नया साल

ये किसकी आहटे हैं ये किसकी दस्तके हैं
महमाँ ये कौन है जो सबको लुभा रहा है
चिमनी से ये निकलता- कोहरा है जो धुऐ अें का
पीछे खड़ा है इसके नया साल जिन्दगी का ।

खिड़की के पट पे चन्दा यूं झिलमिला रहा है
आते हुऐ समय की राहें सजा रहा है
कजरारे बादलों पर सन्देशा अा रहा है
थमता नही थमाये नया साल आ रहा है ।

पेड़ो की डालियों पर लड़ियां तुषार की हैं 
िकृसमस की रौशनी में झिलमिल चमक रही हैं
हौली की झाड़ियों पर ये आफताबी गुच्छे
स्वागत में ज्यों किसी के मोती टंगे हुऐ हैं ।

ये शबनमी फिजा है और सर्द हैं हवायें
सपनो भरी नशीली है रात भी रंगीली
बर्फीली चादरों में अगंड़ाइ ले रहा है
थमता नही थमाये नया साल आ रहा है ।

ओढ़ी थी जिसने कल तक इक चुनरी धानी रंग की
श्वेताम्बरी बनी है वसुधा शरत िऋतु की
ये आिशयां सजा है नये साल की खुशी में
पर जश्न करने वालो पीछे तो मुड़ के देखो
एक साल जिन्दगी का चुपके से जा रहा है ।
थमता नही थमाये नया साल आ रहा है ।

नया साल अाप सबको शुभ हो ।
सविता त्यागी
१२.११.२०११

A Day Of Thanksgiving

Thanks for beautiful blue skies of Oklahoma.

Thanks for fragrant air silently filling the garden.

Thanks for colorful fall leaves

Swirling and dancing through air even in their demise

The smell of earth enveloped with scent of life still emitting from fallen leaves.

Thanks for crisp afternoon sunshine filtering through bare trees.

Thanks for little birds’ morning chorus-

Busy squirrel’s ritual of nibbling on acorns and depositing some underground.

Thanks for my ears and my eyes to be able to watch this wondrous sight.

Thanks for my family and friends.

Most of all thanks for this happy state of mind receptive to the simple joys of the day.

I need not know whom to thank-

It is enough to know that I have so much to be thankful for.

This Dark Half Of Mine

This dark half of mine

Its black lava floating through my spine

Burning with fierce intensity everything coming along its way

Its leaping tongue of flame ready to devour me whole

Exhausted in my efforts to escape, I do surrender to it

And watch helplessly as it commands my better half to kneel.

The struggle that goes on within

The storm that I weather constantly

Yet, something keeps telling me this fight is not new

And its ending is never in sight either

But if I could distance myself just for a moment

And not get involved with either side

The broken self starts to cement itself

The flames subside

The black lava starts to disappear

A ray of sunshine baths everything

Under the shade of hope, a new happy self is born again.

Savita Tyagi

Placid Waters

In placid waters my thoughts and me ambling together

Hand in hand, separating occasionally

Like a ramp coming out of highway only to merge down the lane.

In my sleep I sense myself engaged in long cadence

Shrouded with aphasia.

In the morning I am left only with a lambent feeling

Of being with somebody

While the consciousness of solitude

Takes over my whole being.

Hello! I am alone again

Just my thoughts and me.

The Purpose of Avatar hood

(Excerpts from Shree Aurobindo's letters written to his disciples.)

I 

Surely for the earth-consciousness the very fact that the Divine manifests himself is the greatest of all splendours.Consider the obscurity here and what it would be if the Divine did not directly intervene and the Light of Lights did not break out of the obscurity - for that is the meaning of the manifestation.An incarnation is the Divine Consciousness and Being manifesting through the body. It is possible from any plane.It is the omnipresent cosmic Divine who supports the action of the universe; if there is an Incarnation, it does not in the least diminish the cosmic Presence and the cosmic action in the three or thirty million universes.The Descending Power (Avatar) chooses its own place, body and time for the manifestation. The Avatar is necessary when a special work is to be done and in crises of the evolution. The Avatar is a special manifestation while for the rest of the time it is the Divine working within the ordinary human limits as a Vibhuti. 

Avatar hood would have little meaning if it were not connected with the evolution. The Hindu procession of the ten Avatars is itself, as it was, a parable of evolution. First the Fish Avatar, then the amphibious animal between land and water, then the land animal, then the Man-Lion Avatar, bridging man and animal, then man as dwarf, small and undeveloped and physical but containing in himself the godhead and taking possession of   existence, then the rajasic, sattwic, nirguna Avatars, leading the human development from the vital rajasic to the sattwic mental man and again the over mental superman.Krishna, Buddha and Kalki depict the last three stages, the stages of the spiritual development - Krishna opens the possibility of over mind, Buddha tries to shoot beyond to the supreme liberation but that liberation is still   negative, not returning upon earth to complete positively the evolution; Kalki is to correct this by bringing the Kingdom of the Divine upon earth, destroying the opposing Asura forces. The progression is striking and unmistakable.As for the lives in between the Avatar lives, it must be remembered that Krishna speaks of many lives in the past, not only a few supreme ones, and secondly that while he speaks of himself as the Divine, in one passage he describes himself as a Vibhuti, vrisnînâm vâsudevah. We may therefore fairly assume that in many lives he manifested as the Vibhuti veiling the fuller Divine Consciousness. If we admit that the object of Avatar hood is to lead the evolution, this is quite reasonable, the Divine appearing as Avatar in the great transitional stages and as Vibhutis to aid the lesser transitions.I was of course dealing with the ten Avatars as a “parable of the evolution”, and only explaining the interpretation we can put on it from that point of view.I only took the Puranic list of Avatars and interpreted it as a parable of evolution, so as to show that the idea of evolution is implicit behind the theory of Avatar hood. Whether the Divine in manifesting his Avatar hood could choose to follow the line of evolution from the lowest scale, manifesting on each scale as a Vibhuti is a question again to which the answer is not inevitably in the negative. If we accept the evolutionary idea, such a thing may have its place.Krishna is not the supramental Light. The descent of Krishna would mean the descent of the over mind Godhead preparing, though not itself actually, the descent of super mind and Ananda. Krishna is the Anandamaya; he supports the evolution through the over mind leading it towards the Ananda.One can be the head of a spiritual organization or the Messiah of a religion or an Avatar without in this life reaching the super mind and beyond.But each being in a new birth prepares a new mind, life and body - otherwise John Smith would always be John Smith and would have no chance of being Piyusha Kanti Ghose. Of course inside there are old personalities contributing to the new life - but I am speaking of the new visible personality, the outer man, mental, vital, physical. It is the psychic being that keeps the link from birth to birth and makes all the manifestations of the same person. It is therefore to be expected that the Avatar should take on a new personality each time, a personality suited for the new times, work, surroundings. In my own view of things, however, the new personality has a series of Avatar births behind him, births in which the intermediate evolution has been followed and assisted from age to age. 

