Progress

Everyone wants to do progress. But the question arises that do we know what the actual meaning of progress is? No. We always have some desires and if these are fulfilled, we think we do progress. But we do not know that actually we are progressing or not.

Our life is full of experience. Whatever we do, we gain some experiences. So we should keep an eye on what we are doing. Sometimes we do not do anything and think this is the state of meditation, but there can be illusion also. Meditation is the state in which one can concentrate totally to the Divine and keep sublime consciousness. So the simplest way suggested to get out of this illusion is to do work. While we do work, we can be in contact with others or we face some different conditions. So in such case we can be conscious about our progress or we can think about that what progress is remained. When we move socially then it is just like an examination that actually we are progressing or not. When we sit quietly alone we cannot judge the actual progress. We just need to check by how much extent we are quiet and conscious in the society and this extent would show us that there is progress or not. But it does not mean that we should move in the society always. Sri Aurobindo has done a lot of work in a jail room alone. We also can do it if we are conscious about our progress and illusion is not there.

So for a true progress we must know that what kind of people around us and how can we maintain our peace while dealing with them and keeping ourself conscious. We should not lose our temper whatever the difficulty is. If we can remeber God in every situation and keep patience the solution will come. And this is the solution which will lead us to the true progress.

Equality

Equality

Samatvam Yoga Uchyate. ( Equality is called Yoga )
Gita Chapter-2 Verse-48

Can we use equality in our day to day life. If we take a very outer meaning of this word than it is quite correct that we can not practise equality. Even Lord Krishna who has given these words is saying at another place---
Paritranaya Sadhunam Vinashaya cha Dushkritam ( Chap-4 ver-8 ) means I save good persons and kill bad persons. When he himself differentiates between good and bad persons then without knowing the real meaning of this word it is quite impossible to live equality in life.
Its secret lies in another verse of The Gita---
Karmanyevadhikaraste Ma Faleshu Kadachan (Cha-2 ver-47 ) means the right of work has been given to us ( By God ) but not of results. So we should do our work with being indifferent to the fruits of actions. This indifference will kill all our desires and if we do not have desires then there will be no anger. And if we have no desires and anger then the practice of equality is very easy.
After that if we are killing a person for a cause of truth then our equality will not be shaken by this action. Our outer forms of behavior may be quite different but inwardly we will be in equality. There will be no foe no friend of us. This equality will tell us the truth. Whatever we will do that will be the benefit for others. We may look hard, we may look very soft but that will be only an outer thing. We will be living always in equality.
And one day we will feel that my soul and the souls of others are same and after that we will feel that a single soul is residing in all creatures of the world.

15 August

15 August
Sri Aurobindo was born on 15 august 1872. Here I am not interested to write his life history. I just want to write a little on his philosophy, on his yoga. He invented a new path of yoga. In his path the aim of human life is not Moksha. He said that we leave our parts namely mental, vital and physical untransformed in the path of Moksha. He wanted to transform these parts and for that descent of a God-Consciousness-he named it Supramental-Consciousness- is necessary. This Supramental-Consciousness is present in the creation. Some old Rishis ( The Seers ) had seen it but due to unprepared conditions of the earth they did not try for its descent. Sri Aurobindo was trying from the very beginning of this earth to prepare the conditions of the earth to descend this Supramental-Consciousness with his perennial Divine –Collaborator the Mother. In this birth he realized that now the conditions of the descent upon earth are fully ripe. So he started the work of descent with the Mother.

This Supramental-Consciousness works twofold. It descends to earth and awakes the aspiration through soul of man to come upward. Only man among all the creatures of the universe can participate in this work because he alone has psychic ( A spark of Divine- consciousness ). But this Supramental-Consciousness never allows the soul to come and live in the highest world of Supramental- Consciousness. It inspires soul to change his mental, vital and physical. And it is the aim of Sri Aurobindo’s yoga which he named Integral Yoga.

It is a very childlike description of Integral Yoga. We see the main thing in this yoga is an aspiration. Although each and every man has it and the Supramental-Consciousness is trying to awaken it but a man can expedite this process by his personal efforts. We see as per philosophy it is so high that it goes beyond Moksha and so far its sadhana is concerned it is the easiest one. If we aspire and open our self to Supramental-Consciousness to descend into us then we can go very quickly towards the Goal.

