7th April 2012
Language : Hindi
Duration : 53 Minutes
File Size : 50 MB
Format : MP3 (128kbps)
Spiritual
literature, especially writings that describe some kind of mystic or spiritual
experience are often subtle and profound. When grasped by coarse minds they are
often misunderstood. The reason is that first and foremost what is being
described is an experiential state, an experience that
transcends the mind and its limited reasoning that moves in fixed groves of
nature between dualities of good and bad, right and wrong, virtue and vice.
These dualities are required for our human evolution upto a certain point. But
spiritual consciousness takes us beyond the realm of the mind and its divisive
understanding of life. It is a vast All-comprehending Consciousness that not
only contains but beautifully and harmoniously reconciles all that appears to
our divisive mind irreconcilable opposites. Sri Aurobindo describes this
beautifully through several passages in Savitri. For example:
The grooves
that turn their dumb ellipse in space
Ploughed by
the seeking of the world’s desire,
The long
regurgitations of Time’s flood,
The torment
edging the dire force of lust
That wakes
kinetic in earth’s dullard slime
And carves
a personality out of mud,
The sorrow
by which Nature’s hunger is fed,
The oestrus
which creates with fire of pain,
The fate
that punishes virtue with defeat,
The tragedy
that destroys long happiness,
The weeping
of Love, the quarrel of the Gods,
Ceased in a
truth which lives in its own light.
His soul
stood free, a witness and a king.
Absorbed no
more in the moment-ridden flux
Where mind
incessantly drifts as on a raft
Hurried
from phenomenon to phenomenon,
He abode at rest in indivisible Time.
SAVITRI, Book One, Canto Three. Page 33
All
spiritual literature bids us to rise above the three gunas, that is Tamas,
Rajas and Sattwa. The Gita in fact not only bids us to rise above the three
gunas but also declares the possibility of a free divine action in the world
while the soul is stationed in the trigunatita state of consciousness. But
while it is easier for the human mind to understand the necessity of discarding
the tramoguna and rajoguna, it is very difficult for it to shake off the
sattwic bonds. They are like golden shackles around our feet unlike the iron
and silver chains that the other two gunas represent. Our intellectual pride,
our sense of moral superiority, our feeling of righteousness prevent us from
going beyond this state. This is what is meant symbolically by the story of the
gopis whose last robe is taken away by the Divine trickster Sri Krishna so that
the soul may stand in utter nudity before the Divine Friend and Master without
the covering of virtue and vice.
Here
in this beautiful poem by the legendary Tamil mystic poet and revolutionary
Shri Subramanya Baharati, we have a
sweet and touching narration of how Kannan 9another name for Sri Krishna) comes
to the learned poet feigning to become his disciple while teaching him the
subtle ways of the Spirit and the need of surrender of all pride, intellectual,
moral and spiritual to realize the inner Divinity and follow His Voice and do
His Works in the world. The poem, Kannan
my Disciple, was published in the January 1988 issue of Mother India
(from the original tamil). We are unable to post the rather long poem here
right now.
Another
beautiful poem of Sri Aurobindo written in Bengali and translated by Nolini da
in English is being reproduced below that shows the two seemingly opposite
moods of Sri Krishna and how our minds living in dualities and covered by many
veils of illusion and delusion is unable to see God’s play in this world. Hope
the two poems will be a delightful feast for the soul and the deeper heart in
us :
A Bengali Poem by Sri Aurobindo
FRIEND! you
received the mystic touch of love and your
gentle heart fell into error!
A high desire caught you in the meshes of Sannyasa!
A mighty effort isKrishna , the eternal
Emanation:
Dharma is fallen in the whirl of adharma in this age of Kali!
Vainly you find fault with the Path and blame it.
You cannot understand my violent purpose:
A slave of ignorance, of sattva (Light) mixed with tamas
Or else even in this violent act you could recognise your dearest friend,
Recognise Krishna. You .understand Radha,
Him you did not understand. Whenever he sees the Earth
besieged by the Asura,
He always comes down shaking the unshakeable;
He turns round his spear and hurls it head foremost into the
hidden bottom of the ocean.