An Avatar, roughly speaking, is one who is conscious of the presence and power of the Divine born in him or descended into him and governing from within his will and life and action; he feels identified inwardly with this divine power and presence.A Vibhuti is supposed to embody some power of the Divine and is enabled by it to act with great force in the world, but that is all that is necessary to make him a Vibhuti: the power may be very great, but the consciousness is not that of an inborn or indwelling Divinity. This is the distinction we can gather from the Gita, which is the main authority on this subject.If we follow this distinction, we can confidently say from what is related of them that Rama and Krishna can be accepted as Avatars; Buddha figures as such although with a more impersonal consciousness of the Power within him. Ramakrishna voiced the same consciousness when he spoke of Him who was Rama and who was Krishna being within him. But Chaitanya's case is peculiar; for according to the accounts he ordinarily felt and declared himself a bhakta of Krishna and nothing more, but in great moments he manifested Krishna, grew   luminous in mind and body and was Krishna himself and spoke and acted as the Lord. His contemporaries saw in him an Avatar of Krishna, a manifestation of the Divine Love.Shankara and Vivekananda were certainly Vibhutis; they cannot be reckoned as more, though as Vibhutis they were very great. 

II 

There are two sides of the phenomenon of Avatar hood, the Divine Consciousness and the instrumental personality. The Divine Consciousness is omnipotent but it has put forth the instrumental personality in Nature under the conditions of Nature and it uses it according to the rules of the game - though also sometimes to change the rules of the game. If Avatar hood is only a flashing miracle, then I have no use for it. If it is a coherent part of the arrangement of the omnipotent Divine in Nature, then I can understand and accept it. 

* * *

I have said that the Avatar is one who comes to open the Way for humanity to a higher consciousness - if nobody can follow the Way, and there is no possibility of following because of the conceptions that the struggles and sufferings of the Avatar are unreal and all humbug, and there is no possibility of struggle for one who represents the Divine. Such a conception in my opinion makes nonsense of the whole idea of Avatar hood; there is then no reason in it, no necessity in it, no meaning in it. The Divine being all-powerful can lift people up without bothering to come down on earth. It is only if it is a part of the world-arrangement that he should take upon himself the burden of humanity and open the Way that Avatar hood has any meaning.The Avatar is not supposed to act in a non-human way - he takes up human action and uses human methods with the human consciousness in front and the Divine behind. If he did not his taking a human body would have no meaning and would be of no use to anybody. He could just as well have stayed above and done things from there. 

As for the Divine and the human, that also is a mind-made difficulty. The Divine is there in the human, and the human fulfilling and exceeding its highest aspirations and tendencies becomes the Divine. When the Divine descends, he takes upon himself the burden of humanity in order to exceed it - he becomes human in order to show humanity how to become Divine. But that cannot be if there is only a weakling without any divine Presence within or divine Force behind him - he has to be strong in order to put his strength into all who are willing to receive it. There is therefore in him a double element - human in front, Divine behind - and it is that which gives the impression of unfathomableness. If you look upon the human alone, looking with the external eye only and not willing or ready to see anything else, you will see a human being only - if you look for the Divine, you will find the Divine.It is impossible for the limited human reason to judge the way or purpose of the Divine, - which is the way of the Infinite dealing with the finite.It is not by your mind that you can hope to understand the Divine and its action, but by the growth of a true and divine consciousness within you. If the Divine were to unveil and reveal itself in all its glory, the mind might feel a Presence, but it would not understand its action or its nature. It is in the measure of your own realization and by the birth and growth of that greater consciousness in yourself that you will see the Divine and understand its action even behind its terrestrial disguises.An Avatar or Vibhuti have the knowledge that is necessary for their work, they need not have more. There was absolutely no reason why Buddha should know what was going on in Rome. An Avatar even does not manifest all the Divine omniscience and omnipotence; he has not come for any such unnecessary display; all that is behind him but not in the front of his consciousness. As for the Vibhuti, the Vibhuti need not even know that he is a power of the Divine. Some Vibhutis like Julius Caesar for instance have been atheists. Buddha himself did not believe in a personal God, only in some impersonal and indescribable Permanent. Men's way of doing things well is through a clear mental connection; they see things and do things with the mind and what they want is a mental and human perfection. When they think of a manifestation of Divinity, they think it must be an extraordinary perfection in doing ordinary human things - an extraordinary business faculty, political, poetic or artistic faculty, an accurate memory, not making mistakes, not undergoing any defeat or failure. Or else they think of things, which they call superhuman like not eating food or telling cotton-futures or sleeping on nails or eating them. All that has nothing to do with manifesting the Divine.... These human ideas are false.The Divinity acts according to another consciousness, the consciousness of the Truth above and the Lila below and It acts according to the need of the Lila, not according to man's ideas of what It should or should not do. This is the first thing one must grasp; otherwise one can understand nothing about the manifestation of the Divine.

