Sri Aurobindo Center of Los Angeles
Monthly Magazine
Surrender to the Divine     April 2018 Issue - III
There is nothing mind can do that cannot be better done in the mind’s immobility and thought-free stillness.

-Sri Aurobindo
Dedicated to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo who gave their lives to changing the earth-nature and earth-conditions so that the earth becomes a tenement of a Divine Life, and brought down the force of a supreme consciousness ushering a new age of Truth, Harmony, Peace and Love progressively.  The path to the Divine need not be anymore a "walk on the edge of a razor".
 
Center  Activities:
 
The month of April witnessed the flowering of the collective spirit in various events and activities culminating in the Darshan program observed on the 21st. Apart from the regular Tai-chi, Savitri, and the Saturday Satsangs, the two notable events were the gathering on the 7th and the Darshan on the 21st.
7th April.
The center's scribe, Jishnu, called this the "Integral Yoga" day as the members engaged in cleaning, gardening, arranging the center, and concluded the day with chanting,reading, and meditation. Culinary skills were also on lavish display with delicious preparations, making it an occasion for Bhoga. Our youngest member(age 5), Nitika, held all in awe and admiration by her beautiful flower arrangements in the Meditation room , reminding us how it is to be a true child of the Mother.
21st April, Darshan Day.
The center was made ready as always to receive Her children, with loving attention to detail. Upon entering the center one was spontaneously drawn to the beautiful altar that many felt as a living presence. OM the beginning of all creation initiated our program.  Jishnu captured the inspirations of this event in his words below:  
Peter guided us through a meditation session. He took us to the shores of Pondicherry and listen to the songs of the sea, identify with the sea, and breathe in and out as the waves come in and go back.
Members read passages relevant to the Darshan day. There was a collective recitation from Savitri. Sound clip of Mother’s Savitri reading was played.
Ashoke-da and Hansa charged the atmosphere with devotional songs. Members shared personal anecdotes of Mother’s grace and action. 
Susan shared memories of Madas, name given by The Mother.  He left his physical sheath recently to join Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.
The program was concluded with the following quote of the Mother:

The thirst for progress, the thirst to know, the thirst to transform yourself, and above all the thirst for Love and Truth - if you keep that, you go faster. Truly a thirst, a need, you know, a need. All the rest has no importance, what you need is that.

"My mother showed me the photograph of the Mother and told me in Bengali that, 'She is the Mother of all'".
- Jishnu
  "The purpose of individual existence is the joy of discovering the Divine and uniting with Him".  - The Mother

This month, our member and scribe of the center, Jishnu Guha, shares with us his journey to the Divine.

My journey to the Mother of all  - Jishnu Guha.
 
I came to The Mother and Sri Aurobindo through my family. My mother’s grandfather, a writer in the Bengali language, had the darshan of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo in 1948. Through him my mother’s family was introduced to the Integral Yoga. My father’s family was involved in the freedom struggle of India and held Sri Aurobindo in high regard, and some of them had Darshan of the Mother. When I was young, my mother showed me the photograph of the Mother and told me in Bengali that, “She is the Mother of all,” and those words were etched in my mind. The seed had been planted. I  grew up taking them as the Divine, praying to them in times of difficulty though it was more in the traditional Hindu mold rather than in any conscious way. 
My uncle spent his life in spiritual pursuits. He stayed in Pondicherry twice, once in the early 70’s working for the Sri Aurobindo Society, and in early 90’s working at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Library. I heard many interesting stories of the Ashram, but did not feel any special pull towards Them until the age of 17. 
One day my mother was traveling out of Kolkata, and I was staying alone, I picked up and read a few of her books on integral yoga and a new horizon opened for me. It was like a new birth; I felt a special love and aspiration towards the Mother.  The seed sown in childhood had now flowered. I started visiting some of the centers in Kolkata; Sri Aurobindo Pathmandir, the earliest functioning center outside the Ashram and Sri Aurobindo Bhavan, Sri Aurobindo’s birthplace.
Later, when I was in college, one of my friends one day unexpectedly asked me whether I would go to Pondicherry as one of our common friends whose family is related to the centers in Kolkata was visiting the ashram. It was a "Mother sent" opportunity for me, and in January of 2000, I first went to Sri Aurobindo Ashram. I first visited Sri Aurobindo’s room on my birthday in 2000, and my soul leaped out in the Divine atmosphere. I worked at the Ashram Dining room and Philately department and never felt such joy before;  the sincerity of the Sadhaks, their love towards the work, devotion towards the Mother, and efforts towards perfection was inspiring. I recalled the truth my mother taught me in my childhood about The Mother. I realized the truth when I first went to Sri Aurobindo Ashram, and now my aspiration and pursuit is to live that truth in my life.

