Sadhana
(Sri Aurobindo:) “Yoga is union with the Divine, sadhana is what you do in order to unite with the Divine.”[1]
(Sri Aurobindo:) “It is true that each being is an instrument of the cosmic Shakti, therefore of the Mother. But the aim of the sadhana is to become a conscious and perfect instrument instead of one that is unconscious and therefore imperfect. You can be a conscious and perfect instrument only when you are no longer acting in obedience to the ignorant push of the lower nature”[2]
(Amal Kiran to a group of students:) “You see, to seek the Divine we do not have to go far. He dwells within ourselves. He is as near and natural as our own heart. His flute is always playing there. And hearing it there I found that Yoga was not at all an unusual thing to do. However young you may be, you can always get in touch with the Divine's luminous presence. And indeed the story of Brindavan where Sri Krishna lived and fluted is a story of young people. Sri Krishna himself was very, very young and young too were those who went after him. Most of them were girls. When I look around now, I see that most of you are young girls and thus to talk of seeking the Divine is quite apt on this occasion.
How to get more and more in touch with the Supreme Indweller is the whole business of sadhana. If you ask me what is the simplest way, I shall quote to you three words of the Mother – “Remember and offer.” Wherever you are, whatever you do, you can always think of the Divine, and you can always make an offering of yourself and your doings. There is nothing too small, too trivial to be offered. Suppose I put this walking stick of mine in some place. Well, even that action can be and should be a gesture of offering. The inward movement has to be – “I am giving my stick to you, O God.” To take in everything into the practice of offering is to make Yoga an integral part of your life.
It is not by cutting yourself off from people or by shutting out activity and locking yourself up in an impenetrable Samadhi that you meet the Divine. Yoga means being in touch with the Divine's presence every minute. It is an all-time job, as Sri Aurobindo has often said.
And, if you live out the Mother's formula of remembering and offering, you will feel that something is awakening in you. Soon you will feel as if a bright nectar were welling in your heart and flowing everywhere in your body. The whole of you will feel perpetually blessed and everything you lay your hands on will appear to you as if it were receiving blessedness. What awakens in you is – to use Sri Aurobindo's phrase – ‘the psychic being’, the true soul in you. This soul is a part of the Divine and has come with its spark of divinity into the substance of matter to lead through birth after birth the evolution of life and mind in a material form. It is this soul that links us to the Divine dwelling within ourselves. And I may tell you that to experience the true psyche in us is not only sheer bliss but a bliss that is self-existent, independent of object, circumstance or person. That is because it comes from the Divine Ananda that is infinite Existence and Consciousness. Once the true psyche has been touched, we lose the taste for other enjoyments. All other enjoyments become dust and ashes. Owing to our habitual attachments we may still go in for them, but now we know their absolute inferiority.
It would be wonderful to live all the time in the great golden sense of the psyche. If we could do so, we should not have to do to anything to convey to people that there is something in spirituality. When Vivekananda was asked how one was to know whether a man had realised God, he answered, “His very face will shine.” Then, of course, there would be no need to talk – as I am doing now. The Mother precisely referred to the psychic being – which she called “the Divine incarnate deep within” – when she was questioned how we should show the reality of the Ashram life to visitors who are expected in thousands on the Birth Centenary of Sri Aurobindo next year. She said we should live that reality – and the way to live it is to commune with the psychic being. All else, talking, etc., is useless, she added.
Perhaps the only use of talking is to point to the necessity of going beyond all talk and being the self-expressive light of the soul.”[3]
- ↑ Letters on the Mother, p.135
- ↑ Ibid., p.243
- ↑ Amal Kiran & Nirodbaran, Light and Laughter: Some Talks at Pondicherry, p.109
See also