It is said that The Mother — Mirambika, who was born as Mira Alfassa — withdrew Herself on the 17^th day of November in 1973. However, we will see that in reality, in the highest meaning and sense of the term ‘reality’, The Mother continues eternally — in a new body.

The spiritual journey of Man has a revolutionary and evolutionary turning since Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. They have given Spirituality a completely new turn and definition, a completely new purpose and value.

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother came to earth in order to lead the earthly Evolution beyond Man, beyond all the imperfections and incompleteness of Man, beyond all the sorrows and miseries of Man, beyond Death : and They have, jointly, advanced and almost completed Their Task to a very great extent. Only what They have done has to be finished — this is the Task that has to be taken up by some of the followers of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, and it will surely be further taken up and advanced by some. What They have done in Their individual lives has to be extended to the collective life.

Sri Aurobindo has said :

A divine life in a divine body is the formula of the ideal that we envisage. But what will be the divine body? What will be the nature of this body, its structure, the principle of its activity, the perfection that distinguishes it from the limited and imperfect physicality within which we are now bound? … … …

The process of the evolution upon earth has been slow and tardy– what principle must intervene if there is to be a transformation, a progressive or sudden change?

It is indeed as a result of our evolution that we arrive at the possibility of this transformation. As Nature has evolved beyond Matter and manifested Life, beyond Life and manifested Mind, so she must evolve beyond Mind and manifest a consciousness and power of our existence, free from the imperfection and limitation of our mental existence, a supramental or truth-consciousness and able to develop the power and perfection of the spirit … … …

Into that truth [supramental] we shall be freed and it will transform mind and life and body. Light and bliss and beauty and a perfection of the spontaneous right action of all the being are there as native powers of the supramental truth-consciousness and these will in their very nature transform mind and life and body even here upon earth into a manifestation of the truth-conscious spirit… … … [Supramental Manifestation]

The most essential aspect of the Work of the Supramental Descent and Transformation has been realized and advanced by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother aimed at and worked for a Descent, on earth, of the Supramental Consciousness, what He otherwise named as Truth Consciousness. They declared that Their main aim and objective was to manifest on earth the principle of Truth-Consciousness, of the Supramental Consciousness on earth, and set it on earth as a basic principle that will operate and function here and transform the human life into a divine life, progressively and step by step. And the divine life is defined by Them as a life where the main principle in function and operation is the principle of Supermind, while at present the main principle is Mind. They pointed out that no other power can bring the transformation except the Supramental Consciousness and Force. For more than fifty thousand years man has endeavoured to make perfect and flawless himself, his life and existence and his environment, but he has failed for the reason that all his endeavours came from an inferior power, the power of Mind. Mind is not a power of Truth — it is an indirect derivation from Truth, covered by pulls of flesh and upheavals from the vital forces and the smokes of the inconscience. 

In the course of earthly evolution of Man, there were previous manifestations from the Supreme consciousness in order to cause from the Highest heights the Descent of the highest power suitable for the mankind at those times, and establish them on earth. Sri Rama came with the ideal of the enlightened mind, and Sri Krishna manifested the Overmind consciousness and revealed for us the aspect of Ananda of the Supreme. Thereafter, we find the Buddha who taught us the Way of Nirvana to transcend beyond the mental consciousness. And then, the next step required was / is the descent and manifestation of the Supramental Consciousness and Force. Sri Aurobindo took the Leadership, and along with The   Mother, He did all that He had to do. With the Sacrifice of His body, He caused to get manifested the Mind of Light in The Mother, which the first effect of the Descent of the Supermind. This has to be done not for a course of an individual realization and perfection, but the whole earth and, at least, especially for a community open to the Supreme Consciousness. And Sri Aurobindo and The Mother wanted us to make efforts to progress towards the Supramentalization.

