Sri Matri Dhyana Mandir
The Temple of the Divine Descent
Sri Matri Dhyana Mandir is the temple of adoration of the Divine Mother, not a religious centre of worship but rather a place where all outer aids are substituted by inner aids of concentration, meditation, silencing of the mind and inner adoration which are identified as indispensable method and second step¹ of integral Jnana and Bhakti Yoga. This is further extended as a Spiritual experience of Knowledge by identity and Bliss of union and dynamised as pouring down of Divine Knowledge and Love of the third and fourth steps and the last ascending Spiritual experience of integral Yoga is the highest oneness with the greatest possible depth and height of Consciousness, substituting the world as a temple ground and cry of the devotees for the clasp of God.
A BRIEF HINT OF THE TEMPLE:
Sri Matri Dhyana Mandir is a partially closed, many-petalled Lotus-shaped structure within a rectangular hall. The structure rests on twelve curved pillars surrounded with eighteen+six rectangular pillars. These rectangular pillars symbolise the twenty-four perfections² (6x4) of integral Yoga. The twelve pillars form twelve petals or twelve attributes of the Divine Mother that converge into four petals or four Divine Shaktis and finally into a central petal or One Mother, Aditi, representing the perfection of The Mother’s Symbol. This temple also symbolically represents one of the last, the profoundest and the 'grand solution’³ of the opening of the Inconscient Self and calling down the Divine Mother seated in the Inconscient Self’s ‘many-petalled lotus-throne,’⁴ which is an Immobile Centre of many infinitudes, located by the side of Time’s Sea ‘in thousand-pillared temple.’⁴
There is a rectangular corridor, The Mother’s room and a library encircling this meditation hall. The Hall can accommodate approximately 250 devotees for meditation and concentration. The Temple height is 30 feet with an inside hall dimension of 44x50 feet size.
A BRIEF HINT OF THE INTEGRAL YOGA:
A Sadhaka’s Spiritual life is secured through the complete union of the Soul (Psychic Being) with the Divine. His primary motive is to give Them (dual Divine Consciousness) consecrated service without rest and earthly ease, which will establish him as a slave of all humanity and in the consciousness of the King Child with the extension of the inner and outer Kingdom. His secondary motive is to develop his own path of Yoga through concentration, contemplation and meditation of written Truth and its constant restatement and renovation which will establish him as a disciple of the Lord, Prophet, Pathfinder, Pioneer of new Consciousness and a student of Integral Education. His tertiary motive is to emerge as Lover of the Divine, lover of brother Souls and lover of all creatures and humanity. Thus, his Spiritual life is fulfilled by the emergence of triple overhead energies of Delight, Love and Beauty. Integral Yoga further insists a Sadhaka to remain aware of full account⁵ of his human imperfection. It has been identified that to remain satisfied with partial Divine union is a ‘maimed achievement’⁶ and he must strive for integration and perfection of his whole Being and Nature from a higher plane of Consciousness.
This Yoga is primarily ‘Yoga of Self-perfection’ of developed Souls and secondarily Karma, Jnana and Bhakti Yoga of developing and developed Souls. Out of these triple paths, integral Yoga is primarily Karma Yoga and secondarily the subordinate action of Jnana and Bhakti Yoga. Integration comes by the reconciliation of triple Yoga and practice of the fourth ‘Yoga of Self-perfection.’ The Consciousness in which an integral Yogi is established is primarily waking trance or entry into multiple subtle bodies/koshas in the waking state and secondarily dream trance, sleep trance and absolute trance of Turiya, ‘to which few can attain and from which not all can return’⁷ to the body.
FUTURE VISION:
Sri Matri Dhyana Mandir symbolically represents earth as half opened and half-closed aspirant lotus bud, who no longer spins unhelped in Space within the burden of existing Time extending towards Eternity and oblivious of its high and luminous Supreme destiny but it is also a living manifestation of Eternal and Infinite All-existence and it 'Knows that one high step might'⁸ liberate all. This view of accepting this earth as a world of sacrifice and enlargement of this life through sacrifice is further supported by our other view that the Divine Life is the culmination of an evolutionary process and using this phrase implies that our present life is undivine and imperfect. This apparent Earth has to retain her purity through her marriage with Eternity and sole dependency on the Supreme from above. This world is a growing image of Divine creation and it expresses a foreseen Truth, obeys a predetermining Will and realises an original formative self-vision. The existing Sri Matri Dhyana Mandir Project seems to be an ambitious mental construction and can wait for supreme creation related to the invisible descent of Spiritual Force precipitating as a perfect piece of material CREATION and manifestation. Form may be said to be the innate body and the inevitable self-revelation of the Formless. This construction is dependent neither on government machinery, local surroundings, human architects, or generous donors but on the Divine. Its objective is not only to gather together a few zealous aspirants to possess and be possessed by the Divine Beloved but to serve as a means to channel God’s Supreme Light for earth and man. This universal all-pervading Divine Force considers this earth not as a figment of conception in universal Mind but as a conscious birth that can act through the individual concentration to open another dimension of life in its widest and profoundest sense, shows the definite path to distant unknown wandering Souls, who emerge as new-born destined Divine Souls leading them towards their moderate, ascetic and extreme Spiritual fulfillment.