The Divine is in essence omnipotent, he can be omnipotent anywhere - whether in the supra mental or anywhere else. Because he chooses to limit or determine his action by conditions, it does not make him less omnipotent. His self-limitation is itself an act of omnipotence....
Why should the Divine be tied down to succeed in all his operations? What if failure suits him better and serves better the ultimate purpose? What rigid primitive notions are these about the Divine! Certain conditions have been established for the game and so long as those conditions remain unchanged certain things are not done, - so we say they are impossible, can't be done. If the conditions are changed then the same things are done or at least become licit - allowable, legal according to the so-called laws of Nature, and then we say they can be done. The Divine also acts according to the conditions of the game. He may change them, but he has to change them first, not proceed, while maintaining the conditions, to act by a series of miracle. The manifestation of the Divine in the Avatar is of help to man because it helps him to discover his own divinity and find the way to realize it. If the difference is so great that the humanity by its very nature prevents all possibility of following the way opened by the Avatar, it merely means that there is no divinity in man that can respond to the Divinity in the Avatar. 

* * * 

I repeat, the Divine when he takes on the burden of terrestrial nature, takes it fully, sincerely and without any conjuring tricks or pretence. If he has something behind him which emerges always out of the coverings, it is the same thing in essence, even if greater in degree, that is behind others - and it is to awaken that that he is there....The psychic being does the same for all who are intended for the spiritual way - men need not be extraordinary beings to follow it.As for conventional morality, all morality is a convention - man cannot live without conventions, mental and moral, otherwise he feels himself lost in the rolling sea of nature. Only by rising above mind can one really get beyond conventions - Krishna was able to do it because he was not a mental human being but an over mental godhead acting freely out of a greater consciousness than man's. Rama was not that, he was the Avatar of the sattwic mind - mental, emotional, and moral - and he followed the Dharma of the age and race. 

 Vibhuti, Avatar are terms which have their own meaning and scope, and they are not concerned with morality or immorality, perfection or imperfection according to small human standards or setting an example to men or showing new moral attitudes or giving new spiritual teachings. These may or may not be done, but they are not at all the essence of the matter. An Avatar has to be taken as a whole in the setting of that particular time to give a divine meaning to its personality, deeds and works. If it is pulled out of it’s setting and analyzed under the dissecting knife of a modern ethical mind, it loses all its significance at once. Krishna so treated becomes a debauchee and trickster who no doubt did great things in politics - but so did Rama in war. Achilles and Odysseus pulled out of their setting become, one a furious egoistic savage, and the other a cruel and cunning savage. I consider myself under an obligation to enter into the spirit, significance, and atmosphere of the Mahabharata, Iliad, and Ramayana and identify myself with their time-spirit before I can feel what their heroes were in themselves apart from the details of their outer activities. 

An Avatar is not at all bound to be a spiritual prophet - he is never in fact merely a prophet, he is a realize, an establisher - not of outward things only, though he does realize something in the outward also, but, as I have said, of something essential and radical needed for the terrestrial evolution which is the evolution of the embodied spirit through successive stages towards the Divine. It was not at all Ram’s business to establish the   spiritual stage of that evolution - so he did not at all concern himself with that. His business was to destroy Ravana and to establish the Rama-rajya - in other words, to fix for the future the possibility of an order proper to the sattwic civilised human being who governs his life by the reason, the finer emotions, morality, or at least moral ideals, such as truth, obedience, co-operation and harmony, the sense of domestic and public order, - to establish this in a world still occupied by anarchic forces, the Animal mind and the powers of the vital Ego making its own satisfaction the rule of life, in other words, the Vanara and Rakshasa. This is the meaning of Rama and his life work and it is according as he fulfilled it or not that he must be judged as Avatar or no Avatar. It was not his business to play the comedy of the chivalrous Kshatriya with the formidable brute beast that was Bali, it was his business to kill him and get the Animal under his control. It was his business to be not necessarily a perfect, but a largely representative sattwic Man, a faithful husband and a lover, a loving and obedient son, a tender and perfect brother, father, friend - he is friend of all kinds of people, friend of the outcast Guhaka, friend of the Animal leaders, Sugriva, Hanuman, friend of the vulture Jatayu, friend of even Rakshasa Vibhishana. All that he was in a brilliant, striking but above all spontaneous and inevitable way, with a certain harmonious completeness. But most of all, it was his business to typify and establish the things on which the social idea and its stability depend, truth and honour, the sense of Dharma, public spirit and the sense of order. To the first, to truth and honour, much more than to his filial love and obedience to his father - though to that also - he sacrificed his personal rights as the elect of the King and the assembly and fourteen of the best years of his life and went into exile in the forests. To his public spirit and his sense of public order (the great and supreme civic virtue in the eyes of the ancient Indians, Greeks, Romans, for at that time the maintenance of the ordered community, not the separate development and satisfaction of the individual was the pressing need of the human evolution) he sacrificed his own happiness and domestic life and the happiness of Sita. In that he was at one with the moral sense of all the antique races, though at variance with the later romantic individualistic sentimental morality of the modern man who can afford to have that less stern morality just because the ancients sacrificed the individual in order to make the world safe for the spirit of social order. Finally, it was Rama's business to make the world safe for the ideal of the sattwic human being by destroying the sovereignty of Ravana, the Rakshasa menace. All this he did with such a divine afflatus in his personality and action that his figure has been stamped for more than two millenniums on the mind of Indian culture, and what he stood for has dominated the reason and idealizing mind of man in all countries, and in spite of the constant revolt of the human vital, is likely to continue to do so until a greater ideal arises. You may dethrone him now - for man is no longer satisfied with the sattwic ideal and is seeking for something more - but his work and meaning remain stamped on the past of the earth's evolving race. When I spoke of the gap that would be left by his absence, I did not mean a gap among the prophets and intellectuals, but a gap in the scheme of Avatar hood - there was somebody who was the Avatar of the sattwic Human as Krishna was the   Avatar of the over mental Superman - I can see no one but Rama who can fill the place.Spiritual teachers and prophets (as also intellectuals, scientists, artists, poets, etc.) - these are at the greatest Vibhutis but they are not Avatars.  