Wait and See

Wait and See

In day to day life to have patience is a must. But if we want to live a spiritual life then without patience we will be quite unable to go a step forward.

Why patience has such an importance in spiritual life, it is a question. The answer is in living a spiritual life our soul always expands its field because it is the nature of soul to expand itself up to infinite. And this expansion of soul assails on negative forces of this world and subtle worlds. So they also start attacks to counter it. These counter attacks become hindrances for a seeker.

Secondly soul always strives to live a truthful life. It makes a truthful atmosphere around the seeker and it increases day by day. It also attacks on negative forces which never want to see the reign of Truth on this world and other subtle worlds. It also attracts their attacks. Their attacks outwardly slow down the progress and the results come slow.

God never takes tests of us. They are these negative forces which throw hindrances and problems on us. If we get disappointed and lose our patience then these negative forces get stronger and we will be defeated by them on our path.

So we should always have a great patience in our spiritual path.

The Real Aim of Our Life

The Real Aim of Our Life

A man is going somewhere; you stop him and ask, ‘Where are you going?’ He replies, ‘I do not know where I am going.’ What will you think of him.

But if you ask a question to some people, ‘What is the aim of your life?’ You will see almost all of them are unable to reply the question.

We never think on what is the aim of our life, what for we are here. We may leave to expect to get reply of this question from a person up to an age of 20 years. But after that if a person is not conscious about this question, he is the same person as given in the example.

We should give some time daily to think upon this question. Sometimes it will take our sleep. But it will give us some benefits at once and some day by day. We will see that our personality is becoming stronger. We were used to be influenced by everybody but now we will not be influenced by everybody. We will learn to say ‘No’. And to know to say ‘No’ is the final achievement for our personality. We will start to know the inner truth of every incident of our life. And a day will come when we will know our real ‘I’. But we will not stop here. This real ‘I’ will tell us the real cause of this world- existence. And ultimately this will tell the real aim of our life.

But our growth will be going on and by every forward step we will get an increasing peace. After some time this peace will be so condensed that our outer circumstances will be unable to shake our inner peace. Next step will be that whoever will come in our touch will feel a peace.

So it is worthwhile to think upon what is the real aim of our life.

The Elderliness

The Elderliness

Being elder is the toughest thing in the world. Age wise we are being elder at every second. A child gets birth, is the youngest in the world but after a second so many other children have taken birth. And this one is now one second elder to them. We will not take the matter in such a large scope. Elderliness is a comparative phenomenon but here we are taking it as a non-comparative thing.

After some time we see we are being called by some others as an elder brother or sister and after some more time we are listening the word ‘Uncle’ for us. We are getting the due respect belongs to these words. In our working place also we get seniority.

We know that this word ‘Respect’ is the main instinct of all our activities. All the money and all the posts we acquire are just to acquire the respect from others in our life. It is the most material form of the word ‘Love’.

But it is also giving us unknowingly a responsibility. And as being elder is the toughest thing so its linked thing responsibility is. Sometimes we do not want to sit on our study as we have completed all our course but our younger brother is not sincere to his study so we just sit on our study to show him that we are very sincere to our study.

In working place an administrator is highly responsible for his outer discipline too. He may be very fast in his work and clear up all his work in a very short time but he has to follow his office timings otherwise it may create a misbalance in office atmosphere.

And if we are in a social, religious or political field than our responsibility is the highest. Because the figures in the mentioned fields lead our society, our country and control the deeds of ordinary persons.
What Lord Krishna says in the Gita is very inspiring:

Yad Yadacharati shreshthastattadevetaro janah,
Sa yat pramanam kurute lokastadanuvartate.
Gita, Chapter-3, Verse-21
Whatever an Ideal man does, ordinary men follow the same,
Whatever he says even as ideal(work), other men follow the same.

Save your Time

Save your Time

To gain knowledge is the first priority of an intellectual man. But there are so many obligations related to our family, our society and our country that we always feel a shortage of time for increasing of our knowledge.

But we can save our time by some aids. First of all is we should do all our work in a very concentrated manner. It always saves our time up to a great extent.

