Vol. VII, Issue 6
Author: Beloo Mehra
Continued from Part 1
But we must remember that we ARE also given the ability to remember. We are given this because we must remember what we forget. It is this remembrance that takes us back inward. To the inner chambers where all journey is supposed to take us.
And yet we forget to remember, we forget to offer. We forget and we keep forgetting it more and more in our forgetfulness. It is as if we are lost in our own forgetfulness. The journey is long, but it begins as all journeys begin, with the first step. And that first step is remembrance.
Always behave as if the Mother was looking at you; because she is, indeed, always present.1
Sri Aurobindo gives this simple advice.
I find it comforting to look at Mother’s eyes in the little picture I have of her near my bed. I find it relaxing to look at those loving, compassionate and kind eyes before going to sleep. As I keep looking at those eyes, I begin to feel that she is indeed looking at me. I must remember to remember those eyes when I forget to remember Her.
We need something to remember. Those Divine Eyes are what I want to remember.
Her Lotus Feet, that is the other form of Her I find so Beautiful and Divine. I must remember to remember those Beautiful Divine Feet when I forget to remember Her.
An image of ‘offering’ comes to me as I write this. This is what offering should feel like, or to be more precise, should ‘look’ like to the inner eye.
I bring my palms together in the form of a bowl and filling it up with all that I am doing, all that I am feeling and thinking, all that is going on inside me — the chatter, the noise, the effort to silence all this noise and chatter, the struggle between dispersion and concentration, the conflict between impatience and quiet perseverance, the agony of restlessness and the ecstasy of calm quietude, the oppressive pain of too many petty concerns and the liberatory joy of transcending the pettiness and meanness, all this and more and everything else — and in a gesture of pouring them all out of the bowl and offering them all at the Lotus Feet of the Mother.
This concrete act of offering must be performed whenever I can remember. Scooping with my hands everything going on inside and outside, and turning my hands downwards in a gesture of releasing everything. To let go of it all, not keep anything to myself. Offer it all.
Tera tujh ko arpan, kya laage mera
Transl – To You is offered all that is Yours, it costs me nothing.
As one tries to “remember and offer” all that one is doing, all that one is, all that one is feeling or thinking, one also becomes more vigilant of one’s inner and outer movements. This is perhaps what the Mother may have meant when she reminds us:
You must become more and more conscious. You must observe how the thing happens, by what road the danger approaches, and stand in the way before it can take hold of you. If you want to cure yourself of a defect or a difficulty, there is but one method: to be perfectly vigilant, to have a very alert and vigilant consciousness.
It becomes a persistent, calm prayer to the Divine that the Divine may grant us the constant vigilance, persistent will and sincerity to remember the Divine and to remember to offer all of ourselves to the Divine.
Someone who has been longer on the path once told me that if we can “remember and offer” even once every hour, it is tremendous inner progress. So remembering and offering every moment is a goal much, much farther away. But why even that becomes difficult?
Because one gets absorbed in one’s outer activities. Or one gets ‘sucked in’ by the energy of the work presently occupying one’s attention. Or it may be the energy of the emotions one is experiencing, or of the thoughts floating around in one’s mind or sensations one is feeling.
As a result of this total possession by all these non-stop continuous externalities, there is hardly any moment left to remember. And as possessed beings we walk around assuming that we are being ‘productive’ or we are ‘actively engaged’ or we are ‘not sitting idle’. How comforting ignorance can be!
But here is a cue, a little ray of hope for travelers on the path. Who is the ‘one’ that ‘gets’ absorbed or sucked in? Doesn’t it suggest that that the ‘one’ getting absorbed is actually separate from the activities, emotions, thoughts, sensations which do the absorbing? That ‘one’ is not one’s emotions, actions, feelings or thoughts?
It is because of the mighty Avidya one aligns oneself with these outer movements of activities, thoughts, emotions, etc., and forgets that the part that is the ‘one’ can be separated, is in fact separate from whatever it is that is being experienced or felt or done. And it is this ‘one’ that can — with constant and persistent vigilance — begin to develop a humble practice of remembering the Divine while outwardly engaged or occupied by feelings, thoughts, emotions, actions.
In time, with Mother’s Grace, the practice will begin to settle in. With inner remembrance will also come a feeling of calmness and a sense of objective or somewhat detached involvement in the outer actions, thoughts and emotions.
At the beginning remembrance may not come every hour. It may not come every two hours. But perhaps once or twice while one is ‘busy’, a little something (the ‘one’ perhaps?) begins to make itself heard — hey, you, the busy bee, aren’t you forgetting something? Remember. Remember. Remember.
So the journey begins, with first step, a sure step.
“Remember and Offer,” Remember to Offer — a simple practice at the heart of all sincere prayer and call to the Divine. Remember the Divine, Offer the Remembrance also to the Divine.
May be to “remember and offer” is to express one’s soul’s gratitude to the Mother for what she is and does for all of us at all times …
Notes
- This message of Sri Aurobindo was first hung in the dining hall of the Ashram on 28 March 1928. ↩︎
~ Design: Beloo Mehra