You understand the Flute, you understand Vrindavan,
You have not understood the killing of Kamsa, you have not
understood the war of Kurukshetra.
You are a perfect Vaishnava, you chant hymns to Buddha.
But Vishnu and Rudra are one body, they are only different limbs ―
Have you forgotten it? Have you forgotten that the very fount of kindness
And the cruel slayer Kalki are one and the same Incarnation?
Kanu withdraws the violent Kalki-mood within his bosom
And kneels down at the feet of Radha.
The plenitude of kindness is kept imprisoned within the Mother's heart,―
Demoness, Titaness, Ogress - all their brood run riot in wild strife.
This Buddhist cult was created in illusion and delusion
Forbearance has made the spirit sluggish, compassion filled it with affliction —
It has no ardent yearning for the good of the world,
It wields no sword of knowledge to cut down ignorance,
Its humbleness makes it void of energy and its laziness empty of substance,
Proud of its shaven pate and an inflated belly
This is not Buddha's spirit. He is free from illusion,
He is calm and tranquil, he is a supreme ascetic of iron will, he is a mighty hero;
Trampling friendship and riches on his path, he is wholly given to his mission,
He never turns aside,-he goes on, his eyes fixed on his journey.
This Vaishnava path, its heart melting in pity,
Full of slothful compassion, feeble and withdrawn from life,
The body always lolling lazily, the mind stricken with kindness, —
Drunk with the wine of spiritual lust, this unheroic Dharma
Declares that it worships the world-hero Krishna
And in act and word tramples upon his Word
and his Dharma,
Speaks always of kindness and love,
Has emptied real Kindness and Love of its burning truth―
Nor is it Chaitanya's path. He is mighty and steadfast:
Intense love, intense forbearance, free from tamas, heroic,
He is the Fair-Body (Gauranga), child of the Effulgence
(Sachi).
Have you not seen the ocean?
The Supreme God himself in hiding as though: layer
after layer a mass
Immobile, bottomless, still, stretching beyond sight,
The blue immeasurable dancing upon it.
The ripples laugh and weep, - the huge waves
Fall at the feet of the Earth and kiss in playful moods.
But that delightful play of the ocean
Could never be if a deep foundation
Unmoved, unplumbed, secreted, is not held firm
By the great Ocean, conscious within, the expanse incommensurable,
In its self-luminous darkness, silent and alone.
In this mighty stillness the dance-drama goes on.
And again, hast thou not seen when lashed by the gale
Fierce unbridled it springs up miles after miles?
Roars the wild ocean, relentless, bourneless.
Endless cruelty embodied, expanse of wrath
Laughs covering the sky. Deafened with roars,
Scattering raucous cry and lion-growls lie the heartless Ocean ―
Boats sink, men sink. Does it hear the weepings,
Maddened with the relentless play in the embrace of the wind?
This is another game, another dance, another note,
This kiss is other - still is the same ocean.
WouId you say then, some demon
Laughs this terrible laughter, hurls this cry and call?
Who is this titan? Whose this imperious tyranny
In the guise of a play? Whose this ruthless embrace?
You know well this Rakshasa. Look well again,
The maids of Vraja recognise in Vraja His flute.
In vain you say the evil is man's creation;
In vain you say cruelty is titan's fancy.
This violent cruel play is His
Whom you call the God of Kindness, the God of Love.
Why does he do so, why does he revel in this violent battle,
gentle heart fell into error!
A high desire caught you in the meshes of Sannyasa!
A mighty effort is
Dharma is fallen in the whirl of adharma in this age of Kali!
Vainly you find fault with the Path and blame it.
You cannot understand my violent purpose:
A slave of ignorance, of sattva (Light) mixed with tamas
Or else even in this violent act you could recognise your dearest friend,
Recognise Krishna. You .understand Radha,
Him you did not understand. Whenever he sees the Earth
besieged by the Asura,
He always comes down shaking the unshakeable;
He turns round his spear and hurls it head foremost into the
hidden bottom of the ocean.
You understand the Flute, you understand Vrindavan,
You have not understood the killing of Kamsa, you have not
understood the war of Kurukshetra.