OOOOO

Sri Aurobindo told The Mother that She had to stay and complete the Work. Indeed, the entire responsibility of the Supramental Manifestation and of the Work for having a Divine Body came upon The Mother, when Sri Aurobindo passed away and the Mind of Light manifested in Her.

As we know, due to The Mother’s unique, intense and unparalleled Endeavours, the Supramental Consciousness finally descended on earth on 29^th February 1956. I am again quoting below the oft-quoted declaration by The Mother :

First Supramental Manifestation

(During the common meditation on Wednesday

The 29^th February 1956)

This evening the Divine Presence, concrete and material, was present amongst you. I had the form of a living gold, bigger than the universe, and I was facing a huge and massive golden door, which separated the world from the Divine.

As I looked at the door, I knew and willed in a single movement of consciousness, that ‘the time has come', and lifting with both hands a mighty golden hammer I struck one blow on the door and the door was shattered to pieces.

And then the supramental Light and Force and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted flow.

In Notes on the Way, The Mother spoke of the New Body. It was around 1972. The New Supramental Body was already there. Only, The Mother was trying unveil the Way for entering that Body. She expressed that She will walk into That Body and merge the gross physical body into That Body. She said: I am trying to fuse this material body into that body but I have not been able to get the clue. … Nobody on earth has tried this, the secret is not given to me.

But Events were different, and Her entire Being had to leave the physical body. And then She has entered the New Body, which is eternal and immortal. Sri Aurobindo has a supramental Body, but that cannot function at present on earth in a direct manner, whereas The Mother’s Body is nearer to the earth.

OOOOO

Let us find what M P Pandit has written in this regard in a unique manner:

*Then on the morning of 17th November at about nine o'clock, a particular friend of mine — he has certain grounding in occult experience, occult knowledge, and normally when we meet, we exchange notes — told me, "I have seen the Mother's body of light." I got interested. He said, “The new body is full of light but it is not yet dense enough to function in the earth conditions. It is there, and as I was looking at it I got the feeling that the Mother would enter this body the moment it became dense enough to stand and function in the earth atmosphere, seen or unseen. But there is no question of revival of the material body." And he added, "Those who are capable of seeing the Mother's halo, aura, they will be able to see that luminous body." It confirmed what I had perceived some four months earlier; I told him as much. 

*That evening at 7.25 p.m., as you all know, the Mother withdrew from her body. They say the cause was heart failure, but let me tell you the heart failure was not the cause, the heart failure was the result of her withdrawal. She had decided; the moment things were ready, she walked into that body. 

*She has not passed away, she has just changed her body. Not changed in the manner of the Gita — soul changing bodies — but consciously; keeping the full personality she has gone into that body. And, as it was revealed to me on that day, she will function in that body, work through those instruments who are open to her, expedite the remaining work — the working out of the consequences — but her activity will not be confined to the Ashram or to Auroville; for her the whole world is her ashram. As I was led to put it on radio the next day, "The sea of Love that is the Mother swells into an ocean": not a perception, not an idea, not an image, but an experience.*

OOOOO

The Eternal Mother shows Her example before all of us — the human race — and given us the Task and the Aim : the Supramental Transformation.

Out of Man, the Superman is to manifest. And Man is the basis for the advent of the Superman. He shall have to become the Superman. The purpose of the appearance of man must now be fulfilled. Man must surpass himself for that. Man has to collaborate with the Eternal Mother and the Master for the new Evolution, or the evolutionary forces will ignore him and go beyond him and find out its own means.