After that we should scrutinize our works. Our first work is to purchase of day to day needs of home- items. With a skill we can save a big time here.

Second thing is visits. We or we with our family visit to someone or someone or someone with his family visits at our home. If our aim is to gain knowledge at every moment we can stop those visits which do not give us something. And by not responding those persons whom visit waste our time, after some time they will stop their visits.

Now we should see our inclination towards T.V. shows and other entertainment shows. If these shows are just entertaining, If there is no chance to improve our knowledge we can stop to see them immediately. Same treatment is also required to useless novels and other readings.

Now we should enter in some subtle fields. Suppose we are obliged to attend a marriage or a social function we can save our time by keeping silence there except there is very necessary to speak something. Then we listen more and we watch the behavior of other persons. But it should be indiscriminately. If we never drop ourselves in a function’s atmosphere and consciously watch everything we learn so much from there too.

Now we come to very subtle points of time saving. If we watch our mind, we see, we are thinking on so many useless thoughts and feeling so many imaginary feelings. We should drag them out.

So these are some tips to save our time. We can develop some more by ourselves.

Remembrance of God

In world a vast majority of men believes in God. But most of us remember Him occasionally. Some remember Him once in six months, some in three months, some in one month, some in a week. Some are who remember Him daily. They daily worship the God. They give some time daily in worshiping but after that they forget the God and engage in routine life. This daily worship also may be called to remember the God occasionally.
But what is true worship. That is to remember God constantly. There should be no break of a second even. It is the highest form of worship. The man who remembers God always his all works convert in worship. Gradually he finds that God is everywhere. His presence is in every heart. After that he feels His presence in animals and birds. And a day comes when he finds God even in stones.
Outwardly his behavior may be different to each other but inwardly he behaves only with God. Whomever he meets he sows a seed of devotion in that person. His love to God reflects in his every action. And apex of this continuous remembrance is that God also remembers him always.
Yo mam pashyati sarvatra sarvam cha mayi pashyati,
Tasyaham na pranasyami sa cha me na pranashyati.
(Gita chapter-6 verse-30 )
Who sees Me(God) everywhere and sees everything in Me(God),
I am always with him and he is always with Me(God).

No Comparison

No comparison

This comparison is one of the biggest reasons of our sufferings and difficulties. The comparison gives birth to competition and it gives birth to jealousy and enmity.

Most of people can not rise without competition. A second ranked student wants to get first rank. When my neighbour brings a costly car, I want to purchase a costliar one. This competition does not stop upto individual level. It goes upto society to society, nation to nation, even religion to religion.

Nowadays we are listening a new word i.e. Healthy Competition. But we can see ourselves that it always converts in jealousy and enmity.

This comparison and competition also give us inferiority complex. When we get unsuccess in comparison to others we come in grip of inferiority complex.

So how we can progress. The spirituality gives us the natural answer. It says that your soul always requires to be perfect. So Do not compare with others, listen the voice of your soul, it will give you a way for your perfection, then you will not be seeing others. In a practical approach spirituality says to always try for your 100%. If somebody is 85% in any field, you are not to gain 86% but to try for 100% and it will drag away the feeling of comparison and competition. There will be no jealousy and enmity between person and person, society and society and nation and nation.

So we should believe that every person, every society, every nation has been made for a particular achievement. There is no need of comparison in any respect.

Towards Spirituality

Is there anything which is higher than mind , to understand it, to feel it is the first step towards spirituality. We often feel that our mind is unable to solve our problems and that time we normally call the God, we get solution from God but we forget it when our happy time comes.

If we do not break this little contact with God and try to develop it we can see all our problems have been vanished away.

But when we get our happy days we come to lower consciousness. Why? The God’s consciousness or God has three aspects or powers. These are existence ( Sat ), consciousness ( Chit ) and bliss ( Anand ). But to feel the bliss of God is tougher. Till we do not feel somewhat of this bliss, we come back to lower consciousness to get pleasures which are stained forms of bliss. In our days of problems we normally go to Sat and moreover then to Chit. We get our problems solved and that was our only aim. Without feeling bliss it is but natural to come down to lower consciousness to get pleasures as man can not live without pleasures.

