SRI AUROBINDO LEARNING CENTER: A NEW YEAR‘S RESOLUTION

I saw the Omnipotent's flaming pioneers Over the heavenly verge which turns towards life Come crowding down the amber stairs of birth; Forerunners of a divine multitude, Out of the paths of the morning star they came Into the little room of mortal life. I saw them cross the twilight of an age, The sun-eyed children of a marvelous dawn, The great creators with wide brows of calm, The massive barrier-breakers of the world And wrestlers with destiny in her lists of will.”
Sri Aurobindo, Savitri.

The Resolution: Community Peace and Harmony.
“Resolution” according to Websters: “The thing determined upon; decision as to future action; resolve.” Also, “A solving as of a puzzle; solution.”

“The integral yoga Sri Aurobindo and the Mother developed has also its collective side, for its aim is not only individual realization and transformation but also encompasses the establishment of a gnostic community. The Mother has pointed out that the integral yoga cannot be fully realized individually, although each individual can attain to his own perfection, and that a representative group of aspiring individuals is required for the complete realization and manifestation of a divine life.”

The Mother described the Gnostic consciousness as one “in which you are able to see at the same time all the theories, all the beliefs, all the ideas men have expressed in their highest consciousness…. all the philosophical theories, all the expressions of the human mind when it has managed to catch a little corner of the Truth …..One must be able to see all aspects of the truth glimpsed by the human intelligence and….something more.” This understanding can not be reached by personal effort alone. “You become that, spontaneously. It is the crowning of an absolute mental sincerity, when you no longer have any partiality, any preference, any attachment to an idea.You are simply open to the Light, that’s all.”

There are many reasons people link together around a common interest, a common good or action. “Sri Aurobindo tells us that a true community, which he calls a Gnostic community, can exist only by the inner realization of everyone of its members, by a real, concrete unity and identity of everyone with the other members of the community…..He also said that a double movement is necessary: with the effort for the individual progress and realization there must be united an effort to lift up the whole, enabling it to make the indispensable progress that would bring in a greater progress of the individual – a progress of the mass allowing the individual to take one step more….

And for that I believe it is useful for us to have some common meditation sometimes.

The Sri Aurobindo Learning Center is located at 83 Baca Grant Way. The public is invited to Savitri Readings at 7:00 pm each Tuesday. The Learning Center has an excellent in-house library and a bookshop, to which all are welcome. Please call first, 256-4917.

References: The Mother, Questions and Answers Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, Collective Yoga