Here is a quote from Sri Aurobindo that I think every practitioner of the integral yoga should print out and paste on their desk or somewhere they can see it daily:
Do not be over-eager for experiences; for experiences you can always get, having once broken the barrier between the physical mind and the subtle planes. What you have to aspire for most is the improved quality of the recipient consciousness in you, discrimination in the mind, the unattached impersonal Witness look on all that goes on in you and around you, purity in the vital, calm equanimity, enduring patience, absence of pride and the sense of greatness — and more especially, the development of the psychic being in you — surrender, self-giving, psychic humility, devotion. It is a consciousness made up of these things, cast in this mould, that can bear without breaking, stumbling or deviation into error the rush of lights, power and experiences from the supraphysical planes. An entire perfection in these respects is hardly possible until the whole nature from the higher mind to the subconscient physical is made one in the light that is greater than the mind, but a sufficient foundation and a consciousness always self-observant, vigilant and growing in these things is indispensable — for perfect purification is the basis of the perfect Siddhi.
The whole point of this yoga is transforming the external being. And without this sort of rigorous preparation, there is no way the instrument can contain the Light that descends during spiritual experiences. Moreover, if the lower being is too rebellious and impure, it will attract all sorts of negative influences along with genuine Light — the experience will be a very mixed one. It is only a solid foundation based on self-discipline and the flowering of the psychic being that can protect us in these realms of consciousness.
Rashid points out: “Almost every single important extremist leader is living on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.” How is it that seven years down the line from 9/11, extremism is very much on the rise on the Pak-Afghan border? According to Rashid, the United States has completely failed to carry out any kind of nation-building efforts in Afghanistan. He points out that the original US invasion of Afghanistan was actually welcomed by the Afghans (which is a very rare thing for Afghan culture). The US lost the opportunity to help change the cultural landscape by shifting its focus to Iraq. As a result, extremism has increased and the Taliban are gaining more territory even now (they currently control about one-third of Afghanistan). It goes without saying that a mere fraction of the resources spent on the needless and immoral invasion of Iraq could have been used to rebuild Afghanistan.
In short, seven years down the line, the US seems to be back at square one due to the Bush administration’s numerous follies.
Here are the relevant video clips from last month’s talk.
Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan
Terrorist Sanctuaries in Pakistan
Possible Al-Qaeda Attack
More interviews of Ahmed Rashid can be found on YouTube.
The Pakistani military recently launched an offensive against the Taliban near Peshawar. That’s only a few hours away from my home city of Islamabad.
Here’s an old video clip from 2001 about Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, being a state within a state. It features the brilliant Pakistani analyst Ahmed Rashid, who comments, “It is a big joke in the regular army that many of the ISI officers are more Taliban than the Taliban.”
Edit: Embedding has been disabled for this video but you can watch it here.
The ISI and its Islamist persona is one of the main reasons why Pakistan is currently nearly descending into civil war. The ISI, together with US negligence, created a monster, and that same monster is now tearing Pakistan apart from within.
This is a little late, but I’ve been meaning to link to Ali Eteraz’s review of the late Benazir Bhutto’s book Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West. His review is entitled, aptly, Benazir Bhutto’s Disappointing Last Testament, and it’s well worth the read. Given that people in the Western media were perhaps unfairly romanticizing Bhutto after her tragic death, Ali’s review is a good reality check. Importantly, he points out the following:
However, there are some glaring omissions in that narrative. For example, Ms. Bhutto heaps plenty of scorn on the dictator Zia ul Haq for his Islamization program but does not point out her failure to repeal any of his initiatives. Even more damning, she does not mention how the decisions of her father Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto — to declare Islam the state religion and strip citizenship rights from Ahmadis and make alliances with the Saudi state and make Friday the weekend and to appoint a Wahhabi like Zia ul Haq to the head of the army — laid the fundamental groundwork for Zia ul Haq’s Islamization in Pakistan.
Here is a very good paper comparing the respective theologies and spiritual journeys of the great Andalusian Sufi Ibn al-Arabi and the incomparable Sri Ramakrishna (whose spiritual work and experimentation with both Vedanta and Tantra, in my opinion, laid the foundation for Sri Aurobindo’s later synthesis): Love and Devotion According to Sri Ramakrishna and Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-Arabi, by Zachary Markwith. The paper describes how both these sages believed in the universality of all faiths and worshipped the Divine in feminine form (indeed, they both had female gurus).
The difference between these two figures appears to be that for Ibn al-Arabi, the universality of religions was experienced in the heart, whereas Sri Ramakrishna experienced it both in the heart and on the formal level, as he also practiced other religions.
