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.

Rhythms of Being

Existence is not a machine,
Neither a classical Newtonian one
Nor a quantum soup version.

There is the Being behind the Existence;
The rhythms of Being are not
Endless mechanical repetitions,
Reproducible automations,
Caught in a formula.
The Being is free to change its rhythm anytime;
If there is a mystery it is of the Being;
There is dance, dancer and the play.

Movement
Time / Astrology / Astrophysics
Numbers / Mathematics / Physics / Science
Measurement / Poetic metres / Poetry
Ideas / Philosophy / Language
Word / Meaning / Consciousness
Music / Dance / Art

At the heart of it all
There is Delight.

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.

The Monster

A fire spitting dragon is within me;
Its intense passion flares burns me down
And I am afraid of birth, a new birth
That recast me again and again
Into a new self I am yet to know.
I am afraid of the unknown and
The violence of death, of the dragon,
I am trembling in this knowledge
Of what I behold within me, dreadful.
Yet the monster is here to stay
And I am here to let him lose
To see the beast in daylight
So that I may discover behind the mask,
Behind the flaming wrath, behind
Rudra’s thundering might, the ruthless
Love of Lord disguised, compelling
Me to birth, through his smithy’s
Forging anvil strength, his brutality
A lover’s clasping hands of intense
Passion, a world of whirlwind dance,
A volcanic ecstasy, a tornado;
And in its core of dare devil dance
Lurks the witness, the silent spectator
Of the drama of life, the growing godhead.

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!

Krishna’s feather

In my heart is a presence sweet and gentle
Healing the pains I have quietly shelved.
A small pea cock feather’s soothing touch
In my gladness reveals the joy of love.

Triplets

Knowledge | Power | Love

Truth | Goodness | Beauty

Satyam | Shivam | Sundaram

Sat | Chit | Ananda

Being | Consciousness | Bliss

Brahma | Shiva | Vishnu

Creator | Destroyer | Sustainer

Aspiration | Rejection | Surrender

Love

I am bathing in love, all alone.

My body a breeze of harmony

Breathe a mist of white calm

Glides along a valley’s bloom.

A storm in my heart

O fool, how long do you want me to serve your cowardice,
How long this slavery to please those who will never be pleased,
In freedom have I born and in freedom shall I grow,
My growth towards the sun is an ecstasy of the winds and the rays
Kissing my cheek, fearless one, that I am, you know me not;
Sink deep into your silence to find me, to embrace me and to dance with me.
O forerunner, fear not the future, fear not the consequence,
Follow your heart to the extreme of love’s calling,
In love alone burns the fire of adventure, in love alone
Lives the freedom of creative engine, fear not O’ fool
Fear not to dive deep into the abyss, in the shores of safety
You shall never find the ways of the gods, in the cocoons of protection
You shall never find the mighty wings of adventure,
Fear not, O child of immortal memories, fear not,
Fly across the abyss, dive deep into the ocean,
Cut across the rocks, you shall find the streams of joy,
Gushing forth amidst the thunder and fall of a failing world
That breathes its last calculated breath devoid of life.
Enjoy the ride of freedom, the horse of mighty winds
Shall be thy companion, the wings of ancient memories
Shall carry you forward into future where the sacred
Heart of the universe pulsates with longing for your return.
O child, a mother’s heart is upon thy heart, bound by
The bonds of sweetness, bonds of utter felicity,
Cry not in this abyss, walk across the waste land
Waste your time not with the passion flares and the
Illusions of change, in this world of titanic clash,
Avoid the loud and the gross, dive deep into quietness
In the chambers of dim-lit white marble secrecy
You shall find thy soul awaiting thy hour of delight.