The unconscious Avatar--As for the unconscious Avatar, why not? Chaitanya is supposed to be an Avatar by the Vaishnavas, yet he was conscious of the Godhead behind only when that Godhead came in front and possessed him on rare occasions. Christ said, “I and my father are one”, but yet he always spoke and behaved as if there were a difference. Ramakrishna's earlier period was that of one seeking God, not aware from the first of his identity. These are the reputed religious Avatars who ought to be more conscious than a man of action like Rama. And supposing the full and permanent consciousness, why should the Avatar proclaim himself except on rare occasions to an Arjuna or to a few bhaktas or disciples? It is for others to find out what he is; though he does not deny when others speak of him as That, he is not always saying and perhaps never may say or only in moments like that of the Gita, “I am He.” 

* * * 

 I start from the standpoint that ancient Avatars except Buddha were not either standards of perfection or spiritual teachers in spite of the Gita which was spoken, says Krishna, in a moment of supernormal consciousness which he lost immediately afterwards. They were, if I may say so, representative cosmic men who were instruments of a divine Intervention for fixing certain things in the evolution of the earth-race.
If you follow my line and don't insist on a high specifically spiritual consciousness for the Avatar. I shall point out what I mean by it.

By sattwic man I do not mean a moral or an always self-controlled one, but a predominantly mental (as opposed to a vital or merely physical man) who has rajasic emotions and passions, but lives predominantly according to his mind and its will and ideas. There is no such thing, I suppose, as a purely sattwic man - since the three gunas go always together in a state of unstable equilibrium. In my view Rama was a predominantly sattwic man and that is the value that Valmiki was conveying in Ramayana.By the way, a sattwic man can have a strong passion and strong anger - and when he lets the latter loose, the normally vicious fellow is simply nowhere. My own view is that Rama was not unconscious of his Avatar hood, only uncommunicative about it.  Chaitanya also for the first part of his life was simply Nimai Pandit and had no consciousness of being anything else. Then he had his conversion and became the bhakta Chaitanya. This bhakta at times seemed to be possessed by the presence of Krishna, knew himself to be Krishna, spoke, moved and appeared with the light of the Godhead - none around him could think of or see him as anything else when he was in this glorified and transfigured condition. But from that he fell back to the ordinary consciousness of the bhakta and, as I have read in his biography, refused then to consider himself as anything more. These, I think, are the facts. Well, then what do they signify? Was he only Nimai Pandit at first? It is quite conceivable that he was so and the descent of the Godhead into him only took place after his conversion and spiritual change. But also afterwards when he was in his normal bhakta-consciousness, was he then no longer the Avatar?  The rational explanation for this is that in the phenomenon of Avatar hood there is a Consciousness behind, at first veiled or sometimes perhaps half-veiled, which is that of the Godhead and a frontal consciousness, human or apparently human or at any rate with all the appearance of terrestriality which is the instrumental personality. In that case, it is possible that the secret Consciousness was all along there, but waited to manifest until after the conversion and it manifested intermittently because the main work of Chaitanya was to establish the type of a spiritual and psychic bhakti and love in the emotional vital part of man, preparing the vital in us in that way to turn towards the Divine - at any rate, to fix that possibility in the earth-nature. It was not that there had not been the emotional type of bhakti before; but the completeness of it, the élan, the vital's rapture in it had never manifested as it manifested in Chaitanya. But for that work it would never have done if he had always been in the Krishna consciousness; he would have been the Lord to whom all gave bhakti, but not the supreme example of the divine ecstatic bhakta. But still the occasional manifestation showed who he was and at the same time evidenced the mystic law of the Immanence. But, if Chaitanya, the frontal consciousness, the instrumental personality, was all the time the Avatar, yet except in his highest moments was unconscious of it and even denied it, that pushed a little farther would establish the possibility of what you call an unconscious Avatar, that is to say, of one in which the veiled consciousness might not come in front but always move the instrumental personality from behind. 

* * * 

Conscious or unconscious, the value of Avatar hood depends on what value we attach to spiritual experience and to the data of other planes of consciousness, other than the physical, as also on the nature of the relations between the cosmic consciousness and the individual and collective consciousness of man. From the point of view of spiritual and occult Truth, what takes shape in the consciousness of man is a reflection and particular kind of formation, in a difficult medium, of things much greater in their light, power and beauty or in their force and range which came to it from the cosmic consciousness of which man is a limited and, in his present state of evolution, a still ignorant part. 

* * * 

For the human mind it is difficult to get across the border between mind and spirit without making a forceful rush or push along one line and that must be some line of pure experience.          
 It is also a fact that nobody can give you any spiritual realization which does not come from something in one's true Self, it is always the Divine who reveals himself and the Divine is within you; so He who reveals must be felt in your own heart. 

* * * 

The inner fruit of Avatar’s coming is gained by those who learn from it the true nature of the divine birth and divine works and who, growing full of him in their consciousness and taking refuge in him with their whole being, purified by the realizing force of their knowledge and delivered from the lower nature, attain to the divine being and divine nature. 

Note- These excerpts have been taken from Shree Aurobindo’s letters on Yoga – Part 1 section 7. In creating a shorter version I have omitted many pages. Other then that a very little editing was done to maintain the thought current and flow of language.

For a full version follow the link below.

in SABCL, volume 22, pages 401-430
published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Pondicherry
diffusion by SABDA

Savita Tyagi

Shree Aurobindo-Few Sketches In Yoga And Total Surrender

For some time I have been reading a book ‘Sri Aurobindo for all ages’ by Nirodbaran. A fascinating biographical account of Sri Aurobindo’s life by his disciple who had the great privilege of serving him as his literary secretary for twelve years and had even longer association through correspondence. I just finished reading it recently and as fate would have it, I was called upon by one of my friend to give a talk on Sri Aurobindo for his birthday celebration at our temple. Since the book was still fresh in mind I decided to share couple of interesting events of his life that throw some light on his spiritual journey, from the time of learning Yoga to faith and total surrender to divine will. I hope my Blog readers would enjoy these excerpts from the book and short description of these events and would some time think of reading Shree Aurobindo’s life history and writings in more detail.