In fact there is a fantastic quote from Sri Ramakrishna about his practice of Islam and Sufism which shows his tremendous wideness and willingness to put aside, for a while, his preferred path (which was always devotion to Mother Kali):
… I used to repeat the name of Allah, wear my cloth in the fashion of the Mohammedans and recite the Namaz regularly. All Hindu ideas being wholly banished from the mind, not only did I not salute the Hindu gods, but I had no inclination even to visit them. After three days I realized the goal of that form of devotion.
That spirit of self-sacrifice is the true meaning of Vedanta!
Similarly, Ibn al-Arabi appreciated other forms of worship and religion as well, as evidenced by the following quote:
My heart has become capable of every form; it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks, and a temple for idols and the pilgrim’s Ka’ba, and the tablets of the Torah and the book of the Koran. I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love’s camels take, that is my religion and my faith.
A quote summarizes the aforementioned paper’s conclusion:
In the life of Ramakrishna, Ibn al-Arabi, and countless other sages in Hinduism, Islam, and other traditions, devotion to the feminine symbol of the Divine is central. What is remarkable about these figures is that they came to a similar understanding of the transcendent unity of religions while living in different religious universes and historical periods. Without reducing the particular forms that Ramakrishna and Ibn al-Arabi practiced on their spiritual paths, and what these forms mean in their own religious and cultural contexts, it is amazing to see how a Hindu and a Muslim came to such a similar understanding of the essential unity of all traditions through contemplating a feminine theophany of the One Absolute and Infinite Reality.
It’s a very interesting paper and well worth the read, although coming from a perennialist perspective which in my opinion has certain limitations (I don’t think it’s true that all mystical paths lead to the same destination in the end, although of course there are common themes in all the spiritual traditions).
There are two types of gurus in this world. The first type require that their students follow certain specific rules and work within certain traditional forms in order to reach higher stations (and personally, I’m quite skeptical that this could ever work in practice if the forms being used are outdated). The second type accept everything their students do as having certain relative value in order to transmute it to higher stations. Sometimes this can include serious impurities, but the Master sees behind the veil and seeks to draw the Divine out from behind these impurities.
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were of the second type. We would be fools if we let ourselves forget how much we owe them for what they were willing to bear for humanity.
The freedom that is given to us in the integral yoga to do, more or less, anything, as long as we don’t violate certain core principles of this yoga, comes with tremendous responsibility. The idea in this yoga has never been to be free to do whatever we want, nor even to aspire for a world where we can be free to do whatever we want. The point of the freedom from rules and regulations in this yoga is to inspire us to take responsibility for that freedom and learn to execute the Divine Will, whatever it may be.
I’m grateful that I was called to this path as I don’t think I would have been satisfied with any other yoga. There are few other spiritual teachers with the kind of mental, vital and spiritual wideness that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have.
What’s left to do now is to not let myself become complacent and satisfied with my current level of sincerity to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother but to keep aspiring for a sincerity that will take me straight to the Divine directly, without intermediary.
To see the composition of the sun or the lines of Mars is doubtless a great achievement; but when thou hast the instrument that can show thee a man’s soul as thou seest a picture, then thou wilt smile at the wonders of physical Science as the playthings of babies. — Sri Aurobindo
Science is objective (object-oriented). Occultism, as I understand it, transcends the subject-object dichotomy. (What this means is that the occultist has become aware that the only Subject, the Divine, objectifies itself in numerous forms and experiences itself in each of those forms.) My question is: can there be, or will there ever be, an intermediary between objective science, and straight-up occultism (the sort of detailed experimental occultism that one finds in Sri Aurobindo’s Record of Yoga)?
This was a question that Dave and I mulled over a few days ago, but could arrive at no firm answer except to say that perhaps technology will help us “grow in faith” and transition to occultism (transcending this technology in the process). Most of us do not have the sort of supernormal abilities that spiritual adepts develop (understatement of the century), which is why we may perhaps need technologies to mediate our development in that direction. For instance, I have experienced that my intuition has been enhanced by using the Internet as often as I do. Consider that the US military is trying to develop some sort of synthetic telepathy (which may well be pseudoscience for all I know, but my point is that the idea of “technological occultism” seems to already be out there).
What’s your point of view? Can there be a mediator between science and occultism? And does technology have a pivotal role to play in humanity’s ascent to Divinity as some sort of mediator between science and occultism?
In a recent discussion, my friend Bob pointed out that all fundamentalists — whether religious or materialistic or even supposedly “spiritual”, though I have to say the religious ones are always the worst — value a very rigorous rationality that is based on almost totally unexamined foundations. Moreover, such people are very suspicious of anyone who can live with and deal with ambiguities and contradictions, such as philosophers, poets, artists and mystics. It seems to be the nature of the rational mind to be extremely long-winded but ultimately tautological (Sri Aurobindo likens it to a “snake” that can just keep coiling infinitely). “Breakthroughs” seem to happen when some sort of higher intuition comes down and is translated by the rational mind.
