Daily Questions

They are different ways the same thing is seen from different levels.

At the highest level everything is predetermined, not only marriage but all the experiences of life we must go through in our journey from the darkness to the Light.

At the cosmic level, there is the play of cosmic forces that fulfils the original plan. Here there is a relation between the state and level of our consciousness and the situations and circumstances of our life. Here the play gets distorted due to the action of the cosmic Ignorance.

At the individual level, – and that is the main thing that concerns us from the practical point of view, we have been given a relative sense of freedom of choices. These choices do not necessarily determine the result that we hope or expect, but it does make a difference to the experiences that we draw from it, thereby compressing or prolonging the journey in terms of time.

Trust and surrender to the Grace of course brings in the most powerful element in shortening and fast tracking the journey or even changing the course.

Affectionately

Alok da

Faith, in its deepest sense is the very essence of our being. It is not a mental idea or belief but an unshakable conviction held deep within. Once there, it is never lost, though it can be momentarily clouded. It is like a key that opens the inner doors for the higher powers to act.

Faith can be developed by asking for it from the Divine, by contact with those who themselves carry this flame and by the influence of books written by realised ones.

Some persons believe that faith is an irrational thing and to encourage it in this modern world of scientific knowledge is simply to go back to some primitive age when man feared and worshipped nature as if it were conscious and capable of relating with us. They say that man has discovered the laws and processes of Nature and has even harnessed them to his advantage. We do not need faith anymore but only an expansion of scientific knowledge and technology to match. This is a gross error. In reality, we are replacing only one kind of faith with another. Faith in spiritual things is as consistent with reason as faith in scientific methods. The spiritual ideas including the idea of a Divine Grace that can intervene and heal is as much based upon experience, albeit of another kind and order of reality than the physical.

In its deepest sense, faith is the soul’s witness to a knowledge that our surface mind and reason as well as the senses do not yet have or grasp. It is the deepest will-to-be that governs our nature and presides over all we do and receive. If we have faith only in science and its methods we end up discovering only that much which Science presumes and is willing to admit through the curtain of mind and no more. Instead of quarrelling over faith we need to enlarge it and widen its scope so that both Science and Spirituality can find their respective place in an integral faith that is vast enough to include both without cancelling each other.

In truth, we can say without exaggeration that faith is the very stuff of which we are made of. Though normally and unfortunately it is perceived to be limited to a religious belief, in reality, it extends to everyone. Even the atheist has faith in his atheism and in his reason!

Q: Can we help another person by our prayers? Do collective prayers, as in some congregations, have a greater power than individual prayer?
ALOKDA: Praying for another person is certainly the best inner help we can offer in our ignorance, provided it is done with an unwavering love and goodwill in the head and heart. But we should not confuse it with whatever involves the intercession of a priest or preacher on your behalf, or of a collective congregation praying for someone. Each of these activities are a little different from each other and almost all of them have many things mixed in them – the vital, occult, psychological as well as a little bit of a spiritual element. Obviously where the prayer or intercession is done to further a propagandist spread or partly as an advertisement for an individual or group or simply to satisfy an ambition or greed for money, it is no more in the right attitude for spiritual forces to act. Intercession can help however, not due to the intercessors themselves and often in spite of them, but because the patient has a genuine faith that God is working through them! It is this faith that can make even an impostor perform miracles! In this sense, faith moves mountains, makes the lame walk, the dumb speak and the blind see.

Wherever there is true spiritual consciousness, faith will turn the switch on to its full action. But of course spiritual consciousness and the man who dwells in it does not turn it into a profession to heal all who come to him. It acts according to its own vision and law and a much greater purpose than our ignorant hopes can dream of. Above all, a truly spiritual man acts only in obedience to the divine Will in him and does not get carried away by human sentiments and its ignorant petitions and demands. Even where it seems to act that way, the real reason is something else, much subtler and more intrinsic. Otherwise, it will be as simple as putting a prayer in a slot and then just go fooling around because the answer will arrive exactly as we want it to be! So those who turn it into a profession to earn fame and money, to fulfil spiritual ambition and aggrandise the ego, or else to satisfy a lust for power and domination by having many disciples and followers are obviously a very different category than the truly spiritual being who does not act to satisfy the ignorant human demand for transient and perishable goods.

There are other issues as well. Collective healing sessions, especially in a religious or quasi-religious atmosphere, generate heightened expectation and hope due to the pressure of the collective and the large number of believers. This in itself augments the faith of the individual at least on some level and even overrides or temporarily suspends his personal doubts. All this is conducive to healing. There is however one problem with these sessions: many of them create a very vital atmosphere, full of drama and excitement and induce a state of heightened suggestibility in that person. Such a state may bring a certain degree of dissociation from the symptoms, thereby leading to sudden though temporary relief. This is often the case where the very nature of illness/symptom is functional and there is no anatomical damage. In other words, it is usually more of a psycho-physiological rather than anatomical/physical lesion.

Such healing séances and mediumistic trances may well also attract vital entities in the atmosphere that are generally not good for one’s inner progress. Sometimes, it may be advisable and an even better strategy to go through with trust and equanimity what one needs to go through rather than exchange one’s soul strength for superficial rewards or barter one’s spiritual rights with some passing and temporary gain for the body.

Nevertheless, at the bottom of all this, what truly works is faith. It is the single common denominator in all therapies—physical, psychological, spiritual—and indeed an element acknowledged by each system. We can truly say that, “Finally, it is faith that cures.”

Aliens, that is to say, living beings in other parts of the universe certainly exist. If more developed than mankind they are not likely to find it interesting to travel all the way daring the long corridors of Space to find other forms of life. If they are less developed then they may not have the means to do so.