Shri Aurobindo was born on August 15, 1872 in Calcutta. From about age five onwards his schooling was done in England. He was a brilliant student throughout school and college years, excelled in Greek and Latin and received many honors and scholarships. He was barely ten when he composed his first poem. His scores were one of the highest in I.A.S. written exams. Still instead of taking his final exam of Horse riding required for I.A.S. he spent whole day wandering alone on the streets of London. Probably in his heart he already had decided to serve not English government of India but to work for service and freedom of his motherland.

After living in England for fourteen years, it is not surprising that when he returned to India he did not have much knowledge of Indian culture or languages let alone the Indian spirituality and Yoga, precisely the work for which destiny had chosen him. Yet very quickly he started mastering many Indian languages along with culture and religion.

Here I want to take you to this little incident that exposed him to Yoga.

After returning to India he started working with the Gaekwad of Baroda. At the same time he was taking a keen interest in India’s freedom movement. His brother Barin while traveling across India for freedom movement work contracted a ‘hill fever’, a violent and almost incurable disease and had to return to his brother’s home at Baroda. It just happened that a Naga Sanyasi visited them and looking at Barin inquired about his condition. Upon learning of his illness he asked for a glass of water then muttering some mantra he cut the water crosswise and asked Barin to drink it. ‘Tomorrow fever will leave you’ he predicted and truly it did. A fever that had persisted for days disappeared as if by magic!

About this striking incident Shree Aurobindo later wrote, “ This was a first hand proof of yoga-power. I thought- if yoga has such power, why not use it for the country’s sake?”

Before taking up yoga he made his prayer to God: “ If you do exist, you know my mind. You know I don’t care for my liberation; what others want has no attraction for me. I want power so that I may raise this country and serve my dear countrymen.”

As one can see from the beginning his yogic sadhana was not for giving up on world but to help and uplift others. There was no conflict in his heart between the world of action and practicing of spiritual life. With each passing day he gained new heights in his spirituality. It enveloped not only his fellow countrymen but also the whole humanity and life of world. Shree Aurobindo himself has stated that the very principle of his Integral Yoga is ‘not only to realize the Divine and attain to a complete spiritual consciousness, but also to take all life and all world activity into the realm of this spiritual consciousness and to base life on it and give it a spiritual meaning’.

In his quest for spirituality eventually he moved away from politics and worked towards the service for humanity. As he progressed in his realization of cosmic consciousness he gave himself in total surrender to Divine Will. The following incident is a small example of how his guidance came from Supreme and how he trusted it.

This was the year 1910. By this time besides being a nationalist leader Shree Aurobindo had also gained prominence as an inspiring spiritual writer. His articles were printed in various magazines. Some of those magazines like Bandemataram, Dhrama and Karmayogin were launched and edited by him. While the country was inspired by his writings the British government considered them threat to their authority and seditious in nature.

On January 24, 1910, Deputy Superintendent of Police Intelligence Department was shot on the steps of Calcutta High Court. On one evening of February while Shree Aurobindo was at Karmayogin’s office in Calcutta with his associates the news of his arrest warrant came from a trusted source. There was a tense moment of silence all around. Shree Aurobindo felt his calling and said calmly that he will go to Chandranagar.

He was in Chandranagar in hiding for about six weeks while intensive government search was going on for him. Chandranagar was too close to Calcutta and his associates were struggling with various plans to send him somewhere else. All this time he was plunged entirely in solitary meditation. Then one day he heard the voice “ Go to Pondicherry”. So strong was his faith and surrender to divine guidance that without any hesitation he made his decision to go to Pondicherry.

The story of plans leading to his escape is very interesting. Things did not go exactly as were planned. The boats, one that brought Shree Aurobindo from Chandranagar to Agar Para ghat (dock) and the one that started from other ghat to bring him back to Calcutta for the boarding of ship headed for Pondicherry failed to make connection with each other. This created a panic and a grave danger to his safety while he waited in a carriage and his associates of planning tried frantically to straighten the things out. But all this delay turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Instead of getting his health certificate at ship where there were police men, something that planner had overlooked he received it at Doctor’s home and instead of boarding the ship at regular hours he boarded it late at night when policemen on duty had already left. By the time police started making inquiries in to the whereabouts of two people with late boarding record the ship had already reached to Pondicherry.

 Going back to those events one feels as if it was the intervention of an unseen hand that corrected all the wrongs in planning and landed him safely at Pondicherry by controlling all the happenings. During that turbulent night of escape when nothing was going right one of his helper later wrote: ‘my mind was restless as I sat with Aurobindo in the carriage worrying about where others were. But he whose safety was causing me so much restlessness and agitation was himself untroubled, unshaken, motionless like a statue- he sat there like a lifeless stone image.’ All this time he was like in a deep trance. This is one of the finest examples of his faith in total surrender.

Shree aurobindo himself later commented on this total surrender to Adesh(command).

“As for Adesh people speak of Adesh with out making necessary distinctions, but these distinctions have to be made. The Divine speaks to us in many ways and it is not always the imperative Adesh that comes. When it dose it is clear and irresistible, the mind has to obey and there is no question possible, even if what comes is contrary to the preconceived ideas of mental intelligence. It was such an Adesh that I had when I came away to Pondicherry’.

He remained in Pondicherry for the rest of his life. It became the cave of his Tapasya from where he gave to the world a part of his spiritual knowledge and illuminations gained through his Yoga. The sheer immensity and creative power of his writings specially the interpretations of  The Vedas and the grandeur and spiritual revelations in his epic poem Savitri surpass our highest imagination.

The book contains few of his poems. Below is one (part of a larger poem) that I loved most.

For in the march of all-fulfilling Time

The hour must come of the Transcendent will….

The frontiers of the Ignorance shall recede,

More and more souls shall enter into light,

Minds lit, inspired, the occult summoner hear

And lives blaze with a sudden inner flame     

And hearts grow enamoured of divine delight

And human wills tune to the divine will…

A divine force shall flow through tissue and cell

And take charge of breath and speech and act

And all the thoughts shall be a glow of suns

And every feeling a celestial thrill…

Thus shall the earth open to divinity

And common natures feel the wide uplift,

Illumine common acts with the Spirit’s ray

And meet the deity in common things.

