The Seeker’s Manual

“Sri Aurobindo used to say that the sole purpose of books and philosophies was not really to enlighten the mind, but to silence it so that, quieted, it can start experiencing and receive inspiration directly.”
–Satprem, Sri Aurobindo, or the Adventure of Consciousness, p. 281

We do everything in a state of tension, hurriedly, carelessly, unconsciously; in response to the thousand and one promptings of external life, not to mention its blows, we behave physically like a patient in a dentist’s chair: we are tense and turned in on ourselves, out of haste, or fear, or anxiety, or greed.  This is the legacy of a few millions of years of animality: our substance remembers having struggled to survive, it keeps hardening itself.  This hardening is one of the causes of death, and a great obstacle to establishing the true vibration.  When we stiffen and harden under a blow, we gather all our vital force in one point, as a defense; a huge current suddenly flows through a tiny opening, which turns red-hot and hurts. If we learned to broaden our physical consciousness and absorb the blow instead of rejecting it, we would not suffer – all suffering is a narrowness of the consciousness, at all levels. We can thus understand that were this dust of warm supramental gold to rush suddenly into our cells, and were the body to react with its usual hardening, everything would burst.  In other words, our cellular consciousness, like our mental and vital consciousness, must learn to expand and universalize. (p. 321)

And so what is there to add to the adventure of consciousness by one (Aurobindo) who dedicated his life to its exploration and elucidation?  How can you venerate the silence by adding more words to it?

The mind left to its own devices will make up more verbal propositions without end, whether in attempted communication with others or in the safety of its own domain; and these deserve to be measured for truth next to one another and in light of the greater wordless silence that is the big picture outside and inside our habitually dictating selves.

Would it be better to do as Sri Aurbindo did and retreat in solitude for 24 years, or to seek to attain an unshakeable stillness and silence that could serve as a beacon and shining example for any and all to follow?  The answer Satprem provides, in his 300-plus pages of dense commentary, is a resounding No.  What Aurobindo found and Satprem emphasizes, is that there is no enlightenment apart from the meat of life and death; no individual salvation without the liberation of all the world from suffering; no adventure of consciousness outward from the body and its failings, but only into the depths of our reality, our atomic and subatomic structure, where we find what we are looking for in the very place we are.

Satprem says, “We have lost the Password, that is the bottom line of our era” (p. 349).

A new word, if it can bring us back to this journey, is not extraneous but vital.  If it is true it can serve as the password we seem to keep forgetting.  To that end there is always an opening for a fresh attempt – especially as truth insists on leaving behind all that has gone before, and coming to us naked and new and in need of our understanding as of this moment, going forward into the yet unknown.

it’s all practice

it’s all performance

every moment

mystic beach mix

1. Go Deeper

2. Listen to the Body

3. Relax, Breathe

4. Ego Go

5. Universal Energy

This practice is available every moment, and can manifest in longer cycles of awareness and intention.  In that way you could call it a kind of Fractal Yoga, with a variable focus of mindfulness that shifts from personal concerns of success and advantage, fear and regret, to deeper feelings of openness, contentment and joyful oneness.

Just as the cycling through these five gates of understanding can happen breath by breath, or lifetime by lifetime – each gate is a whole journey itself, yet also a step and a segment of the whole approach.  Each is a handy banner to carry around for awhile in place of the more limiting and destructive power of a national flag; an ID badge in school or court, hospital or prison. Each is an antidote, an alternative path to following the habitual agenda or preoccupation of mind which obscures peace, harmony and gratitude whenever it’s running the ship of self … to mix metaphors.

Each of the five “Fingers” is a metaphor for oneness.  Each contains the message that is all around us and in us, every moment.  Each can be described by no words, by these words, or by an entire treatise of study.  Each could be debated by doctors of philosophy; scorned by captains of industry and the pub crowd; copyrighted by the Church of Nowick.  No, not exactly.  Don’t blame or praise the messager.  The message is all around us, and in us.  I AM THAT, as the sages say.

If we are moved or invited to say more, we might begin with 25 words or less to elaborate on each of the Five Fingers.

Go Deeper
We stop – waiting for an understanding, a realization.
The thoughts run around, circling endlessly.
With a longer breath, we bring attention to a halt.

Listen to the Body
At the pause in the breath, the body knows what to do.
It is the real master if we allow it to speak its truth.

Relax, Breathe
In this moment there is nothing else to do.
The world is getting on regardless of our efforts.
Now, it all comes down to this.

Ego Go
There the ego is – caught like a cat in the gate between personal breath and all-pervading spirit.  And then – it is gone.  Goodbye.

Universal Energy
Can the universe pick any other moment to suggest any other words than these?
These are given; these will do.  And they are leaves falling.