Hotline

Halooo….
Yes, what’s up?
Is that God?
Of course, who else can it be? Don’t you recognize my voice?
Sorry Sir, I wasn’t sure, we have a problem here.
What is new about it, you guys are always in trouble.
No, Sir, this time it is damn serious, we have messed up the whole earth.
Yes, I know.
We are all going to die.
Yes, I know.
You mean you know about it and still sitting doing nothing? What kind of a God are you?
Well, first of all you don’t believe in me; it is not a sign of scientific temperament, right?
That’s true, our Science is based on solid reason, logic and precise mathematics.
Then why on earth you have this mess?
Well, our scientists are investigating the issue.
Then what am I supposed to do?
Sir, please, try to understand, it is getting worse day by day.
What? The investigation or the mess?
Both, we need your help Sir, please save us.
How can I help people who doesn’t even believe in my existence?
Sir, please don’t be emotional, I am talking to you, that proves that you exist.
Ok, well said, continue.
If you help us to clean up the mess, I am sure everyone will believe in you.
You mean, I am crying for your bloody belief in me? C’mon kids, have some mercy for me.
Sir, for thousands of years we have fought wars to protect our belief in you, made thousands of temples for your residence, can’t you see, we have always believed in you.
Well, that’s true, but you guys have such horrendous believes; you want my left hand to kill the right hand. It is terrible.
Sorry Sir, that’s old story, we no more believe in religions, we are into spirituality, the real thing.
What’s that?
We believe that the earth is a living thing, we have even given her a name ‘Gaya’ and we are into deep ecology, depth psychology, etc
Definitely that’s good, but why go only deep and down, why not up and high?
Sir, we do send rockets.
Rubbish, I don’t mean that space junk, I mean ecology and psychology of heights.
No, Sir, we are not yet there, most of us suffer from vertigo.
That’s fine, now tell me, what can I do for you in practical terms?
We know that you are in good terms with Indians, and according to them, when ever there is a crisis on earth you will take birth and save us from the crisis. It’s bit childish but still we are looking into this possibility.
You mean the tenth Avatar, Kalki?
Exactly, you got it.
You see, there are already at least a dozen of them on earth.
But they are fake.
They have millions of followers, I don’t think I have a chance.
Sir, we will market you, we have a whole army of advertising professionals who can make people believe in anything.
For example?
We can sell refrigerators to the Eskimos.
Then why don’t you use these marketing professionals to make people clean up the mess on earth?
Well, it is not that simple, first of all we made heavy advertisements to make them buy thousands of consumer goods which they don’t need; they are buying it whole heartedly. Now asking them to consume less is difficult, they can’t stop, they are addicted to it. To make it worse our economy needs consumers, without more and more people buying things our economy cannot grow and make money to invest in saving the planet. You see, it is a chicken and egg situation.
You mean you need money to save the planet?
Yes Sir, absolutely.
So, in short, you are proposing me to be the biggest businessman on earth?
Oh, No! That is not what I meant.
But the logic of your arguments implies that.
Sir, you are reading between the lines, I just want you to save us.
Suppose I am ready to save you guys and take birth on your planet, what am I supposed to do? Become a sweeper to clean up all that junk ? Or a trade union leader to stop the industries from producing the junk? Or a politician who will anyway get shot?
No Sir, there are enough people doing that, we should find some other way.
What if I become an enlightened old man?
Sir, by the time you take birth on earth and become an old man the earth will be dead and gone. We need an immediate solution, there isn’t much time left, the global warming is picking up, pollution levels are unbearable, forest coverage is disappearing rapidly, biodiversity is shrinking everyday, more and more nations are becoming dangerously developed and voraciously consuming; it is terribly urgent.
I see, I can’t play the old man, you are right. Unfortunately that is the role I know very well and many of you guys knows how to recognize. What if I have already taken birth and saved the planet? That will solve the problem of time.
What?
What if I have already saved the planet ?
But…well…how does it work?
You guys can investigate the last century and discover that I have already saved the planet.
Are you kidding? Sir, it is life and death for us, please don’t make fun of us.
Oh boy, you just don’t understand, I can work in the past, present or future because I am outside your Time.
I don’t believe this.
You never believed in me anyway.
Sir, I am nervous.
Yes, that’s the problem. Can’t you at least just relax? It will be a great support for my work.