Nature shall live to manifest secret God,

The Spirit shall take up the human play,

This earthly life becomes the life divine.

  

     

In My Dream

So often it feels like world is drifting towards the turmoil and chaos of unprecedented magnitude

Not just the anguish of wars but natural or man made disasters hitting home at close proximity

Americans are faced with a sense of worry and insecurity like never before.

Just when we think we could take life a little easy

The twists and turns of life become so hostile and unpredictable

Every step of the way new challenges wait for us.

Last night I simply prayed to God to guide us through what ever lies ahead.

I do not know when I fell asleep while praying

But what happened in my dream was amazing.

I found my self near the steps of some holy place.

The place bore no religious marks or signs accept an aura of serenity.

The small open area was surrounded with some trees.

The air was fragrant and evening was receding in to peaceful night.

People were still moving around but some thing with in me said

It is time to pray.

As I sat on the ground chanting my prayers

People gathered around to join in the prayers.

Once the session was over I started distributing the fruits from the plate.

I remember plums in the plate- few but some how enough for the extended hands.

Next I saw the plate empty and then saw a small hand open to receive the offering.

“Its all finished.” I was about to say but just then a small purple grape appeared on the plate previously hidden from my sight.

Happily I placed it on the open hand.

I woke up.

It was still night.

A beautiful feeling of bliss pervaded me.

The crises and worries of life were still there like winter fog of silent night

But it could not affect the peace and serenity that I felt before falling asleep again.

A moment full of joy that was brought upon by sharing an offering of fruit however small

Had brought faith, hope and meaning back to life again.

I felt His blessing.

Even though it was all in my dream.

Savita Tyagi

12.18. 08

It was written few years back when our generation probably first time collectively felt the magnitude of various events impacting us all in one way or other. 

A Short Lesson

Driving on the fast lane of highway through Tennessee Valley and cloud covered Smokey Mountains

Speeding past the high and rocky walls that were cut and blasted to pave the highway

I asked my friend “ Oh! Could we stop here for a while? Look at those water rivulets flowing through that mossy granite. How peace full and breath-taking!”

Before I could finish my sentence the beautiful landscape was left behind.

The friend looked at me from the corner of his eyes with a smile on his face.

His smile taught me some thing.

Man is too proud of his achievements.

Too happy to travel at the speed of lightning rod while the seemingly still yet awe inspiring nature always laughs from behind

A Friend

 

Just around the corner is a friend indeed

When called upon in need.

Sincere, vibrant, resilient

A flower in the garden

Or a companion in silence

Treading the path of life

Inch by inch or mile by mile

Leaving the footsteps behind

For us to remind

The time that we shared

With the heart that cared

It flew like a feather

Yet falls back from ether

Ever so gently to rest upon memory

Light and soft is remembrance’s touch indeed.

A listener, a teacher, a friend indeed

Just around the corner

When called upon in need.

Savita Tyagi

Love Is A Boomrang

 

 Love is a Boomerang

Let is fly, wide and high

Let it touch just one heart

Put a smile on just one face

And watch its return bring back to you

A thousand colors of brilliant light

Love is a boomerang

Let it fly wide and high

Tune your heart to its music

Listen to its vibrations

Scintillating high in the air

And bursting back with the songs of joy

Love is a Boomerang

Let it fly wide and high

Like a spirit pure and free

Wandering in the clouds for love’s delight

To catch a rainbow from the sky.

Love is a Boomerang

Let it fly wide and high.

Savita Tyagi

 8.15.98

 

Note-- couple of lines of this poem were written in .98 with memories of my children playing in park with boomerang. It took its present shape and special meaning for me at the time of my son's marriage.

What Is Love

Love is a habit

Love is a need

Love is a heartache

Love is a dream

Love is a touch of soft breeze on a sweat-covered face

A can of soda on a sultry day

Love is a longing of ecstasy sweet

Sharing of a pillow and a whisper

Are you asleep?

Love is quiet comfort with hearts align

Or a bubbly laughter with beer and wine

Love is hope

Love is illusion

Love is all this and so much more

Most of all love is a promise to self 

To submit to life and its urge to live

A continuum to honor and an ending to kneel.

Love is Life.

This is for all who believe in love and life.

Who Can Tell?

Life is so fluid.

After all the pluses and minuses it is a zero sum in the end.

Try to tell that to somebody

Who lost his shirt in the money market-

His stares blank as a white paper fall on my face-

The pain revealed through like watermarks on a dollar bill.

His pain comes with a question

If what you say is true

Why doesn’t it sink in the heart?

I do not have an answer to it.

I wonder if Creation thought of profit

When it created its vast empire.

So how did it come into mankind’s equation?

Superseding all the emotions

All the joy and pleasure

All the pain and suffering

It weighs heavy on the scale of ideology- called Capitalism

Its backbone is profit.

Is it a seed of destruction with in us?

Or is it a means of survival against all odds?

Who can tell?

Life

Once Life was a firefly

Oh! The thrill and the joy I had in catching it.

On dark nights in the misty thicket of my backyard

I saw that little light popping here and there as if by magic.

Holding my catch carefully in my cupped hands

I was mesmerized by the twinkle emanating from its body.

All the mysteries of the world of which I knew nothing about

Were contained in its golden womb.

Its accidental flight from my little hands

Was never too far to catch it again.

I was a willing player in its game of hide and seek.

In my youth I flew on its wings

Like a mighty eagle soaring high

Even the sky in its infinity was too small

To contain me

In my grip was the life

And to catch a phrase from Upanishad it felt like

“I am the stimulator of the tree of Universe

My glory is high as peaks of mountain…

Imperishable and undecaying am I.”

Today I feel like an ass

Carrying the heavy yoke of passions and desires,

A struggle weary traveler dragging its feet towards the unknown

Where mysterious fireflies still take birth. 

With my head bent downward I sense an impeller in me
Moving along with curious out look for the path-
Life's burning never stops
But frailty seeks for a resting place.

Life On An Island

 

Cruising along the streets of island

I take in the flavors of its busy life.