The  great Truth to remember:



I am always seated in your heart,
consciously living in you. 
- The Mother. 

 

     
                 This month's theme:              SURRENDER.
 
Hand over the responsibility of your life to the Divine       - The Mother

The necessity of Surrender                                                      - The Mother

Trust - the first form of Surrender                                          - Sri Aurobindo

Core of the inner Surrender                                                     - Sri Aurobindo

Surrender is not an abandoning of action                             - The Mother
 
Hand over the responsibility of your life to the Divine                                     Home
Loving Surrender: A state that can be obtained by surrendering to the Divine.   (Rosa Rose. All fully double medium to large solitary pink flowers, Shrubs of all sizes)

Surrender is the decision taken to hand over the responsibility of your life to the Divine. Without this decision nothing is at all possible; if you do not surrender, the Yoga is entirely out of the question. Everything else comes naturally after it, for the whole process starts with surrender. "I do not belong to myself," you say, and give up the responsibility of your being to the Truth. Then comes self-offering: "Here I am, a creature of various qualities, good and bad, dark and enlightened. I offer myself as I am to you, take me up with all my ups and downs, conflicting impulses and tendencies — do whatever you like with me."  - The Mother

The necessity of Surrender -  The Mother                                                Home

It is obvious that what especially characterises man is this mental capacity of watching himself live. The animal lives spontaneously, automatically, and if it watches itself live, it must be to a very minute and insignificant degree, and that is why it is peaceful and does not worry. Even if an animal is suffering because of an accident or an illness, this suffering is reduced to a minimum by the fact that it does not observe it, does not project it in its consciousness and into the future, does not imagine things about its illness or its accident.
With man there has begun this perpetual worrying about what is going to happen, and this worry is the principal, if not the sole cause of his torment. With this objectivising consciousness there has begun anxiety, painful imaginations, worry, torment, anticipation of future catastrophes, with the result that most men – and not the least conscious, the most conscious – live in perpetual torment...it could be said without fear of making a mistake that of all earth’s creatures he is the most miserable. The human being is used to being like that because it is an atavistic state which he has inherited from his ancestors, but it is truly a miserable condition. And it is only with this spiritual capacity of rising to a higher level and replacing the animal’s unconsciousness by a spiritual super-consciousness that there comes into the being not only the capacity to see the goal of existence and to foresee the culmination of the effort but also a clear-sighted trust in a higher spiritual power to which one can surrender one’s whole being, entrust oneself, give the responsibility for one’s life and future and so abandon all worries.
Of course, it is impossible for man to fall back to the level of the animal ...therefore, for him there is only one means, one way to get out of this condition he is in, which I call a miserable one, and to emerge into a higher state where worry is replaced by a trusting surrender and the certitude of a luminous culmination – this way is to change the consciousness.
With man is born the sense of having to depend on himself, and as he does not have the necessary knowledge the result is a perpetual torment. This torment can come to an end only with a total surrender to a higher consciousness than his own to which he can totally entrust himself, hand over his worries and leave the care of guiding his life and organising everything.
How can a problem be solved when one doesn’t have the necessary knowledge? And the unfortunate thing is that man believes that he has to resolve all the problems of his life, and he does not have the knowledge needed to do it. That is the source, the origin of all his troubles – that perpetual question, “What should I do?.” which is followed by another one still more acute, “What is going to happen?” and at the same time, more or less, the inability to answer. That is why all spiritual disciplines begin with the  necessity of surrendering all responsibility and relying on a higher principle. Otherwise peace is impossible.