Interestingly, Albert Einstein had this to say on the subject: “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
Once someone has constructed the dreaded “mental fortress”, they will equate it with Reality, and any attempts to dismantle it will only evoke an emotional reaction from them. For me, it’s been an interesting exercise to mentally deconstruct Sri Aurobindo’s or the Mother’s thought sometimes. Paradoxically I have found that this has increased bhakti in my heart. It has made my heart open up even more. Deconstruction is a powerful tool for aspiring mystics because it will ensure we never get trapped in that “mental fortress”. True faith is not an intellectual position and is not dependent on mental symbols. It is a mode of inquiry and an inner lens or awareness through which we view the world.
The journey across California’s spiritual landscape continues. Having spent the last week with the wonderful and intelligent David Hutchinson in Sacramento, I’ve been driven up to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Lodi by the always amiable and good-humoured (not to mention hilarious) Lynda Lester.
The people living at the Ashram are very dedicated yogis and they’ve maintained a wonderfully sattvic atmosphere here. I cannot describe the stillness I’ve experienced here. I’ve been stunned into silence and humbled mightily. My mind hasn’t been this quiet since I was a child. No, seriously. There were moments when I tried to speak and found to my surprise that I could only whisper. There are just no words.
One thing I’ve noticed about myself very consistently is that when I start ranting or wasting too much time criticizing other people or entire groups or points of view, what I’m really doing is projecting my own insecurities. I cannot confront and face my own inadequacies, and I am unable to accept my own limitations, and that creates stress which I project onto other people. The alternative is to turn to the Divine, show love and acceptance to one’s flaws, surrender them, and in effect parent oneself and allow oneself to grow beyond them. So easy in theory, so difficult in practice.
In truth, I yearn to be able to see that everything that appears dark, ugly and ignorant, is also Divine. When I rant against another group or find my mind and vital reacting, whining, being petulant, and so on, it’s just a mask for a deep inner need for spiritual intimacy and love with precisely that group of people or that point of view which I am criticizing. I want to develop the vision to be able to see that I am One with precisely that which I seem to hate and despise so much. This seems to be one of God’s great mysteries — that we will often persistently demonize others even though deep down we know that what we really seek is intimacy with them. Ranting is a coping mechanism that I use to keep myself from giving attention to this inner need and taking responsibility for it.
Moreover, often in discussions of a political or ideological nature, most people are projecting deeper emotional and personality problems of their own onto that wider issue. Most people will just project their own shadow and will likely be completely unconscious of this. And I think that as the soul awakens and you start becoming conscious, in the initial stages what you wind up realizing is just how little you really do know and just how much you are constantly distorting the facts and Reality because of your underlying emotional issues.
These things seem so self-evidently true when you reflect on them for a few seconds, but while you’re in the middle of an emotional reaction you are totally unconscious to them and just can’t see what is happening. It really seems to require such constant and unwavering vigilance and self-reflection, and a willingness to always be ready to give up what you are in order to get closer to what you can become.
Here are two contemplations from Sri Aurobindo on the importance of learning to seek Truth in every position or point of view that will probably take a while for most of us to assimilate with integrity into our being:
When thou hearest an opinion that displeases thee, study and find out the truth in it.
The rejection of falsehood by the mind seeking after truth is one of the chief causes why mind cannot attain to the settled, rounded and perfect truth; not to escape falsehood is the effort of divine mind, but to seize the truth which lies masked behind even the most grotesque or far-wandering error.
Reason divides; wisdom unifies. While rational knowledge has its role to play, we ought to never forget that wisdom far exceeds it, and it’s wisdom that we have to ultimately aspire for.
Sometimes in order to shut up the ranting ego-mind, I just take a step back and say to myself: “Still have an ego, right? Check. Then there’s no possible way that you could have undistorted perceptions. There’s no possible way that you could have an objective understanding of Reality or the world. So stop pretending you do.”
All things move towards a divine event; each experience, suffering and want no less than joy and satisfaction, is a necessary link in the carrying out of a universal movement which it is our business to understand and second. To revolt, to condemn, to cry out is the impulse of our unchastened and ignorant instincts. Revolt like everything else has its uses in the play and is even necessary, helpful, decreed for the divine development in its own time and stage; but the movement of an ignorant rebellion belongs to the stage of the soul’s childhood or to its raw adolescence. The ripened soul does not condemn but seeks to understand and master, does not cry out but accepts or toils to improve and perfect, does not revolt inwardly but labours to obey and fulfil and transfigure.
A mere thread in the tapestry being woven at the hands of the divine Weaver, a speck of dirt being evolved to consciousness by Consciousness, a breath being made to breathe within all Breathing.
A Note to Readers
May the Divine Grace protect you from my ignorance.
A mere thread in the tapestry being woven at the hands of the divine Weaver, a speck of dirt being evolved to consciousness by Consciousness, a breath being made to breathe within all Breathing.
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