December 2021 Newsletter

Decemeber 2021 SRI AUROBINDO SOCIETY VOL 35.12 Singapore NEWSLETTER Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego Conversion of the Aim of Life from the Ego to the Divine Instead of seeking one’s own satisfaction, to have service of the Divine as the aim of life. Clivia miniata Kaffir lily Medium-sized bright orange funnelform flowers with the limb divided into six lobes, a yellow or apricot throat and exserted stamens; borne in many-flowered umbels on erect scapes. A perennial bulb with straplike leaves. What we call oneself is only the ego. Our true self is the Divine. THE MOTHER Human nature is shot through in all its stuff with the thread of the ego; even when one tries to get away from it, it is in front or could be behind all the thoughts and actions like a shadow. To see that is the first step, to discern the falsity and absurdity of the ego-movements is the second, to discourage and refuse it at each step is the third, - but it goes entirely only when one sees, experiences and lives the One in everything and equally everywhere. SRI AUROBINDO Our ego, boasting of freedom, is at every moment the slave, toy and puppet of countless beings, powers, forces, influences in universal Nature. The self-abnegation of the ego in the Divine is its self-fulfilment; its surrender to that which transcends it is its liberation from bonds and limits and its perfect freedom. SRI AUROBINDO

Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. December 2021 Guiding Light of the Month LIKE a flame that burns in silence, like a perfume that rises straight upward without wavering, my love goes to Thee; and like the child who does not reason and has no care, I trust myself to Thee that Thy Will may be done, that Thy Light may manifest, Thy Peace radiate, Thy Love cover the world. When Thou willest I shall be in Thee, Thyself, and there shall be no more any distinction; I await that blessed hour without impatience of any kind, letting myself flow irresistibly toward it as a peaceful stream flows toward the boundless ocean. December 7, 1912 Prayers and Meditations, The Mother From the Editor’s Desk In this December edition of our Newsletter, we How does one conquer ego? Perhaps the first step must continue on our inner journey and take a closer look at be to recognise ego movements within. This too Surrender, particularly on Surrender of the ego. Sri proves to be complicated since ego can be elusive and Aurobindo takes a broader, synthetic view of ego as the hide behind the reasonings of the mind and the helper and the bar. It is a force set out in evolution for vehemence of the vital and I built in the physical. A a specific purpose and is no longer needed when that strong will to overcome it may do the trick? Perhaps purpose is fulfilled. Here are his words on his two then there will be a will to recognise ego as it is; with positions on ego: great courage and patience and perseverance and long endeavour it may be conquered. Then a self-less being First: “The formation of a mental and vital ego tied to is born. However, here is something cryptic (maybe the body-sense was the first great labour of the cosmic not) from Sri Aurobindo and it sets our consciousness Life in its progressive evolution; for this was the means delving into another realm. He says: it found for creating out of matter a conscious individual.” Second: “The dissolution of this limiting So long as the ego is there, one cannot love. Love ego is the one condition, the necessary means for this alone can love, Love alone can conquer the ego. very cosmic Life to arrive at its divine fruition: for only so can the conscious individual find either his Maybe this is the secret behind the conquest of the ego transcendent self or his true Person.” in us. We turn to love. We look for love within and not a drop we find; indeed, we may find a dry desert which It appears that ego must go, but not before it has served a self-consuming ego may have developed over time. its purpose. In little children and adolescents and Or we may find a fertile plain with the waters of love sometimes years after in many an adult, the ego persists washing over it incessantly and life appears fulfilled in and shapes his or her individuality. We also fathom a itself. time in one’s life, after a roller-coaster life of ups and downs, hard-knocks and gashes, the ego waning as In this journey, surrender of all we have, all we do and understanding of life, oneself and one’s place in life all we are is mandated. This surrender can only happen waxes. In persons who feel the call from higher spheres, it seems when there is love; when there is love, there who start perceiving that the ego is an impediment in is no more selfishness but selflessness. This must be one’s advance becomes obvious and the wilful the high love which can do it all for us. We need not dropping away of ego is a natural result. The lives of lose time in finding it? Let aspiration take over and lay mahatmas, mahayogis and sadhaks is filled with such a path towards a greater realisation and a instances, we may have read or heard of. transformation in us of our nature. www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 2 Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego

Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. December 2021 Savitri In the unfolding process of the Self Sometimes the inexpressible Mystery Elects a human vessel of descent. A breath comes down from a supernal air, A Presence is born, a guiding Light awakes, A stillness falls upon the instruments: Fixed, motionless like a marble monument, Stone-calm, the body is a pedestal Supporting a figure of eternal Peace. Or a revealing Force sweeps blazing in; Out of some vast superior continent Knowledge breaks through trailing its radiant seas, And Nature trembles with the power, the flame. A greater Personality sometimes Possesses us which yet we know is ours: Or we adore the Master of our souls. Then the small bodily ego thins and falls; No more insisting on its separate self, Losing the punctilio of its separate birth, It leaves us one with Nature and with God. In moments when the inner lamps are lit And the life’s cherished guests are left outside, Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs. A wider consciousness opens then its doors; Invading from spiritual silences A ray of the timeless Glory stoops awhile To commune with our seized illumined clay And leaves its huge white stamp upon our lives. In the oblivious field of mortal mind, Revealed to the closed prophet eyes of trance Or in some deep internal solitude Witnessed by a strange immaterial sense, The signals of eternity appear. Sri Aurobindo www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 3 Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego

Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. December 2021 Necessity of Self-Surrender to the Divine An essential practice in achieving complete equality is the self-surrender of the individual ego-personality to the Divine, the Supreme, the Universal Being. It is only thus, by creating a method of sorting out the ego’s gross or subtle attachments and desires through a process of comparison with the wider, disinterested, free action of the Divine, that eventually the seeker can begin to disentangle himself from the bondage of that ego-personality. Sri Aurobindo describes the process: “The test that we have done this is the presence of an undisturbed calm in the mind and spirit. The Sadhaka must be on the watch as the witnessing and willing Purusha behind or, better, as soon as he can manage it, above the mind, and repel even the least indices or incidence of trouble, anxiety, grief, revolt, disturbance in his mind. If these things come, he must at once detect their source, the defect which they indicate, the fault of egoistic claim, vital desire, emotion or idea from which they start and this he must discourage by his will, his spiritualised intelligence, his soul unity with the Master of his being. On no account must he admit any excuse for them, however natural, righteous in seeming or plausible, or any inner or outer justification. If it is the Prana which is troubled and clamorous, he must separate himself from the troubled Prana, keep seated his higher nature in the Buddhi and by the Buddhi school and reject the claim of the desire-soul in him; and so too if it is the heart of emotion that makes the clamour and the disturbance. If, on the other hand, it is the will and intelligence itself that is at fault, then the trouble is more difficult to command, because then his chief aid and instrument becomes an accomplice of the revolt against the divine Will and the old sins of the lower members take advantage of this sanction to raise their diminished heads.” The complexity and subtle difficulty of this process leads to the eventual recognition of the necessity of the self-surrender: “Therefore there must be a constant insistence on one main idea, the self-surrender to the Master of our being, God within us and in the world, the supreme Self, the universal Spirit. The Buddhi dwelling always in this master idea must discourage all its own lesser insistences and preferences and teach the whole being that the ego, whether it puts forth its claim through the reason, the personal will, the heart or the desire-soul in the Prana, has no just claim of any kind and all grief, revolt, impatience, trouble is a violence against the Master of the being.” (Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, Part Four: The Yoga of Self-Perfection, Chapter 13, The Action of Equality, pp. 694-695) Necessity of Self-Surrender to the Divine “All true love and all sacrifice are in their essence Nature’s contradiction of the primary egoism and its separative error; it is her attempt to turn from a necessary first fragmentation towards a recovered oneness. All unity between creatures is in its essence a self-finding, a fusion with that from which we have separated, a discovery of one’s self in others. But it is only a divine love and unity that can possess in the light what the human forms of these things seek for in the darkness.” (Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga) www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 4 Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego

Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. December 2021 “Surrender is giving oneself to the Divine — to give everything one is or has to the Divine and regard nothing as one’s own, to obey only the Divine will and no other, to live for the Divine and not for the ego.” (Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II: Surrender) Surrender means to be entirely in the Mother’s hands and not to resist in any way by egoism or otherwise her Light, Knowledge, Will, the working of her Force etc. (Surrender – SRI AUROBINDO AND THE MOTHER (wordpress.com)) Surrender The Mother says: “It is the ego that makes each one a separate being, in all possible ways. It is the ego which gives the sense of being a person separate from others. It is certainly the ego which gives you the sense of the “I”, “I am”, “I want”, “I do”, “I exist”, even the very famous “I think therefore I am” which is… I am sorry but I think it is a stupidity — but still it is a celebrated stupidity — well, this too is the ego. What gives you the impression that you are Manoj is the ego, and that you are altogether different from this one and that one; and what prevents your body from melting away like that, dissolving in a common mass of physical vibrations, is the ego; what gives you a definite form, a definite character, a separate consciousness, the sense that you exist in yourself, independently of all others, indeed, something like that; if one does not reflect, spontaneously one has the sense that even if the world disappeared, one would be there, one would remain what one is. This of course is the super-ego.” Types of Ego: 1. Mental Ego: If a person’s consciousness is identified with mind, it is mental Ego. These people individualise themselves with for example: My judgement, my logic is correct. 2. Vital Ego: If a person’s consciousness places or concentrates itself within the Emotional level, then the person possesses Vital ego. They dominate with their emotional influence, or need or expectations or ignorance. www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 5 Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego

Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. December 2021 3. Physical Ego: If a person’s consciousness places or concentrates itself within the Physical level, then the person possesses physical ego. His entire life is symbolized by either lethargy, idleness or physical heroic works 4. Spiritual Ego: If a person’s consciousness places or concentrates itself within the with spiritual achievement alone he develops a spiritual ego. He is always concerned about his spiritual perfection or supremacy in comparison with others. 5. Overmind Ego: Ego experienced even by the Gods at the overmind level. 6. Sattwic Ego: brings knowledge and happiness. ‘I am receiving knowledge, I am full of delight’ — these feelings are actions of the sattwic ego. The ego of the sadhak, the devotee, the man of knowledge, the disinterested worker is the sattwic ego which brings knowledge and delight. 7. Rajasic Ego: Stands for action. ‘I am doing the work, I am winning, I am losing, I am making effort, the success in work is mine, the failure is mine, I am strong, I am fortunate, I am happy, I am unhappy’ — all these feelings are predominantly rajasic, dynamic and generate desire. 8. Tamasic Ego: full of ignorance and inertia. ‘I am wretched, I am helpless, I am lazy, incapable and good for nothing, I have no hope, I am so weak, so obscure, so miserable, so oppressed and ill-used — there is no hope for me, no success, I am denied everything, I am unsupported, how can I do this, how can I do that, I have no power for it, no capacity, I am helpless; let me die; let me lie still and moan” I am sinking into the lower nature, my only salvation is to sink into the lower nature’, etc. — all these feelings are predominantly tamasic and produce inertia and obscurity. These are not seen all at once or in every case; but these are the general character of that being. Those afflicted with the Tamasic ego have no pride though they have the ego in full measure but that ego has a downward movement and leads to death and extinction in the void of the Brahman. People with Tamasic ego accept and support despondency, weakness, inertia, self-depreciation, unwillingness to act, unwillingness to know or be open, fatigue, indolence, do-nothingness. Just as pride has ego, in the same way humility also has ego; just as strength has ego, in the same way weakness also has ego. Those who have no pride because of their tamasic nature are mean, feeble and servile out of fear and despair. Tamasic humility, tamasic forgiveness, tamasic endurance have no value whatsoever and do not produce any good result. 9. Individual Ego: Individual ego is an ignorance and limitation of Self which has been necessary in the course of evolution, at an individual level. It can be based on one’s separative identity or indiviudalisation. But this ego is now necessarily giving away to the wider Self. 10. Collective Ego: Collective ego is an ignorance and limitation of Self which has been necessary in the course of evolution, at a collective level. It can be based on standing for one’s religion, or language or nation. But this collective ego is now necessarily giving away to the wider Self or universal consciousness or oneness. How Ego was the Helper: 6 Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg

Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. December 2021 Our whole life has revolved around ourselves from childhood, bound by a social rules and regulations. All we have done, even the apparently most disinterested or least egoistic act, has been done with a view to our own personal growth or illumination. The society compelled us to work in a manner befitting of mankind, not as per the animal or plant kind. We are made to realize with the help of ego as we could succeed against all other creations using our knowledge, intelligence and power. Ego helps us to create our own identity in this world. Had ego was not present, and had man led an ascetic life, man would have been living in the Stone Age by now. Ego helped it to overcome its own barriers and limitations and start challenging this world. Then a powerful human personality has been formed after years, only because of Ego which provoked and pressurized man to exceed itself. Ego is a helper to build identity. The limitation of the universal “I” in the divided ego — sense constitutes our imperfect individualised personality. The ego is surely the instrument for individualisation, that is, until one is an individualised being, constituted in him, the ego is an absolutely necessary factor. If one had the power of abolishing the ego ahead of time, one would lose one’s individuality. How Ego becomes a barrier Now: After making us a better human in comparison to other animals, Ego has not completely left us. Then Ego tries to assert itself in the negative way and we succumb to its pressure tactics and start respecting its demands and desires. Finally, our being is controlled and dominated by Ego. When ego was established in us completely, this little Ego has taken its roots in our being and completely defines our individuality. Thus Ego becomes a bar for spirituality. Sri Aurobindo considered the ego as a temporary variable to be replaced during inner growth by soul- principle. The Mother says, Ego is the helper so long as it is needed to form the physical individuality, but when that is formed, ego must disappear. 26 June 1935 But once the individuality has been formed, the ego becomes not only useless but harmful. And only then comes the time when it must be abolished. But naturally, as it has taken so much trouble to build you, it does not give up its work so easily, and it asks for the reward of its efforts, that is, to enjoy the individuality. Ego develops in various forms: The ego becomes more and more conscious and resistant as the being develops. · So-called inert matter — Much more easily responsive, less resistant. · Plants and animals — The response is much quicker than among men. · Very primitive, very simple beings, little children — Response quicker as they don’t have an organized ego. · Man with organized mind — Least responsive and more resistant as they have entirely crystallized, organized mental consciousness which is as hard as stone! It resists. There is much less ego, you see, it is not a conscious ego. People who have worked on themselves, who have mastered themselves, who are organized, who have an ego made of steel, it will be difficult for them. Unless they go beyond all this and have enough spiritual knowledge to be able to make the ego surrender … in which case the realization will naturally be much greater — it will be more difficult to accomplish, but the result will be far more complete. · Conscious beings — The greatest resistance is in the most conscious beings due to a lack of mental receptivity, due to the mind itself which wants things to continue (as Sri Aurobindo has written) according to its own mode of ignorance. www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 7 Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego

Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. December 2021 Bad impact of Ego: 1. Living in Ignorance Ego is the most formidable of the knots which keep us tied to the ignorance. -Sri Aurobindo To live in the wideness of the Intuition is not possible with the limitation of the ego. - Sri Aurobindo 2. Experience All Difficulties The extent of your difficulties gives you the measure of your ego. -The Mother 3. Being Fearful Being egoistic leads to fear entering our being in various levels as we have an excessive concern about our security without any trust in the Divine. We do not have the habit of a spontaneous trust in the Divine. Lack of trust stops us from accepting the best that happens in all circumstances, one would not be afraid. 4. Being in Depression or Suicidal tendency: It is the ego that gets depressed. -The Mother All bitterness in life always comes from the ego refusing to abdicate. -The Mother If the conditions make the experience the soul is seeking still more difficult, for example, if one is in a body with an inadequate will or some distortion in the thought, or an egoism too, too hardened, and it ends in suicide, it is dreadful. It creates a dreadful karma that can be repeated for lifetimes on end before the soul can conquer it and manage to do what it wants. And each time, the conditions become more difficult, each time it requires a still greater effort. What should we do to overcome Ego? So long as the ego is there, one cannot love. Love alone can love, Love alone can conquer the ego. The Mother Love lacks ego. Ego lacks love. Sri Aurobindo Taking the help of Satprem’s Prayer for the Mother: Let us learn how Satprem used to give himself completely through his prayers: “Something has to explode in me and take possession of my entire being. It is not my force that can achieve this, but yours. Mother, I beseech you to open in me the doors of my true being. I no longer want this false relationship with the outside, this life of approximation. I want to be your instrument, not the instrument of this ignorant and suffering ego. Mother, I ask only for the true, the Light, that which is my real self. I have had enough, enough of this surface self that invades virtually all my days. May your Will be done. Your child who desperately needs you, www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 8 Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego

Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. December 2021 Mother, by way of expressing to you my gratitude, I want to work now to open myself totally to your Light and become truly an egoless instrument, your conscious instrument. Mother, you are the sole Reality. So thousands of times a day, I repeat, ‘Mother, I want to be your instrument, ever more conscious, I want to express your truth, your light. I want to be what you want, as you want, when you want.’ There is in me now a kind of need for perfection, a will to abolish this ego, a real understanding that to become your instrument means at the same time to find the perfect plenitude of one’s personality. So I am living in an almost constant state of aspiration, I feel your force constantly, or nearly so, and if I am ‘distracted’ a few minutes, I experience a void, an uneasiness that calls me back to you. Mother, from the depths of my being, I offer you a sole prayer: may I become your more and more perfect instrument, a sword of light in your hands. Oh, to get out of this ego that belittles everything, diminishes everything, to emerge from it! All is falsehood in it.” 2. Use Strong Will power: The Mother says: Oh, the most terrible of all is when one does not have the strength, the courage, something indomitable! How many times do they come to tell me, ‘I want to die, I want to flee, I want to die.’ — I say, ‘But die, then, die to yourself! No one is asking you to let your ego survive! Die to yourself since you want to die! Have that courage, the true courage, to die to your egoism.’ But because it is karma, one must, one must DO something oneself. Karma is the construction of the ego; the ego MUST DO something, everything cannot be done for it. This is it, THIS is the thing: karma is the result of the ego’s actions, and only when the ego abdicates is the karma dissolved. One can help it along, one can assist it, give it strength, bestow courage upon it, but the ego must then make use of it. 3. Find the True Inner voice: When naked of ego and mind it hears the Voice — Sri Aurobindo, Savitri Renunciation of ego, acceptance of God in life is the Yoga I teach, — no other renunciation. -Sri Aurobindo It is an ego in man, that is shocked to find ego in others. ~ Sri Aurobindo. 4. Taste for Nothingness — The Mother says Taste for Nothingness is the most harmonious way to put an end to the ego. It’s the ego coming to an end. It’s, yes, the most harmonious way, the higher way to put an end to the ego. It is tired of being, instead of feeling killed and crushed. A “phew” of relief: “Enough, enough of this battle to exist.” We could say: Falsehood, tired of being, gives up. In vain his heart lifts up its yearning prayer, Peopling with brilliant Gods the formless Void; Then disappointed to the Void he turns And in its happy nothingness asks release, The calm Nirvana of his dream of self: www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 9 Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego

Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. December 2021 The Word in silence ends, in Nought the name. Taste for Nothingness — It’s the divine way to annul the ego. 5. Shun the attraction agents of Ego If you want to be a true doer of divine works, your first aim must be totally free from all desire and self- regarding ego. - Sri Aurobindo Power, wealth, sex that have the strongest attraction for human ego. — Sri Aurobindo. The Mother says “Tell the Ego that its hour has gone”. is ready. Two ways to forget the Ego and replace it with Divine: · We need to follow Sri Aurobindo who advises “Always behave as if The Mother is looking at you for indeed she is always present.” · The Mother says: Do nothing, try to think and feel nothing which will be unworthy of Divine presence. 6. Need Endurance for overcoming Physical Ego: The Mother says: Ego of the Physical is the most difficult to conquer (or rather, the body ego, because the work was already done long ago on the physical ego). It might be thought that the form of the body is a point of concentration, and that without this concentration or hardness, physical life would not be possible. But that’s not true. The body is really a wonderful instrument; it’s capable of widening and of becoming vast in such a way that everything, everything — the slightest gesture, the least little task — is done in a wonderful harmony and with a remarkable plasticity. Then all of a sudden, for something quite stupid, a draft, a mere nothing, it forgets — it shrinks back into itself, it gets afraid of disappearing, afraid of not being. And everything has to be started again from scratch. So in the yoga of matter you start realizing how much endurance is needed. I calculated it would take 200 years to say ten crore of my japa. Well, I’m ready to struggle 200 years if necessary, but the work will be done. 7. Practise Humility: The Mother says: if there is one fundamental necessity, it is humility. To be humble. Not humble as it is normally understood, such as merely saying, ‘I am so small, I’m nothing at all’ — no, something else. Because the pitfalls are innumerable, and the further you progress in yoga, the more subtle they become, and the more the ego masks itself behind marvelous and saintly appearances. So when somebody says, ‘I no longer want to rely on anything but Him. I want to close my eyes and rest in Him alone,’ this comfortable ‘Him,’ which is exactly what you want him to be, is the ego — or a formidable Asura, or a Titan (depending on each one’s capacity). They’re all over the earth, the earth is their domain. So the first thing to do is to pocket your ego — not preserve it, but get rid of it as soon as possible! 8. Practise Plasticity: Three things are required: Consciousness, Plasticity and Surrender As a river remembers origin and its destination we should also remember that we are God’s children, and our only destination is the Divine. We are Sons of God and must be even as He. We are sons of Infinite and Ananta. We need to be plastic enough to remembers our origin and destination, whatever be www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 10 Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego

Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. December 2021 the current difficulties, challenges or calamities we will ultimately merge in the Divine and need not showcase our Egoistic self. 9. Dissolution of Ego: It is not enough to surrender; the ego must be dissolved, must merge with the Divine, disappear in Him, The Mother says. Until the nature is entirely transformed, it is always mixed — the good and the bad side by side. So until the transformation is achieved, there will always be a mixture of egoism in all who come to me. The Mother is the Final Goal, She is the Path, She is the Source. All our painful experiences given to us in this life time is only to search the Divine, and come closer to the Divine. We must realize finally that “Everything is Mother, there is nothing else but Mother.” It is her action in place. We are just conscious instruments of Her. Krishna says the secret of secrets is, that the Divine is in each individual being or thing, in all beings and things, and also transcends the entire phantasmagoria of the phenomenal play. To seize this “secret of secrets” is to be able to batter one’s way out of one’s egoistic prison-house and function from a greater wideness, the ego being dissolved in the “impersonality of spiritual being”. This in turn must facilitate a Divine orientation for all actions, all thoughts, all loves. In one sense, not the ego, but Prakriti or Nature is the doer of all works; but Prakriti is only a power of the being or Purusha who is the master and controller of all her multitudinous works and million-faceted energisms. The Purusha is the silent witness consciousness which observes the actions of Prakriti. Prakriti is the force of Nature which one feels as doing all the actions, when one gets rid of the sense of the ego as doer. Then there is the realisation of these two entities. This is quite different from the psychic being. It is felt in the mind, vital, physical — most easily in the mind where the mental being (Purusha) is seated and controls the others. 10. Realisation of The Divine: There is a dynamic force which moves all things, and when you become conscious of it, you see that it is one single Force which moves all things; and as you become conscious, you can even follow its movement and see how it works through men and things. — The Mother From the minute you become unconscious of the Unity — unity of Force, unity of Consciousness and unity of Will — well you no longer have the perception which makes you quite separate from others, so that you do not know what goes on in them, they are strangers to you, you are shut up as it were in your own skin, and have no contact with others except quite externally and superficially. But this happens precisely because you have not realised in yourself the perception of this oneness of Consciousness, Force and Will — even of material vibrations’ –The Mother The realisation of Self and of the Cosmic being (without which the realisation of Self is incomplete) are essential steps in our Yoga’; it is the end of other Yogas, but it is, as it were, the beginning of ours, that is to say, the point where its own characteristic realisation can commence. — Sri Aurobindo You must learn to unite what you call your individual self with your true psychic individuality. Your present individuality is a very mixed thing, a series of changes which yet preserves a certain continuity, a certain sameness or identity of vibration in the midst of all flux. It is almost like a river which is never the same and yet has a certain definiteness and persistence of its own. Your normal self is merely a shadow of your true individuality which you will realise only when this normal individual which is differently poised at different times, now in the mental, then in the vital, at other times in the physical, www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 11 Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego

Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. December 2021 gets into contact with the psychic and feels it as its real being. Then you will be one, nothing will shake or disturb you, you will make steady and lasting progress… The Mother Let us read the following Experience shared by The Mother. Before, I always had the negative experience of the disappearance of the ego, of the oneness of Creation, where everything implying separation disappeared — an experience that, personally, I would call negative. Last Wednesday, while I was speaking (and that’s why at the end I could no longer find my words), I seemed suddenly to have left this negative phenomenon and entered into the positive experience: the experience of BEING the Supreme Lord, the experience that nothing exists but the Supreme Lord — all is the Supreme Lord, there is nothing else. And at that moment, the feeling of this infinite power that has no limit, that nothing can limit, was so overwhelming that all the functions of the body, of this mental machine that summons up words, all this was … I could no longer speak French. Perhaps the words could have come to me in English — probably, because it was easier for Sri Aurobindo to express himself in English, and that’s how it must have happened: it was the part embodied in Sri Aurobindo (the part of the Supreme that was embodied in Sri Aurobindo for its manifestation) that had the experience. This is what joined back with the Origin and caused the experience — I was well aware of it. (https://sanjeevpatra.medium.com/ego-and-how-to-abolish-it-2e257fd164ea ) November 2021 Sunday Activities at the Centre - A glimpse 7 November 2021: Savitri Reading Circle, Savitri: Book 11,Canto One. The Eternal Day; The Soul’s Choice and the Supreme Consummation. In this session the above Canto was meditated upon again with the finishing lines. Glance of Undying Love The prophet moment covered limitless space And cast into the heart of hurrying Time A diamond light of the Eternal’s peace, A crimson seed of God’s felicity; A glance from the gaze fell of undying Love. This prophetic moment spans measureless Space and flings into the heart of speeding Time a pure, impenetrable light of the Eternal’s peace, a fervent-red seed of God’s felicity. From the gaze of the Spirit goes a glance of immortal Love. Golden bars Drawn A wonderful face looked out with deathless eyes; A hand was seen drawing the golden bars That guard the imperishable secrecies. A key turned in a mystic lock of Time. A marvellous face looks out with immortal eyes. A hand is seen pulling back the golden bars which guard the eternal secrecies. A key is turned in a mystic lock of Time. A chapter in cosmic history is closed. Joy and Ecstasy But where the silence of the gods had passed, A greater harmony from the stillness born www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 12 Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego

Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. December 2021 Surprised with joy and sweetness yearning hearts, An ecstasy and a laughter and a cry. Where there had been the silence of the god, greater harmony is born from the stillness and tills yearning hearts with joy and sweetness. There is an ecstasy, a laughter, a cry of joy. Infinite Bliss A power leaned down, a happiness found its home. Over wide earth brooded the infinite bliss. A Power leans down, a happiness finds its home upon earth. An infinite bliss looms and broods over the wide earth. (The above is from M.P. Pandit’s commentary on Savitri from www.collectedworksofsriaurobindo.com) My mind links our attraction to Savitri Legend like Magnet to Iron. Like iron which is exposed to magnetic field aligns their electrons with the flow of magnetic field, which makes the iron magnetised as well, creating an attraction between the two magnetised objects. While reading Savitri, we are connected to our soul’s yearning for that Supreme ecstasy keeping aside our vital and physical needs. 14 November 2021: Reading on The Mother by Sri Aurobindo We read the following section on Mahasaraswati in the book \"The Mother\" by Sri Aurobindo. The Master tells us that there are other great Personalities of the Divine Mother, but they were more difficult to bring down. “There are among them Presences indispensable for the supramental realisation, — most of all one who is her Personality of that mysterious and powerful ecstasy and Ananda which flows from a supreme divine Love. Only when the Four have founded their harmony and freedom of movement in the transformed mind and life and body, can those other rarer Powers manifest in the earth movement and the supramental action become possible. If we desire this transformation, we should put ourselves in the hands of the Mother and her Powers without cavil or resistance and let her do unhindered her work within us. Three things we must have, consciousness, plasticity, unreserved surrender. We should be on our guard and do not try to understand and judge the Divine Mother by our little earthly mind. Our soul should be open to her and be content to feel her with the psychic nature and see her with the psychic vision that alone makes a straight response to the Truth. Then the Mother herself will enlighten by their psychic elements our mind and heart and life and physical consciousness and reveal to them too her ways and her nature.” 21 November 2021: Secret of The Vedas - ‘Agni, the Ilumined Will’ (Rig Veda Madala 1, Sukta 77, 5 Riks)’ From the first session (which started on 15th May 2021), we are studying Sri Aurobindo’s translation and the commentary of the above. During the 5 previous sessions, we have covered 4 of the 5 Riks in detail and what we are left with is the final one. At this stage we realised that it will be beneficial to have a revision of the earlier Riks before taking up the last. In this, Sri Aurobindo has elaborated the higher powers of Agni. As Jataveda he is not confined in his consciousness to limited and physical harmony. He has access even to three highest states of all namely., Divine Being, Consciousness, Bliss – Sacchidanana, to the udder of the mystic Cow – Aditi (Mother of the worlds) and the abundance of the Bull -The Divine Purusha. www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 13 Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego

Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. December 2021 In today’s meeting, we covered the first 3 riks, going through their translation and taking up important Sanskrit words with their meanings. In brief, they are shown as under: Rik 1: How shall we give for Agni, {who is the shining one, who is in mortals immortal, possessor of the Truth, and as Hotar the most strong for sacrifice} and what word acceptable by the gods is spoken? Indeed he forms the gods within us. Agni is: hotā - Priest & Summoner of Gods, yajiṣṭhaḥ - Superb Sacrificer, ṛta-vā – Seer Will & possesses Truth, bhāmine – Light of knowledge & a flame of action, dāśema – Word for sacrificial giving. Distribution of portion of human activities & enjoyments to Cosmic Powers, martyeṣu amṛtaḥ - Precondition of man’s immortality – always present in mortality & shining though some obscured, deva-juṣṭā- Gods have to be created by Agni in the mortal for which a revealing word is needed. Rik 2: He who in the sacrifices is the priest of the offering, full of peace, full of Truth, him verily form in you by your surrenderings; when Agni manifests for the mortals the gods, he also has perception of them and by the mind offers to them the sacrifice. Agni is: adhvareṣu – Priest of the offering & Fecilitator of the journey of Yagna, śhantama ṛtavā - In Veda, there is the same connection, Truth is the way to the bliss, its cause, foundation & support, namo-bhiḥ - by constant submission to Truth & surrenderings we create in ourselves the image of Divine Will, ā kṛṇudhvam – An idea of drawing upon oneself of something outside and working or shaping it out in our own consciousness. Rik-3: For he is the will, he is the strength, he is the effecter of perfection, even as Mitra he becomes the charioteer of the Supreme. To him, the first, in the rich-offerings the people seeking the godhead utter the word, the Aryan people to the fulfiller. Agni is: kratuḥ - Power of conscious Being (Will) effectively working behind our mind & body, maryaḥ- Strong & masculine who pts forth his strength against all assailing powers, inertia, repels every failing of heart, sādhuḥ - A doer of the Yoga & as a divine smith labours at his forge hammering out our perfection, adbhutasya rathīḥ- Becomes the charioteer of the Supreme. Wonderful too fulfilling itself ín the consciousness of another’. Mitra being the lord of “Love & Light” is also such a charioteer. Note: “Love illuminated fulfills the harmony which is the goal of the Divine movement”. 21 November Questions and Answers by The Mother; Reading on Sri Aurobindo’s 5 Dreams We began our reading of the Five Dreams of Sri Aurobindo aired over The All India radio from Thiruchirapally on the eve of Independence Day of 1947. We touched on the third dream this time and expressed our thoughts and feelings on the same We produce the script describing the 2nd and 3rd dream: of Sri Aurobindo (The 2nd and 3rd Dreams) Another dream was for the resurgence and liberation of the peoples of Asia and her return to her great role in the progress of human civilisation. www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 14 Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego

Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. December 2021 Asia has arisen; large parts are now quite free or are at this moment being liberated: its other still subject or partly subject parts are moving through whatever struggles towards freedom. Only a little has to be done and that will be done today or tomorrow. There India has her part to play and has begun to play it with an energy and ability which already indicate the measure of her possibilities and the place she can take in the council of the nations. The third dream was a world-union forming the outer basis of a fairer, brighter and nobler life for all mankind. That unification of the human world is under way; there is an imperfect initiation organised but struggling against tremendous difficulties. But the momentum is there and it must inevitably increase and conquer. Here too India has begun to play a prominent part and, if she can develop that larger statesmanship which is not limited by the present facts and immediate possibilities but looks into the future and brings it nearer, her presence may make all the difference between a slow and timid and a bold and swift development. A catastrophe may intervene and interrupt or destroy what is being done, but even then the final result is sure. For unification is a necessity of Nature, an inevitable movement. Its necessity for the nations is also clear, for without it the freedom of the small nations may be at any moment in peril and the life even of the large and powerful nations insecure. The unification is therefore to the interests of all, and only human imbecility and stupid selfishness can prevent it; but these cannot stand for ever against the necessity of Nature and the Divine Will. But an outward basis is not enough; there must grow up an international spirit and outlook, international forms and institutions must appear, perhaps such developments as dual or multilateral citizenship, willed interchange or voluntary fusion of cultures. Nationalism will have fulfilled itself and lost its militancy and would no longer find these things incompatible with self- preservation and the integrality of its outlook. A new spirit of oneness will take hold of the human race. Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmArQC7wTb4 a video by Auroville on the 5 Dreams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjfhk-P76v0 – Talk by Dr Karan Singh on the speech 28 November 2021: The Inner Journey: Readings and Reflections on The Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s Writings We began the reading of the chapter on Psychic Education found in the book, On Education by The Mother. This chapter gives an overview of the importance of the education of the psychic, quite separate from the mental, vital and physical education we busy ourselves with, if at all we have a so-called holistic approach to education, which typically has seen a heavy reliance upon mental education and that too with an emphasis on memory and some limited reasoning. The chapter on Psychic Education is aimed at teachers and parents who want to awaken in their children an awareness of their inner worlds. Nevertheless, it is a needed book for anyone at all who is in search of his or her psychic being within. We took up the following paragraph and shared our understanding and queries: SO FAR we have dealt only with the education that can be given to all children born upon earth and which is concerned with purely human faculties. But one need not inevitably stop there. Every human being www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 15 Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego

Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. December 2021 carries hidden within him the possibility of a greater consciousness which goes beyond the bounds of his present life and enables him to share in a higher and a vaster life. Indeed, in all exceptional beings it is always this consciousness that governs their lives and organises both the circumstances of their existence and their individual reaction to these circumstances. What the human mental consciousness does not know and cannot do, this consciousness knows and does. It is like a light that shines at the centre of the being, radiating through the thick coverings of the external consciousness. Some have a vague intimation of its presence; a good many children are under its influence, which shows itself very distinctly at times in their spontaneous actions and even in their words. - Jayalakshmi, Ram, Krishnamoorthy, Shailaja, Jayanthy PROGRAMME FOR THE MONTH OF DECEMBER 2021 DATE TIME DETAILS 8 AM Monthly Morning Walk * 5 Dec 2021 Sunday 6 PM Sri Aurobindo’s Mahasamadhi Day 12 Dec 6 PM Readings from The Mother by Ram 2021 Sunday 5 PM Secret of the Veda by Krishnamurthy and Jared 6 PM Mother’s Questions and Answers by Shailaja 19 Dec 2021 Sunday 7 PM Youth Programme 26 Dec 6 PM Readings and Reflections: The Inner Journey by Jayanthy 2021 10.30PM Sunday Readings from Savitri (Limited to 30 persons at centre) 31 Dec 2021 Readings from Prayers and Meditations (Limited to 30 persons at centre) 1 Jan 2022 10.30AM *Details can be found in the SAS Whatsapp Group Commented [MVEERAP1]: Need to update www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 16 Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego

Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego Sri Aurobindo Society, Singapore. December 2021 Printed and Published by The Sri Aurobindo Society of Singapore 2A Starlight Road 01-07, Singapore 217755. Anand Venkat: 86126067 or [email protected]; Anand Patel:[email protected]; Email: [email protected] Visit our website at: www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg www.sriaurobindosociety.org.sg 17 Journeying Within Aids Along the Way: Surrender of the Ego