Mind; this is a great what some of the greatest realiz- advance from where we are now! ers have sought in terms of direct Or the Illumined or Intuitive con- relations, the mutual embrace of sciousness, or somewhere in those the human and divine. Here we vast regions of the Overmind, in find what Sri Aurobindo calls the process of being supramental- “the body of the King.” “I saw the ized, but still having an Overmen- Divine with my own eyes.” Then tal function, however changed. in the second, or golden station Haridas Chaudhuri once spoke of of the Supermind, “I moved a “cosmic reconstruction,”46 and towards the Divine. I became this is what Sri Aurobindo’s ongo- fused, matured and ripened in ing global mission is about. We Him.” This is the harmony and might venture that one aspect of intimate fusion of the true indi- “supramentalizing the Overmind” Swami Ramalingam. (Photo courtesy http://www.auro-ma- vidual self (i.e. the soul or psychic may involve transforming its tradi- ramalingam.org being become one with the Jivat- tional, age-old status—of holding man, making for an abler, a more the Oneness as a sleeping or silent in this realm that is completely beyond powerful and complete Central partner,47 and not the active agent—into a the individual. The second status, or Ap- Being) with the Supreme Divine. In the more-intimate overt presence of Oneness. prehending Supermind, is an unequal primary poise, or the first and highest It may foster a greater forbearance, more extension, or Two-in-the-One in that it status of Supermind, “I became blissfully advanced patience, a deeper kindness and allows for a centration, a Jivatman or true united with the Divine.” One in the One. a stronger more powerful benevolence, individual Self within the Supreme Divine, Or to use a closer translation of Swami even in the very universal powers them- one with it but also an expression of it. All Ramalingam’s words: “I saw Him face to selves who will no longer be what some flows out of the Divine and back into the face. I became fused and ripened in Him. humans up to now have called “the gods.” Divine simultaneously in this poise; be- I became blissfully united in identity In Sri Aurobindo’s conceptualization cause of that safety action where all flows with Him.” Eventually these three are to of the triple status of Supermind in The back into the Divine, the energetic outflow become simultaneous, in experience, in Life Divine, the three enduring layers of never sinks into ignorance where effective function. This is simply and surely the the world-founding consciousness of the realization of the One is lost. In the third direct relationship we may enjoy when Supermind are imaged like this, keeping theater, a further development of Appre- we move beyond a politics of Ignorance in our minds and hearts that all three hending Supermind, a fundamental bliss- and fulfill our birthright to the natural poises of Supermind are variations on ful Duality still held firm and fluid in the unity of souls that are one with their bod- Oneness that is infinite and versatile be- Oneness of relations takes place, where ies (the bodies having become equal in yond imagination. The primary poise, the individual relations that are Supramental conscious awareness and in Shakti with highest or Comprehending Supermind, begin. More simply, we can characterize the soul). Oneness unveiled, unrestrict- is an equal extension of Oneness where the three sessions as Unity, Harmony, ed, true living unity in consciousness as individual and universe are held latent in Mutuality; or Oneness, Fusion/Intimacy, force, complete transformation of ego this all-powerful, blissful, all-pervading, and Embrace. The essential transcendence and karma. all-containing, all-constituting One-in- is the fundamental experience of Super- The imagery of Supermind is again the-One. All soul-individuality is rooted mind, then the cosmic possibilities, then depicted in the Temple at Chidambaram.

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 19 Swami Ramalingam (Vallalar) always earlier, is also the extension of Supermind cal consciousness and his body and this signed his name, “Chidambaram Ramal- into the cosmos and the Earth symbol- exerts terrestrial effects. The universal ingam.” Chidambaram means the One Sky ized by the field of deodar trees outside the work continued and extended itself, and (as Overmind includes many ancient skies Temple of Chidambaram. Tamil Nadu is he held at times the supramental force that are not integrally united) over three the cradle of Supermind and Chidambar- even in his body cells, though he could sessions of Supermind. Supermind is in- am is the ancient direct symbol of Super- not permanently fix it there fully at that herently collective consciousness: so we mind on the earth in all its sessions under time.51 He wrote some of the most sublime say it has three sessions, halls, assemblies, one golden sky of divinity. Summit Over- moving mystical passages of Savitri dur- meeting places. Three integrally united mind, or the golden field, is also the means ing this period: writing and revising this sessions under One Sky, depicted in Chid- by which we, having united or I should epic, in inspiration largely Overmental, ambaram Temple as “the space of Grace.” say harmonized, though not merged, our formed another step in supramentalizing Nataraja, the form of Shiva dancing in souls and psychic beings with our spiritual the Overmind. He appeared destined for the Temple of Chidambaram, is not the selves, becoming an eternal portion of the a full, even outward transformation but god Shiva of the Overmind realms but the Supreme Divine as the Gita calls it, can he chose, or it was chosen that he could Supramental Sivam, dancer whose dance through a modification of the power of the achieve more in his global mission if he is the world-founding consciousness of Supreme Shakti climb through the golden left his body and extended his action more Supermind. This is most closely associated field into the supramental vastness and fully from the subtle-physical plane so with the second session, Pon Ambalam, if we have the grace of the Shakti, begin close to the Earth. He left the further work the golden Supermind. The rhythm of the to enter into and evolve through the su- in the body, and the body-cells, to the dance, the biune Golden Feet of Play of the pramental sessions. We may in Overmind Mother as this was one of her specialties. Divine, determines the gradations of the feel the swaying of the shoulders of the Remember: his revolutionary goal was not higher, inmost, and inner planes, the outer dancing, supramental Shiva. to achieve for himself, but to be consid- and the outer- erate at all times most, it is present and in all ways in the coursing Nataraja, the form of Shiva dancing in the Temple of of the world of our blood and Chidambaram, is not the god Shiva of the Overmind situation and movement of our human needs, hearts and lungs, realms but the Supramental Sivam, dancer whose dance so supramen- and it expresses is the world-founding consciousness of Supermind. talization could itself in the ex- be as benign pansion and con- and benevolent traction of the cells of the body becoming and widespread as possible, for such a divinized, as expressed by Tirumoolar The work of physical complete revolutionary change. I would possibly as much as 2500 years ago and transformation agree with R.Y. Deshpande that during the by Swami Ramalingam more than a cen- 1940s his aspiration before the Supreme tury and a half in the past.49 Suppose we Now let us return to Sri Aurobindo go- Shakti called down the New Creation,52 bypass the Supermind, go direct to Sach- ing yet further in the universal and trans- the “manifestation sheathed in light” that chidananda and do not realize and possess cendent stage of his Supramental realiza- is the title of this book. But it needed to be and form in our nature the Supermind: tion (his fourth great realization is still in manifested on the Earth, and this again then, we do not participate in this univer- process, even now in 2011, of being fully was the specialty of the Mother, Mirra sal rhythm of the dance through all the realized, which to him means completely Alfassa, in whom the Supreme Shakti in- worlds, our heart and into our trillions of embodied, one might say transcending carnated here in individual bodily form. cells, and we lose the blissful opportunity the transcendence itself). In the late 1930s Furthermore, the universal descent or Su- to live the embodied Life Divine in this and especially the 1940s Sri Aurobindo pramental Manifestation he had worked good red physical world. Chidambaram entered more into the transcendent phase his life for, had not occurred, though he Temple also includes around it the Por of his supramental work, or his univer- felt it come awfully close in 1938 (it would Tillai, the golden field of the deodar trees sal global mission extended more deeply take place on February 29, “leap day” of which is the extension of the Supermind into the transcendent. The golden light, as 1956, again, by the direct hand of the into Summit Overmind (which like the he wrote in a poem, entered not only his Mother). The golden door still stood be- Supermind has white and golden colors brain, but descended into the heart, his tween Overmind and Supermind and it and other levels, so one can be confused limbs and feet and “the earth is now thy had not yet been shattered to pieces, as with the other). Summit Overmind, be- playfield and thy seat.”50 In other words, real and living symbol verified by Tamil ing more than the mere barrier I spoke of the Supermind descended into his physi- saints and siddhars. Thesupramental light

