Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 3)

15

You have asked me: "How to reach my heart-centre? Any practical method for concentration, etc.?"

 

I have rarely concentrated on any point in the body. There is the advice to concentrate in the middle of the chest or the middle of the brows or on the top of the head. I have known Yogic work carried on inside my head but 1 have had no awareness of any particular point. In the early days I was told to imagine an open book inside my chest to encourage and promote a heart-opening. But as I wanted to get away from my old bookish life I did not fancy the advice very much. It must be in consideration of that life that the Mother suggested this practice when I, contrary to what may be expected of a supposed intellectual, asked the Mother insistently for a heart-opening. Whatever opening came in the heart was not due to concentrating on that region but due to a worshipful and devotional approach to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo in the 6-month period between February 21,1928 and August 15 in the same year. That something was going on in the heart-region was clear from the fact that every time I sat down to meditate I felt a pain within my chest. I complained to the Mother about this obstruction. She said: "I know what it is. Don't worry. It will go." One day, suddenly a wall, as it were, broke down and a clear space was experienced, within which there was an outburst of what I can only call a flaming and flowering ecstasy - an almost unbearable self-existent bliss.

Such a psychic opening in full force is not my constant experience, yet an access to the source of the nectar in some form or other has become possible again and again. Here too there is no specific dwelling on any centre: there is only a sense of turning devotedly towards our Gurus and a call to them to shed their grace once more.

Your second question runs: "If possible attend to the lines on p. 59 of Savitri (Birth Centenary Ed.):

Page 161

---

A date is fixed in the calendar of the Unknown,

An anniversary of the Birth sublime:

Our soul shall justify its chequered walk,

All will come near that now is naught or far.

 

What is the significance of fate for us?"

As far as 1 can see, "the Birth sublime" joins up with the reference to "the Incarnate" in the next few lines:

These calm and distant Mights shall act at last. Immovably ready for their distant task, The ever-wise compassionate Brilliances Await the sound of the Incarnate's voice To leap and bridge the chasms of Ignorance And heal the hollow yearning gulfs of Life And fill the abyss that is the universe.

Light is thrown on the date in the Unknown's calendar by some phrases on p. 705:

But when the hour of the Divine draws near,

The Mighty Mother shall take birth in Time...

The incarnate dual Power shall open God's door,

Eternal supermind touch earthly Time.

Surely here are prophecies of the Avatarhood of Sri Aurobindo and of his Shakti, his world-manifesting companion, both of them constituting the "incarnate dual Power" by whom the hitherto hidden Supermind becomes a reality in the spatio-temporal terms of our earth.

I don't know what exactly "anniversary" signifies. It should mean some occurrence of either August 15 or February 21 which would mark a decisive point in the history of the Aurobindonian work in the world. What you term "fate for us" is ultimately linked with that "date".

(3.6.1993)

Page 162

---

You have spoken of your persistent and obsessive fears. You must imagine a great distance and project yourself there to the call of a vast universal sound. Then all fears and anxieties clinging to you will get thinned out and disappear and at the same time be as if offered to the Divine. In a short while what seems enormously afar will start drawing close to you from all directions and enring you with what I can only term a mighty tenderness of touch. You will feel held in the embrace - at once infinite and intimate - of the Divine Mother. A profound peace which will also be vibrant with a deep quiet love will be your sense of your own true self. You will be free from all fluttering of the small human heart and convey a helpful tranquillity to whoever you meet.

Let me add to this spiritual advice a practical piece of common sense: "Fear never robbed tomorrow of its sorrow. It only robs today of its strength." The Mother once wrote to me that fear, rather than being of any help, tends to attract just the trouble we seek to escape.

(7.6.1993)

As regards the life here, what 1 have noticed in particular at present is what I may specify as "A Call from Afar". I hear a faint sound, slightly modulated in its notes, like a wide ring of mysterious enchantment at a great distance which is both of space and of time. There is awakened by it a sense not only reminding me of a question in an early poem of mine -

What visionary urge

Has stolen from horizons watched alone? -

but also bringing to my mind a great phrase from one of Shakespeare's sonnets:

The prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come.

I feel in the life here the promise of a fabulous future on

Page 163

---

this very earth if we can live at present up to the summons by a vastness of being and a subtlety of spirit waiting to be realised, wanting to be welcomed by the In-dweller and Out-seeker in us who is never satisfied by all that is still left gross and misfeatured around us from a past which has not learned to be completely blessed by Sri Aurobindo, not allowed itself to be entirely caressed by the Divine Mother. When I look at the life within me and at the life without, I am struck by so much that has lingered from my pre-Yogic past in the midst of the thinking and feeling and willing and doing that have known the alchemic touch of the two radiant Presences who have pulled us near them from many a distant darkness. Now there is a distant light that is calling, a circle of glorious days yet to be. When I turn my attention outward I hear the beckoning, at once soft and grand, as if from the ends of the earth. When I turn inward, I discern depth beyond depth crying to me for recognition. It is the same mystic OM inducing us to fulfil it wholly in ourselves, leaving no remnant out - fulfil it in our external existence as well as in our internal being. I am aware of how much I fall short of this Totality, this eternally peaceful, infinitely vibrant Perfection. But as long as I am also aware of its constant "Call from Afar", there is hope of God's grace for aspiring me.