Trust - the first form of Surrender                    - Sri Aurobindo       Home

The effort demanded of the Sadhak is that of aspiration, rejection and surrender.  If these three are done the rest is to come of itself by the Grace of the Mother and the working of her force in you. But of the three the most important is surrender of which the first necessary form is trust and confidence and patience in difficulty.  There is no rule that trust and confidence can only remain if aspiration is there.  On the contrary, when even aspiration is not there because of the pressure of inertia, trust and confidence and patient can remain.  If trust and patience fail when aspiration is quiescent, that would mean that the Sadhak is relying solely on his own effort ― it would mean,  "Oh, my aspiration has failed, so there is no hope for me. My aspiration fails, so what can Mother do ?" 
26-10-1936

Core of the inner Surrender                                     - Sri Aurobindo       Home

The core of the inner surrender is trust and confidence in the Divine. One takes the attitude: "I want the Divine and nothing else. I want to give myself entirely to him and since my soul wants that, it cannot be but that I shall meet and realise him. I ask nothing but that and his action in me to bring me to him, his action secret or open, veiled or manifest. I do not insist on my own time and way; let him do all in his own time and way; I shall believe in him, accept his will, aspire steadily for his light and presence and joy, go through all difficulties and delays, relying on him and never giving up. Let my mind be quiet and trust him and let him open it to his light; let my vital be quiet and turn to him alone and let him open it to his calm and joy. All for him and myself for him. Whatever happens, I will keep to this aspiration and self-giving and go on in perfect reliance that it will be done."

The understanding of the word "Surrender" as it relates to inner practice can be misconstrued, due to its connotation, as a giving up action. Not only is concentrated willed action compatible with surrender but it is an active and dynamic aspect of "Surrender".  The Mother explains below.

Surrender is not an abandoning of action                        - Mother       Home

Question: You have said: “If you surrender you have to give up effort, but that does not mean that you have to abandon also all willed action.” But if one wants to do something, it means personal effort, doesn’t it? What then is the will?

Answer: There is a difference between the will and this feeling of tension, effort, of counting only on oneself, having recourse to oneself alone which personal effort means; this kind of tension, of something very acute and at times very painful; you count only on yourself and you have the feeling that if you do not make an effort every minute, all will be lost. That is personal effort.
But the will is something altogether different. It is the capacity to concentrate on everything one does, do it as best one can and not stop doing it unless one receives a very precise intimation that it is finished. It is difficult to explain it to you. But suppose, for example, through a concurrence of circumstances, a work comes into your hands. Take an artist who has in one way or another got an inspiration and resolved to paint a picture. He knows very well that if he has no inspiration and is not sustained by forces other than his own, he will do nothing much. It will look more like a daub than a painting. He knows this. But it has been settled, the painting is to be done; there may be many reasons for that, but the painting has to be done. Then if he had the passive attitude, well, he would place his palette, his colours, his brushes, his canvas and then sit down in front of it and say to the Divine: “Now you are going to paint.” But the Divine does not do things this way. The painter himself must take up everything and arrange everything, concentrate on his subject, find the forms, the colours that will express it and put his whole will for a more and more perfect execution. His will must be there all the time. But he has to keep the sense that he must be open to the inspiration, he will not forget that in spite of all his knowledge of the technique, in spite of the care he takes to arrange, organise and prepare his colours, his forms, his design, in spite of all that, if he has no inspiration, it will be one picture among a million others and it will not be very interesting. He does not forget. He attempts, he tries to see, to feel what he wants his painting to express and in what way it should be expressed. He has his colours, he has his brushes, he has his model, he has made his sketch which he will enlarge and make into a picture, he calls his inspiration. There are even some who manage to have a clear, precise vision of what is to be done. But then, day after day, hour after hour, they have this will to work, to study, to do with care all that must be done until they reproduce as perfectly as they can the first inspiration That person has worked for the Divine, in communion with Him, but not in a passive way, not with a passive surrender; it is with an active surrender, a dynamic will. The result generally is something very good. Well, the example of the painter is interesting, because a painter who is truly an artist is able to see what he is going to do, he is able to connect himself to the divine Power that is beyond all expression and inspires all expression. For the poet, the writer, it is the same thing and for all people who do something, it is the same.

(Mother  Questions and Answers, 14 July 1954)

Copyright © Sri Aurobindo Center of Los Angeles
All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
12320 Marshall St, Culver City, Los Angeles 90230
Email : ewcc@sriaurobindocenter-la.org