These pleasures are transitory and take our high amount of energy to acquire them and to enjoy them. They give us a diminishing pleasure as well.

So we should try to live in continuous contact of God to feel his bliss. In starting we will see some little glimpses of his bliss. They will attract us more and one day will come when we will understand that these pleasures are nothing in comparison to God’s bliss. Whatever we will get in form of God’s bliss that will be always perpetual and ever increasing. And then it will be impossible for us to go back to those petty pleasures.

24 April

Some days in the life of great men and Avtars have a very symbolic importance. The Mother came first time Pondicherry on 29 march 1914 and got the Darshan of Sri Aurobindo. She understood it is the place where she is to do work whole the life. But due to circumstances of first world war she had to leave Pondicherry on 22 february 1915.

A question arises that do circumstances affect Avtars too. The answer is that outwardly it looks so but inwardly Avtars accept circumstances themselves to destroy them or to transform them.

In the life of Lord Krishna an Asur comes to kill him in the form of a big boa. And Lord Krishna enters to its stomach through its mouth with his friends willingly and knowingly and reaching in its stomach He expands himself. The stomach of boa was tore off to death. So He kills Asur by his own way.

When The Mother comes in 1914 she requests Sri Aurobindo to write something. Sri Aurobindo was not interested in any work of writing. But on the request of The Mother he accepted to write. A magazine named by ‘Arya’ was started and Sri Aurobindo wrote so many essays in series which we get in books form nowadays i.e. ‘The Life Divine’, ‘The Synthesis of Yoga’, ‘The Human Cycle’, ‘The Fundamentals of Indian Culture’, ‘Essays on The Gita’, ‘Secrets of Vedas’ and ‘The future Poetry’ etc.

Now if we take it as a symbol it was not the publication of Sri Aurobindo’s thoughts. It was a direct attack on forces of falsehood. When such a time comes these negative forces collect themselves to resist the work of positive side. And it resulted in first world war. Due to circumstances created by first world war The Mother had to leave Pondicherry. Outwardly The Mother accepted the circumstances but inwardly it is sure that it was just to destroy or transform the bad effects of first world war.

So when The Mother came to Pondicherry on 24 April 1920 as final arrival, she herself told for the incident:

‘‘My return to Pondicherry was the tangible sign of the sure Victory over the adverse forces’’.

The Power of Discrimination

When we sit in meditation we find gradually that all thoughts are coming from outside. We see that we are not the creators of thoughts. We are just giving them our own colours and our own words.
But when we become strong in doing meditation we can see them before they enter in our minds. And then we can discriminate them in two parts. One of them is coming from Truth and second is coming from Falsehood.
This discrimination power is with us but we have to exercise it. We can exercise it by two means. First is meditation and second is to follow truth in action in our day to day life. Even after findings in meditation we should have to follow in our action the right path. By meditation we can know the difference between Truth and Falsehood quicker than action path. But it goes totally useless if we do not follow according to our findings. In action path to differentiate between Truth and Falsehood is more tough because an action path seeker does not have a big capacity to think over what is right and what is wrong. Whatever he takes as Truth and follows as a humble seeker then one day he gets a clearcut understandings of the Truth. A man of meditation can be a winner in talks but if he does not follow on his findings one day he will be a looser.
The power of discrimination is always with us. It is on us to discover it by following one of these paths or by following at once both the paths

Peace

Our mind always wants peace. But It is a fact that our vital does not want a continuous peace. It feels a boredom by continuous peace. So it pressurizes our mental and physical to do something by which this peace could be broken. Sometimes our mental does not comes under the influence of our vital and give some suggestions to vital to calm down. But it may be when we have made a strong mental. But in most cases it is defeated. Sometimes it may be successful in calming down vital but feels an unrest itself.
Our physical is mostly made up by inertia. So it hinders vital but it takes a high taste in vital activities. So almost everytime it is a defeated player.
Man is a mental animal and it has highest mind in comparison to all other animals in the world. But a vast majority of manhood is dominated by vital. Although the mind of man is getting stronger and stronger day by day but when vital allures it, it forgets all its strength.
What can we do? Obviously mental is higher than vital in quality but it is not so stronger to win vital. We should search in our heart. There we will find a psychic ( soul ). This psychic can easily win our vital as well as our mental which sometimes gets stained by our vital. Then we will get a such type of peace which will be willing accepted by our vital.

