Pather Sesh Kothay

SUNYATA-EMPTINESS  

Spirit's Freedom

The individual being has to find himself, his true existence; he can only do this by going inward, by living within and from within.

This movement of going inward and living inward is a difficult task to lay upon the normal consciousness of the human being; yet there is no other way of self-finding.
To go inward is to enter into darkness or emptiness or to lose the balance of the consciousness and become morbid; it is from outside that such inner life as one can construct is created, and its health is assured only by a strict reliance on its wholesome and nourishing outer sources,-the balance of the personal mind and life can only be secured by a firm support on external reality, for the material world is the sole fundamental reality.
In all spiritual living the inner life is the thing of first importance; the spiritual man lives always within, and in a world of the Ignorance that refuses to change he has to be in a certain sense separate from it and to guard his inner life against the intrusion and influence of the darker forces of the Ignorance: he is out of the world even when he is within it; if he acts upon it, it is from the fortress of his inner spiritual being where in the inmost sanctuary he is one with the Supreme Existence or the soul and God are alone together.
This inward turning and movement is not an imprisonment in personal self, it is the first step towards a true universality; it brings to us the truth of our external as well as the truth of our internal existence. For this inner living can extend itself and embrace the universal life, it can contact, penetrate, englobe the life of all with a much greater reality and dynamic force than is in our surface consciousness at all possible.
An alternative solution is the development of an enlightened reason and will of the normal man consenting to a new socialised life in which he will subordinate his ego for the sake of the right arrangement of the life of the community.

Koto Dur Aar Koto Dur in Marutirtha Hinglaj - Classic Bengali Movie Songs

English Translation
Mother O Mother We make this tiring journey to rest in your lap. Mother tell us when we shall feel your divinity. When will our souls be purified. How much further, How long to go O Mother. How much further............
We don't fear the darkness as around us we know we will finally be at your feet. How much further, please tell us mother. How much further still.
We have always searched for peace with you. Even if the skies unleash in storm, we shall welcome it with open arms, as we know we shall finally be at your feet.
Whatever sorrows and travails we undergo, we know we shall find shelter at your feet.
Please tell us when we shall be blessed by you. O Mother, how much further to go.

ABOUT SRI AUROBINDO

 

 

 

Sri Aurobindo was a revolutionary, poet, philosopher, writer, and Spiritual Master. Despite his fascinating life he was sceptical of any biographies saying

“ No one can write about my life because it has not been on the surface for man to see.” - Sri Aurobindo from: On Himself

Yet his writings and outer life give a profound glimpse into the life of this unique spiritual master. Sri Aurobindo paved a new approach to yoga, which he termed “Integral Yoga”. Unlike the Yogi’s of old he felt yoga and spirituality need not involve retreating from the world. Sri Aurobindo wished to bring the Divine into all aspects of life. For the last 40 years of his life he worked tirelessly for this goal of bringing down a new spiritual consciousness.

"We are Sons of God and must be even as He."
- Sri Aurobindo

SAVITRI BY SRI AUROBINDO

It was the hour before the Gods awake.
Across the path of the divine Event
The huge foreboding mind of Night, alone
In her unlit temple of eternity,
Lay stretched immobile upon Silence' marge.
Almost one felt, opaque, impenetrable,
In the sombre symbol of her eyeless muse
The abysm of the unbodied Infinite;
A fathomless zero occupied the world.
A power of fallen boundless self awake
Between the first and the last Nothingness,
Recalling the tenebrous womb from which it came,
Turned from the insoluble mystery of birth
And the tardy process of mortality
And longed to reach its end in vacant Nought.
As in a dark beginning of all things,
A mute featureless semblance of the Unknown
Repeating for ever the unconscious act,
Prolonging for ever the unseeing will,
Cradled the cosmic drowse of ignorant Force
Whose moved creative slumber kindles the suns
And carries our lives in its somnambulist whirl.
Athwart the vain enormous trance of Space,
Its formless stupor without mind or life,
A shadow spinning through a soulless Void,
Thrown back once more into unthinking dreams,
Earth wheeled abandoned in the hollow gulfs
Forgetful of her spirit and her fate.
The impassive skies were neutral, empty, still.
Then something in the inscrutable darkness stirred;
A nameless movement, an unthought Idea

THE LIFE DIVINE BY SRI AUROBINDO

The Life Divine explores for the Modern mind the great streams of Indian metaphysical thought, reconciling the truths behind each and from this synthesis extends in terms of consciousness the concept of evolution. The unfolding of Earth's and man's spiritual destiny is illuminated, pointing the way to a Divine Life on Earth. 

Some Extracts from The Life Divine

A perfected human world cannot be created by men or composed of men who are themselves imperfect.
For soul and mind and life are powers of being and can grow but cannot be cut out or made; an outer process or formation can assist or can express soul and mind and life but cannot create or develop it.
All world-existence is manifestation, but our ignorance is the agent of a partial, limited and ignorant manifestation,-in part an expression but in part also a disguise of the original being, consciousness and delight of existence. If this state of things is permanent and unalterable, if our world must always move in this circle, if some Ignorance is the cause of all things and all action here and not a condition and circumstance, then indeed the cessation of individual ignorance could only come by an escape of the individual from world-being, and a cessation of the cosmic ignorance would be the destruction of world-being.

