It’s power in the hands of the physical world…
Opening from below means aspiration. As to the Divine, He is everywhere and in everything in all His Fullness, poornamadam, poornamidam….In His Supreme Transcendent state, He is without any veils. In the lower nature, He is veiled. In other words, He is not limited but His Power, the Divine Shakti, has chosen to limit Itself and act from behind through the veil of Nature. The veil has been spun out by His Yogamaya and manifests in the lower nature as Prakriti. But surrounding this Prakriti all around is Para Prakriti. It is He who has deliberately limited Himself for His Purpose, but all His Omnipotence and Omniscience are there behind else this universe and the cosmic order could never be.
(Follow-up Question:)
Also one more question. SriAurobindo writes, “Detect first what is false or obscure in you and persistently reject it, then alone can you rightly call for the divine”How to detect? Falsehood and Truth are intermingled so much that it’s ad difficult to separate milk from water when they are mixed. Please give me a practical way to detect? Only then can we think of rejecting it.
A practical way to detect falsehood is to detect in us all that consciously or unconsciously opposes the Truth, all that digs an unbridgable gap between the World and God, Self and Nature, as if they are forever separate from each other. Falsehood is to see a divided existence as if each thing and person exists separately, in themselves, apart from each other. Falsehood is to live for the ego and for one’s own selfish gains, a life given to satisfaction and desires. In a general way, we can say that all that creates or leads towards Peace, Wideness, Light, Unity, Harmony, Oneness comes from Truth, whereas all that creates or leads towards Agitation, Fear, Division, Confusion, Disharmony comes from Falsehood. We are, in a way, breathing in Falsehood due to which we have forgotten our Divine Nature.
Truth is to know, realise that we are, in our deepest essence Divine and to live by and for the Divine Will in us and in the world.
(Follow-up Question:)
“Power to transform you” – another reference from SriAurobindo’s The Mother: “The Supreme demands your surrender to her, but does not impose it: you are free at every moment, till the irrevocable transformation comes, to deny and to reject the Divine or to recall your self-giving, if you are willing to suffer the spiritual consequence” – What’s meant by spiritual consequences? If I could withdraw my surrender, then it was Not a true surrender happened. It means right from the beginning, I have not surrendered. Then, where are the spiritual consequences?
Not surrendering is different from the withdrawal of surrender. Absence of surrender means one wants to lead life according to one’s own ideas, in one’s own way, for one’s own personal goals. Of course, one may still believe in the Divine, be very religious, reading all the scriptures, doing all the poojas and visiting all the holy places. Yet all this is done not for the sake of the Divine or for the joy of the Divine or as service to the Divine but for oneself. If and as long as the Divine satisfies our desires, fits into our ideas, fulfils one’s demands, one worships Him or else turns away. Here, one can say that the surrender was never made. A number of people are like that, especially most politicians.
But withdrawal of surrender means giving yourself to the ego after having inwardly given yourself to God or to His Work. It means turning away from the Divine after having sought Him either because the demand of the sadhana or the pressure for the change needed was too much or, most commonly, some veiled ambition took over the aspirant, and he moved away, abandoning the yoga in pursuit of worldly interests.
The spiritual consequences of the latter are obvious. For as long as one has not entered the spiritual life in earnest, it is fine to wander in the world. But once one has chosen to undertake the spiritual journey and started upon it with the pilgrim staff of faith, then abandoning it is quite a serious matter. When such a person goes back to the usual worldly life with worldly aims, turning away from the spiritual opportunity that was offered, he is unable to find satisfaction anymore and often faces a lot of suffering. This suffering is not a punishment but a purification of sorts. Eventually, one is called back into the Divine Origin or else gets back on track after a few lives of misery and pain. Ravana is a classic example of this kind.
This, of course, is a general rule. But the Divine Compassion and Grace are infinite, and the Divine Love are there to bring these lost souls back. It was, in fact, one of the tasks undertaken by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
