Sri Aurobindo Center of Los Angeles
Monthly Magazine
The Quest for the Divine     March 2018 Issue - II
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:
On Saturday the 21st of April at 4.30 pm, we will celebrate Mother's final arrival in Pondicherry(24th April), one of the four Darshan days.
Our new member and ardent seeker, Alpa Patel, returned from her first trip to the Ashram. She shares her journey with us, and closes with a poignantly expressed profound truth of spiritual life:
"I realized that...the love I have for them is with me in my heart , and therefore they are here with me and will be with me wherever I go".

 



"I realized that...the love I have for them is with me in my heart , and therefore they are here with me and will be with me wherever I go".

Pondicherry came to the US and led me to the Mother - Alpa Patel
Seven years ago, the city of Pondicherry came to me in a dream, and a month ago I was finally able to make my way to this dream city and it was a magical experience.I arrived at the ashram in the evening. I entered the ashram and took my forehead to the samadhi and experienced such an overwhelming feeling of peace enter my being. I prayed that I could hang on this feeling and carry this feeling with me forever.
Next morning, I woke up to the most beautiful sunrise overlooking the Indian ocean from my guesthouse. I went for a long walk along the beach and was joined by others living in this city who were jogging, walking, doing sun salutations, yoga, or just like me, trying to take it all in of this peaceful morning. I was blessed with a visit to Sri Aurobindo's room for meditation. Later, I got to sit in on the playground meditation on Sunday and also made my way to the staircase where Mother first met Sri Aurobindo and then followed the staircase to the old guesthouse of Sri Aurobindo. One of my favorite visits  was to the Shri Smriti, the Museum where I got to see Mother and Sri Aurobindo's belongings. 
Auroville was amazing. I reached Matrimandir in the morning and as I entered the inner chamber, I sat down for twenty minutes but couldn't close my eyes for there was much beauty in the room and all I wanted to do was absorb it all in. I felt that Her soul is here - at Matrimandir. I felt Her presence so strongly and the energy there left me with tears of joy. I wanted to bring the feelings and these experiences of being in Pondicherry and Auroville back with me. I wanted to live in these cities. I was sad to leave but once I returned to my 'real life' here, I realized that I had indeed managed to bring Auroville and Pondicherry home with me for the love I have for them is with me in my heart , and therefore they are here with me and will be with me wherever I go.

She had come into the mortal body’s room
To play at ball with Time and Circumstance.
A joy in the world her master movement here,
The passion of the game lighted her eyes:

     
 
                 This month's theme: Continuing the Quest for the Divine.
 
The only Truth of Life                                                     - Sri Aurobindo

Travelling the path alone                                                - The Mother

Make the Divine your most important need               - The Mother
 
The only Truth of Life                                                                                             Home
Catleya: Beauty of attachment to the Divine.
 

It is a lesson of life that always in this world everything fails a man-only the Divine does not fail him, if he turns entirely to the Divine. It is not because there is something bad in you that blows fall on you-blows fall on all human beings because they are full of desire for things that cannot last and they lose them or, even if they get, it brings disappointment and cannot satisfy them. To turn to the Divine is the only truth in life.  - Sri Aurobindo
 

 

 
-Belamcanda chinensis. Attachment to the Divine.
 

There is only one salvation: to cling to the Divine like this (gesture with two fists). Not to cling to what one thinks of the Divine, not even to what one feels of the Divine … to an aspiration, an aspiration as sincere as possible. And to cling to that.
- The Mother

Travelling the path alone -  The Mother                                                Home

The goal is known to some extent, for most of those who have reached it have described it more or less clearly. But the supreme value of the discovery lies in its spontaneity, its ingenuousness, and that escapes all ordinary mental laws. And that is why anyone wanting to take up the adventure usually first seeks out some person who has successfully undertaken it and is able to sustain him and enlighten him on his way. Yet there are some solitary travellers and for them a few general indications may be useful.

The starting-point is to seek in yourself that which is independent of the body and the circumstances of life, which is not born of the mental formation that you have been given, the language you speak, the habits and customs of the environment in  which you live, the country where you are born or the age to which you belong. You must find, in the depths of your being, that which carries in it a sense of universality, limitless expansion, unbroken continuity. Then you decentralise, extend and widen yourself; you begin to live in all things and in all beings; the barriers separating individuals from each other break down. You think in their thoughts, vibrate in their sensations, feel in their feelings, live in the life of all. What seemed inert suddenly becomes full of life, stones quicken, plants feel and will and suffer, animals speak in a language more or less inarticulate, but clear and expressive; everything is animated by a marvellous consciousness without time or limit. And this is only one aspect of the psychic realisation; there are others, many others. All help you to go beyond the barriers of your egoism, the walls of your external personality, the impotence of your reactions and the incapacity of your will.

But, as I have already said, the path to that realisation is long and difficult, strewn with snares and problems to be solved, which demand an unfailing determination. It is like the explorer’s trek through virgin forest in quest of an unknown land, of some great discovery. The psychic being is also a great discovery which requires at least as much fortitude and endurance as the discovery of new continents. A few simple words of advice may be useful to one who has resolved to undertake it.

The first and perhaps the most important point is that the mind is incapable of judging spiritual things. All those who have written on this subject have said so; but very few are those who have put it into practice. And yet, in order to proceed on the path, it is absolutely indispensable to abstain from all mental opinion and reaction.