(14.6.1993)

It is afternoon now - 3.17 p.m. - and there is utter quiet in my room as I sit at my typewriter and every now and then look up a little and watch through my window the big bunch of leaves just outside it, either hanging entirely still or very softly moving to the most secret whisper possible of what I may call the dazed air - the air through which the high glow of the sun passes with its full gold to me like a warm blessing from a love intense yet gently modulated to my little human heart. And this heart responds as if in a half-drowse, unquestioning, totally confident that I shall be taken care of to the minutest need of the soul.

Page 164

---

The mystic mood is always the same but the mode of its experience varies with the time of the day. In the morning its response is a happy crescendo. A silent self-dedication keeps rising from the eyes as they resume their intimacy with the surrounding scene and then grow into a pair of exploring wings on which the soul lifts itself up into the wide disclosure of the sky through my window. First there is a pale shine, next a faint pink gleam which lays a carpet, as it were, over which a World-Mother's presence sweeps royally towards me to raise me into my highest possibility of inner and outer godhead. My visionary up-soar feels harmonious with what Coleridge in a familiar strain calls the birds' "sweet jargoning" and Meredith in an insightful accent hails as

A voice seraphically free

Of taint of personality.

Going backward, how shall I catch in words the mystic mood at night? It is summed up in that line of Wordsworth:

The silence that is in the starry sky.

There is the feeling of an immense height and this height is seen as communicating with us by means of innumerable vibrating spots of light but everything is filled with an absolute unbreakable silence, at the same time aloof from us and brooding over the little lives that come and go, unlike its own everlasting scintillations. The mystic in me, responding to a distant yet ever-watchful divinity, feels more and more in-drawn as if to get attuned to that godlike farness without by some superhuman farness within until all my heartbeats seem to count the star-thrilled moments of an endless inexpressible Mystery.

Preceding the Yoga of night is the evening's Yoga evoked by the subtle universal Power of which again Wordsworth speaks, the Presence who is interfused with all things but whose interfusion is brought home to us most profoundly by

Page 165

---

the poet when he particularises it by speaking of the secret Being

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns.

One may ask: "Why did the poet refer to setting and not rising suns when the hidden Power is everywhere?" It must be a deep instinct in Wordsworth that made the choice, for here the passage of light is from splendour into secrecy, the bright visible is the guide to the fathomless invisible which is to Wordsworth the trance-goal of all conscious seeking for the divinity pervading the world of the senses. My Yoga at the time of the day's departure is a kind of meditative suspension between the waking state and a state of drowse. Facing a glory-burst before a final fading away I am apt to experience a vivid summons from the Supreme to feel intensely His presence and then pursue it gradually into a recess of the inmost self while still carrying in my eyes a clinging worship of Sri Aurobindo's resplendence and the Divine Mother's radiance.

Please excuse this prolonged discourse on my own mysticism in relation to the passage of the hours in their daily cycle. I just got swept away by the theme of the afternoon's special effect on the mystic in me fused with the poet.

(4.8.1993)

 

Your latest letter has been received. Thanks for the deep love you have for me. I am sure my old heart is sustained from day to day not only by its own urge to love the Divine and the Divine's family but also by the warmth that comes from the Divine's family as well as the Divine's own self.

Last evening a close friend took me by surprise by saying that I am known for the love and peace constantly emanating from my presence. The remark set me looking into myself. Do I really deserve such a compliment? I have spoken of my own urge to love, but 1 don't remember ever cultivating such an

Page 166

---

urge, making an ideal of it. If it has come - and come in some abundance if I am to believe my friend - it has arisen from the state of peace to which my whole being has aspired. But how?

I always had some intellectual detachment. In old controversies I recollect having the sense that I could have put my opponent's point of view better than he had done. There was also the sense that he could not be altogether wrong: there must be a modicum of truth in his stand though he had deviated it in the development of his attitude. To give it full play even while convinced that what I had to say had a greater and wider truth: such was my hope when I pitied him for not putting his case as completely as possible. Along with my own conviction went a sympathy with its opposite and a sort of tenderness towards this opposite's mistaken upholder. Thus the heart came secretly into play together with the mind's open confrontation. And they worked in tandem because my controversy, however forceful, arose from a being in me who stood a little away from the surface launching the argumentative attack. The intellectual detachment of that being was a kind of poised peace with a hidden warmth towards all with whom 1 matched my wits.

