Could you also say something about how to know there is initiation or not, about having to glimpse the Mother. I couldn’t understand it very well. For me I didn’t know about yoga, I just loved the Mother ever since I knew about her and prayed to her to belong to her, proceeding to surrender , and there is a growing bhakti for the divine by her grace. It was all a feeling, I had read no books then. For me, she is the yoga. I didn’t have any glimpse or revelation either, I didn’t think about that. Her presence and grace is my guidance and is already beyond anything I can ask for.
Nobody can or aught to say whether somebody is on the path of Yoga or not. Nobody can know Her except what She Herself choses to reveal. The opinion of the person is probably based on the below statement of the Mother.
‘When I say that I have initiated someone, I mean that I have revealed myself to this person, without words, and that he was capable of seeing, feeling and knowing What I am.’
It means that the person somehow, intuitively or by faith, feels that She is the Divine. In a way it is true of all great Masters. One feels the Divine in the person meant to guide you. However in traditional yoga this is followed by a formal initiation indicating that he accepts and approves of your intuition. This formal initiation is not needed in this Yoga. It is enough if one has the call for this Yoga by way of conscious aspiration. That is why She also reveals.
‘All souls who aspire are always under my direct care.’
There are also those who are getting prepared or ready for this aspiration. Subconscious yoga is a different thing. It includes a whole section of humanity leading its life driven by subconscious habits and tendencies, mechanically and unconsciously, driven by desire.
However all this as a general truth. As far as you are concerned, you are already way ahead on the fast track of the Yoga carried by Her Love. Love is the crown of the Yoga and if one feels love for Her and the urge to surrender to Her has already covered quite a distance in the previous lives. There is nothing greater than love and the spirit of growing bhakti and surrender. To be open to Her is to do the Yoga.
Sri Aurobindo made it as simple and as clear as saying that ‘Everyone who is turned to the Mother is doing my Yoga.’
Can there be any doubt left after that.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
