ફરી વળે ભીતરે અહીં તહીં ...

શંકાની સૂચક હાજરી

છાપરે ચઢી પોકારતી

રતીભાર ન મચકતી 

દિવાલ ચણતી મનઘડી!

સંકુચિત સમજ સાંકળી

અણનમ જડ પેદાયશી

ઇરાદેથી વિભાજનવૃત્તિ

અસહમતીભરી સાશંકી!

સદંતર નકાર જ ઉપચારી 

જાકારો છેક મૂળેથી જરૂરી

જરા સરખી પણ, બેબુનિયાદી

આંતરિક પણ હોવી અસંમતિ.

સહેજ પણ ન ખોલવી બારી

એકવારની મંજૂરી પણ પૂરતી

ફરી વળે ભીતરે અહીં તહીં 

બસ! પછી શિકાર સમજસ્થિતિ.

જ્યાં જેવી જ્યારે જે રીતે ડોકાઈ

સભાન થઈ પલટાવવી સરણી

એક જાટકે કરવી રહી અળગી

નહીતર પળવારમાં સત્તાસ્થાપણી. 

દરકારથી ભરો ભાવ ભીતરી

દર મુદ્દે મૂકો વલણ સહકારી

નથી લૂંટી શકતું કોઈ ઉપદ્રવી 

જો અડગ નિયત શુભભાવ જડી!

પ્રભુ અર્પણ દર અન્યવૃત્તિ...

જાન્યુઆરી, ૨૦૧૯

In the Yoga as in life it is the man who persists unwearied to the last in the face of every defeat and disillusionment and of all confronting, hostile and contradicting events and powers who conquers in the end and finds his faith justified because to the soul and shakti in man nothing is impossible. And even a blind and ignorant faith is a better possession than the sceptical doubt which turns its back on our spiritual possibilities or the constant carping of the narrow pettily critical uncreative intellect, asuya, which pursues our endeavour with a paralysing incertitude. The seeker of the integral Yoga must however conquer both these imperfections. The thing to which he has given his assent and set his mind and heart and will to achieve, the divine perfection of the whole human being, is apparently an impossibility to the normal intelligence, since it is opposed to the actual facts of life and will for long be contradicted by immediate experience, as happens with all far-off and difficult ends, and it is denied too by many who have spiritual experience but believe that our present nature is the sole possible nature of man in the body and that it is only by throwing off the earthly life or even all individual existence that we can arrive at either a heavenly perfection or the release of extinction. In the pursuit of such an aim there will for long be plenty of ground for the objections, the carpings, asuya, of that ignorant but persistent criticising reason which founds itself plausibly on the appearances of the moment, the stock of ascertained fact and experience, refuses to go beyond and questions the validity of all indices and illuminations that point forward; and if he yields to these narrow suggestions, he will either not arrive or be seriously tampered and long delayed in his journey. On the other hand, ignorance and blindness in the faith are obstacles to a large success, invite much disappointment and disillusionment, fasten on false finalities and prevent advance to greater formulations of truth and perfection. The shakti (Power) in her workings will strike ruthlessly at all forms of ignorance and blindness and all even that trusts wrongly and superstitiously in her, and we must be prepared to abandon a too persistent attachment to forms of faith and cling to the saving reality alone.  A great and wide spiritual and intelligent faith, intelligent with the intelligence of that larger reason which assents to high possibilities, is the character of the sraddha (Faith) needed for the integral Yoga.

*The Synthesis of Yoga – II: Faith and Shakti

“The mind questions what could this be, what could that be. It tries to interpret, drawing upon what it has heard or read. This is what Sri Aurobindo calls the intrusion of the inferior mentality. It is for this purpose that the mind has to be cultured, te consciousness has to be vigilant. These, interpretations, doubts are to be kept out and eventually eliminated.”

*The Yoga of Self-Perfection, p.230-1

The sceptic mind doubts always because it cannot understand, but the faith of the God-lover persists in knowing although it cannot understand. Both are necessary to our darkness, but there can be no doubt which is the mightier. What I cannot understand now, I shall some day master, but if I lose faith & love, I fall utterly from the goal which God has set before me.

*The Hour of God: Bhakti

"...Yoga is not a thing of ideas but of inner spiritual experience. Merely to be attracted to any set of religious or spiritual ideas does not bring with it any realisation. Yoga means a change of consciousness; a mere mental activity will not bring a change of consciousness, it can only bring a change of mind. And if your mind is sufficiently mobile, it will go on changing from one thing to another till the end without arriving at any sure way or any spiritual harbour. The mind can think and doubt and question and accept and withdraw its acceptance, make formations and unmake them, pass decisions and revoke them, judging always on the surface and by surface indications and therefore never coming to any deep and firm experience of Truth, but by itself it can do no more..."

*Letters on Yoga, Part 1

Trust is the mind's and heart's complete reliance on the Divine and its guidance and protection.

The core of the inner surrender is trust and confidence in the Divine. One takes the attitude: "I want the Divine and nothing else. I want to give myself entirely to him and since my soul wants that, it cannot be but that I shall meet and realise him. I ask nothing but that and his action in me to bring me to him, his action secret or open, veiled or manifest. I do not insist on my own time and way; let him do all in his own time and way; I shall believe in him, accept his will, aspire steadily for his light and presence and joy, go through all difficulties and delays, relying on him and never giving up. Let my mind be quiet and trust him and let him open it to his light; let my vital be quiet and turn to him alone and let him open it to his calm and joy. All for him and myself for him. Whatever happens, I will keep to this aspiration and self-giving and go on in perfect reliance that it will be done." SA

Who trusts the Divine never leaves the loving arms of the Divine wherever his body may be. TM

Flower Name: Hibiscus rosa-sinensis
Chinese hibiscus, Hawaiian hibiscus, Rose- of-China

Significance: Faith
You flame up and triumph.