Something on Love

I want to write something on Love. In beginning we love our mother and then our father. After that we love our siblings, because at toddler age our home is just like a whole world for us. When we grow some more we love our friends and relatives. And one step forward we love our country. And at last we love humanity. Here we can add that we can love animals and flowers too. If our parents give us some teaching we love God too.
But I say you to think some deep and then you will accept that you love only yourself. Whoever hurts you, you diminish your love towards him. Your love always wants a love in reply. You hesitate to say this because if you say this you may be called a selfish person by other persons.
Is it wrong to love a person with a selfish interest. Everybody will say that it is certainly very wrong to love a person with a selfish interest. But why? Because if you are loving a person with a selfish interest you are not loving him but you are loving yourself. And this is not love. This love may be converted in a repulsion at a time when we do not get love in response.
Then what is the solution. The solution is very simple. Love everybody with seeing God in his/her heart. And it is the secret of secrets that when we love a person with seeing God in his/her heart, He/she will give love in response.

Read the Mind

. Read Your Mind
Normally our mind guides us and we do whatever it says. But there is a thing in us which can control our mind. We want to search it but in beginning we don’t find it. But this search gives us a very loving thing. We see that our mind has been divided in two parts. Now one is seeing while the second one is instructing ( desiring ) to do something .
But this is not a very thing for which we want to search. After a time this seer mind will be helpless to restrict this instructing ( desiring ) mind. In outer world we can see it too. A time comes when nobody accepts the words of our seers ( saints ). Or a very few accept the words of seers but this little amount does not help to constitute a good society.
Our need presses us to search a more. A time comes and we find Overmind. It is totally beyond our mind. If we live in Overmind we get a high quality of peace and a high power too.
But we have a vital and physical portions too. This vital-consciousness sometimes gives us such a strong desires that Overmind is unable to fulfill them. It ( Overmind ) sends its moral teachings to us but our vital is not ready to accept it. And Overmind is quite unable to win our Physical-consciousness. Its tendency of laziness is very hard to overcome by Overmind. And when it raises some doubts with the help of mind then it is quite impossible for Overmind to overcome them. Some questions like ‘ is this world false’ or ‘who has made this universe’ are very hard to reply by Overmind.
Now our mind again searches for the solutions. Now it gets the Supermind. It may solve our all questions.

What is Evolution according to Sri Aurobindo

A consciousness started action on material. Due to this action we got plants and trees. The consciousness did not stop here and in next we got animals and birds. At last we have got man.
Now the consciousness is working on man. When man was made an ego consciousness was made with him. This ego consciousness has been giving him(man) a very fast development. But this is giving him a very individual-istic approach too. We have a soul too but due to this ego we are unable to see it.
The supreme consciousness which is working from very beginning compelling us to break our ego. It has taken use of ego and wants to break it.Our soul also does not want to live behind the curtain of ego. That (soul ) also wants to come in front. Our main three parts mental, vital physical are inclined towards ego. This inner fight is the cause of our all unrest.
The supreme consciousness is doing everything for our betterment but ego is not understanding it. The supreme consciousness and soul want to give us a peaceful mind, positive vital and a diseaseless and deathless body. We are obliged to accept it. It is the real evolution and nobody can stop it.

By this blog I want to share some of my spiritual thoughts with all of you.
If we want to come on the path of spirituality how can we start It is a question.
It is a matter of choice. We will start by many means but today we are starting with a question ‘ who am I .
But you will ask that so many others also start with this question then what is new in it.
Yeah, but there is a new thing, there is a new thing in it. We will start with physical body.
This physical body of ours belongs to a country,to a caste, to a creed, to a religion, to a community etc. We are a man or a woman. We will think of it.
It will take some time. If I talk about an ordinary man or woman it will take about one year.
After one year we will be knowing these all identities are due to our birth. We will feel these are giving us so many advantages but these are also bondages for us. Sometimes we want to break them. But do not break them outwardly. Now try to deal them. It will make you a very good actor.