At the same time, when I remember my good old days with my Guru and Swamiji, so much close, but now have nobody in our Gurus Ashram to share our true fortune, joy and our gratitude, I feel I am homeless, orphan. So I am neither among Sri Aurobindo’s devotees, nor in my Gurus place which is my home. So in physical life I am alienated from both the families. But both SriAurobindo, the Mother And my Guru is very close to me, I feel. But at present, no group accept me as their own. Usually a devotee moves with the devotees of His Divine Guru. In my case I don’t have any outer true Satsang. You are there only one, but you don’t know anything about my guru
So I can’t share my heart felt gratitude for Them with you. You won’t understand. I have nobody in my Guru’s place. I am waiting to see my Srimathe and Swamiji to pour my Gratitude. Many times I cry to Them because my heart is choked with so much love and gratitude for Them. This I many times shared with SriAurobindo and The Mother. Till I unburden, my feelings at Their feet, I can’t get fixed elsewhere , however true the integral transformation is to me and how much so I want it.
I fully understand your feelings. However i must add, especially having lived here and also seen sufficiently life in the outside world that it is much better and far more meaningful to be inwardly close to the Divine than to share a common physical space. Of course the two can go together but generally this does not happen. Unfortunately most institutions suffer this fate. Though a lip service is paid to the Master but very few make the effort needed to read and understand, let alone live the teachings. Man is too satisfied with a little bhakti, some miracles and the usual ceremonies and congregations. Perhaps knowing your bhakti Srimathe has pushed you towards Sri Aurobindo and wants you to realise that the Divine whom you seek, we all seek is not the property of any book or religion or cult or institution. He is everywhere and in everything. That is the most important thing one needs to understand.
Here are two reminders from Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.
‘For the way that humanity deals with an ideal is to be satisfied with it as an aspiration which is for the most part left only as an aspiration, accepted only as a partial influence. The ideal is not allowed to mould the whole life, but only more or less to colour it; it is often used even as a cover and a plea for things that are diametrically opposed to its real spirit. Institutions are created which are supposed, but too lightly supposed to embody that spirit and the fact that the ideal is held, the fact that men live under its institutions is treated as sufficient. The holding of an ideal becomes almost an excuse for not living according to the ideal; the existence of its institutions is sufficient to abrogate the need of insisting on the spirit that made the institutions. But spirituality is in its very nature a thing subjective and not mechanical; it is nothing if it is not lived inwardly and if the outward life does not flow out of this inward living. Symbols, types, conventions, ideas are not sufficient. A spiritual symbol is only a meaningless ticket, unless the thing symbolised is realised in the spirit. A spiritual convention may lose or expel its spirit and become a falsehood. A spiritual type may be a temporary mould into which spiritual living may flow, but it is also a limitation and may become a prison in which it fossilises and perishes. A spiritual idea is a power, but only when it is both inwardly and outwardly creative. Here we have to enlarge and to deepen the pragmatic principle that truth is what we create, and in this sense first, that it is what we create within us, in other words, what we become. Undoubtedly, spiritual truth exists eternally beyond independent of us in the heavens of the spirit; but it is of no avail for humanity here, it does not become truth of earth, truth of life until it is lived. The divine perfection is always there above us; but for man to become divine in consciousness and act and to live inwardly and outwardly the divine life is what is meant by spirituality; all lesser meanings given to the word are inadequate fumblings or impostures.’
The Mother reminds us.
“Sri Aurobindo came to tell us: one need not leave the earth to find the Truth, one need not leave life to find one’s soul, one need not abandon the world or have limited beliefs to enter into relation with the Divine. The Divine is everywhere, in everything, and if he is hidden, it is because we do not take the trouble to find him.”
As to Satsang what better way to do it with the works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Human beings are always a mixed bag.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
