Sri Aurobindo Center of Los Angeles
Monthly Magazine
Theme : The Divine Within
  August 2018 Issue - VII
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 August was vibrant with the thrill of anticipation and celebration of Sri Aurobindo's 146th birth anniversary on 15th August. The center celebrated his birthday with a program on Saturday, Aug 11. The deep joy and immense gratitude one felt on this occasion expressed themselves through inspired readings, music and reminiscences of disciples who had contact with the Master and the Mother. One was spontaneously led to aspire to know His will and serve Him for which the Mother, his spiritual collaborator, urges us to discern the intimations of the embodied Divine, the soul or psychic being in us, and follow scrupulously its intimations. The soul or psychic being formed the theme of the program and is therefore the theme of this newsletter.
It is interesting that many aspirants, unbeknownst to them, are influenced by the soul but unaware of the source. "Most of you here are influenced by it, ...but you are unaware of the source, you are not collaborating with it knowingly" writes the Mother. We share with our readers excerpts from the works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother relevant to this theme. We hope the passages will further inspire the readers to the discovery of the soul.
On Sat, Aug 18 we held a surprise baby shower for our precious couple Janani and Bharani. The festivities were marked by a collective appeal to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo for their blessing and Grace, and included relevant readings from the works of the Mother, music, and sumptuous offerings of prasad from fellow devotees.

There is a sacred fire that burns in the heart and envelops the whole being: it is Agni, who illumines and purifies all. I kindle that fire in you each time that you ask me for some progress; but it destroys nothing except falsehood and obscurity. .
 

- The Mother.

Our soul from its mysterious chamber acts;
Its influence pressing on our heart and mind
Pushes them to exceed their mortal selves.
It seeks for Good and Beauty and for God;
We see beyond self's walls our limitless self,
We gaze through our world's glass at half-seen vasts,
We hunt for the Truth behind apparent things.


- Savitri Bk VII Canto 2. 

For the opening of the psychic being, concentration on the Mother and self-offering to her are the direct way. The growth of Bhakti which you feel is the first sign of the psychic development. A sense of the Mother's presence or force or the remembrance of her supporting and strengthening you is the next sign. Eventually, the soul within begins to be active in aspiration and psychic perception guiding the mind to the right thoughts, the vital to the right movements and feelings, showing and rejecting all that has to be put away and turning the whole being in all its movements to the Divine alone.


- Sri Aurobindo. 

     
                                       This month's theme:
                                  Soul or the Psychic Being.

 
Psychic Being as the form of the soul                                   - Sri Aurobindo

Influence and action of the psychic being                           - Sri Aurobindo

The distortion of the psychic influence                                - Sri Aurobindo

Communications from the psychic                                       - The Mother

Recognising the intimations of the soul                             - The Mother

Strengthening the contact and influence                            - The Mother

Psychic Being as the form of the soul                      - Sri Aurobindo       Home


As the evolution proceeds, Nature begins slowly and tentatively to manifest our occult parts; she leads us to look more and more within ourselves or sets out to initiate more clearly recognisable intimations and formations of them on the surface. The soul in us, the psychic principle, has already begun to take secret form; it puts forward and develops a soul-personality, a distinct psychic being to represent it. It acts on the surface life by the influences and intimations it throws up upon that surface; these form part of the surface aggregate which is the conglomerate effect of the inner influences and upsurgings, the visible formation and superstructure which we ordinarily experience and think of as ourselves. On this ignorant surface we become dimly aware of something that can be called a soul as distinct from mind, life or body; we feel it not only as our mental idea or vague instinct of ourselves, but as a sensible influence in our life and character and action.

Influence and action of the psychic being                 - Sri Aurobindo     Home

A certain sensitive feeling for all that is true and good and beautiful, fine and pure and noble, a response to it, a demand for it, a pressure on mind and life to accept and formulate it in our thought, feelings, conduct, character is the most usually recognised, the most general and characteristic, though not the sole sign of this influence of the psyche. Of the man who has not this element in him or does not respond at all to this urge, we say that he has no soul. For it is this influence that we can most easily recognise as a finer or even a diviner part in us and the most powerful for the slow turning towards some aim at perfection in our nature. 
   