Cars move along the roundabouts continuously

The smooth circular motion becomes violent and noisy with some car moving at fast speed.

The small Island is so busy and packed with human cargo

The rush of traffic, the haste of human life,

The sound of construction vehicles,

The laborers working under fierce sun with their heads covered

It is mind boggling and exhaustive to be part of it.

To detach my self I take my eyes away to look at the calm blue waters of gulf

It is all around the island tranquil and peaceful

Never bothered by human activity going around its shore.

Away from the busy world life is quiet with in the walls of my house.

Not that it is a solace to be alone for a length of time.

Peaceful moments last only for few days or few hours.

The rest less mind starts to wander again.

I roam around the house mumbling the old Gazal

Lagtaa nahi hai dil mera Ujerey Dayar mein

Meaning “my heart is not content in this desolate place”

Or “Urr gaye pannchi reh gai Dalli”

Meaning “ birds flew away leaving the branch of the tree.”

The tree bears every thing ever so quietly

Providing its shade to travelers.

Some time I wish we could be like trees

Existing but not demanding or inquiring for a reason.

All the reasons for existence one by one become obsolete till we find no more

Dual voices of mind quarreling with in defy every logic and reasoning

And eventually fall in deep silence leaving me even more alone and restless.

As I sit in solitude some thing strange happens

A tiny bird flies from the lamppost

A cat comes from behind the fern pot where it was resting away from sun’s heat

Sky-high date trees behind the compound wall sway in gentle desert wind.

Hot and dusty evening gives way to cooler night.

The harsh sound of traffic dies down

The full moon rises just above the neighbor’s roof.

Here it looks so much closer to earth then I have seen anywhere else.

Little stars send their silver beams upon my face

“Scottie beam me up” I smile and answer the call of stars.

All my agitations recoil and drain in tranquil desert atmosphere

 And leave me to live and rejoice the moment as it is.

From my Bahrain diary

 

A Walk In The Garden

Jungle Jalebi

Under the bright sunshine of early summer

I walk around the villa, my new home of few weeks in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

The brick pathway was hot and shimmering

Burning my feet through slippers in a preview of bacon fries days of summer.

The wild flowers and ever greens around compound villas

Softened the blow of heat and domesticated the desert in the front garden.

I watched the lavender bushes with their mauve-blue spikes

And breathed their delicious mint fragrance fanned in the air through palm leaves.

Curls of red berries on a native tree looked like copper rings blazing in fire.

All of a sudden the mind had raced to the open lands of my native country

Projecting some little images playing underneath the tree.

Their coppery faces with dusty berries clenched in their sweaty hands
Burning and crackling with laughter.

I stood there melting with nostalgia and hot sun.

In some ways Bahrain had brought me closer to my roots

The climate, the people, the food and the culture

Every thing was conducive to absorbing the shock of moving to a foreign land.

Once again in trying to understand my identity I felt like growing constantly

Ready to embrace the whole world as my own

And being a tiny part or it where ever I go.

I walked a little more trying to recall 

The name of the berry still locked in the paradise of childhood.

Finally my anguish from memory loss was relieved

When my husband, provoked by his own sweet memories

Uttered the word Jungle jalebi.

                               ********************

Cactus flower

The little garden adventure came to a halt

With a look at the cactus plant and its bright yellow flower

Blooming on the top ridge of a thick wide stem.

Its green leaf like sharp erect fang of a Cobra with flamed eyes

From archaic tale of India, guarding a gem over its hood.

Under the glaring rays of desert sun

The garden was illuminating with its lustrous beauty.

The cactus flower blooming and fading in one short day

Leaves a memory behind

That lingers for a long time.

The little flower a sober reminder of rise and fall of life

Or the affirmation of its continuity

As another bloom takes place right beside the faded one.

The colors of life never cease to amaze me.

Some have it for years

And some perish in a short day.

Amid the harsh, ardent spikes of sorrow

There blooms a flower of joy

And under the dense comforting shade of happiness

Hidden some where is the moss of suffering. 

            *****************

 I am still alien to this desert land

But the cactus flower has clicked to become a part of me.

Intrigued with its beauty I searched the web to find

Many more vibrant shades of bright pink, violet, orange and even white

I can only imagine the wild desert of scanty vegetation

Decorated with these little colorful gems of nature

An emancipation from the bondage of confined city living.

But for now I am just as happy to see the bloom of one cactus flower in my garden.

After all one has to feel the essence of ocean

In a drop of water held in one’s palm.   

(From my Bahrain diary)

Sixty Is New Forty

 

From my Bahrain diary

Sixty Is New Forty Now

“Sixty is new forty now”. You must have heard it. I always have tried to exclude my self from that phrase. Burden of living is hard as it is; why roll it back. Besides I never saw any thing wrong in getting old. Finally at near sixty I am able to take things a little easy why ruin it with rushed life style of forty. People now and then comment on my looking younger than my age, a compliment that I am grateful of but still take without paying much attention to it. Recently I received it in such a way that I could not help but be really amused by it.

So this is how it came. Any body that reads it may laugh with me! I still smile!

After spending five wonderful weeks in U.S. I was returning to Bahrain. I enjoyed every bit of my colorful social visit with family and friends. It was enhanced by Oklahoma’s gorgeous fall weather with color full foliage and warm bright sunshine. The whole atmosphere was so wonderful and inviting to my heart that I almost didn’t want to leave the place. Still my time at U.S. was coming to end and I was ready to come to my Bahrain home. If you have heard people having two or more homes I am currently one of them living that life, going through all the bitter sweet moments of making a home in a new place where my husband has taken up a new job.

Journey across the continent was as usual long and tiresome. Even after getting a long break in Atlanta and sleeping most of the time at Amsterdam airport I was running out of esteem.

 Finally around 17.30 hour we boarded the plane, K.L.M. flight for Bahrain. Any body close to my age will know how hard it is for us to get in and out of those ever getting small plane seats as gravity pulls us back against our bodily strength. I have started taking mid isles seat though I miss watching the landscape below while the plane takes off and the floating clouds and various colors of day light in the limitless sky from plane window as it flies high.