20 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 was still veiled by higher powers of the and penetrated, dug and dredged through pitted in darkness was the one the Vedic Overmind. There were also urgent neces- the 1930s and ‘40s, instinct and intimate Rishis call Martanda—the eighth of the sities in world politics at the time. with his supramentalizing of the Over- Aditis—which means the Supramental These necessities were tied to a con- mind. “The Inconscience is an inverse that the Inconscient, so effectively, has stant fundamental of his work, which he reproduction of the supreme supercon- masked. “The truth above shall wake a once wrote, in a letter during the 1930s, science: it has the same absoluteness of nether truth”57—that is, the Supramental was occupied not so much in higher being and automatic action, but in a vast from its native home must wake the Su- planes than with the nether edge of things. involved trance; it is being lost in itself, permind buried beneath our dark brute “No, it is not with the Empyrean that I am plunged into its own abyss of infinity.”55 base. Then all the worlds in the world- busy: I wish it were. It is rather with the He dug into the dragon base on which our stair could be connected, rung leading to opposite end of things; it is in the Abyss material foundation seems to rest. The rung. The Overmind “above” could not that I have to plunge to build a bridge be- Overmind, even at its highest pitch (for it be conquered and superseded except by tween the two.”53 This is precisely where is still only mind though apotheosized) is transformation of the Inconscient “below.” his Integral Yoga beginning around 1910 incapable to transform this heavy hardpan The serpent must bite its tail. The deepest or before has always run into a rock, the that hits us from below and sends us reel- secret of the Integral Yoga is locked within Inconscient. This bedrock of dark trance is ing backwards if it doesn’t kill us. this struggle to change the Inconscient at intertwined with the Overmind, connect- If this cannot be changed, life cannot its deep dark heart. Only the power of the ed through the full workings of Veiling, of be transformed. Ananda Brahman, scarcely conceivable Maya and Karma and Ego, the principles Sri Aurobindo knew, and by identity, to us, the blissful force emanating from of this old creation, through many beings, that it is the Transcendent—or more truly the center of knowledge by identity—the gods/angels, Shaktis, Asuras, through a what descends from it—that gives con- full free play of the most active identity many-stranded network to the utterly self- creteness to all that is in the world. Noth- between psychic being and the Purushot- involved Inconscient, ruled by Death, over ing, not even the Supreme Transcendent, tama—can force this outcome. which the highest powers of Overmind is abstract to Sri Aurobindo. Only some- In that 1941 conversation, where Dr. lack practical control. Here, the divine po- thing that matters more than matter, so Manilal asks: “Will it take a long time, tentialities of the Earth-Spirit are locked that Matter can begin to be the Spirit it Sir, to finish the Inconscient?” Nirodbaran up—and by a force far worse than the Brit- truly is—only the highest supramental- adds: “Sri Aurobindo with such a smile ish who in 1908 had given Sri Aurobindo, ity, then, could bring the direct power of and tone said: “Yes!” that we all roared like a present, the lockup he needed to Spirit into matter. Only something, and with laughter.”58 And we might permit withdraw from politics and meet Krishna even more to the point, someone, objec- ourselves to imagine, it was with a smile face to face. It was this Infinite Inconscient tifying those “pulsations” of “Supreme and such a tone that he went to meet Rock that always stopped his express train L ov e ,” 56 the force of Ananda, emanating Death, in full superconscient equilibrium, of realizations, that slowed it way, way directly from the Supreme and imposing to face that face, to revolutionize Change down; calling forth all the perseverance itself imperatively, working patiently, vast- himself, having written, just a few weeks and every last drop of patience that verily ly and precisely, could cleanse the Augean before his passing, in Savitri, “His knowl- even his very even Brahman-conscious- stables. edge immortal triumphs by his death.”59 ness could muster. As Agni—not only the universal pow- The Inconscient is “the last” obstacle— er of the Veda but the supramental force The Mind of Light “I have told you many times that it is the of Divine Will—Sri Aurobindo could last”54—he said in conversations recorded descend into the Inconscience, with the When Sri Aurobindo left his body on by Nirodbaran, after he sustained a se- full force of the essence of supreme all- December 5, 1950, he left Mother and all vere life-threatening right thigh bone powerful love, that radiance within all that of us a “parting gift,”60 a legacy we could fracture in November 1938. Starting then burns; wisdom with the power to change do more with if only we knew. This was his he required more physical help, and re- the world. And that power and that joy longest darshan, as he lay for almost five sumed holding the conversations that had came from the most essential surrender days in Mahasamadhi. As scores of thou- stopped after his Overmind Descent of to the Supreme Shakti. That of which the sands passed in this “universal sunset,” 1926 (that descent came down the same gods were only instruments, that which his body stubbornly refused to deterio- day that he broke his thigh bone, exactly the Asuras actively fought or badly imitat- rate—as attested in so many words and by 12 years later). The Inconscient is still our ed. That he became by identity; and bored certified physicians. The Force emanating base, the basis of our instincts, yet at the and drilled and dredged and burned— from him was palpable, a dense warm ra- same time our main goad to transforma- into the pit, the darkness within dark- diating plenitude. An all-powerful peace tion. And it was into the immensity of the ness where the gods, all but Agni, refused so pervasive it was almost frightening. A Inconscient that Sri Aurobindo plunged to plunge. For beneath all that darkness flood of physical Oneness. Unendurable

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 21 bliss, blissfully enduring. This was felt by tions of the physical mind, along with worlds, or even of the Overmind; it is of most and even seen by some of the scores those of the vital-physical, are the bulk the Supermind itself, though it may hide of thousands from all over India and the and bane of our existence. Transformed itself as it works in us, sublime and practi- world who walked past his body during though, it is a vital step to realization. cal at the same time, unrecognizable. As this time.61 One disciple, who when she Now, according to Amal Kiran (as he lustrous and radiant and intense as the was quite young, a young teenager, kept interprets Sri Aurobindo’s The Supramen- Overmind may be, Mind of Light is great- the clocks wound so that they all told the tal Manifestation on Earth,65 Sri Auro- er, for it is supramental even in the way it same time for Sri Aurobindo as he walked bindo’s last extensive prose writing) there hides its greatness! through his rooms, told me that his pres- are three levels of the Mind of Light. In In this paragraph and the next, we take ence during those Mahasamadhi days was the ordinary human, it forms the neces- some time to ask ourselves, what is the much more powerful than she had felt at sary missing step out of Ignorance, so Mother’s Force? I believe a good answer, any Darshan that she had attended while that the human mental being can begin from the standpoint of flooding supra- he was yet breathing.62 And it was during to experience the higher spiritual mind, mental experience, is found in Mother’s these days that, the Mother stated: “He intuition, illumined mind. The Mind of Agenda, May 24, 1960.67 She speaks here passed to me all the Supramental force he Light, created directly out of the Super- of Sachchidananda not only in conscious- had accumulated in his body; I could feel mind itself, fixes the break in the ladder ness but in physical sensation: “the divine the friction of the passage.” She wrote a that keeps most of us chained to our lower Sachchidananda spreading in a constant few years later to K.D. Sethna: “The Su- minds, so that we can step beyond and flood throughout the universe.” “It was a pramental Light and Force being received begin with confidence to climb not only continuous and all-powerful flood, con- by the physical mind—this is the Mind towards but through the spiritual trans- tinuous and extraordinarily varied, of the of Light.”63 What is this mysterious Mind formation (the second step of the triple Lord manifesting himself.” “The three of Light, Sri Aurob- Supreme Principles indo’s parting gift to were very clearly us? Mind of Light was the preliminary fixation of the there” in “an active, Mind of Light Supramental Force on the earth, and a prelude to the realizing Conscious- was the preliminary ness.” “There was all fixation of the Supra- Supramental Manifestation a little more than five the Joy—this per- mental Force on the years later (February 29, 1956). petual downpour in earth, and a prelude a limitless splendor.” to the Supramental This is a direct Manifestation a little more than five years transformation described in detail in The unmediated expression of “Mother’s later (February 29, 1956). The chief bar Life Divine).66 For those with a closer con- Force.” More technically, it is the force of to all realization, yet also the most pro- nection to the intuitive worlds, it makes the divine consciousness (the force of the foundly stabilizing force to fix the Light in that transformative journey swifter and higher nature, not that of the lower prakri- matter, is the physical mind (or at a much, more complete, lifting one to the feet of ti). Individuality serves to put those who much deeper level, the mind of the cells). the Supermind. Those who have gone fur- seek help and support in contact with the The physical mind keeps us from perceiv- ther, like the Mother, who received it from Force, which is truly Sachchidananda in ing, beyond our senses and our reason, Sri Aurobindo first as she stated, it moves the cells of the body, the divine power per- the more direct spiritual perceptions. It is into the supramental experience and fa- petually pouring down and spreading out like a dog “barking in the kennel of objec- cilitates its expression by the mind, which in splendor without limit a constant flood tive certitude” (as rhythmed in Savitri).64 needs to express singly and stepwise the everywhere. Sachchidananda in the cells Everywhere its defeatism masquerades simultaneous multidimensional percep- of the body puts everyone who reaches out as wisdom. Mortal thinking is our mor- tions of Supermind. Again, for most of for help and support in contact with this tal enemy: it deadens human life under a us, the Supermind making its permanent flood, like a point of special concentra- pretense of protecting it. Yet at the same entry in our physical mind and physical tion of this cascade of divine Force. This time it does preserve our slowly hard-won consciousness, as the Mind of Light, fix- Force is characterized by a variety that is gains, establishing them securely in con- ing that gaping hole in the ladder of the extraordinary. It is after all the Supreme sciousness and solidly in our bodies. Amal worlds (where so many get stuck so as not manifesting through the Eternal Mother. Kiran expands a narrow interpretation of to fall between the rungs, so to speak) is This force can flow through you towards physical mind so as to encompass most of even not so much a parting gift, but the any person on any shifting piece of the our embodied human mental action, or gift that opens us. planet. What differentiates Integral Yoga the portion of it that has evolved upwards Let’s keep in our consciousness that from other integralisms or the integral from the Inconscience. The crude percep- Mind of Light is not of the spiritual-mind movement is its emphasis on the soul and

22 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 psychic being; on the Supreme Shakti rupted flow.”72 This was certainly a and the Mother; and on the Super- major victory in the Supramentaliza- mind.68 Mediating all these emphases tion of the Overmind and the rest most centrally is the Mother’s Force. of the universal nature. Although Thirty minutes after the Su- most of this Light may have been pramental Manifestation that took swallowed by the Inconscient, as the place, significantly on the Ashram Mother mentioned many years later, Playground, on February 29, 1956, still it is percolating up from within the new creation, called down but that Inconscient and making direct only into the higher regions by Sri permanent change, but very slowly. Aurobindo perhaps in the 1940s, Oh, this slowness is kind, as stated manifested on the Earth, close to, before, because gradual change al- even mingling within the old. It is the lows the transformation that is oc- Mother’s own statement that the new curring to be more inclusive. creation manifested on Earth a half- And what will be the transfor- hour after the Supramental Manifes- mation of the principles of Sri Auro- tation.69 The manifestation sheathed bindo’s revolutionary program as it in light, the earthly supramental is coming into being with its forceful world, is pressing on and mingling overthrow of old Overmind creation? with and precipitating slowly into the No difference in standpoint between Earth. It can be fully and openly the your true self and the supreme self Light beyond the Light within the of truth—that is Swaraj. Not one ef- Light. It does not need that sheath fectual ray of difference between the of darkness. This is working its way productions of the supreme power into the world. Still yet to manifest of truth and what is self-produced are the Supramental Ananda, the Su- Painting by Usha R. Patel (From her book Love Treasures, by your own true power—this is pramental Truth, and the Supramen- published by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram) Swadeshi. No difference between the tal Existence; but the beginnings of supreme knowledge educed from the the Supramental Consciousness-as- promising to the Mother, according to her supreme soul, and the knowledge that Force with the self-luminous Supramental own account, to always keep the Earth in your own Self-power brings forth from the Light, have been introduced, an irrevers- his active awareness and eventually re- wisdom within you become one with the ible action. turn here “in the first supramental body wisdom chained below your base—such is built in the supramental way,”70 there were supranational education; Self-knowledge, The presently unfolding future meditators in different parts of the world world knowledge, knowledge universal who reported they saw him swallowing a and supreme. And boycott means this, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have monstrous dose of poison, like the blue- that if that is what you want, that is what brought something new into this creation throated Shiva.71 He continues his work you will have and be. If you seek no other and worked tirelessly to establish it here: unstained and his global mission is ongo- thing, what else can you become but that he has in fact brought a new creation, and ing. He is continuing to supramentalize supramental being you already have start- she worked then and works now, for its the Overmind and to work to overcome ed to turn into, in that small part of you manifestation, tends the growth of this resistance from our Inconscient material made of the same stuff as itself. While yet new child on and as the Earth. Supermind foundations, eventually to transform even in bodied being you will live in the heaven is now a Shakti, engaged with all the other the Inconscient into an entirely new kind that the gods do not know. No, they don’t, Shaktis that exert power and overtly act of supramental material foundation. A because you being human have what they with the forces that have taken hold on major landmark in this mission, again, was do not (unless they take human birth): the Earth in their combined energetic his work behind the scenes after his Ma- the Supreme’s presence, what the Mother workings. It begins its work to integrate all hasamadhi, collaborating with the Mother and Sri Aurobindo call a psychic being, these other Shaktis with itself, silent with when she smashed the golden door (called an individual soul-form that grows as you the patient intensity of joy that knows how by Swami Ramalingam the Para Apara evolve. Your true being slowly is taking to abide with time, so that they too can Veli) high in the Overmind, and in her form as a transformed body: in it Swaraj, concord and harmonize with the smiling vivid description “then the Supramen- Swadeshi, universal Self-education are substance of immortality. tal Light and Force and Consciousness fulfilled in every cell. After Sri Aurobindo left his body, rushed down upon earth in an uninter- Since Nature is collaborating with the

