AT THE FEET OF THE MOTHER
Ask Alok da

Spirituality

Where is the place of the Pitru Lok? Is it the Prana Lok or the Manomaya Lok? How long do the ancestors reside there? Do they remain in forms similar to how they were on the physical plane, related to their families? Is it possible for those who go later to attain liberation before the ancestors who have been there for a longer time🤔?

Pitru loka is located in the vital world. It contains three kinds of beings. Those who are beings proper to the domain and take care

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I remember you saying in one of the talks that Shiva is Prajnya. However in many places Sri Aurobindo mentions Shiva as the Tapas-Force aspect of the divine. How would you integrate these two aspects in Shiva? Please explain Prajnya & Tapas in detail for better understanding. Also how can we relate prajnya and tapas with Shiva’s consort Parvati🤔?

These are two different but interconnected systems. In the image of the Upanishad, Brahman is fourfold, Virat is material existence with Brahma as the Godhead.

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From the 19th century onwards here is this perception that kala purusha invaded the world like never before, right from railways and airplanes shortening distances of the entire globe, static paintings or camera pictures being replaced by moving images like cinema, being able to send messages across continents in micro seconds, one big historical event is immediately faded out into memory by the other one, no solidified identity in terms of occupation or even nation is possible, novels and films with non linear storytelling have erupted, theories about time in physics and studies of evolution in biology, and disciplines like geology etc.. are all deeply intertwined with time flux, there’s a sentence that “everything solid melts into air” in this modern time-era, and with social media humanity is living moment to moment in it’s lowest type, Sri Aurobindo also wrote a piece on kala purusha, How to understand this phenomenon in both it’s good and bad aspects😥?

What we are witnessing is an accelerated evolution at an unprecedented pace. It happens when the Spirit of Time, Kalpurusha, is turning a new page.

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They often tell me that it was the householders who had the supramental “downloads” or words to that effect. They also say marriage is an airplane route in this Integral Yoga Path. I’m not a grihastha as it is against the truth of my being & not in consonance with my needs. Not being a grihastha limits my exposure & experience of human interactions & hence limits the field & scope for progress. Am I then unfit or not qualified either for Integral Yoga or for being touched by supramental? Supramental is too far afield but these queries do come up now & then with age & passage of time). Please shed some light on this 🙏

This is supported neither by facts nor by spiritual logic. The truth of the matter is that marriage does come with a huge burden as

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Aren’t the nihilists partly right when they don’t see any fundamental meaning in all the things society tried to point towards with all its conventions like marriage, money, tradition etc.. but the only thing missing is how Sri Aurobindo in the essays on the Gita writes about Sri Krishna too shunning all the pragmatic queries of arjuna to fight the war and says that the only command is “take refuge in me alone”. Isn’t this alchemical transmutation the only fundamental distinction🤔?

Taking refuge in God is to be free from stain of fear and sin. It means to be awake powerful instrument of the Divine in

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When we talk about karma, there is a shlok in the 18th adhyay of Gita (Chapter 18, shlok 14) that there are 5 factors responsible for any karma- adhishthan, karta, karan, prayatna and daiva.  So, when we were discussing about this in a group, someone asked why daiva does not intervene when something terrible happens (for example rape or something else)? The way Sri Krishna intervened when Draupadi suffered while attempted to be disrobed, why He does not prevent rapes or terrorist assaults? How daiva can allow such things to happen😪?

Daiva is not the Divine nor a particular god but the gods or divine powers that play a role in determining the events and circumstances

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When someone talks to themselves, who are they talking to😏? The mind is just mumbling in solitude, right? If someone prays, isn’t it the same action? The mind creates an image that religion has given, referring to it as God, and then it engages in a conversation with that image in its mind. Is there something different happening that is being overlooked?

There are many levels of the mind and there are things beyond the mind itself. When we speak to ourselves we are speaking from one

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Sir, we have desires, but one cannot demand more than a form. If someone imagines the infinite, they use things like the ocean or the sky, which are forms in themselves. Even the concept of the formless is an attempt to give it a form. The poetry of poets is also in these forms; it attempts to express truth, beauty, love, and everything else within these forms. Sir, can we desire something beyond form? For that, we first need to know of its existence; and if we know that it exists, it will take on a form because we have a mind, is that correct🤔?

Yes, to arrive at the Formless we have to go through the doors of form. To arrive at the infinite we have to go beyond

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What is the difference in integral yoga and vaishnav bhakti yoga. In vaishna yoga surrender is the mean for sadhana and many great vaishnav saints have achieved the highest realization. In vaishnav literature we found the psychic transformation which express through many bhakti sangit, bhajan etc. If the psychic transformation can prepared us another two transformation so why the great bhakti yogis are not speak about supramental? Really I don’t know what is supramental and why it is necessary for mankind? If through bhakti the psychic transformation is happening then is it right to those great bhakts have realised that state they have also go through this purification of nature and they have fought in nature level, if it is true then why Sri Aurobindo says this is new yoga? I can’t understand it. Dada Can you clarify my doubt🙄.

Vaishnava bhakti, in fact any true bhakti as we see in certain forms of Christian Yoga, Sufism, Shakta bhakti can all lead to psychic realisation,

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In 1st time when we enter to this yoga then we feel the psychic devotion and aspiration towards the mother and lord. But after some long time why we loose this contact and facing the challenges of nature, whether it like great or tiny challenge? In which attitude we will face this problem and can be establish the same contact with the divine through psychically🙂?

This happens to all because we are not composed of one part. At the first the part that is most open is touched under the

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