You are a perfect Vaishnava, you chant hymns to Buddha.
But Vishnu and Rudra are one body, they are only different limbs ―
Have you forgotten it? Have you forgotten that the very fount of kindness
And the cruel slayer Kalki are one and the same Incarnation?
Kanu withdraws the violent Kalki-mood within his bosom
And kneels down at the feet of Radha.
The plenitude of kindness is kept imprisoned within the Mother's heart,―
Demoness, Titaness, Ogress - all their brood run riot in wild strife.
This Buddhist cult was created in illusion and delusion
Forbearance has made the spirit sluggish, compassion filled it with affliction —
It has no ardent yearning for the good of the world,
It wields no sword of knowledge to cut down ignorance,
Its humbleness makes it void of energy and its laziness empty of substance,
Proud of its shaven pate and an inflated belly
This is not Buddha's spirit. He is free from illusion,
He is calm and tranquil, he is a supreme ascetic of iron will, he is a mighty hero;
Trampling friendship and riches on his path, he is wholly given to his mission,
He never turns aside,-he goes on, his eyes fixed on his journey.
This Vaishnava path, its heart melting in pity,
Full of slothful compassion, feeble and withdrawn from life,
The body always lolling lazily, the mind stricken with kindness, —
Drunk with the wine of spiritual lust, this unheroic Dharma
Declares that it worships the world-hero Krishna
And in act and word tramples upon his Word
and his Dharma,
Speaks always of kindness and love,
Has emptied real Kindness and Love of its burning truth―
Nor is it Chaitanya's path. He is mighty and steadfast:
Intense love, intense forbearance, free from tamas, heroic,
He is the Fair-Body (Gauranga), child of the Effulgence
(Sachi).
Have you not seen the ocean?
The Supreme God himself in hiding as though: layer
after layer a mass
Immobile, bottomless, still, stretching beyond sight,
The blue immeasurable dancing upon it.
The ripples laugh and weep, - the huge waves
Fall at the feet of the Earth and kiss in playful moods.
But that delightful play of the ocean
Could never be if a deep foundation
Unmoved, unplumbed, secreted, is not held firm
By the great Ocean, conscious within, the expanse incommensurable,
In its self-luminous darkness, silent and alone.
In this mighty stillness the dance-drama goes on.
And again, hast thou not seen when lashed by the gale
Fierce unbridled it springs up miles after miles?
Roars the wild ocean, relentless, bourneless.
Endless cruelty embodied, expanse of wrath
Laughs covering the sky. Deafened with roars,
Scattering raucous cry and lion-growls lie the heartless Ocean ―
Boats sink, men sink. Does it hear the weepings,
Maddened with the relentless play in the embrace of the wind?
This is another game, another dance, another note,
This kiss is other - still is the same ocean.
WouId you say then, some demon
Laughs this terrible laughter, hurls this cry and call?
Who is this titan? Whose this imperious tyranny
In the guise of a play? Whose this ruthless embrace?
You know well this Rakshasa. Look well again,
The maids of Vraja recognise in Vraja His flute.
In vain you say the evil is man's creation;
In vain you say cruelty is titan's fancy.
This violent cruel play is His
Whom you call the God of Kindness, the God of Love.
Why does he do so, why does he revel in this violent battle,
Freedom from maya is the price you have to pay to know Keshava,
When we see good in evil in the creation,
In cruelty kindness, then there is liberation.
All feelings break down, all sins die,
Free dweller in infinity moves the soul.
None belongs to none, everyone is His,
In the flow of life and death the world play moves on ceaseless.
The master of the play, the master of Energy,
the Supreme God in the Universe
He is one with the infinite Consciousness,
vibrating with Delight.
When we see good in evil in the creation,
In cruelty kindness, then there is liberation.
All feelings break down, all sins die,
Free dweller in infinity moves the soul.
None belongs to none, everyone is His,
In the flow of life and death the world play moves on ceaseless.
The master of the play, the master of Energy,
the Supreme God in the Universe
He is one with the infinite Consciousness,
vibrating with Delight.
- Sri Aurobindo