Once settled in my seat I looked around. Two little kids and their young mom were occupying the other three seats in the row. I gave them a smile and listen to their conversation for a while. The scene was all too familiar and fresh in my memory when I made countless trips to India with my own young children. But deprived of the window view, my favorite pastime in plane I just closed my eyes to take a nap. After all the weariness of getting close to sixty was taking a hold on me and however young I may look in people’s eye I had no intention of behaving otherwise.

I don’t know how long it was before my limping neck woke me up with a jerk. The lady and her two kids were gone to some other seats and a young man of Indian descent had taken up the seat beside me. The hostess of my isles was getting ready to serve beverages. Cold air was giving me so much chill that I asked her to turn down a little the fan above my seat. It so happens that there was no vent above the seat accepts under luggage compartment so all she could do was to turn the heat a little bit more for me.

The young man who was listening the conversation vouched for the chill and offered me the blanket from his seat. I showed him the two covers, my shawl and the blanket from plane that I already had on. During the course of the journey with casual conversation I came to know that he was living in Bahrain. So we talked little bit about Bahrain and India and family etc. He was little surprised when I told him about myself having a thirty seven year old son and two grand kids. Like so many others his reaction was same. “You don’t look that old.” With a smile I said “I will take it as a compliment, I may not look that old but I still feel it.”

From Amsterdam to Bahrain the journey was about the duration of six-hour. I slept a lot and also talked with the young man on and off. I suppose I am always comfortable with my communication skills and find myself at ease even talking to strangers. Being from India and also living in Bahrain at the same time gave us some common grounds also.

Finally the journey was coming to an end. As the plane was about to stop every body started collecting their things and some took out their cell phone etc. The young man also took his cell phone out, punched few keys in it and a little later showed me a picture. “This is my daughter.” He said. I looked at the picture and said “pretty girl.” Smiling the young man nudged me lightly on my arm and said, “ You are even hotter yourself.” Though living in U.S. I had heard the word often from young people’s mouth, still it took me a second to comprehend that it was being used for me.

May be looking at my confused expression he said again laughing, “ you know! Really hot!” By then I had caught it too and in my amusement burst into a short laugh. I was so amused by the use of phrase that did not even thank him for the compliment. We both laughed a little and got busy with picking our things. Later I saw him standing at the isle and we waved at each other before walking towards the exit.

My husband and I had a big laugh again next day as I told him about the language of the compliment that I got from young man. Just like me it took him a while too to understand! There must be some truth to “sixty as being new forty.”

A Resolution

Lying on the sofa I listen to others talk all day

But couldn’t spare a moment to listen to my own sound.

I went to theater to watch others act and dance

Came home happy and never regretted that I forgot to learn the rhythm of my own body.

Other day went to museum and looked at the arts and paintings of the famous

But took no time out to create my own picture.

Opened the computer and read the opinions and critiques with great intensity

But my own thoughts were undetected and untouched moving in an out swiftly

Like people hurrying in and out of revolving door.

Whatever little I did got wiped out with time’s duster leaving some hazy lines on my mantel.

The day was fervid with indulgence.

Later in the day I sat in patio

The indolence of the day started to disappear like the shadowy sketches of leaves vanishing one by one from patio wall with the setting of sun.

The night fell and hours moved in unbroken dark silence

Leaving an uneasy impression upon me  

Aimlessly I watched the moon and stars.

It was their turn to create a design on night’s black board

Even though it will get wiped out tomorrow.

All of a sudden I couldn’t wait for dawn to break.

When morning comes,

I will reopen the empty canvas of my life under the sun’s golden rays

And paint with colors of dawn

A picture of my sound, my rhythm and of my movements

And offer it to eternity to save on the Facebook of its grand design

As I drifted in to sleep a resolution floated around me like a faint light beam floating in the room.    

An Amazing Flight

Perched high on a tree branch roosts the bird alone.

Her flock scattered across the valley

Some flying high in sky, some gathering seeds on ground

Her eyes roll over to green meadows

Her thoughts venture into the largeness of sky

Nothing ties her to the old tree branch except the memories reverberating in her heart.

Her nest once full with chirping sound of her offspring

Carries the sound of her own voice like that of a stranger

She watched the blue sky and the golden sun

Saw the hazy clouds floating above the solitary hills

 Felt the rustle of wind in her feathers

And decided it was time to fly across the meadows beyond the sunset

But the weight of memories was too heavy

She touched the nest with her beak

Laid her memories gently to rest and flew away free.

Circling the sky and gliding gracefully with spread out wings

The flight was amazing since the bird flew light.

All This Is Verily Brahman

Some days when I am able to pick a pen and write

I know I have been blessed

It is a blessed hour when night is quiet and the air is still

The tranquil mind is nurtured by flow of thoughts-

The thoughts that are messenger of love and peace

And create a longing to be one with stillness.

My body, mind and soul seek to be one
With my surroundings in silence.

I do not have answers to all the questions

But in this blessed hour just want to bow in humility

And pray to you my Lord!

In the boundaries of perception with limits of my senses

I seek the threshold of your existence in my thoughts.

Grant me this joy of flowing thoughts,
And teach me to be content in listening to my voice of gratitude,

Just the way I would be happy sitting by the river,
Listening and watching the flow of cold water.

In that moment of calmness
Your blessings are showered alike,

Upon the flowing water of river,

Upon the night sky full of stars,

Upon the soft magical breeze
And upon me and my thoughts.

Invitation

To say that I do not get hurt is to say that I am not human

To say that I do not feel your pain is to say that some invisible thread does not connect you and me

To say that I am mysterious, that you know nothing about me is to say that you really have never tried to know me

I may not be an open book but I have pages waiting to be read.

To say that I have no time is to say- I have no desire or inclination to be with you.

To say that I don’t understand you or I am not at ease with you is to say that I am not willing to come out of my comfort zone-

Still if you knock on my door I would greet you with a silent smile.

My silence is unimposing and my smile is an invitation

Come! Let us find some thing to share about even in silence.