What Bengal is witnessing today had been foreseen by Sri Aurobindo. In one of his letters to Barin he wrote almost prophetically thus.
‘But power is needed to get this power. We, however, are not worshippers of power; we are worshippers of the easy way. But one cannot obtain power by the easy way. Our forefathers swam in a vast sea of thought and gained a vast knowledge; they established a vast civilisation. But as they went forward on their path they were overcome by exhaustion and weariness. The force of their thought decreased, and along with it decreased the force of their creative power. Our civilisation has become a stagnant backwater, our religion a bigotry of externals, our spirituality a faint glimmer of light or a momentary wave of intoxication. So long as this state of things lasts, any permanent resurgence of India is impossible.
It is in Bengal that this weakness has gone to the extreme. The Bengali has quickness of intellect, a capacity for feeling, intuition. In all these qualities he is the foremost in India. Each of these qualities is necessary, but they are not in themselves sufficient. If there were added to them depth of thought, manly force, heroic audacity, proficiency and delight in prolonged labour, the Bengali would become the leader not only of India, but of the world. But the Bengali does not want this; he wants to pick up things the easy way—knowledge without thought, results without labour, spiritual perfection after an easy discipline. He relies on emotional excitement, but excessive emotion devoid of knowledge is the very symptom of the disease. What has the Bengali been doing from the time of Chaitanya onwards, from long before that, in fact? Catching hold of some easy superficial aspect of spiritual truth and dancing about for a few days on waves of emotion; afterwards there is exhaustion, inertia. And at home, the gradual decline of Bengal, the ebbing away of her life-force. In the end, what has the Bengali come to in his own province? He has nothing to eat and no clothes to wear, there is wailing on every side. His wealth, his business and trade, even his agriculture begin to pass slowly into the hands of outsiders. We have abandoned the yoga of divine power and so the divine power has abandoned us. We practise the yoga of love, but where there is no knowledge or power, love does not stay. Narrowness and littleness come in. In a narrow and small mind, life and heart, love finds no room. Where is there love in Bengal? Nowhere else even in this division-ridden India is there so much quarrelling, strained relations, jealousy, hatred and factionalism as in Bengal.’
Seems as if he has written it yesterday.
The Mother was more direct when asked by Pradyot da about the pathetic situation in Bengal. She said something to the effect that Bengal rejected Sri Aurobindo and hence it may go through great difficulties under the pressure of the Supramental Truth (not exact words).
No doubt the Divine Shakti poured itself into Bengal but the average person could not hold it. The vessel was not ready or strong enough so all this energy got dissipated into emotional excitement and intellectual pride. What we see today is the pressure upon Bengal to grow strong, to think for itself, to grow in the spirit of courage and sacrifice, to cast away all selfishness and rekindle the flame that Swami Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Aurobindo lit in their hearts. In fact when the Divine Force descends into a group of people, the responsibility is even greater. This is what happened in Kashmir, once the hub and meeting point of the different streams of Indian Knowledge systems. But the men who were supposed to be the custodians of this knowledge did not keep the strength that is needed. For if strength without knowledge is a misdirected force, knowledge without strength is impotent. That is what we are witnessing today. Power in the hands of the corrupt, the average human being happy in small or big comfort zones taking pride in the past but unable to come out of the comfort zones to build the future.
Therefore such incidents happen to expose our weakness in the name of tolerance and to rouse a people to worship the Mother of Strength once more. The gory incidence has triggered a cascade like Abhimanyu’s death. The question is how long will it last? Emotional excitement does not last long but if the incident in West Bengal and the Bangladesh can inspire us to organise the voice of the awakened Bengalis (and there are quite a few) and grow stronger by the spirit of sacrifice then nothing is impossible. We will see then the Bengal of yore once again become the recipient of Shakti and the hub of New Creation. We must invoke the Shakti and what better way to start with than a collective movement of reading Sri Aurobindo’s Durga Strota and turning its message and prayer into a living experience.