Sri Aurobindo has said :

A new humanity means for us the appearance, the development of a type or race of mental beings whose principle of mentality would be no longer a mind in the Ignorance seeking for knowledge but even in its knowledge bound to the ignorance, a seeker after Light but not its natural possessor, open to the Light but not an inhabitant of the Light, not yet a perfected instrument, truth-conscious and delivered out of the Ignorance. Instead, it would be possessed already of what could be called a mind of Light, a mind capable of living in the truth, capable of being truth-conscious and manifesting in its life a direct in place of an indirect knowledge. Its mentality would be an instrument of the Light and no longer of the Ignorance. At its highest it would be capable of passing into the supermind and from the new race would be recruited the race of supramental beings who would appear as the leaders of the evolution in earth-nature. … … …

The first gleamings of the new Light would carry in themselves the seed of its highest flamings; even in the first beginnings, the certainty of their topmost powers would be there; for this is the constant story of each evolutionary emergence: the principle of its highest perfection lies concealed in the involution which precedes and necessitates the evolution of the secret principle.

The Mother is waiting for us. In order to complete the Task of the Supramental Change and bring in the Supramental Race, there should be, at first, a “new humanity” — in the Words of Sri Aurobindo. That is the Aim now, before all of us.

Barindranath Chaki

17-11-2008

[Written on 17-11-2008 and published on 20-11-2008, simultaneously in ASPIRATION, All Choice, Sulekha and Gaia.]

This is a great opportunity today, on the birthday anniversary of Sri Aurobindo, on the august day of the fifteenth August, to remember Him and to renew our Aspiration and our Hope for the New Way, for the New Consciousness and Being, for the Progress and Transformation towards the New Man, the New Race.

Sri Aurobindo is the Person, who has given the most hopeful meaning of the human existence, of the Creation. He has given us the greatest Hope, the greatest Dream, of Joy and Bliss and the Widest Consciousness and of an eternal, immortal existence. He was not satisfied with Moksha or Nirvana, nor did He ask us to be so satisfied. We will be transformed into an immortal Race, a new Race, who will not live in Darkness or in Ignorance or in Transience and Death.

He, the Avatar of the Supreme, granted with His signature of Tathastu [So be it] to the Vedic prayer of a few millennia:

Asato maa sadgamaya
Tamaso maa jyotirgamaya
Mŗtyormaa<mŗtamgamaya.

Lead me from non-existence to Existence,
Lead me from Darkness to Light,
Lead me from Death to Immortality.

Sri Aurobindo said : So be it, and it is becoming So. He showed us the Way, the New Way, transcending and surpassing Moksha and Nirvaana. You need not leave the World, the Manifestation — for everything is He, the All-Existence. The Creation, the Manifestation, is His Will — can anyone go beyond His Will?  For, in everyone, He is manifest and He is hidden.

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother [Mira Alfassa] have assured us of Their help on the Way. Has not He told us so in the following words?

And yet I know my footprints' track shall be
A pathway towards Immortality.

[The Pilgrim of the Night]

He has asked us to go within and find the Inner Being, the Inner Divine, the Psychic Being. He has told us to find also the deep-routed falsehood hiding in us and solve the riddle of existence.

I saw that a falsehood was planted deep
At the very root of things
Where the grey Sphinx guards God’s riddle sleep
On the Dragon’s outspread wings.

[God’s Labour: Sri Aurobindo]

In order to conquer all Darkness for the progress and evolution of a New Race, Sri Aurobindo, in His unique Sadhana, had entered the worlds of Darkness and unconsciousness to bring the required Transformation.

I MADE an assignation with the Night;
In the abyss was fixed our rendezvous :
In my breast carrying God's deathless light
I came her dark and dangerous heart to woo.

[The Pilgrim of the Night]

He has asked us to find the secrets within and proceed towards the New Becoming. To show us the Way, Sri Aurobindo had to find out the Way himself, for it was an untrodden way, a New Way.  He had to work hard, undertaking an untried spiritual research.

He who would bring the heavens here
Must descend himself into clay
And the burden of earthly nature bear
And tread the dolorous way.

[God’s Labour: Sri Aurobindo]

And what did He tell us to do?

A voice cried, "Go where none have gone!
Dig deeper, deeper yet
Till thou reach the grim foundation stone
And knock at the keyless gate."