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 23 new creation and its consciousness, as Na- to her view, fossil-fuel energies by their loom unforeseen sources of regrowth, for ture promised Mother it would do in 1958, nature through continued use would turn instance through stem cells: “dead matter” and Mother said then that the splendor of earth into a dead, lunar world, whereas the comes to life, brain tissue regenerates in that collaboration would be great,73 we in sun and other energies, of the wind and an exuberance of neuroplasticity. Life will turn can collaborate with Nature, work the waters above and around us, would go on. Hope though abandoned, returns, with this nascent new creation. And we make for a living “solar” world.76 We live through the backdoors of fractured di- are doing so, whenever our activities range, at the time that the old fossil age is giving mensions, to the physically paralyzed, and in new thinking and dynamic novelties, in way to the energy of the dawn. reenters the lives of those doomed to suf- growing and significant ways. It is beyond Following the money, we see new ven- fer severe emotional distress. A new form the scope of this chapter, but we see it ture capital flowing rapidly into research of network family therapy, Finnish Open happening in so many ways today in this and development of renewables, mak- Dialogue, has all but removed the scourge world. Among the innovations, in science ing our good turn towards better, safer of schizophrenia from Finnish Western and technology, in economics and other energies inevitable. By decade’s end this Lapland. Eighty percent not only enjoy sectors, are growing collectivities where trend, now subtle, will be unmistakable. lasting symptom relief but return to work people are gathering into communities To complement the information-sharing and loving relationships. Psychotic breaks, aspiring to live a Gnostic consciousness, Internet, energy-sharing “intergrids” are treated immediately, no longer progress though the words may differ. As we get a springing up: knowledge and power are to full-blown schizophrenia. Both plan- grip on a new life, and grasp in our mem- becoming one now in the body of earth, ning and treatment take place in the same bers as well as our mind the straightfor- even as wisdom and will have always circle for all. Dialogue concerning the ward principles of this dynamic unifying flown the friendly skies united in the in- patient and family not only is transpar- awareness, we see, evident even to the fal- finite Supermind. The lateral, horizontal, ent but open to all. Expertise lies not in lible intellect of our physical mind, outlines distributed nature of nascent energies and diagnostic judgments but in generating of a new world growing up in our midst. decentralized new economies reflects, dialogue in all. The treating team trade ob- “A new world is born, born, born,” clumsily at first, the networked nature of servations with each other right in front of Mother intoned.74 But this new creation, or the Gnosis; hierarchies everywhere tum- the family, in their “reflective process” that cosmos reconstructed, seems rather nebu- ble and turn into webs and nets. This is the stimulates robust and healthy responses. lous. Does it exist anywhere now? There is way the World Wide Web works: the way Transformed into practice, postmodern- nowhere on earth that it is not. In the sun- mushroom mycelia, the galactic clusters, ism is saving lives, at the same time cut- rise of the pages of The Synthesis of Yoga, hurricanes, the nervous system and lung ting down mushrooming costs to societies flashes one of those mantric sentences of mesh are constructed for greatest momen- from what was once and still is for many, Sri Aurobindo: “To be perpetually reborn tum with least effort, maximum robust- but will soon be no more, the living death is the condition of a material immortal- ness, redundancy the better to advance of schizophrenia. There’s something new it y.” 75 Supermind, the border breached so life’s strategic diversities. under the Arctic sun.78 it begins to enter here, lavishes in all its Nature takes another step toward new And one of nature’s best-kept secrets touches constant renewal from an inextin- creation, with mushrooms. Yes, mycelia, is being told through the Mandelbrot Set. guishable source. We have here a tell-tale those fuzzy-white cobwebby networks Fractals, blown up multicolor on comput- sign that the new creation is no pipedream common under any forest log, have been er screens, depict how chaos comes clam- but that it is palpably surfacing. It is the shown by Paul Stamets and other mycolo- bering out of order, how each explains sign of those wiggling hands, the sign of gists to repair impaired, devitalized soils, the other. We can see it for ourselves, as agreement with our most hopeful future: treat a network of diseases related only by Benoit Mandelbrot first saw. Here is math- we are switching inevitably and irrevers- a degree or two of separation, and to trans- ematics where we can almost see life itself: ibly to renewable energies. In the presently form oil spills and toxic wastes into luxuri- developing from this or that simple for- unfolding future, we now are in the midst ant oases, even as these same mycelia have mula, yet producing profuse variations. In of this revolutionary switch. This turn to transformed vast debris fields, during fragments of coastline and florets of cauli- sustainable technologies, supramental in planet-wide extinction events in the past, flower, in the newfound dynamic fluctua- origin, is being planted firmly in physical to clear new ground for fresh resurrection. tions of a healthy heartbeat, in any fractal, nature. Along these lines Mother stated, Mycelia can prevent viral storm and bio- self-similar shapes repeat on all scales. in her Agenda, that scientists in the 1970s attacks, mycofiltrate polluted waters, even Spiritual applications there have been and were unearthing secrets to link us to su- save a home from carpenter ants.77 We are more need to be made, though Mandel- pramental energies through modest mate- finding ways to partner with mycelia, far brot himself stuck to the science and the rial means. She went on to say that scien- more sensitive than we are to the threats economics. In computer simulations, in tists even then knew how to draw energy to an ecosystem. And in other dark plac- fractal antennas, in ecosystem dynam- “from above” and no longer “from below”: es, where decay has seemed irreversible, ics and galactic cluster models, with new

24 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 toys, through satellites that protect our mental door that has shut it away from Slowly, on a path carrying along as planet from global terrorism, everywhere us has been shattered to pieces. 2) The ef- many as possible, like a slow-motion tsu- we turn, someone is finding fresh creative fects, again in the ordinary day-to-day, of nami of hope, we are moving irresistibly relevancies for the lowly fractal. A sadhak the supramental Ananda: though not yet towards a species based no more on death, of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Pravir widely manifested, it is yet on its irresist- division, and the darkness of ignorance. Malik, inspired by Mandelbrot but more ible way, if not here and now, then here The Mystic Fire meeting the Mother’s fundamentally by Sri Aurobindo’s World- and there, to render that Delight, the ether Force makes for a marvelous fulfillment. Stair climbing in Savitri, has developed in which we live and breathe, less ethereal. A more flexible material foundation a fractal-of-progress business growth 3) A strong expression of the supramental may free the manifest form of the mount- model: he has transformed cutting-edge Love: what that will bring, slowly then all ing Flame. math and science into a body of practices at once, as it surfaces. Manifestation is for ever moving for- increasingly employed to solve problems Here are some of Sri Aurobindo’s ward. by leading global businesses. The Mother words from a letter he seems to have ad- The manifestation is sheathed in light. had seen that one of the most recalcitrant dressed to us, and not just to the one who areas for the new consciousness to enter first opened it up. Afterword was business: so it may be that the Su- pramental is pushing further and deeper The Supramental is not something Sri Aurobindo was the first to call into our business-as-usual than we’d grand, aloof, austere; it is not some- for complete independence from the dare think. Now established as a shakti thing inconsistent with a full vital and British. This grew beyond bounds of among the other shaktis operating in this physical manifestation; on the con- politics, transfigured to the call for com- world, moving slowly, infiltrating invis- trary, it carries in it the only possibility plete independence from the empire of ibly, even getting down to business, the of the full fullness of the vital force and the Overmind (with its own form of the Supermind already is changing the world the physical life on earth. It is because National Congress, with the same kinds in its characteristic ways. These are only a it is so, because it was so revealed to of moderate demands expressed through few stealthy ways it is slipping unnoticed me, and for no other reason that I have “prayer, petition, and protest” that could into our ordinary human life. Could these followed after it and persevered till I never truly change our state at root). be early gleamings of the Mind of Light? came into contact with it and was able Complete independence, of the integral On the World Wide Web you can watch to draw down some power of it and spirit embracing, even coming to embody, the narrative of the fractal unfold, from its influence. I am concerned with the material affairs, can be achieved through its mathematical discovery through its earth, not with worlds beyond for their growing attunement with Sri Auro- multiplying developments, featuring dis- own sake; it is a terrestrial realisation bindo’s four great realizations, expressed cussion with scientists, technologists and that I seek and not a flight to distant in highest quality of life embodied in full the unclassifiable Mandelbrot himself, in summits. direct action of spirit as matter (“Mother’s British scientist/2001 co-author Arthur C. The utmost Ananda that body and life force”). The beginning rungs are in our Clarke’s presentation, “Fractals: The Col- are now capable of is a brief excitement reach if we but show some early foot; once ours of Infinity” on YouTube.79 Oh, and to the vital mind or the nerves or the we’re on the ladder, Grace may come to coincidentally, the film concludes with a cells which is limited, imperfect, and lift, or to keep each small step ringing. quotation from Sri Aurobindo. soon passes; with the supramental The first and second realizations, the The heart of the matter beats in a pas- change all the cells, nerves, vital forces, third and fourth as well, run as an eternal sage where Sri Aurobindo tells us why he embodied mental forces can become portion of the course of one continuous has focused and still gives all his energy filled with a thousandfold Ananda, ca- river of realization. Our own true being to bring Supermind home. Even as it has pable of an intensity of bliss that passes fully connected to its source enjoys this a home above, it will grow native on the description and need not fade away. great fourfold realization; and our own Earth in all that lives here. In a selection to The supramental love means an in- purpose here, perceived most completely follow, covering three themes, he speaks tense unity of soul with soul, mind and concretely, is to embody it. Com- from his heart. 1) Why he spared no ef- with mind, life with life, and an entire plete independence can be achieved only fort to bring the supramental Light and flooding of the body consciousness through the medium of a concrete interde- Force and Consciousness to earth. His with the physical experience of one- pendence. The summit stage of supramen- purpose has been to bring us the discov- ness, the presence of the Beloved in tal consciousness alone is the necessary ery of life and the experience of being in every part, in every cell of the body. 80 and sufficient condition, the whole key bodies, not as it has been, processed by to the integral embrace, expression, and our grey matter, but in its truth that will Supermind in our lives, in our minds, embodiment of this fourfold realization; become self-evident now that the over- in our cells. only the true individual in us is fit to re-