It is here that we must look for the secret of the apparent ignorance of the embodied mental being as well as of the great apparent inconscience of physical Nature. We have to ask ourselves what is the nature of this absorbing, this separating, this self-forgetful concentration which is the obscure miracle of the universe.
This then is the mystery,-how did an illimitable consciousness and force of integral being enter into this limitation and separativeness? how could this be possible and, if its possibility has to be admitted, what is its justification in the Real and its significance? It is the mystery not of an original Illusion, but of the origin of the Ignorance and Inconscience and of the relations of Knowledge and Ignorance to the original Consciousness or Superconsciousness.

As there are Powers of Knowledge or Forces of the Light, so there are Powers of Ignorance and tenebrous Forces of the Darkness whose work is to prolong the reign of Ignorance and Inconscience. As there are Forces of Truth, so there are Forces that live by the Falsehood and support it and work for its victory; as there are powers whose life is intimately bound up with the existence, the idea and the impulse of Good, so there are Forces whose life is bound up with the existence and the idea and the impulse of Evil. It is this truth of the cosmic Invisible that was symbolised in the ancient belief of a struggle between the powers of Light and Darkness, Good and Evil for the possession of the world and the government of the life of man.

Invisible Personalities and Powers that draw man to the divine Light and Truth and Good or lure him into subjection to the undivine principle of Darkness and Falsehood and Evil. Modern thought is aware of no invisible forces other than those revealed or constructed by Science; it does not believe that Nature is capable of creating any other beings than those around us in the physical world, men, beasts, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, germs and animalculae. But if there are invisible cosmic forces physical in their nature that act upon the body of inanimate objects, there is no valid reason why there should not be invisible cosmic forces mental and vital in their nature that act upon his mind and his life-force.

The supreme Shakti or Supernature can work through us and we can be aware of her workings; but it is then by a modification of her light and power so that it can be received and assimilated by the inferior nature of the mind, life and body. But this is not enough; there is needed an entire remoulding of what we are into a way and power of the divine Supernature.
An eternal Truth-Consciousness must possess us and sublimate all our natural modes into its own modes of being, knowledge and action; a spontaneous truth-awareness, truth-will, truth-feeling, truth-movement, truth-action can then become the integral law of our nature.

DARWIN THEORY

The term "human" in the context of human evolution refers to the genus Homo, but studies of human evolution usually include other hominids, such as the Australopithecines, from which the genus Homo had diverged by about 2.3 to 2.4 million years ago in Africa. Scientists have estimated that humans branched off from their common ancestor with chimpanzees about 5–7 million years ago. Several species and subspecies of Homo evolved and are now extinct, introgressed or extant. Examples include Homo erectus (which inhabited Asia, Africa, and Europe) and Neanderthals (either Homo neanderthalensis or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) (which inhabited Europe and Asia). Archaic Homo sapiens evolved between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago.
The dominant view among scientists concerning the origin of anatomically modern humans is the hypothesis known as "Out of Africa", recent African origin of modern humans, ROAM, or recent African origin hypothesis, which argues that Homo sapiens arose in Africa and migrated out of the continent around 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, replacing populations of Homo erectus in Asia and Neanderthals in Europe.

Man is a relatively recent arrival on earth. He has possessed and governed it for less than a thousandth part of its existence. Gigantic reptiles and dinosaurs ruled it for millions of years and might have thought that they would continue for ever. Man today regards himself as the final triumph of biological evolution and has come to stay!

 The same principle is seen in the naturalisation of plants through man's agency in foreign lands. It might have been expected that the plants which have succeeded in becoming naturalised in any land would generally have been closely allied to the indigenes; for these are commonly looked at as specially created and adapted for their own country. It might, also, perhaps have been expected that naturalised plants would have belonged to a few groups more especially adapted to certain stations in their new homes.

 

We have seen that in each country it is the species of the larger genera which oftenest present varieties or incipient species. This, indeed, might have been expected; for as natural selection acts through one form having some advantage over other forms in the struggle for existence, it will chiefly act on those which already have some advantage; and the largeness of any group shows that its species have inherited from a common ancestor some advantage in common. Hence, the struggle for the production of new and modified descendants, will mainly lie between the larger groups, which are all trying to increase in number. One large group will slowly conquer another large group, reduce its numbers, and thus lessen its chance of further variation and improvement. Within the same large group, the later and more highly perfected sub-groups, from branching out and seizing on many new places in the polity of Nature, will constantly tend to supplant and destroy the earlier and less improved sub-groups. Small and broken groups and sub-groups will finally tend to disappear. Looking to the future, we can predict that the groups of organic beings which are now large and triumphant, and which are least broken up, that is, which as yet have suffered least extinction, will for a long period continue to increase. But which groups will ultimately prevail, no man can predict; for we well know that many groups, formerly most extensively developed, have now become extinct. Looking still more remotely to the future, we may predict that, owing to the continued and steady increase of the larger groups, a multitude of smaller groups will become utterly extinct, and leave no modified descendants; and consequently that of the species living at any one period, extremely few will transmit descendants to a remote futurity.

