First step is to be sure of the Call for this yoga, which is not undertaken for any personal goals such as Moksha, becoming a yogi, superman, etc. Its sole purpose is to find and become one with the Divine in all His totality and to work towards the Divine Manifestation in and through oneself and the world. Transformation is the process of the Divine Manifestation in the individual’s life.
If one is not sure of the Call, if the flame of aspiration is not yet lit, or even if it has been awakened reading something from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, say books like Savitri, Prayers and Meditations, Letters and Conversations, should be part of one’s everyday life. Along with this, one should sit every day in inner and outer quietude in a state of aspiration and contemplation of the Divine Mother. This aspiration must be nurtured and nourished as one takes care of a newborn child by giving constant attention, avoiding harmful contacts and feeding it with the Divine Name. Remembering and offering all work becomes the main practice here. Similarly, faith and surrender to the Mother are the main keys. Growing in equanimity and Peace is the sign of being on the path.
One should try to increase the aspiration and the inner remembrance. As sincerity and surrender, faith, devotion, peace and aspiration grows the veiled psychic being begins to emerge influencing the human nature with an increase in psychic qualities and effects such as faith, aspiration, devotion, surrender, peace, surrender, intuitive knowing, gratitude, cheerfulness, enthusiasm, urge for progress, freedom from fear of death in any form, right discernment and right action, right feeling, right will, a natural inclination for beauty, harmony and truth, a state of inner peace and felicity, goodwill and love towards all. One no longer mistakes oneself to be the body or the mind and its opinions and desires. One knows oneself as the child or portion of the Divine Mother, full of unconditional bhakti and self-giving to Her. To love Her, to know Her, to serve Her more and more becomes the purpose of one’s life. One becomes conscious of the Mother’s Presence in one’s inmost heart and is freed from all dark and negative emotions and thoughts.
Once this is effected, the rest is easy. Spiritual Transformation means that one begins to open to the higher planes and the cosmic consciousness, awakening of the higher forms of knowing such as inspiration, intuition, revelation, the emergence of a vast universal love for all creatures, a cosmic will aligned with the Divine Will powerful in its Truth-action, an all-encompassing Wisdom, a high Calm and Bliss a perception of the Divine everywhere and in all things, a constant dwelling in the Divine.
Finally, there is the Supramental Transformation that completes the process by changing the ignorant mind into a Mind of Wisdom and Light, the narrow sentimental heart into a vessel of Divine Love, Sweetness and Joy, the unbridled life energy moved by passions, desires, lust, anger, fear, ambition into calm, luminous force. Eventually, the body itself becomes a luminous vehicle of the Divine, the living chariot of the eternal Jaggannath.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