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 25 ceive and instrumental to radiate, densely, The first realization came to Sri Auro- Notes and References warmly, and fully the fourfold realization. bindo, as he himself said in conversation, The true individual alone can stand intact through the grace of the Eternal Brahman; 1. Krishna appears in true form in the to the abysmal pull—something like the the three subsequent realizations and their eleventh chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. gravitational attraction of a supermassive hundreds of tributaries, through the grace 2. K.D. Sethna, “The Passing of Sri black hole—of the Parabrahman, the Su- of Mahakali and Krishna.82 Grace is always Aurobindo: Its Inner Significance and preme Reality beyond the bifurcations, of the natural manifestation of the Divine, Consequence” in The Indian Spirit and the which the silent and the active Brahman and the supreme Grace is the grace that is World’s Future, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, are the two aspects. Only by becoming our the natural expression of the Supreme Re- Pondicherry, 1953, pp. 186-210. true individuality, soul-and-Self-complex, ality itself: it is the Supreme Shakti and it 3. Rishabhchand, Sri Aurobindo: His through the Mother’s Grace—for Selfhood is that which becomes the Supreme Shakti Life Unique, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, is Her project—can we attune more truly and is the practical expression of the Pondicherry, 1981, p. 5. with the Brahman as Sri Aurobindo real- Shakti throughout. Everywhere we go we 4. Sri Aurobindo, Bande Mataram, ized it in his supreme realization. This is carry the peace of complete silence of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library the subjective crown of the sadhana that consciousness overthrowing the noises of (SABCL), Vol. 1, Sri Aurobindo Ashram once one is oneself intact with the pull the world, the equal tranquil state that is Trust, 1972. to withstand, gives the one-who-has- the true material foundation; we carry the 5. A.B. Purani, Evening Talks with become-one the pull to attract all nec- power of decisive action direct from the Sri Aurobindo, Third Edition (complete essary aid and sufficient conditions to Supreme; we carry the pull and attraction in one volume), Sri Aurobindo Ashram, achieve the practical Shakti in life and of the Absolute itself to the same absolute Pondicherry, 1982, p. 37. even rid oneself of the outermost ego of in every person, place, and thing, and the 6. Sri Aurobindo, Bande Mataram, p. the physical self. Ananda of the Supreme Shakti that alone 801. What we can be, each in our own can pierce the Unknowable and flow out 7. K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar, On the fashion, are “travelling samadhis,”81 ever of it as Person, World and Soul; and we Mother, Third (Revised) Edition, Sri Au- living relics of Sri Aurobindo, carrying carry the integrating summit Grace-Shak- robindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1994, p. the full force of the fourfold realization. ti that can illuminate every abyss with the 140. From a letter written by Sri Auro- The Supreme kneads us to become perfect superlight underlying everything, acting bindo to the Mother, May 20, 1915. See in matter. Every revolution requires ap- on the smallest scale with the appearance also Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, SABCL, propriate force to achieve its intended ob- of a bounded soul to do all that works to Vol. 26, 1972, p. 425. jectives. The extreme change that churns the world’s delight. 8. Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, us through ignorance to knowledge re- All forms in the world and their func- SABCL, Vols. 18-19, 1970, p. 1033. quires the same force that was powerful tion have their foundation in Supermind, 9. Ibid., pp. 919-963. and knowledgeable enough to become where omniscience, omnipotence, and 10. Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, SABCL, ignorance; it is a force more powerful omnipresence of Sachchidananda are un- Vols. 28-29, 1970, pp. 95-102. than the battlefields of the material world diminished (there is no impairment or 11. Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, SABCL, have seen. The force needed for the revo- impoverishment in the original intensity, Vol. 26, 1972, p. 64. In a dictated clarifica- lution to overthrow the present govern- sings the verse of Vallalar). This therefore tion, written c. 1945, he briefly describes ment of the cosmos is that of the original is delightful conscious existence replacing the nature of the permanently stabilized consciousness-as-force that became this with its radiance, turning into itself the concrete experiences, which speaking in divided world by its power of exclusive grave sorrowful stupidity of the world: the the third person, he terms “the four great concentration, and this alone can be the world can go on, but now with the fully realisations on which his Yoga and spir- missing link. Or we could say, the forceful stable and concrete Sachchidanananda in itual philosophy are founded.” means needed to overthrow the present the cells of every body. We put Sri Auro- 12. The Mother, Words of the Mother, overmental rule of the cosmos, the force bindo back on trial for “waging war against Collected Works of the Mother (CWM), Vol. that Sri Aurobindo has opened the way for, the king” when we fail to align ourselves to 13, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, 1980, p. and that Mother Mirra Alfassa embodies the full with the full extent of the change he 13. See also Wayne Bloomquist, God Shall and which she specializes and material- has come for. A simple aspiration coupled Grow Up: Body, Soul, and Earth Evolving izes, is the Mother’s Force. This force alone with straightforward attunement, rejecting Together, Pondy Publishing, 2001, where can bring us the fourfold realization (as it all that stands in the way, culminating in the supramentalized portion of the subtle- brought Sri Aurobindo), moving us stage the crown of our subjective sadhana, the physical is presented as direct experience to stage and across the perilous bridges complete surrender of each moment of life in several places. unseen; only by harboring this force can and every movement of our consciousness 13. Sri Aurobindo, The Upanishads, and will we eventually conquer death. and body cell: nothing more is asked of us.83 SABCL, Vol. 12, 1972, p. 16. (See also his

26 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 treatment of Parabrahman in essays con- note address 2003 AUM. This has inspired 38. Thulasiram, op. cit., pp. 585-586 tained in The Hour of God, SABCL, Vol. much of the approach taken here to Sri and following. Nayanmars and Alwars 17, 1972.) Aurobindo’s path through Supermind were respectively the Saivite and Vishna- 14. M. Alan Kazlev, www.kheper.net/ (though other sources that are Tamil ivite poet-saints of South India. See Thu- integral/noetic_absolute.html have helped me through the discrimina- lasiram’s chapter 13, for detailed examples 15. Purani, op. cit., Evening Talks, see tion between Supermind and Overmind). of the realizations they reached, in rela- December 18, 1938, pp. 343-344. Note how Deshpande illumines the true tion to distinguishing regions up to and 16. The Mother, Mother’s Agenda, Vol. nature of Krishna, as fundamentally the including Overmind, from the poises (ses- 3, Institut de Recherches Evolutives, Paris, full power of Bliss. No misunderstandings sions) of the Supermind. 1982, see 26 September 1962, p. 355. or mistakes on my part can be ascribed to 39. Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p. 17. Nirodbaran, Talks with Sri Au- any source but me. 278. robindo, Vol. 1, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 30. Amal Kiran and Nirodbaran, Talk 40. Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p. Pondicherry, see 29 December 1938, p. 75. Six by Amal Kiran in Light and Laughter: 950. 18. See “A Talk by the Mother on Savit- Some Talks at Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo 41. See Thulasiram, op. cit., Chapter ri,” written from memory by Mona Sarkar, Ashram, Pondicherry, Second Revised 13 as referenced above. This chapter (not November 5, 1967. Although not official Edition 1974, pp. 78-79. to mention extensive passages in both vol- it yet has credibility and is often quoted. 31. Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, p. 41. umes of the book) elucidates the Avyakta The author feels that though inexact, the 32. Rishabhchand, The Integral Yoga Paratpara (Positive Void, as Sri Aurobindo words express faithfully the views of the of Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, calls it) and the harmonizing and making Mother. Pondicherry, Second Edition 1959 (Re- intact the soul-and-Higher-Self complex, 19. Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, SABCL, printed 2000), p. 434. with direct references to both Sri Aurobin- Vol. 26, p. 455-60. 33. Peter Heehs, The Lives of Sri Au- do’s The Life Divine and their precise cor- 20. The Mother, Mother’s Agenda, Vol. robindo, Columbia University Press, New relation with Swami Ramalingam’s sixth 2, 1981, see 7 November 1961, pp. 377- York, 2008, p. 351 and others. volume of Thiru Arutpa (his “holy book 384. 34. Purani, op. cit., Evening Talks, p. of songs”). Both arrived at these insights 21. The Mother, Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 37. independently (Ramalingam’s disappear- 3, see 21 July 1962, letter from Sri Auro- 35. Inspiration for the insight how Sri ance in 1874 having taken place a year bindo to his younger brother Barin writ- Aurobindo’s revolutionary political pro- and a half after Sri Aurobindo’s birth, and ten in April 1920 (the date though given in gram translated into the “overthrow of Sri Aurobindo having never read Rama- the Agenda as April 7th is unfixable) and Overmind” dawned during my reading a lingam’s Thiru Arutpa). Also see Nolini translated from the Bengali, pp. 268-277. passage of Nirodbaran, recounting very Kanta Gupta, Collected Works, Vol. 3, 22. The account in Mother’s Agenda, simply Sri Aurobindo’s revolutionary po- “Lines of the Descent of Consciousness,” Vol. 2, from 7 November 1961 listed above litical principles. Nirodbaran did not refer pp. 50-51 for a most lucid account of the in note 20, is the primary account of the there to any correlation with a spiritual process leading towards coalescence of “process” of Sri Aurobindo’s path, their program. An intuitive flash came to me soul (psychic being) and Self (Jivatman) dual path, through the Supermind in the (which seemed to have been occasioned in the Supermind. See also Savitri, Book 1910s and 1920s. The author accepts the by this reading) that contained the re- VII, Canto 5, pp. 526-527 and following. authenticity of the Mother’s narrative in mainder of this chapter, but in an instant. 42. The fivefold universal powers are these subtle matters. The rest of this chapter is my attempt to to create, to preserve, to renew through 23. Iyengar, op. cit., p. 212. elucidate that intuition. destruction, to veil or conceal (involve), 24. Purani, op. cit., p. 20. 36. Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, p. 323. and to unfold through grace or reveal 25. The Mother, Mother’s Agenda, Vol. “…For worlds were many, but the Self (evolve). These are found throughout Sai- 1, 1979, see 21 December 1955, p. 415. was one. va Siddhana and other Hindu tradition. 26. Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, pp. This knowledge was now made a 43. See Thulasiram, op. cit. for instance 143-172. cosmos’ seed: p. 59 and p. 671 in Vol. 1, and for exact and 27. Purani, The Life of Sri Aurobindo, This seed was cased in the safety of direct reference to the “door” in stanza 283 Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, pp. the Light, see Vol. 2, p. 209, in first of two extensive 211-217. It needed not a sheath of Ignorance.” sections on “Joti Agaval” poem, which 28. Ibid., p. 216. 37. T.R. Thulasiram,Arut Perum Jothi contains 798 stanzas, or 1596 verses. 29. R.Y. Deshpande, “The Integral Yoga and Deathless Body: A Comparative Study 44. Swami Ramalingam’s sixth volume of the Future,” http://www.auromusic.org/ of Swami Ramalingam with Sri Aurobindo of Thiru Arupta, which is very extensive, online%20books/articles/RYDeshpande/ and the Mother and Thirumoolar, Vol. 1, is purely supramental in character. Ear- IntegralYogaofFuture.html, basis for key- University of Madras, 1980, pp. 573-649. lier poems in Thiru Arutpa also relate