[God’s Labour: Sri Aurobindo]

Sri Aurobindo was Himself an Adventure of Consciousness, as Satprem called Him. In the language of His own epic poem Savitri, He was a ‘Voyager upon uncharted routes, fronting the danger of the Unknown and adventuring across enormous realms.’

A big change will come on earth — I strongly believe, it has already started coming, since the 29^th February 1956, when the Supramental Consciousness descended on earth, as declared by The Mother.

Sri Aurobindo has said :

Often a lustrous inner dawn shall come
Lighting the chambers of the slumbering mind;
A sudden bliss shall run through every limb
And Nature with a mightier Presence fill.
Thus shall the earth open to divinity
And common natures feel the wide uplift,
Illumine common acts with the Spirit's ray
And meet the deity in common things.
Nature shall live to manifest secret God,
The Spirit shall take up the human play,
This earthly life become the life divine.

Of the Mission for which Sri Aurobindo and The Mother descended on earth, one can have a clear Idea from what Savitri has stated :

My soul and his indissolubly linked
In the one task for which our lives were born
To raise the world to God in deathless Light.
To bring God down to the world on earth
We came to change the earthly life to life divine.

Thus, They came to change the earthly life.

And with the Divine words that came from Sri Aurobindo, an attempt has been made for remembering and adoring Him on His birthday, the birthday of the Hope of Mankind, also for remembering and adoring The Mother.

Barin Chaki
15-08-2008

 [ This article is simulaneosly published in Aspiration, All choice and in my Blog in Sulekha.]

 Sri Aurobindo has said: Man is a transitional being.

Man is an evolutionary being, who has emerged as the Neanderthal man from the Ape, and now, he is on the Way to the Higher Evolution.

This earth is a field of Evolution — Evolution of the Spirit that has become Matter and is involved in Matter. All living beings including the humans have emerged out of this Evolution. But Man is not the final result of Evolution. He is in the initial stage of the Manifestation of Consciousness — in a rudimentary stage. He is an imperfect and incomplete being.

As we all know, everyone of us wants to have a life that must be happy and joyous, creative and prosperous, and it should be as long as possible. We all think that we should have all knowledge and wisdom.  We all want enough force and strength and power. We always hope and dream of success and victory. We always hope of Light and Joy and Consciousness and Power. That is our Hope, our Dream.

But that has not been the reality we live in. In short, our existence as human beings is quite miserable and full of sorrows and frustration, full of falls and failure, full of ignorance and inconscience, and also captive of darkness, defeat, division, disease and death!

But should we stop there? Can we put an end to our invincible hope, our golden and happy dreams, our joyous expectations?

Should we not be more progressive, more adventurous and warrior-like, more struggling, more hopeful and endeavouring? Should we not kindle the Fire of our Aspiration to dispel all darkness around us?

OOOOO

As Sri Aurobindo said, the time has already reached when evolution has to surpass man. As we have already seen, Man is not the perfect being, not the complete being. But he has the aspiration and the hope and the dream for becoming perfect, for becoming complete, for conquering darkness and division and death. The aim of Evolution is to manifest the  Divine, the Source of this Manifestation, the Supreme Existence-Consciousness-Bliss (in Sanskrit, Sat-Chit-Ananda or Sachchidananda).

The Superman shall emerge and manifest out of Man. Man should prepare and transform himself for the Advent of the Superman. He has to grow and become the Superman. That is the only purpose of Man's appearance - the coming of the Superman, the Manifestation of the Supramental Consciousness - and the purpose has now to be fulfilled. Man shall do that by surpassing himself. If Man fails to collaborate with this new task of evolution, the evolutionary forces will surpass him, go beyond him, push him aside, and find out a new and different means to manifest the New Man, the Superman.

Has not The Mother warned us in the message that follows? —

Men, countries, continents!

The choice is imperative: Truth or the abyss.