Fortunately there are still sufficient people in Bengal who have the flame of aspiration burning in their hearts. It is these who will become catalysts to throw away the weakness and selfishness that has engulfed the average human being in Bengal as well as in India today. I am sure, the days of darkness and weakness that had engulfed Bengal are coming to a close in a couple of years perhaps and the Dawn shall rise again and Bengal wake up to the call of the Divine Mother. What is needed today is to live by the invocation in the hymn to Durga.
‘Hymn to Durga
(দুর্গা-স্তোত্র)
Mother Durga! Rider on the lion, giver of all strength, Mother, beloved of Siva! We born from thy parts of Power, we the youth of India, are seated here in thy temple. Listen, O Mother, descend upon earth, make thyself manifest in this land of India.
Mother Durga! From age to age, in life after life, we come down into the human body, do thy work and return to the Home of Delight. Now too we are born, dedicated to thy work. Listen, O Mother, descend upon earth, come to our help.
Mother Durga! Rider on the lion, trident in hand, thy body of beauty armour-clad, Mother, giver of victory, India awaits thee, eager to see the gracious form of thine. Listen, O Mother, descend upon earth, make thyself manifest in this land of India.
Mother Durga! Giver of force and love and knowledge, terrible art thou in thy own self of might, Mother beautiful and fierce. In the battle of life, in India’s battle, we are warriors commissioned by thee; Mother, give to our heart and mind a titan’s strength, a titan’s energy, to our soul and intelligence a god’s character and knowledge.
Mother Durga! India, world’s noblest race, lay whelmed in darkness. Mother, thou risest on the eastern horizon, the dawn comes with the glow of thy divine limbs scattering the darkness. Spread thy light, Mother, destroy the darkness.
Mother Durga! We are thy children, through thy grace, by thy influence may we become fit for the great work, for the great Ideal. Mother, destroy our smallness, our selfishness, our fear.
Mother Durga! Thou art Kali, naked, garlanded with human heads, sword in hand, thou slayest the Asura. Goddess, do thou slay with thy pitiless cry the enemies who dwell within us, may none remain alive there, not one. May we become pure and spotless, this is our prayer, O Mother, make thyself manifest.
Mother Durga! India lies low in selfishness and fearfulness and littleness. Make us great, make our efforts great, our hearts vast, make us true to our resolve. May we no longer desire the small, void of energy, given to laziness, stricken with fear.
Mother Durga! Extend wide the power of Yoga. We are thy Aryan children, develop in us again the lost teaching, character, strength of intelligence, faith and devotion, force of austerity, power of chastity and true knowledge, bestow all that upon the world. To help mankind, appear, O Mother of the world, dispel all ills.
Mother Durga! Slay the enemy within, then root out all obstacles outside. May the noble heroic mighty Indian race, supreme in love and unity, truth and strength, arts and letters, force and knowledge ever dwell in its holy woodlands, its fertile fields, under its sky-scraping hills, along the banks of its pure-streaming rivers. This is our prayer at the feet of the Mother. Make thyself manifest.
Mother Durga! Enter our bodies in thy Yogic strength. We shall become thy instruments, thy sword slaying all evil, thy lamp dispelling all ignorance. Fulfil this yearning of thy young children, O Mother. Be the master and drive thy instrument, wield thy sword and slay the evil, hold up the lamp and spread the light of knowledge. Make thyself manifest.
Mother Durga! When we possess thee, we shall no longer cast thee away; we shall bind thee to us with the tie of love and devotion. Come, Mother, manifest thyself in our mind and life and body.
Come, Revealer of the hero-path. We shall no longer cast thee away. May our entire life become a ceaseless worship of the Mother, all our acts a continuous service to the Mother, full of love, full of energy. This is our prayer, O Mother, descend upon earth, make thyself manifest in this land of India.’
Affectionately,
Alok Da