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 27 supramental experiences. In addition his p. 134. 68. M. Alan Kazlev, “Sri Aurobindo, Upadesha (sayings taken down by dis- 51. Amal Kiran, Our Light and Delight: the Mother, and the Integral Movement,” ciples) and Upakhyana (commentaries, Recollections of Life with the Mother, Amal Collaboration journal, Spring 2011. notably the “Karanateeta Lokas”) contain Kiran, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicher- 69. The Mother, Words of the Mother, extensive references to supramental expe- ry, 1980, p. 224. CWM, Vol. 15, 1980, p. 108. rience. Other sources also exist. Thus, it 52. Deshpande, op. cit. “The Integral 70. Iyengar, op. cit., p. 495. has been said, perhaps justifiably, that his Yoga of the Future.” 71. Debashish Banerji, “Living Labo- works contain over a thousand pages of 53. Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, p. 153. ratories of the Divine” (text of a talk his direct supramental experiences. 54. Nirodbaran, Talks with Sri Au- delivered for the AUM Conference, Los 45. The Mother, Words of the Mother, robindo, Vol. 2, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Angeles, May 2003), Posthuman Destinies CWM, Vol. 13, 1980, see 14 February Pondicherry, 2001, p. 1008. website, published November 23, 2008. 1961, written in English in the Mother’s 55. Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p. 72. The Mother, Mother’s Agenda, Vol. handwriting. 550. 1, see 29 February 1956, p. 69. 46. Quoted by the excellent poet Jo- 56. The Mother, Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 73. The Mother, Questions and An- seph Kent, a close student of Dr. Haridas 3, see 13 April 1962, p. 131. swers 1957-1958, CWM, Vol. 9, 1977, see Chaudhuri, who recalled hearing Dr. 57. Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, p. 709. For 1 January 1958, p. 245. Chaudhuri use this phrase. the eleventh book of Savitri Sri Aurobindo 74. Ibid., see 1 July 1957, p. 145. 47. Nolini Kanta Gupta, Collected holds a special fondness. 75. Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Works, The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, Vol. 58. Nirodbaran, op. cit., Talks with Sri Yoga, SABCL, Vols. 20-21, 1971, p. 1. 3, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, Aurobindo, Vol 2, p. 1008. 76. The Mother, Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 1970, see “Lines of the Descent of Con- 59. Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, p. 445. This 1, see October 4, 1958 (at end of discus- sciousness,” p. 35. line in “The Way of Fate and the Problem sion), p. 205. 48. Here again I’d like to share more of Pain” is one of the final three passages 77. Paul Stamets, Mycelium Running: highlights from my investigations in Tamil Sri Aurobindo added to Savitri in his final How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, spirituality, especially Arut Perum Jothi month. Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, 2005. and Deathless Body, Vols. 1 and 2 by Sri 60. “Parting gift” is a phrase used by 78. Jaakko Seikkula et al, “Five-Year T.R. Thulasiram, an inmate and in fact the R.Y. Deshpande in “The Integral Yoga of Experience of First-Episode Non-Affec- auditor and chief accountant of Sri Auro- the Future,” op. cit. tive Psychosis in Open-Dialogue Ap- bindo Ashram from 1969 to his passing in 61. K.D. Sethna, op. cit. , see Note 2 proach: Treatment Principles, Follow-up 2007. The deeper sense of the full differ- above. Outcomes, and Two Case Studies,” Psy- ences between Overmind and Supermind 62. Bhavi Saklecha’s mother told me chotherapy Research, March 2006, pp. 214- can be found in these extensive volumes, this story on the cliffs above San Francisco 228. published in 1980. References to Swami a few years back. 79. Arthur C. Clarke presents “Fractals: Ramalingam’s supramental yoga and that 63. Amal Kiran (K.D. Sethna), The Vi- The Colours of Infinity,” 1995, http://www. of other Tamil siddhas taken from these sion and Work of Sri Aurobindo, Sri Au- youtube.com/watch?v=Lk6QU94xAb8 volumes. A work of the future, perhaps a robindo Ashram, Pondicherry, Second with concluding quotation from Sri Au- way to assist Sri Aurobindo’s ongoing pro- Revised and Enlarged Edition 1992, see robindo. ject to supramentalize the Overmind and “The Supermind’s Descent and the ‘Mind 80. These quotations, placed here into all planes leading to it, will be to find the of Light,’ Some Facts and Interpretations,” three paragraphs, are found in Sri Auro- harmony between, and the same principle pp. 104-134. The Mother’s words preced- bindo, On Himself, pp. 124-125. underlying the Integral Yoga community ing the above presentation of Amal Kiran’s 81. A phrase taken from the fire of life founded by Sri Aurobindo and the Moth- view of the Mind of Light can be found and spoken by Wayne Bloomquist. er, and the Suddha Sanmarga community there. 82. Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, p. 77. founded by Swami Ramalingam, both 64. Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, p. 247. 83. Sri Aurobindo, The Mother, SABCL, centered in Tamil Nadu, South India, but 65. Sri Aurobindo, see chapters on the Vol. 25, 1972, pp. 6-8. See his own state- neither at present recognizing the other. Mind of Light in “The Supramental Mani- ment on the contribution we can humanly 49. Thulasiram, op. cit, Vol. 1, pp. 828- festation on Earth” in The Supramental make to the Yoga that all life is: aspiration, 829. Also see chapter 11 on Tirumoolar, Manifestation and Other Writings, SABCL, rejection, surrender. and Chapter 18 on transformation in Vol. 16, 1971. Tirumoolar, Swami Ramalingam, and the 66. Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, see Mother. “The Triple Transformation,” pp. 889-918. 50. Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, 67. The Mother, Mother’s Agenda, Vol. SABCL, Vol. 5, 1972, “The Golden Light”, 1, 1979, see 24 May 1960, pp. 371-374.