The Divine Consciousness descends and becomes ready to answer the Call and the Aspiration of the human being, to lift him up to Light and Force and Joy and Love, but Man fails, though he has given the Call. The Divine gives us Light, shows us the Way, but we cover the Light with the Shades of Darkness and create hurdles on the Way by creating walls and barricades of Ignorance and Egoism. Often, we love Darkness and Ignorance and thus we ignore Light and Truth and Wisdom. We are not yet really prepared, as it seems.

As The Mother has declared, the Supramental Consciousness has descended on earth on the 29^th day of February 1956. It is actively present here and now on earth.

I am quoting the oft-quoted message of the Mother from Mother’s Agenda Vol.1:

First Supramental Manifestation

(During the common meditation on Wednesday

The 29^th February 1956)

This evening the Divine Presence, concrete and material, was present amongst you. I had the form of a living gold, bigger than the universe, and I was facing a huge and massive golden door, which separated the world from the Divine.

As I looked at the door, I knew and willed in a single movement of consciousness, that ‘the time has come’, and lifting with both hands a mighty golden hammer I struck one blow on the door and the door was shattered to pieces.

And then the supramental Light and Force and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted flow.

OOOOO

The Time now is ready for the human being to grow into the supramental being. The Hour of God that descended on earth with the coming of Sri Aurobindo still continues and will continue till the Work is done and  the Supramental Beings emerge on earth.

Now, the most needed power in us is Aspiration, a fixed and unfailing Aspiration.

Barindranath Chaki

01-08-2008

[This article has been published in the newly formed Social Network ASPIRATION ( http://newreflexions.ning.com ). Interested friends and readers are invited to join the new Social Network.

This has also been published in the blog All Choice and in Sulekha.]

3. When I speak, the reason says, "This will I say"; but God takes the word out of my mouth
and the lips say something else at which reason trembles.
[Thoughts and Aphorisms, Sri Aurobindo]

Obviously, here Sri Aurobindo is speaking about himself. People, who are in limited consciousness, whose consciousness is mixed with “lower impulses, unreasonable emotions and the vital reactions,” cannot say that this will be applicable to them, as The Mother says.

Ordinarily, sometimes we use our reason calmly, in peace and quietude and some concentration, and reach a decision to say something. But when we start speaking, we are influenced by our lower impulses, irrational emotions and vital reactions, and we utter something that should not be said.

But what Sri Aurobindo says here, is just the opposite. In case of an ordinary person, lower impulses, excitement and passion take hold of the mouth which speaks something different and lower and contrary to what reason decided. But with regard to the phenomenon, of which Sri Aurobindo is speaking, an Inspiration comes from above, with a light and a knowledge, greater than the light and knowledge attained through reason. And it makes one speak something which is beyond reason, beyond what is known and decided by reason, something that is beyond the capacity of “the most enlightened reason”.

Sri Aurobindo says that “reason trembles.” Reason trembles, because the higher Truth that comes from a higher region is beyond its comprehension and expectation and acceptance.

The inspirations and revelations which come from above are always more advanced than whatever is understood and accepted by reason.

What man finds today to be reasonable may not have been accepted by reason in the past, as The Mother says. All revelations and inspirations, that come today to the Consciousness, higher and open, may seem today mysterious.

It may seem paradoxical, unexpected and revolutionary. And reason may tremble today. But in the Future, it will become a reasonable knowledge.

Truth is something which is ever progressive, moving, always being transformed and changed. Truth always leads us forward and reveals us to the relativity of all the manifestations in the world. The world is always progressing towards a higher Truth, a greater Truth.

The Supramental Manifestation is now the highest Truth, but still now this is not understood by the humanity. The ordinary human reason trembles before this highest Truth. But time will come and is sure to come when the majority of the human race shall understand accept It.

As Sri Aurobindo and The Mother say, the Unmanifest will manifest tomorrow.

(Previously published in All choice and  barin chaki's blog in Sulekha.)

Barin Chaki
25-04-2008

Confusions and Explanations I