When I attempted to practise Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga this special detachment of the intellect began to deepen into an equanimity of the whole nature. The slings of general adverse fortune and the arrows of particular outrages by individuals missed their target. What others might feel as mean acts, movements to hurt or overlook one, produced no effect on me. So there was never any antagonism to anybody. On the contrary there was an endeavour to stand in the shoes of people and extend a friendliness to their troubled minds in order to touch the roots of their cold or angry reactions to me. More than ever before, a calm consideration, a tranquil kindness towards all with whom I came in contact, grew out of my equanimity. When the inmost heart opened to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and began to feel a warm stream of self-giving and a happy glow of devotion, the distance, the standing back, from the surface consciousness, which equa-

Page 167

---

nimity entailed, began to diminish and the hidden presence of the Divine in all came to be caught with a certain vividness which brought a natural insight into their deepest selves and an understanding of the complexes of their personalities. The equanimity now permeated even the outer being and along with it went the touch on others without my getting disturbed, a kind of aerial touch spreading on all sides and carrying an intimacy which at the same time infused peace. Or rather it was the ever-continuing peace which, drawing close to people, passed over them and invisibly caressed them into a condition of echoing peace.

This is how, to the best of my ability, I see myself if 1 am to accept in any degree my friend's description of me. I must, however, add that there have been persons who have disliked me. It is surely necessary for me to look sharply into myself and honestly decide whether there is a substantial source of deliberate nastiness within me or my critics have a streak of perversity in them. Maybe the truth lies in between. In any case the Aurobindonian equanimity demands that I should look on them with peaceful if not also gentle eyes.

Please forgive me for all this long digression. I have noted all the news conveyed in your letter of 27.6.93. There is nothing foolish in your wanting letters from me. Your eagerness only shows how much you value my words, my regard for you. I am so glad my writings in Mother India help to clear away whatever depression comes to you.

(6.7.1993)

You have never been absent from my thoughts. Not only at the Samadhi where you in your wheelchair next to mine are vividly present to my mind, but even at my own flat I often feel you with that brave soft gleam of a smile on your face.

I feel very concerned to read: "Day by day my pains are increasing whereas my tolerance is not able to cope with them." The inconveniences of your life are always before me and I know that you try your utmost to be a true child of our

Page 168

---

Divine Mother in spite of the obstacles in your way which may tend to bring down the consciousness. Our Gurus are aware of your troubles and the hurdles in the way of your spiritual life: they judge not just by what is actually achieved but by the intention and aspiration behind the thing done, however small may seem the achievement. If the prayer to be a perfect child is intense at the back of all actions, they go by that prayer and understand why the apparent result is sometimes small. Their response is proportional to the ideal sincerely aimed at.

Your dream seems to be located in a mixture of planes - a plane close to the physical at times so that your disability is carried over and a plane more inward where your soul takes charge and its powerful draw towards the Lord is independently active, taking you irresistibly into the aura of the Divine Presence. On that inward plane you are not a defective body with a struggling soul but a sheer soul with its own subtle responsive body free of all embarrassments of the material life. The dream begins on this plane, then shifts to the other where you need help, but even the help is a sufficient minimum and it can be dropped at the earliest opportunity. From that moment you are soul-powered and your contact with the Lord is so deep and strong and continuous that it overflows into the outer waking consciousness and you had those marvellous five minutes of utter soul-life in the wakeful state on the physical plane just after the dream. What happened is the promise of a more luminous future than ever before. Try to evoke the atmosphere and the feel of those five minutes and even a faint breath of them will serve to carry you across all the obstacles you may have to meet because of your disability.

Your request for something which has been touched by the Mother or Sri Aurobindo is nothing fantastic or whimsical. And if I can find something 1 shall surely send it. But you must not make a fetish of such things. They shouldn't make you lax about the indispensable inner Presence. Your request makes me recollect an incident connected with

Page 169

---

Champaklal. A devotee from outside the Ashram once asked him if he could be given something touched by the Mother, which he could keep permanently with himself, Champaklal answered: "What about your own head? Hasn't the Mother touched it and isn't it always with you?" He might have punningly added: "Have you lost your head that you give so much importance to outer reminders of the Divine?"

One point I should like to emphasise. Whenever anything goes wrong with your health, don't neglect it. Ask a doctor to see you as soon as possible.

The prayer you have sent me for August 15 is excellent and should be everybody's prayer:

O Supreme Lord Sri Aurobindo!

O Unique and Unsurpassable Mother!

Pranam at Your lotus feet!

Take away, if You like to do so, anything or everything from me but take not or shake not my faith and devotion. I may be a fallen angel but I have fallen at Your Divine Feet. Prick me not further but pick me up and make me live a worthy life, worthy of Your Great Name and the Greatness of Your work.

At this very moment when everything in and around me seems to go from bad to worse, it is then I beg Your Grace and Light to manifest their glory in my whole being!

(10.8.1993)

Page 170

---