28 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 Source Material

Supermind and the Mind of Light by Sri Aurobindo

he essential character of Supermind is a Truth-conscious- ness which knows by its own inherent right of nature, by its own light: it has not to arrive at knowledge but pos- Sri Aurobindo in 1950 (Photo courtesy Sri Aurobindo Ashram) Tsesses it. It may indeed, especially in its evolutionary action, keep knowledge behind its apparent consciousness and bring it for- cally the Mind of Light is indeed the last of a series of descending ward as if from behind the veil; but even then this veil is only an planes of consciousness in which the Supermind veils itself by a appearance and does not really exist: the knowledge was always self-chosen limitation or modification of its self-manifesting ac- there, the consciousness its possessor and present revealer. This tivities, but its essential character remains the same: there is in it too is only in the evolutionary play and on the supramental plane an action of light, of truth, of knowledge in which inconscience, itself the consciousness lives always in an immediacy of knowl- ignorance and error claim no place. It proceeds from knowledge edge and acts by a direct immediacy of knowledge In Mind as we to knowledge; we have not yet crossed over the borders of the see it here the action is very different; it starts from an apparent truth-conscious into ignorance. The methods also are those absence of knowledge, a seeming ignorance or nescience, even, of a self-luminous knowing and seeing and feeling and a self- in material Nature, from an inconscience in which any kind of fulfilling action within its own borders; there is no need to seek knowing does not seem at all to exist. It reaches knowledge or the for something missing, no fumbling, no hesitation: all is still a action of knowledge by steps which are not at all immediate but gnostic action of a gnostic power and principle. There has been rather knowledge at first seems utterly impossible and foreign to a descent from full Supermind into Mind, but this Mind though the very substance of this Matter. Yet, in the blindness of Matter a self-limited is not yet an agnostic consciousness unsure of itself itself there are signs of a concealed consciousness which in its hid- or unsure of its workings; there is still a comprehending or an den fundamental being sees and has the power to act according to apprehending consciousness which goes straight to its object its vision and even by an infallible immediacy which is inherent and does not miss its mark or have to hunt for it in the dark or in its nature. This is the same Truth that is apparent in Supermind in insufficient light: it sees, knows, puts its hand immediately on but is here involved and seems not to b.e The Mind of Light is a things of self and things of Nature. We have passed into Mind subordinate action of Supermind, dependent upon it even when but Mind has still not broken its inherent connection with the not apparently springing direct from it, in which the secret of this supramental principle. connection becomes evident and palpable. Still there is an increasing self-limitation which begins even The Truth-consciousness is not only a power of knowledge; with Overmind: Overmind is separated by only a luminous bor- it is a being of consciousness and knowledge, a luminous many- der from the full light and power of the supramental Truth and sided dynamis and play of the omniscient Spirit; in it there can be it still commands direct access to all that Supermind can give it. a spiritual feeling, a spiritual sensation, a spiritual essentiality of There is a further limitation or change of characteristic action substance that knows and reveals, that acts and manifests in an at each step downwards from Overmind to Intuition, from In- omniscience which is one with omnipotence. In Mind this Truth- tuition to Illumined Mind, from Illumined Mind to what I have consciousness and these workings of the Truth-consciousness called the Higher Mind: the Mind of Light is a transitional pas- can be there and even though it limits itself in Mind and has a sage by which we can pass from supermind and superhumanity subordinate or an indirect working, its action can be essentially to an illumined humanity. For the new humanity will be capable the same. There can even be a hidden immediacy which hints at of at least a partly divinised way of seeing and living because it the presence of something absolute and is evidence of the same will live in the light and in knowledge and not in the obscuration omnipotence and omniscience. In the Mind of Light when it be- of the Ignorance. comes full-orbed this character of the Truth reveals itself, though Still, again there will be a difference between the superhu- in a garb that is transparent even when it seems to cover: for this man and the human, a difference in nature and power but a too is a truth-consciousness and a self-power of knowledge. This difference especially in the access and way of admission to the too proceeds from the Supermind and depends upon it even Truth-consciousness and its activities: there may indeed be two though it is limited and subordinate. What we have called specifi- orders of its truth, direct and half-direct, immediate and near

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 29 The supramental consciousness

by the Mother

Yes. But this was really a Glory in which I lived for hours together this morning. And then all, all, all notions, all of them, even the most intel- lectual, all became as... as though childishness. It was so obvious that one had the feeling: there is no need to speak of it! All human reactions, even the highest, the purest, the no- blest, appeared so childish!... There is a sentence written by Sri Aurobindo somewhere that was coming all the while to me. One day, I do not remember where, he had written something, a rather long sentence in which there was this: “And when I The Mother in 1969. (Courtesy Sri Aurobindo Ashram) feel jealous, I know that the old man is still there.’’ It is now or even only a reception at a distance. But this we must consider perhaps more than thirty years since I read it—yes, almost thirty afterwards; at present it is sufficient to mark certain differences in years—and I remember, when I read “jealous’’, I said to myself: the descending order of gnostic mind which culminates here. We How can Sri Aurobindo be jealous? And so after thirty years I may say that there is a higher hemisphere of our being in which have understood what he meant by being “jealous’’—it is not Mind, luminous and aware of its workings, still lives in the Light at all what men call “jealous’’, it was altogether another state of and can be seen as a subordinate power of the Supermind; it is consciousness. I saw it clearly. And this morning it came back still an agent of the Truth-consciousness, a gnostic power that to me: “And when I feel jealous, I know that the old man is still has not descended into the mental ignorance; it is capable of a there.’’ To be “jealous’’ for him did not mean what we call “jeal- mental gnosis that preserves its connection with the superior ous’’... It is this infinitesimal particle that we call the individual, light and acts by its power. This is the character of Overmind this particle of infinitesimal consciousness which places itself in its own plane and of all the powers that are dependent on the at the centre, which is the centre of the perception, and which Overmind: the Supermind works there but at one remove as if in consequently perceives things coming like that (gesture towards something that it has put forth from itself but which is no longer oneself) or going like that (gesture outward) and all that does not entirely itself but is still a delegate of the Truth and invested with come to it gives it a kind of perception that Sri Aurobindo called its authority. We are moving towards a transitional border beyond “jealous”: the perception that things are going towards diffusion, which lies the possibility of the Ignorance, but the Ignorance is instead of coming in towards centralisation; it was that which he not yet here. In the order of the evolutionary descent we stand in called “jealous’’. So he said: When I feel jealous (this was what the Mind of Light on that border and a step downward can carry he meant to say), I know that the old man is still there; that is to us beyond it into the beginnings of an ignorance which still bears say, this infinitesimal particle of consciousness can still be at the on its face something of the luminosity that it is leaving behind centre of itself; it is the centre of action, the centre of perception, it. On the other hand, in the ascending order of the evolution we the centre of sensation.... reach a transition in which we see the light, are turned towards it, reflect it in our consciousness and one further step carries us into (Silence) the domain of the Light. The Truth becomes visible and audible to us and we are in immediate communication with its messages Yes, I could notice—it is the time when I do all my physical and illuminations and can grow into it and be made one with its work—I could notice that the whole work—could be done with- substance. Thus there is a succession of ranges of consciousness out any alteration in the consciousness. It was not that which which we can speak of as Mind but which belongs practically to altered my consciousness; what veiled my consciousness was the higher hemisphere, although in their ontological station they seeing people: it is when I began to be here and to do what I have are within the domain of the lower hemisphere. For the whole of been doing every day: projecting the divine Consciousness upon being is a connected totality and there is in it no abrupt passage people. But it came back... (how can one say it?) on the borders; from the principle of Truth and Light into their opposite. The that is to say, instead of being within, I began to perceive it, when creative truth of things works and can work infallibly even in the you asked me. But that feeling is no longer there—there was Inconscient: the Spirit is there in Matter and it has made a series nothing but that any more! That alone was there, and everything, of steps by which it can travel from it to its own heights in an un- everything has changed—appearance, meaning, etc. interrupted line of gradations; the depths are linked to the heights That must be the supramental consciousness: I believe that and the Law of the one Truth creates and works everywhere. this is the supramental consciousness.

30 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 But one could conceive very well that for a consciousness wide sciousness for putting pressure. There you are. That is a proof.... and quick enough, if I may say so, capable of seeing not merely a bit All is done automatically, as an imposition of the Truth without of the path, but the whole path at the same time... any necessity of intervention: simply to remain in the true con- sciousness, that is all, that is sufficient. Yes, yes. But then, in spite of everything, the body kept just a little consciousness of its needs all the while (although it was not busy The whole would be a moving perfection. with itself; I was always saying: It is not busy with itself, it is not interested). But that is what Sri Aurobindo used to say: I feel I Yes. am still the old man. I understood that this morning, for it was no longer there. Well, this sort of a very quiet perception of what Evil is simply holding one’s vision on one small angle; then one is still not all right—a pain here, a difficulty there—very calm, says, “It is evil’’, but if one sees the entire path... In a total conscious- very indifferent, but it is perceived (without its taking any impor- ness, obviously there is no evil. tance), and even that gone, wholly swept away!... I hope it won’t come back. It is really... this, I understand, it is a transformation. There are no contraries. No contraries—not even contradictions; One is conscious in a golden vastness—my child, it is wonderful I say: no contraries. It is that Unity, it is living in that Unity. And that —luminous, golden, peaceful, eternal, all-powerful. cannot be translated by thoughts or words. I am telling you, it is... And how it is coming.... No word is there to express it in- a vastness without limits and a light... a light without movement, deed, this wonder regarding the Grace.... The Grace, the Grace and at the same time an ease... an ease not recognised as such. Now is a thing that surpasses all comprehension, with its clear-seeing I am convinced that it is that, the supramental consciousness. kindliness.... Naturally the body had the experience. Something And necessarily, necessarily that must change the appear- had happened that I will not tell you and it had the true reaction; ances gradually. it had not the old reaction, it had the true reaction—it smiled, with the Smile of the supreme Lord—it smiled. That was there for (Long silence) a whole day and a half. And it was this difficulty which enabled the body to make the last progress, enabled it to live in this Con- There are no words that can explain the magnificence of the sciousness: if all had been harmonious, things could have lasted Grace, how the whole is combined so that all may go as quickly still for years—it is wonderful, wonderful ! as possible. And individuals are miserable to the extent to which And how stupid men are! When the Grace has come to they are not conscious of it and take a false position in regard to them, they push it away, saying, “Oh! What horror!’’... That I have what is happening to them. known for a long time, but my experience is... dazzling.

But what is difficult to think is that at each moment it must be... Yes, each thing is perfectly, wonderfully what it ought to be at it is the perfection. every moment.

Yes, that is it. Quite so.

At each instant, it is the perfection. But it is our vision that is not attuned.