(And the God hung up the line)

The Bride

A radiant stroke of beauty and delight kindling the sacred fire,
He is no more the same, the one who is caught by her glance.
Marveled by her fleeting glimpse, he rush forward to behold,
The forms that wore the rays, like a child after fireflies.
Once caught he finds her forms empty of delight and the fire he sought;
An eternal game of hide and seek repeats for ever its joyous rounds.
Calling back the luminous memory he is set on a mission;
He combs the forest, climb the mountains, dive deep into the oceans,
He counts the stars and the sand, theorize the universe and explain
Everything but finds her no where, an unknown, missing for ever.
He learns the scriptures and the sacred chants, shun the mind and it’s
Humming markets and become the empty vast nothingness;
He helps the poor, clean the streets, and build cities and empires,
Only to find the quest left bare empty of her delight lost for ever.
Hopeless he gives up the quest and relax for a while on a little raft
Floating beneath the stars in the silent bosom of the Ganges;
His breath one with the winds and thoughts silent as the stars,
Listening to the distant cry of the crickets and the splashing life,
He sinks deep into himself into his body’s throbbing density.
Merging deep into the ocean oneness, the silent stillness beneath,
He discovers the nearness of honeycomb sweetness, a silent joy,
A luminous smile, a crystal stream of pure joy embracing all,
A flowering radiance of the one whom he sought found within.

Relationships

Relationship is all that is there in creation.
Physics says there are only electrons, protons and neutrons and the entire set of chemical elements are nothing but unique relationships between these three basic units. When a neutron establishes bonding with a proton and an electron we get the first and the most simple form of matter, the hydrogen atom. There is nothing called hydrogen without this relationship. Change the relation by adding few more basic units we get some other chemical elements. Atoms are special relationships betweens subatomic particles. There are only very few subatomic particles but they can give birth to a large number of unique atoms based on certain laws of bonding. In the next level atoms can form bonds between them to give birth to infinite number of molecules. Charcoal is one type of relationship between carbon atoms but when the same carbon atoms relate in a different way we get diamond. The only difference between charcoal and diamond is the way carbon atoms are forming bonds between them.

A living cell is a set of relationships between various molecules; the property called life emerges in that special type of bonding. These living cells bond together in various ways to express innumerable life forms. The human form is a result of a very complex set of relationships. A human being may appear to be an independent entity but it is in fact a complex society in itself. What we know as ourselves is a set of experiences and their memories appearing to be confined in a human body. The idea of me or I constantly evolves as we constantly add new experiences to our collection or as we establish new relationships or even by reorganizing existing relationships. Our sense of I is identified with a set of memories, we cannot erase these memories but we can modify how we relate to these memories.

The Nature evolves through relationships, through union, through yoga. But the yoga of Nature is unconscious and extremely slow. In the human vessel the Nature wakes up and ask questions.
What am I? Where am I? Who am I? Why am I? How am I?
This is a threshold.
After this stage evolution is a conscious process and the first task is look at oneself as an object and understand what is the relationship between I and this body, these emotions, these memories, these knowledge, these people, these environments etc.

You have arrived.

Ownership and misery

Recently I came across a young man who was suffering from guilt. He had a good job which he gave up for the sake of a better one but unfortunately the new job failed to come through at the last moment. Now he is jobless and his parents are supporting him financially. But he feels miserable and guilty for living on his parents’ money.

What is the cause of this suffering? An answer came to me today while exploring the first line of ‘Esavasya Upanishad’ which goes like this:

Sanskrit:
Esavasyam idam sarvam yet kim cha jagatyam jagat
Tena tyaktena bunjeetha ma ghritha kasya sviddhanam.

English translation by Sri Aurobindo:
All this is for habitation by the Lord, whatsoever is individual universe of movement in the universal motion. By that renounced thou shouldst enjoy; lust not after any man’s possession.

Conceptually we know that the universe in its creative unfolding is emerging out of one fundamental force, we know that there is only one energy that diversify into multitudes, we know that there is only one life that animate all that is living, there is only one Self behind innumerable selves, there is only one Being behind the multitude of beings.

This universal Being or Self is here seen as the Lord who inhabits all what so ever. All wealth belongs to the Lord of the universe, not to you. Therefore renounced you should enjoy.

We do not own the sun or the sunrise, yet it is wonderfully enjoyable to watch the sunrise; so is the blue sky and the cloud formations, so is the starlit sky and the moonlight, so are the wind and the rains. We do not own the air we breathe, the air that animates me goes forth to animate something else and goes further from life form to life from, from nation to nation animating the whole world. It is a universal energy animating all that moves.