In any case it is best to keep a safe distance from each other. As such man can’t handle man himself, let alone aliens, especially since they would not have a psychic being which is unique to earth. Our work lies here and it is not worth spending time and energy in directions that are not of any real concern to us.

It is not the untimely death but the state of consciousness that is important. Suicide is generally committed in a state of extreme mental agony which one continues to carry after death. There is also the question of deliberately cutting off the thread of your life thereby becoming an additional immediate cause of suffering to others by escaping from one’s challenges and responsibilities.

Dying on a battlefield is different, especially if one is truly charged with the spirit of sacrifice for the country or the cause. Here the future destiny may even be beautiful and glorious since sacrifice brings favor from the higher powers.

Sudden accidental deaths generally throw the person in quite a disoriented and confused state. It is helpful if someone can send such a person thoughts of peace and love.

As the Mother told us on 12 April 1953,”When I asked Him (December 8, 1950) to resuscitate his body, He clearly answered: “I have left this body purposely. I will not take it back. I shall manifest again in the first supramental body built in the supramental way.”

She confirmed this further in another statement also where She spoke about Sri Aurobindo being the last avatar in a human body. In the Hindu tradition also Kalki is regarded as the last human Avatar. Besides if we see the trajectory of Sri Aurobindo’s life and work we shall find that He had done the maximum that could ever be done and achieved within the frame of the human body. Whatever was left ‘incomplete’ so to say was to be further accomplished by the Mother which is what She did and achieved with the Supramental Manifestation on the 29th February 1956.

Yes there is something that still remains to be done and that also they have mentioned. It is that part wherein humanity has to become ready to receive the Supramental consciousness and progressively transform itself. The individual work within Their body was complete, or we may say as complete as could be done within the course of their life. The collective work had also been initiated on a sound and secure footing following the supramental manifestation and the creation of Auroville and various society centres across the world. Naturally the collective work spans across many more lifetimes than an individual work. This is so because of the interdependence of the individual and the collectivity. It is this that is being worked out now and will go on until the world is reasonably ready to receive and manifest the supramental consciousness. At least a certain number of human beings have to be ready for this evolutionary leap and it is this that is being done and those who can sustain and go through the process of change who are being prepared. This will go on until a critical point is reached whence the prepared ones will be suddenly lifted and taken up and integrated with the supramental creation that is being formed in the subtle physical plane. When ready it will precipitate itself into the gross physical world. Once this happens the rest of the humanity will rapidly undergo either a sublimating change creating a higher and more harmonious humanity that will become as the chain in the evolutionary ladder between the ape and the supramental beings while the rest who lost the moment and wasted the energies of the New Creation in furtherance of their egoistic empire will collapse and sink back into the animal kind with their energies integrated not the animal states. This is what the Gita also indicates about the Asuras.

Their coming again with the same old physical body would not serve any further purpose as whatever could be done while in the physical body has already been done. If we read carefully the first statement cited above it is also evident that the supramental body will not be formed through the normal birth. It will be formed by a pressure from above of bodies formed in the subtle physical and slowly crystallising into moulds being prepared here. This is the occult side of any evolution, which goes unseen. With the supramental creation this is how it is going to be What it means practically is that those who have sincerely taken to the supramental yoga will reach a point wherein they would depart seemingly much like anybody else but it will be another way of dying. Instead of losing and scattering the fragments of vital and mental sheaths they will be largely organized around the psychic and only small portions will be left off. The rest of it will be prepared through special processes in the subtle physical where Sri Aurobindo and the Mother dwell in their permanent abode. This process can be understood as the slow infusion of the supramental substance into the elements organized around the psychic. Thus more and more beings will be ready to enter and assume a more concrete body upon earth, a body less concrete and more plastic and luminous than what we have now but more concrete than what the subtle physical holds.

Aspire, aspire for it. If the aspiration is genuine the Divine will grant it. He will create the means and lead us towards the work He has intended for us. Meanwhile we should prepare ourselves for it through the karmayoga of the Gita. It involves mainly the practice of nishkama karma, equanimity, inner remembrance of the Divine in all circumstances, making an offering of our daily actions to the Divine. The more we get rid of preferences, egoism and desires, the better we become for the Divine Service.

Q: My mother has passed away, we all are in shock, not able to accept her death and want to talk to her, don’t know what to do? 

ALOKDA: The shock of the family is understandable. But it is important to understand that each soul has its own unique journey and while she is no more accessible to the senses, yet all is never destroyed. She must be traveling through the inner worlds towards the divine realm to rest and restore herself before returning again. It is not a good thing to disturb her during this passage. It will only delay her transit through the mid worlds. The right thing is to pray for her, send her thoughts of peace and love as a beautiful farewell gift from the family. It will support her on the journey. 

The importance of sacred Relics of Divine beings and personalities has always been known. Touch is intimately connected to the earth and objects invariably carry the impression (and the vibration) of the person who has used them. It was this truth that was at the basis of many practices in India. The difference between these and the sacred Relics (hair, tooth and nails) is that while the objects used by a divine being carry the stamp because they have been touched or used physically (it is a contact through the body) whereas in the latter it is the body itself carrying the unforgettable stamp of the consciousness of the divine being directly upon the body itself. With Sri Aurobindo it becomes even more special since unlike other Yogis, Sri Aurobindo specifically worked to transform the body by infusing the supramental consciousness into it. This is a singular example in the spiritual history of mankind. Therefore its immense importance cannot be compared to other sacred Relics.

As to the Ashram, it is and will always remain very special because it is not just Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s physical body lying in the Samadhi but even more importantly their taposthali (seat of tapasya) where everything, from their rooms, the walls and floors and the soil and the very air contains something of them soaked in it very tangibly.