Sri Aurobindo once said that for a true resurgence of Indian spirit, the recovery of the old spiritual knowledge and experience in all its splendour, depth and fullness is our first, most essential work. This recovery is not to be confined to intellectual or mental sphere, but it has to become a living force guiding all aspects of our life. The Mother reminds us there are no two separate lives – spiritual life and ordinary life, – thus all life and works are to be taken up in the spirit of sādhanā.
This has been the eternal and inmost significance of Indian spirituality since millennia, and this has to become once again the main inspiring motive-power for a new India – new because it is a rebirth of the timeless Indian spirit. Outer work has true meaning only when it becomes a means to progress inwardly in our consciousness, when it is done as sādhanā, as an offering to the Divine.
For the Sādhanā series in this issue on Progress we highlight a prayer from the Mother’s Prayers and Meditations, which reminds us of the great patience and unwearying benevolence of the Supreme Mother, which keeps lifting up Her children every time they falter and fumble in their path to progress.
~ Beloo Mehra
Alas, sublime Mother, how great must be Thy patience! Each time Thy conscious will attempts to manifest itself in order to rectify errors, to hasten the uncertain progress of the individual led astray by his own illusion of knowledge, to trace the sure path and give him the strength to walk steadily upon it without stumbling, almost always he pushes Thee away as a tiresome and short-sighted adviser. He is willing to love Thee in theory with a vague and inconsistent love, but his proud mind refuses to confide in Thee and prefers to wander all by itself rather than advance guided by Thee.
And Thou repliest, ever smiling in Thy unwearying benevolence: “This intellectual faculty which makes man proud and leads him into error is the very same which, once enlightened and purified, can also lead him farther, higher than universal nature, to a direct and conscious communion with our Lord, with That which is beyond all manifestation. This dividing intellect, which makes him stand apart from me, also enables him to scale rapidly the heights he must climb, without letting his progress be enchained and delayed by the totality of the universe, which, in its immensity and complexity, cannot effect so swift an ascent.”
O Divine Mother, always Thy word comforts and blesses, calms and illumines, and Thy generous hand lifts a fold of the veil hiding the infinite knowledge.
How calm, noble and pure is the splendour of Thy perfect contemplation!
~ November 17, 1914 (CWM, 1: 276)
May we always remember to call in the Mother’s Help every time we stumble on the way. May we rely more and more on Her alone and grow in our inner nearness to Her. May this conscious effort to grow in constant remembrance of Her be our offering into the yajñá for a true rebirth of the Indian soul, a rebirth in which not only the Mind but the entire Life begins to experience the touch of the Spirit.
~ Preface: Beloo Mehra
~ Design: Beloo Mehra and Biswajita Mohapatra