At each instant. There is no other thing... When I was there, Yes, it is our separated consciousness. there was no other thing. And yet, as I have told you, it was the The whole has been brought with lightning rapidity towards time when I was physically extremely busy—all the work was be- the consciousness that will be the Consciousness of the point and ing done, without disturbing anything; on the contrary, I believe I of the all, at the same time.[...] was doing things much better than usual... I do not know how to I have already had the experience, partially, that when one explain. It was not, as it were, a thing “added’: it was quite natural. is in this state of inner harmony and no part of the attention Life as it is can be lived in that consciousness—but it is then is turned towards the body, the body works perfectly well. It is lived quite well!... Nothing needs to be changed, what is to be this... self-concentration” which upsets everything. And this I changed changes itself quite naturally. have observed many times, many times.... In reality one does I am going to give you an example. For a few days, I had some make oneself ill. It is the narrowness of consciousness, the divi- difficulty with... I will not name him; pressure had to be put on sion. If you let it work, there is... everywhere there is a Con- him to correct some of his movements. Today he was conscious sciousness and a Grace that do everything so that all may go of it in quite a different way from the usual, and in the end he well, and it is because of this imbecility that all goes wrong—it is said that he was on the way to change (that is true), and all that strange! The egocentric imbecility, it is that which Sri Aurobindo not only without a word, but without any movement of the con- calls “the old man.” (CWM, Vol. 11, pp. 202-207)

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 31 We also learn about the Indian National Congress in Surat, Book Reviews in which the National Congress, consisting of Moderates and Nationalists, was finally split along ideological lines, dramatically enacted when a brawl broke out on the speaker’s platform. Days Three publications edited by earlier, the Nationalists had just formed their own party and had had their first conference with Sri Aurobindo presiding. There Anurag Banerjee of the Sri Aurobindo laid out in a speech the programme of the Na- Overman Foundation tionalists, and its position vis á vis the Moderates. From then on the Nationalists became an independent and powerful voice in Reviewed by Larry Seidlitz the nation’s politics, and the Bande Mataram became its primary voice, awakening India to the ideals of political independence. Books available through: http://overmanfoundation.wordpress.com After the Surat conference, Sri Aurobindo traveled in the Deccan giving speeches on the Nationalist ideals and program to hun- Sri Aurobindo: His political life and activities dreds and sometimes to thousands of people. We can read some of these speeches, and accounts of some of those who attended. n this 445 page book, Banerjee reveals many interesting de- In the early morning of 2 May 1908, Sri Aurobindo was ar- tails of Sri Aurobindo’s political life through a variety of gov- rested in his home in Calcutta for his alleged conspiracy in a ernment documents, press reports, letters and essays, some bombing in which two ladies were mistakenly killed in an at- Iof which are being published for the first time. It includes some tempt on the life of Mr. Kingsford, a judge who had formerly material published in the Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo that imprisoned various revolutionaries. This was the beginning of help provide an overall completeness and perspective, but it also what would become known as the Alipore Bomb Trial, in which includes less known material that has been published in vari- Sri Aurobindo would spend a year as an undertrial prisoner, only ous books and journals by disciples, and still rarer material from to be finally acquitted. This section, which takes up a quarter of newspapers and documents of the period investigated. It is well- the book, gives many details of the case and its background from organized and presented, though like the other two publications various perspectives. being reviewed here, with a simple paper cover in standard A4 size. After his acquittal in the Alipore Bomb Trial, Sri Aurobindo With few exceptions, this book focuses on the period between continued the Nationalist movement almost single-handedly 1905 when Sri Aurobindo took up the post of principal at the Na- giving speeches and publishing two political weekly papers, the tional College in Calcutta, and 1910 when he withdrew from ac- Karmayogin and the Dharma, the first in English and the second tive political work to focus on his spiritual work in Pondicherry. in Bengali. In the section “The Poet of Patriotism,” we can read a This was a pivotal period in which the populace of the country number of these fiery speeches, as well as some important arti- was transformed from being passively accepting of British rule cles published in the Karmayogin. We also get other perspectives to seeking full political independence. Though it did not achieve of this period from the accounts of others. its aim until 37 years later, the character and methods of the In “Sri Aurobindo and the British Government,” we can read movement were largely established during this period. The book documents and letters of British government officials showing is organized into 14 sections, among them including: “Bengal the danger that Sri Aurobindo represented to them. Some of National College, the Barisal Conference and the Bande Mata- these pertain to the case of sedition brought against him for the ram;” “The Surat Congress: December 1907;” “Sri Aurobindo in article which appeared in the Karmayogin on the 25th December the Deccan;” “The Alipore Bomb Trial;” “The Poet of Patriotism;” 1909, titled “To my countrymen,” a kind of last will and testa- and “Sri Aurobindo and the British Government.” ment in which he championed the cause of the Nationalist party, The book takes the reader back in time to this momentous severely criticized the government, and announced its intentions period. We can read Sri Aurobindo’s speech to the students at the to deport him. Before the warrant against him was issued, he had newly formed Bengal National College which he was selected to already left for Chandernagore and Pondicherry. Some of these head, and we find reminiscences of Sri Aurobindo by his fellow letters show disagreement within the government concerning lecturers. The Barisal Provincial Conference in April 1906 was the merits of the case and the possibility of conviction. Subse- convened by some of the Nationalist leaders shortly after the par- quently the publisher of the paper was convicted, and then after tition of Bengal, at the end it was broken up by the police. We can an appeal, was acquitted. We can read the verdicts in both cases read the fiery speeches of some of the members. We learn about which review the evidence, as well as other’s views. The case the government prosecution of the Bande Mataram paper in against Sri Aurobindo was subsequently dropped. 1907. We can read Sri Aurobindo’s written statement to the court There are other interesting topics covered in this informative and the judge’s eight page ruling on the case, summarizing all the and well-researched work. Banerjee has done a good job to bring evidence and concluding that Sri Aurobindo was not proved to be together a collection of new and interesting material which sheds the editor of the seditious article in question. light on Sri Aurobiindo’s life during this important period.

32 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 The Alipore Bomb Trial Judgment The poetry room This book presents the full verdict in the Alipore Bomb case that was delivered on 6 May 1909 by C.P. Beachcroft. It runs 137 pages in length, but this was no ordinary trial. It was exceed- Jivanmukta ingly complex, and it was the first State trial of such a magnitude There is a silence greater than any known in British India involving a conspiracy to wage war against the To earth’s dumb spirit, motionless in the soul British Crown. Verdicts were delivered for 36 persons in this That has become eternity’s foothold, document. During the course of the proceedings which started 19 Touched by the infinitudes for ever. October 1908, 206 witnesses were called, about 4000 documents were filed, and about 5000 exhibits were produced. According to A Splendour is here, refused to the earthward sight, Banerjee in his preface, Barindra Kumar Ghose (Sri Aurobindo’s That floods some deep flame-covered all-seeing eye; brother) and Ullaskar Dutt were sentenced to be hanged, ten Revealed it wakens when God’s stillness others were sentenced to prison for 10 years, three of the ac- Heavens the ocean of moveless Nature. cused were sentenced to prison for seven years, and one boy of 16 was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for one year due to his A Power descends no Fate can perturb or vanquish, age. The other accused, including Sri Aurobindo, were acquitted. Calmer than mountains, wider than marching waters, Beachcroft’s verdict is interesting in that it weighs all the evidence A single might of luminous quiet concerning all the various accused. As such, the reader learns Tirelessly bearing the worlds and ages. quite a bit about the actual details of the activities of these revo- lutionaries who were led by Sri Aurobindo’s brother Barindra. I A Bliss surrounds with ecstasy everlasting, was struck by what appeared to be a reasonable and dispassionate An absolute high-seated immortal rapture assessment of the evidence. In Sri Aurobindo’s case, the judge Possesses, sealing love to oneness ruled that there was only weak and insufficient evidence linking In the grasp of the All-beautiful, All-beloved. him to the conspiracy, including some brief notes which may have planted by government spies. The judge also notes that Sri Auro- He who from time’s dull motion escapes and thrills bindo’s writings did not advocate violence, sometimes repudiated Rapt thoughtless, wordless into the Eternal’s breast, violent revolution, and typically advocated nonviolent means. He Unrolls the form and sign of being, indicated that if Sri Aurobindo were involved in the conspiracy, it Seated above in the omniscient Silence. would be a contradiction of his own writings on political action. The book presents a document of significant historical interest. Although consenting here to a mortal body, He is the Undying; limit and bond he knows not; Sri Aurobindo on Ethics For him the aeons are a playground, Life and its deeds are his splendid shadow. This book of 53 pages is a fine compilation of Sri Aurobindo’s writings on ethics. Although the book is simply stapled together, Only to bring God’s forces to waiting Nature, the contents are rich and nicely organized into 3 sections and 18 To help with wide-winged Peace her tormented labour subsections. The first section examines Sri Aurobindo’s philo- And heal with joy her ancient sorrow, sophical perpectives on ethics. The second section deals with Casting down light on the inconscient darkness, ethics in different societies and cultures. The third section consid- ers ethics in relation to reason, morality, dharma, and the gnostic He acts and lives. Vain things are mind’s smaller motives life. In this book we find a deep and well-balanced explanation To one whose soul enjoys for its high possession of Sri Aurobindo’s views of ethics, its importance and place in Infinity and the sempiternal human life, and its deeper meaning and transformation in the All is his guide and beloved and refuge. spiritual life. The issue and place of ethics in the spiritual life are complex issues, particularly as the individual is in transition from —Sri Aurobindo a mental control over the life to a higher spiritual and psychic control. It is common to throw away the former before the latter is well-developed or operational, leading to complications. It is also common to hold too tightly to the former, thereby blocking the opening to a more flexible psychic and spiritual impetus to action. This book helps to untangle these complex issues and to guide us towards a smoother transition to the life divine.

