Ancient memories

India has memories, memories that are ancient.
To be an Indian is to inherit these memories, the memories that are archaic, memories that are stretching beyond birth, beyond death, beyond the current civilization, beyond the current earth, beyond time.
The night is the synonym of sleep, and in sleep we enter the Dream Time, a world of memories and archetypes and the unconscious.
At night comes out the rat, the vehicle of the Lord Ganesh, the elephant headed god. Elephants are known for keeping memories; they are dark like the night, like the uncconscious. In India, all rituals begin with the invocation to the Lord Ganesh, the Vigna Vinayaka, the one who removes obstacles.
Ganesh is the scribe of Vyasa, Vyasa who composed Mahabharata, Vyasa who compiled the Vedas and the Puranas.
Ganesh is also the door keeper of the home of Shiva, the Mahadeva, the Great God, the archetypal man, Pasupati, the lord of the animals. Without obeisance to Lord Ganesh, without his collaboration, without his grace, there is no access to the archaic memories, no access to the world of the archetypes. Riding on the rat, Lord Ganesh traverse his kingdom of the beings of the nether worlds, he is Ganapati, the Lord of the Ganas.
He guards the forts of Pasupati.
Deep in the heart of sleep yogins meet the archetypes, the gods and goddesses on the way to the abode of Shiva, the white one.
Yogins go with Ganesh into the dark infinity sprinkled with stars.
Constellations shows the path to a deathless star from where they have come.
They are called by the Memory.

Surrender

There is an urge within, a call, an unknown something finding its way out, something that seeks vastness, something that seeks delight and freedom. To allow it to emerge one has to listen first of all to one’s own inner depths and the silent whispers that emerge. As you follow the thread the call becomes an animating presence that can move you, set you on motion towards the unknown shores to explore and once you know the inner call you are also sure about the result – the certitude of fulfillment. But you need courage to look deep within and follow the call and learn from mistakes. For there are misleading voices, a world of unknown ranges of being peopled with forces and urges that clamor for your acceptance. In this inner space where a multitude is demanding your attention you have to learn to discriminate the One who leads the way from those who drags you off the path. This cannot be done by an intellectual discrimination one needs the psychic discernment and this demands a quiet and silent mind, a vital being trained to follow the call without exciting passions or revolts, a firm and healthy body ever ready to move on no matter what the demand is. An increasing quiet inner dynamism, a silent joy and gladness, a growing gratitude, these are some of the traits of the inner truth that emerges from within. It is no more your effort; actions are done through you by That which is deep within and above.

Photo by: http://flickr.com/photos/goldenpath/

The flaming guest

The call of man is to exceed himself into the glory of the vast, from the dust to the supreme infinite, from nothingness to his utter fullness. This burns within a fire that never sleeps, a fire that pushes, on an on towards its undisclosed beatitudes. Man, unknowing the flaming guest within, gropes in the dark ambers of his thoughts faint memory. The one who knows is within who cannot rest till the walls are broken and the light breaks out in the ecstasy of delight. Allow the flame to illumine thy mind, allow the fire to burn down thy limitations. For a power beyond thyself works within unknown, a power that knows its course of action, a fire that burns its way through the dark. Therefore fear not the unknown, allow the impeller within to come forward and take the reigns of thy limbs; allow the impeller to come forward and take over thy speech, thy sight, thy hearing and they breath. Let there be silence in thy gaze, let there be silence in thy body, let there be silence in they walk. In the depths of silence burns the fire, the one who knows.
What you seek is within, in the walled chambers of secrecy, a silent flame watches over thy destiny. The seer within is also the impeller of thy march.
Know this as a truth to be known.

Time and the butterfly

Recently one of my friend said “Time is a butterfly” and on hearing this line suddenly I realized that all these years I had been having a wrong relationship with time. Time, I felt, is a tyrant, a merciless power with which I was doomed to struggle for mastery and fail repeatedly. There was never enough time, time was always in short supply and things I wanted to do became a large pile of dreams I had no time to realize. I tried many ways to become efficient, to save time, to do more in less time, to prioritize, to focus on the most important things etc without much success. On hearing that time is a butterfly I could see that I have never looked at time as a playmate. My attitude towards time was of a control freak, I looked at it as a machine to be controlled and used and this insight suddenly released a great deal of tension within me and I could see that time can be a playmate like a butterfly. It is mobile, it keeps moving but it is a play and a play in which I can chase time like child after a butterfly and it can be sheer fun.
Ah! What a freedom and joy!
Now I can see the being behind time, we are going to have great fun!

Settlements in time

“It was done three years ago, in 1991” I was telling a friend about a work I did few years ago.
My friend was little puzzled “In 1991?” she had a confused grin “That’s more than three years!”
It took me few seconds to realize the mistake. I corrected quickly “Sorry, I mean 2001”, an answer that tallied with the calendar.
But I knew there was some truth in what I said first.
Psychologically I felt 1991 pretty close, just three years down the line, 2001 felt as if it is less than one year down the line though I am living in 2004.
It made me ponder over what is happening in my relationship with time.
Initially I thought I have settled somewhere in 1994 like it happens to most people.
Maybe this needs to be explained.
I became acutely aware of the settlements in time when I read “Patterns of the present” by Georges Van Vrekhem. The book was published in the late nineties I guess. The information revolution, cyber culture and open source revolution were well on the way and I was eagerly looking for an aurobindonian perspective on what was happening. But it took me some time to notice that the centre of gravity of the time of the book lay in the revolutions of the 60’s and the 70’s. The book had very little to do with revolutions that were sweeping the globe in late nineties, he had not even really seen it. I told my self “perhaps it is a wrong title”.
It is common to find in Auroville people who live in 60’s and 70’s, they do not really comprehend 2004 except in terms of 60’s and 70’s.

As we grow up somewhere down the line we settle down inwardly, we fail to perceive anything fascinating beyond that point. Passion for life somehow settles around something in the past. We deal with the passing time but not as a participant but more as a wayside observer who is settled somewhere in the past looking at the parade. We no more live in present time, but stay behind in our settlements in time.
Living in the present has many dimensions; sensorial connection with the present is only its physical side, on the psychological side, where are we anchored in time?
From 2004 I can look at 1991 sitting psychologically in 1994.
This is what blew my mind.
Why 1994?
May be because that is the year I quit my profession and became a seeker and those perhaps where the years when I was truly alive.
We have plenty of dead people doing their rounds in Auroville; it is terrifying to see that I am dead since a decade!
I guess it is possible to be reborn without shedding one’s body.
Yoga, it seems is exact opposite of fashion, you go on wearing the same body but rapidly change within.
How does one take rebirth?
Past is like a cocoon, the egg shell.
One has to break it from within.

After my initial wanderings in this direction I realize that there is another way of looking at it.
Time surely is picking up momentum.
My personal time is nearly 3 times faster than what it used to be. So it takes 3 to 4 years of physical time to compose one psychological year!
Ha! That’s a better explanation.
At least my ego is happy.