 A bird flies, goes far away; you catch that bird, and examine its legs. You can detect mud in that leg; in the mud you will see some seeds of plants. That mud and the seeds are planted in the earth and they sprout; the bird does not know it. The bird is an instrument of nature for this great diffusion and for the concept of interconnectedness of things in nature.

The Chimney Sweeper by William Blake

The Chimney Sweeper by William Blake

The Lamb by William Blake

The Lamb by William Blake

The Voice of the Ancient Bard by William Blake

The Voice of the Ancient Bard by William Blake

JAMES LEE'S WIFE BY ROBERT BROWNING

VIII.—Beside the Drawing Board

                                III.

Little girl with the poor coarse hand
    I turned from to a cold clay cast—
I have my lesson, understand
    The worth of flesh and blood at last.
Nothing but beauty in a Hand?
    Because he could not change the hue,
    Mend the lines and make them true
To this which met his soul’s demand,
    Would Da Vinci turn from you?
I hear him laugh my woes to scorn—
“The fool forsooth is all forlorn
“Because the beauty, she thinks best,
“Lived long ago or was never born,—
“Because no beauty bears the test
“In this rough peasant Hand! Confessed!
“‘Art is null and study void!’
    “So sayest thou? So said not I,
    “Who threw the faulty pencil by,
“And years instead of hours employed,
“Learning the veritable use
    “Of flesh and bone and nerve beneath
    “Lines and hue of the outer sheath,
“If haply I might reproduce
“One motive of the powers profuse,
    “Flesh and bone and nerve that make
    “The poorest coarsest human hand
    “An object worthy to be scanned
“A whole life long for their sole sake.
“Shall earth and the cramped moment-space
“Yield the heavenly crowning grace?
“ Now the parts and then the whole!
“Who art thou, with stinted soul
    “And stunted body, thus to cry
“‘I love,—shall that be life’s strait dole?
    “‘I must live beloved or die!’
“This peasant hand that spins the wool
    “And bakes the bread, why lives it on,
    “Poor and coarse with beauty gone,—
“What use survives the beauty?” Fool! Go, little girl with the poor coarse hand!
I have my lesson, shall understand.

CHORUSES FROM THE ROCK BY T.S. ELIOT

O Light Invisible, we praise Thee!
Too bright for mortal vision.

O Greater Light, we praise Thee for the less;
We thank Thee for the light that we have kindled,
The light of altar and of sanctuary;
Small lights of those who meditate at midnight
And lights directed through the coloured panes of windows
And light reflected from the polished stone,
The gilded carven wood, the coloured fresco.
Our gaze is submarine, our eyes look upward
And see the light that fractures through unquiet water.
We see the light but see not whence it comes.
O Light Invisible, we glorify Thee!

In our rhythm of earthly life we tire of light. We are glad when the day ends, when the play ends; and ecstasy is too much pain.
We are children quickly tired: children who are up in the night and fall asleep as the rocket is fired; and the day is long for work or play.
We tire of distraction or concentration, we sleep and are glad to sleep,
Controlled by the rhythm of blood and the day and the night and the seasons.
And we must extinguish the candle, put out the light and relight it;
Forever must quench, forever relight the flame.
Therefore we thank Thee for our little light, that is dappled with shadow.
We thank Thee who hast moved us to building, to finding, to forming at the ends of our fingers and beams of our eyes.
And when we have built an altar to the Invisible Light, we may set thereon the little lights for which our bodily vision is made.
And we thank Thee that darkness reminds us of light.
O Light Invisible, we give Thee thanks for Thy great glory!

NIGHT AND THE MADMAN BY KHALIL GIBRAN

“I am like thee, O, Night, dark and naked; I walk on the flaming path which is above my day-dreams, and whenever my foot touches earth a giant oaktree comes forth.”
“Nay, thou art not like me, O, Madman, for thou still lookest backward to see how large a foot-print thou leavest on the sand.”
“I am like thee, O, Night, silent and deep; and in the heart of my loneliness lies a Goddess in child-bed; and in him who is being born Heaven touches Hell.”
“Nay, thou art not like me, O, Madman, for thou shudderest yet before pain, and the song of the abyss terrifies thee.”
“I am like thee, O, Night, wild and terrible; for my ears are crowded with cries of conquered nations and sighs for forgotten lands.”
“Nay, thou art not like me, O, Madman, for thou still takest thy little-self for a comrade, and with thy monster-self thou canst not be friend.”
“I am like thee, O, Night, cruel and awful; for my bosom is lit by burning ships at sea, and my lips are wet with blood of slain warriors.”
“Nay, thou art not like me, O, Madman; for the desire for a sister-spirit is yet upon thee, and thou hast not become a law unto thyself.”
“I am like thee, O, Night, joyous and glad; for he who dwells in my shadow is now drunk with virgin wine, and she who follows me is sinning mirthfully.”
“Nay, thou art not like me, O, Madman, for thy soul is wrapped in the veil of seven folds and thou holdest not thy heart in thine hand.”