As a traditional Hindu family, we are used to using altars and Puja rooms for offering prayers, but as we start believing in something more internal and greater, a part of myself still holds on to these old ways of connecting with the Divine. For example, I really enjoy lighting lamps and incense sticks; they’re beautiful metaphors, but at the same time something inside me feels guilty to throw them in the wrappers, which have the Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s name on them. Dada, how to get rid of this state?
2. Dada some people I know call themselves Asexual and they find it difficult to find a place in the society which pays a lot of stress on this area especially during young years. Dada, is it really something purely biological, as I feel it is a truly a grace to have this so-called defect because it is so difficult to conquer otherwise.
1. If we accept Sri Aurobindo and The Mother’s views, then nothing is to be thrown away, nothing excluded from the total divine manifestation which includes outer as well as inner. Beauty and Harmony within and without, as well as material perfection is part of the New Creation. Flower arrangements, Rangoli, Incense and Candles are very much part of the Ashram life. These outer expressions are an integral part of the total harmony and the Supramental Truth that does not cut life into inner and outer, spiritual and material.
All that they say is that the outer must flow naturally from the inner truth rather than be simply a mechanical ritual or at dissonance with one’s core psychic aspiration. Secondly, the inner must always take precedence and the focus should be on that rather than the other way round.
2. Asexual is primarily a question of biology. The excessive importance given by society to the sexual aspects, either in coercing its energies unnaturally or else releasing them through freely or even under strict social regulation, are all at best temporary measures. The mind is still focused on ways of suppression or ways of indulgence, just as one swings from total fast to an excessive preoccupation with food. What is needed is to turn the mind away from it, and channelise the sexual energies individually through sports, art, studies and collectively by treating boys and girls equally in every sphere and field of human activity. Being asexual doesn’t help. What helps is to consciously turn the mind away from sex and give it a very small and minor place in the total scheme of life. Conquest is conquest, not an absence of capacity or possibility. It is difficult, no doubt and takes a long time. One has to be patient and apply the principle of sattwic moderation first. But with persistence and the Mother’s Grace, the even the impossible becomes possible.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