Money too is a universal force animating the mankind. The force behind money does not require metallic coins or paper notes or electronic means to move from one place to other. However mankind has structured its movement through material and electronic means so that it can be measured, owned, controlled and manipulated. Mankind is struggling to master this force through these devices and yet the lordship eludes all the attempts, systems burst and crumble over time.

However for a short while one has the illusion that this is my money or this is my parents’ money or my neighbor’s money. We have this urge to own, to be the master, the lord. Borrowing money from someone is to surrender one’s lordship, to become a slave. Slavery is dreadful and one struggle to gain lordship over not only money but also of all the forces of Nature. Story of man is filled this struggle.

The deeper truth is that all wealth belongs to the Lord of the universe but we cannot see this truth as long as we live in the limitations of the ego. Ego is the boundary condition that separates one from the other, ego divides everything into mine and not mine which an illusion of the limited perception. All suffering comes from this division. The sense of ownership is an illusion of the ego.

Our young man suffers from guilt because he is bound by the limited idea of ownership even when the money is coming through his parents.

Does anyone feel guilty for breathing all the time? No, because no one owns the air. When the ownership is introduced the struggle and wars are bread as consequences. The idea of ownership and attachment breads suffering.

Everything belong the Lord of the universe who inhabits and animates all that moves. What comes to you comes from the Lord of the universe, what goes out from you goes out to the Lord of the universe.

Therefore renounced thou shall enjoy says the Upanishad.

Changing within

One has two sides, inside and outside, subjective and objective.
There is a world outside, an objective world perceived through the senses.
There is also a world inside, a subjective world of desires, impulses, imaginations, dreams, thoughts, concepts, ideas, beliefs, faith etc.
One can observe both the worlds but one knows only a small part of both the worlds. Most people know more about the world outside than the world inside them because by habit their attention is locked on to the world outside.
The world outside flows in through the senses and every sensory inflow invokes a response in the world inside. This may be awakening of a memory, an emotion, a thought, an impulse etc and this response manifests in speech and act which will affect the world outside.
Outside flows in and modified the inside; the inside flows out and modifies the outside.
These interactions are largely unconscious and mechanical, but they can be made conscious and creative.
For example:
Encountering a snake may activate shrinking and knee jerk reactions whenever one encounters a snake. A snake in the objective world produces a set of reaction patterns in the world inside causing repeating physical responses. Normally these reaction patterns are largely unconscious and mechanical.
Now to solve the snake problem one can attempt to change the situation outside or the situation inside. Changing outside world may be in the line of eliminating all the snakes from the world or living in a snake free area etc. Changing the inner world involves observing one’s inner reaction patterns and bringing conscious control over them. As the inner responses are modified one’s response to snake encounters also undergo change. One may even find encounter with snakes as a means to know one’s inner response patterns. What was once a repulsive creature is now an opportunity to know and master oneself. Snake may even become a topic for inner research and one may even master them in the world outside!
One is no more trying to run away from or eliminate snakes.
A problem is transformed into a means for inner growth.
All the problems one encounters in the outer world are like this snake; they are opportunities for inner growth.
The way we perceive the outer world and its effects on us depends largely on the reaction pattern within us. We can modify our perceptions by becoming conscious of the mechanical and conditioned inner responses and modifying them. By thus changing inside we can achieve greater mastery in the world outside.
The key is within.

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.

Word Sacrifice

Words can melt you
Words can set you ablaze
Words can chill you to death
Means of immense power.

Effect of word is immediate
Bright or dark the face change
Mirroring the inner flame
The radiant power of being.

Words are let loose often
Into the altar unconsciously
Driven by ignorance
Leaving behind a dead flame.

Speech can be sacrifice
Not a struggle to win
Nor a weapon to blast
But fuel for the flame.

To know the art of sacrifice
The flame should be seen
In the altar of the other
And offer words as oblations.

It is by Word sacrifice is done
It is by Word the flame is lit
It is by Word the flame is grown
It is by Word we ascend.

* * * * *

ps. The word 'Sacrifice' is used in the sense of 'Yajna' a sanskrit word for sacred fire ritual in which oblations are offered to the fire lit in an altar.