The distortion of the psychic influence               - Sri Aurobindo       Home


But this psychic influence or action does not come up to the surface quite pure or does not remain distinct in its purity; if it did, we would be able to distinguish clearly the soul element in us and follow consciously and fully its dictates. An occult mental and vital and subtle-physical action intervenes, mixes with it, tries to use it and turn it to its own profit, dwarfs its divinity, distorts or diminishes its self-expression, even causes it to deviate and stumble or stains it with the impurity, smallness and error of mind and life and body. After it reaches the surface, thus alloyed and diminished, it is taken hold of by the surface nature in an obscure reception and ignorant formation, and there is or can be by this cause a still further deviation and mixture. A twist is given, a wrong direction is imparted, a wrong application, a wrong formation, an erroneous result of what is in itself pure stuff and action of our spiritual being; a formation of consciousness is accordingly made which is a mixture of the psychic influence and its intimations jumbled with mental ideas and opinions, vital desires and urges, habitual physical tendencies.

Communications from the psychic                             - The Mother       Home

 

Communications from the psychic do not come in a mental form. They are not ideas or reasonings. They have their own character quite distinct from the mind, something like a feeling with a self-contained meaning and influence. By its very nature, the psychic is calm, quiet and luminous understanding and generous, wide and progressive, it is forever striving for understanding and progress.  The mind describes and explains. The psychic sees and understands.

 

Recognising the intimations of the soul                             - The Mother   Home


When you want to know what your soul knows, you have to make an inner effort, to be very attentive; and indeed, if you are attentive, behind the outer noise of the mind and the vital, you can discern something very subtle, very quiet, very peaceful, which knows and says what it knows. But the insistence of the others is so imperious, while that is so quiet, that you are very easily misled into listening to the one that makes the most noise; most often you become aware only afterwards that the other one was right. It does not impose itself, it does not compel you to listen, for it is without violence.
When you hesitate, when you wonder what to do in this or that circumstance, there come the desire, the preference both mental and vital, that press, insist, affirm and impose themselves, and, with the best reasons in the world, build up a whole case for themselves. And if you are not on the alert, if you don’t have a firm discipline, if you don’t have the habit of control, they finally convince you that they are right. And as I was saying a little while ago, they make so much noise that you do not even hear the tiny voice or the tiny, very quiet indication of the soul which says, "Don’t do it".
This "Don’t do it" comes often, but you discard it as something which has no power and follow your impulsive destiny. But if you are truly sincere in your will to find and live the truth, then you learn to listen better and better, you learn to discriminate more and more, and even if it costs you an effort, even if it causes you pain, you learn to obey. And even if you have obeyed only once, it is a powerful help, a considerable progress on the path towards the discrimination between what is and what is not the soul. With this discrimination and the necessary sincerity you are sure to reach the goal.
But you must not be in a hurry, you must not be impatient, you must be very persevering. You do the wrong thing ten times for every time that you do the right thing. But when you do the wrong thing you must not give up everything in despair, but tell yourself that the Grace will never abandon you and that next time it will be better.
 

Strengthening the contact and influence                     - The Mother       Home


How, you ask me, are we to know our true being? Ask for it, aspire after it, want it as you want nothing else. Most of you here are influenced by it, but it should be more than an influence, you should be able to feel identified with it. All urge for perfection comes from it, but you are unaware of the source, you are not collaborating with it knowingly, you are not in identification with its light. Do not think I refer to the emotional part of you when I speak of the psychic. Emotion belongs to the higher vital, not to the pure psychic. The psychic is a steady flame that burns in you, soaring towards the Divine and carrying with it a sense of strength which breaks down all oppositions. When you are identified with it you have the feeling of  the divine truth – then you cannot help feeling also that the whole world is ignorantly walking on its head with its feet in the air!
In order to strengthen the contact and aid, if possible, the development of the conscious psychic personality, one should, while concentrating, turn towards it, aspire to know it and feel it, open oneself to receive its influence, and take great care, each time that one receives an indication from it, to follow it very scrupulously and sincerely.
 

 

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