Give up all personal seeking for comfort, satisfaction, enjoyment or happiness. Be only a burning fire for progress, take whatever comes to you as an aid to your progress and immediately make whatever progress is required.

Try to take pleasure in all you do, but never do anything for the sake of pleasure.

Never get excited, nervous or agitated. Remain perfectly calm in the face of all circumstances. And yet be always alert to discover what progress you still have to make and lose no time in making it.

Never take physical happenings at their face value. They are always a clumsy attempt to express something else, the true thing which escapes our superficial understanding.

Never complain of the behaviour of anyone, unless you have the power to change in his nature what makes him act in this way; and if you have the power, change him instead of complaining.

Whatever you do, never forget the goal which you have set before you. There is nothing great or small once you have set out on this great discovery; all things are equally important and can either hasten or delay its success. Thus before you eat, concentrate a few seconds in the aspiration that the food you are about to eat may bring your body the substance it needs to serve as a solid basis for your effort towards the great discovery, and give it the energy for persistence and perseverance in the effort.

Before you go to sleep, concentrate a few seconds in the aspiration that the sleep may restore your fatigued nerves, bring calm and quietness to your brain so that on waking you may, with renewed vigour, begin again your journey on the path of the great discovery.

Before you act, concentrate in the will that your action may help or at least in no way hinder your march forward towards the great discovery.

When you speak, before the words come out of your mouth, concentrate just long enough to check your words and allow only those that are absolutely necessary to pass, only those that are not in any way harmful to your progress on the path of the great discovery.

To sum up, never forget the purpose and goal of your life.

The will for the great discovery should be always there above you, above what you do and what you are, like a huge bird of light dominating all the movements of your being.

Before the untiring persistence of your effort, an inner door will suddenly open and you will emerge into a dazzling splendour that will bring you the certitude of immortality, the concrete experience that you have always lived and always shall live, that external forms alone perish and that these forms are, in relation to what you are in reality, like clothes that are thrown away when worn out. Then you will stand erect, freed from all chains, and instead of advancing laboriously under the weight of circumstances imposed upon you by Nature, which you had to endure and bear if you did not want to be crushed by them, you will be able to walk on, straight and firm, conscious of your destiny, master of your life.

Make the Divine the most important need - The Mother               Home

I don’t know to whom I was mentioning this today (I think it was for a Birthday) … No, I don’t know now. It was to someone who told me he was 18 years old. I said that between the ages of 18 and 20, I had attained a constant and conscious union with the Divine Presence and that I had done this ALL ALONE, without ANYONE’S help, not even books. When a little later I chanced upon Vivekananda’s Raja Yoga, it really seemed so wonderful to me that someone could explain something to me! And it helped me realize in only a few months what would have otherwise taken years.

I met a man (I was perhaps 20 or 21 at the time), an Indian who had come to Europe and who told me of the Gita. There was a French translation of it (a rather poor one, I must say) which he advised me to read, and then he gave me the key (HIS key, it was his key). He said, ‘Read the Gita …‘ (this translation of the Gita which really wasn’t worth much but it was the only one available at the time – in those days I wouldn’t have understood anything in other languages; and besides, the English translations were just as bad and … well, Sri Aurobindo hadn’t done his yet!). He said, ‘Read the Gita knowing that krishna is the symbol of the immanent God, the God within.’ That was all. ‘Read it with THAT knowledge – with the knowledge that krishna represents the immanent God, the God within you.’ Well, within a month, the whole thing was done!

So some of you people have been here since the time you were toddlers – everything has been explained to you, the whole thing has been served to you on a silver platter (not only with words, but through psychic aid and in every possible way), you have been put on the path of this inner discovery … and then you just go on drifting along: ‘When it comes, it will come.’ – If you even spare it that much thought!

So that’s how it is.

But I’m not at all discouraged, I just find it rather laughable. Only there are other far more serious things; for example, when you try to deceive yourselves – that is not so pretty. One should not mix up cats and kings. You should call a cat a cat and a king a king – and human instinct, human instinct – and not speak about things divine when they are utterly human, nor pretend to have supramental experiences when you are living in a blatantly ordinary consciousness.

If you look at yourselves straight in the face and you see what you are, then if by chance you should resolve to … But what really astounds me is that you don’t even seem to feel an intense NEED to do this! ‘But how can we know?’ Because you DO know, you have been told over and over again, it has been drummed into your heads. You KNOW that you have a divine consciousness within you. And yet you can go on sleeping night after night, playing day after day, doing your lessons ad infinitum and still not be … not have a BURNING desire and will to come into contact with yourselves! – With yourselves, yes, the you just there, inside (motion towards the center of the chest) … Really, it’s beyond me!

As soon as I found out – and no one told me, I found out through an experience – as soon as I found out that there was a discovery to be made within myself, well, it became THE MOST IMPORTANT thing in the world. It took precedence over everything else!

And when, as I told you, I chanced upon a book or an individual that could give me just a little clue and tell me, ‘Here. If you do such and such, you will find your path’ – well I charged into it like a cyclone … and nothing could have stopped me.

And how many years have you all been here, half-asleep? Naturally, you’re happy to think about it now and then – especially when I speak to you about it or sometimes when you read. But THAT – that fire, that will which plows through all barriers, that concentration which can triumph over EVERYTHING …

Now who was it that asked me what you should do?

(The child:) Me!

Well, that’s what you have to do, my child. I have just told you.

CONCLUDED
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