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 33 Nirvana From Aurora Leigh

Could my heart but see Creation as God sees it, —from within; Truth, so far, in my book;—the truth which draws See His grace behind its beauty, see His will behind its force; Through all things upwards,—that a twofold world See the flame of life shoot upward when the April days begin; Must go to a perfect cosmos. Natural things See the wave of life rush outward from its pure eternal source; And spiritual,—who separates those two In art, in morals, or the social drift Could I see the summer sunrise glow with God’s transcendent hope; Tears up the bond of nature and brings death, See His peace upon the waters in the moonlit summer night; Paints futile pictures, writes unreal verse, See Him nearer still when, blinded, in the depths of gloom I grope,— Leads vulgar days, deals ignorantly with men, See the darkness flash and quiver with the gladness of His light; Is wrong, in short, at all points. We divide This apple of life, and cut it through the pips,— Could I see the red-hot passion of His love resistless burn The perfect round which fitted Venus’ hand Through the dumb despair of winter, through the frozen lifeless Has perished as utterly as if we ate clod;— Both halves. Without the spiritual, observe, Could I see what lies around me as God sees it, I should learn The natural’s impossible,—no form, That its outward life is nothing, that its inward life is God. No motion: without sensuous, spiritual Is inappreciable,—no beauty or power: Vain the dream! To spirit only is the spirit-life revealed: And in this twofold sphere the twofold man God alone can see God’s glory; God alone can feel God’s love. (For still the artist is intensely a man) By myself the soul of Nature from myself is still concealed; Holds firmly by the natural, to reach And the earth is still around me, and the skies are still above. The spiritual beyond it,—fixes still The type with mortal vision, to pierce through, Vain the dream! I cannot mingle with the all-sustaining soul: With eyes immortal, to the antetype I am prisoned in my senses; I am pinioned by my pride; Some call the ideal,—better call the real, I am severed by my selfhood from the world-life of the Whole; And certain to be called so presently And my world is near and narrow; and God’s world is waste and wide. When things shall have their names. Look long enough On any peasant’s face here, coarse and lined, Vain the dream! Yet in the morning, when the eastern skies are red, You’ll catch Antinous somewhere in that clay, When the dew is on the meadows, when the lark soars up and sings,— As perfect featured as he yearns at Rome Leaps a sudden flame within me from its ashes pale and dead, From marble pale with beauty; then persist, And I see God’s beauty burning through the veil of outward things. And, if your apprehension’s competent, You’ll find some fairer angel at his back, Brighter grows the veil and clearer, till, beyond all fear and doubt, As much exceeding him as he the boor, I am ravished by God’s spendour into oneness with His rest; And pushing him with empyreal disdain And I draw the world within me, and I send my soul without; For ever out of sight. Aye, Carrington And God’s pulse is in my bosom, and I lie upon God’s breast. Is glad of such a creed: an artist must Who paints a tree, a leaf, a common stone Dies the beatific vision in the moment of its birth; With just his hand, and finds it suddenly Dies, but in its death transfigures all the sequence of my days; A-piece with and conterminous to his soul. Dies, but dying crowns with triumph all the travail of the earth, Why else do these things move him, leaf, or stone? Till its harsh discordant murmurs swell into a psalm of praise. The bird’s not moved, that pecks at a spring-shoot; Nor yet the horse, before a quarry, a-graze: Then a yearning comes upon me to be drawn at last by death, But man, the twofold creature, apprehends Drawn into the mystic circle in which all things live and move, The twofold manner, in and outwardly, Drawn into the mystic circle of the love which is God’s breath,— And nothing in the world comes single to him, Love creative, love receptive, love of loving, love of love. A mere itself,—cup, column, or candlestick, All patterns of what shall be in the Mount; God! The One, the All of Being! Let me lose my life in Thine: The whole temporal show related royally, Let me be what Thou hast made me, be a quiver of Thy flame. And built up to eterne significance Purge my self from self’s pollution; burn it into life divine; Through the open arms of God. ‘There’s nothing great Burn it till it dies triumphant in the firespring whence it came. Nor small’, has said a poet of our day, Whose voice will ring beyond the curfew of eve —Edmond Gore Alexander Holmes And not be thrown out by the matin’s bell:

34 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011 And truly, I reiterate, nothing’s small! From The Winter Morning Walk No lily-mufffled hum of a summer-bee, But finds some coupling with the spinning stars; Acquaint thyself with God, if thou wouldst taste No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere; His works. Admitted once to his embrace, No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim; Thou shalt perceive that thou wast blind before: And (glancing on my own thin, veinèd wrist), Thine eye shall be instructed: and thine heart In such a little tremor of the blood Made pure shall relish, with divine delight, The whole strong clamour of a vehement soul Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought. Doth utter itself distinct. Earth’s crammed with heaven, Brutes graze the mountain-top, with faces prone, And every common bush afire with God; And eyes intent upon the scanty herb But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, It yields them; or, recumbent on its brow, The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries, Ruminate heedless of the scene outspread And daub their natural faces unaware Beneath, beyond, and stretching far away More and more from the first similitude. From inland regions to the distant main. Man views it, and admires; but rests content —Elizabeth Barrett Browning With what he views. The landscape has his praise, But not its Author. Unconcerned who formed St Peter The paradise he sees, he finds it such, And, such well pleased to find it, asks no more. St Peter once: ‘Lord, dost Thou wash my feet?’ — Not so the mind that has been touched from Heaven, Much more I say: Lord, dost Thou stand and knock And in the school of sacred wisdom taught At my closed heart more rugged than a rock, To read his wonders, in whose thought the world, Bolted and barred, for Thy soft touch unmeet, Fair as it is, existed ere it was. Nor garnished nor in any wise made sweet? Not for its own sake merely, but for His Owls roost within and dancing satyrs mock. Much more who fashioned it, he gives it praise, Lord, I have heard the crowing of the cock Praise that, from earth resulting, as it ought, And have not wept: ah, Lord, thou knowest it. To earth’s acknowledged Sovereign, finds at once Yet still I hear Thee knocking, still I hear: Its only just proprietor in Him. ‘Open to Me, look on Me eye to eye, The soul that sees him or receives sublimed That I may wring thy heart and make it whole; New faculties, or learns at least to employ And teach thee love because I hold thee dear More worthily the powers she owned before; And sup with thee in gladness soul with soul, Discerns in all things what, with stupid gaze And sup with thee in glory by and by.’ Of ignorance, till then she overlooked, A ray of heavenly light, gilding all forms —Christina Rossetti Terrestrial in the vast and the minute— The unambiguous footsteps of the God La Vie Profonde Who gives its luster to an insect’s wing, And wheels his throne upon the rolling worlds. Hemmed in by petty thoughts and petty things, Intent on toys and trifles all my years, —William Cowper Pleased by life’s gauds, pained by its pricks and stings, Swayed by ignoble hopes, ignoble fears; From The Task Threading life’s tangled maze without life’s clue, Busy with means, yet heedless of their ends, The Lord of all, himself through all diffus’d, Lost to all sense of what is real and true, Sustains, and is the life of all that lives. Blind to the goal to which all Nature tends;— Nature is but a name for an effect, Such is my surface self: but deep beneath, Whose cause is God. He feeds the secret fire A mighty actor on a world-wide stage, By which the mighty process is maintain’d. Crowned with all knowledge, lord of life and death, Who sleeps not, is not weary; in whose sight Sure of my aim, sure of my heritage,— Slow circling ages are as transient days; I—the true self—live on, in self’s despite, Whose work is without labour; whose designs That ‘life profound’ whose darkness is God’s light. No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts; And whose beneficence no charge exhausts. —Edmond Gore Alexander Holmes —William Cowper

Summer & Fall 2011 Collaboration • 35 All work, the genuine work which we The work an unknown good man has Apropos must achieve, is that which is most dif- done is like a vein of water flowing hidden ficult and painful: the work on ourselves. underground, secretly making the ground If we do not freely take upon ourselves this green. —Thomas Carlyle Truth is an infinitely complex reality and pre-acceptance of the pain and torment, he has the best chance of arriving near- they will be visited upon us in an other- Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches est to it who most recognises but is wise necessary individual and universal cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious not daunted by its infinite complexity. collapse. Anyone disassociated from his things that cannot be taken from you. —Sri Aurobindo origin and his spiritually sensed task acts —Oscar Wilde against origin. Anyone who acts against We want a race that has no ego, that has it has neither a today nor a tomorrow. The wound is the place where the Light in place of the ego the Divine Conscious- —Jean Gebser enters you. —Rumi ness. It is that which we want: the Divine Consciousnes which will allow the race to Every creative act reveals God and ex- Money is not required to buy one neces- develop itself and the supramental being pands His being. I know that may be hard sity of the soul. —Henry David Thoreau to take birth. —The Mother to comprehend. All creatures are doing their best to help God in His birth of Him- Those who die, go no further from us than The spiritual life does not remove us from self. —Meister Eckhart God...And God is very near. —Unknown the world but leads us deeper into it. —Henri J. M. Nouwen Every natural fact is a symbol of some Life and death are one, even as the river spiritual fact. —Ralph Waldo Emerson and the sea are one. In the depths of your Patient and regular practice is the whole hopes and desires lies your silent knowl- secret of spiritual realization. Do not be The world we see merely reflects our own edge of the beyond; and like seeds dream- in a hurry in spiritual life. Do your ut- internal frame of reference—the domi- ing beneath the snow, your heart dreams most, and leave the rest to God. —Swami nant ideas, wishes and emotions in our of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them Shivananda minds. We look inside first, decide the is hidden the gate to eternity. —Kahlil kind of world we want to see and then Gibran Every man takes the limits of his own project that world outside, making it the field of vision for the limits of the world. truth as we see it. We make it true by our One life—a little gleam of time between —Arthur Schopenhauer interpretations of what it is we are seeing. two eternities. —Thomas Carlyle —A Course in Miracles The shortest and surest way to live with What you leave behind is not what is en- honor in the world is to be in reality what Every person’s map of the world is as graved in stone monuments, but what is we would appear to be. —Socrates unique as their thumbprint. There are woven into the lives of others. —Pericles no two people alike. No two people who Relationships are assignments. They are understand the same sentence the same By having a reverence for life, we enter part of a vast plan for our enlightenment, way…. So in dealing with people, you try into a spiritual relation with the world. By the Holy Spirit’s blueprint by which each not to fit them to your concept of what practicing reverence for life we become individual soul is led to greater aware- they should be. —Milton Erickson good, deep, and alive. Albert Schweitzer ness and expanded love. Relationships are the Holy Spirit’s laboratories in which No thought can encapsulate the vastness Spirit is an invisible force made visible in He brings together people who have the of the totality. Reality is a unified whole, all life. —Maya Angelou maximal opportunity for mutual growth. but thought cuts it up into fragments. —A Course in Miracles Every thought implies a perspective, and The heart has its reasons, which reason every perspective, by its very nature, im- does not know. We feel it in a thousand People become sensitive to the elusive plies limitation, which ultimately means things. It is the heart which experiences threads of their inner lives when they have that it is not true, at least not absolutely. God, and not the reason. This, then, is a definite way of working with them. —Ira Only the whole is true, but the whole can- faith: God felt by the heart, not by the rea- Progoff not be spoken or thought. —Eckhart Tolle son. —Blaise Pascale

In order to discover new lands, one must Dost thou love life? Then do not squander Govern thy life and thoughts as if the be willing to lose sight of the shore for a time, for that is the stuff life is made of. whole world were to see the one, and read very long time. —Andre Gide —Benjamin Franklin the other. —Thomas Fuller

36 • Collaboration Summer & Fall 2011