Finally, this temple of light will be able to 'bring the glory here of the Absolute’s force,'⁹ serve as a means of enlarging the existing human limitation into 'Light too intense for thought and love too boundless'¹⁰ and can draw brief time into limitless Eternity. It can also become a cradle of a few twice-born Souls, Dvija, to pursue rightly regulated consecration through persistent and rigorous askesis.
OM TAT SAT
REFERENCES:
1. “But worship is only the first step on the path of devotion. Where external worship changes into (second step) the inner adoration, real Bhakti begins; (third step) that deepens into the intensity of divine love; (fourth step) that love leads to the joy of closeness passes into the bliss of union. Love too as well as knowledge brings us to (fifth step) a highest oneness and (sixth step) it gives to that oneness its greatest possible depth and intensity.” Sri Aurobindo/ CWSA-24/The Synthesis Of Yoga-549,
2. Twenty-four Concentrations of Divine Perfection are taken from sapta-chatustaya: Concentration of Fourfold Perfection of Equality: Samata, Shanti, Sukha and Hasya. Concentration of Fourfold Perfection of Body: Arogyam, Utthapana, Saundaryam, Vividhanandah. The concentration of Fourfold Perfection of Mind and Supermind: Jnanam, Trikala Dristi, Asta Siddhi and Samadhi. Concentration of Fourfold Perfection of Shakti: Viryam, Shaktih, Daivi Prakriti, Sraddha. Concentration of Fourfold Perfection of Action: Krishnah, Kali, Kamah, Karma. The concentration of Fourfold Perfection of Brahman: Sarvam Brahma, Anantam Brahmah, Jnanam Brahmah, Anandam Brahmah.
3. “The Inconscient found its heart of consciousness,
The idea and feeling groping in Ignorance
At last clutched passionately the body of Truth,
The music born in Matter’s silences
Plucked nude out of the Ineffable’s fathomlessness
The meaning it had held but could not voice;
The perfect rhythm now only sometimes dreamed
An answer brought to the torn earth’s hungry need
Rending the night that had concealed the Unknown,
Giving to her her lost forgotten soul.
A grand solution closed the long impasse
In which the heights of mortal effort end.” Savitri-89-90,
4. “The Immanent shall be the witness God
Watching on his many-petalled lotus-throne
His actionless being and his silent might
Ruling earth-nature by eternity’s law,
A thinker waking the Inconscient’s world,
An immobile centre of many infinitudes
In his thousand-pillared temple by Time’s sea.” Savitri-706,
5. “But whatever his (Sadhaka) aim, however exalted his aspiration, he has to begin from the law of his present imperfection, to take full account of it and see how it can be converted to the law of a possible perfection.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis Of Yoga-631,
6. “A Yoga of works, a union with the Divine in our will and acts — and not only in knowledge and feeling — is then an indispensable, an inexpressibly important element of an integral Yoga. The conversion of our thought and feeling without a corresponding conversion of the spirit and body of our works would be a maimed achievement.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis Of Yoga-92,
7: CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga-395,
8: (Earth) “Knows that one high step might enfranchise all.” Savitri-371,
9: “Toiling to transform the still far Absolute
Into an all-fulfilling epiphany,
Into an utterance of the Ineffable,
She would bring the glory here of the Absolute’s force,
Change poise into creation’s rhythmic swing,
Marry with a sky of calm a sea of bliss.” Savitri-195-196
10: “A power dwelt in her soul too great for earth,
A bliss lived in her heart too large for heaven;
Light too intense for thought and love too boundless
For earth’s emotions lit her skies of mind
And spread through her deep and happy seas of soul.” Savitri-715
The revelation of Supramental Energy in the Inconscient Sheath is ‘a grand solution’ and a confirmation of the acceleration of the individual and universal transformation of nature. This discovery of Inconscient Self is also identified as ‘the last transcendent power’ where ‘Matter still slept empty of its Lord.’ Sri Matri Dhyana Mandir stands primarily as a symbol of this perfection where Divine force rushes into the body, life and mind from the farthest end of the feet and secondarily a symbol of all-pervading Overhead Supramental Energy capturing all the sheaths and can be approached from the two gates of head and feet or ‘Our life is entrenched between two rivers of Light.’ (Refer Savitri-page- 90, 405, 531)