Sri Matriniketan Ashram
Sri Aurobindo Centre
"Organisations, however vast and complete they may be, can achieve nothing permanent unless a new force, more divine and all-powerful, expresses itself through a perfected human instrument."
The Mother
TMCW-14/Words of The Mother-II/p-277
Abode of the
Divine Mother
The literal meaning of Sri Matriniketan Ashram is the abode, niketan of the Divine Mother, Matri, which is surrounded, concentrated and protected by Her vast harmony and opulence, Sri, subordinated by Her destined children whose mind, life and body have received Soul initiation and shelter, the Ashram. She has chosen this place as a field of manifestation of Her Divinity and fulfils some of Her special mission of elevation of Consciousness towards Spiritual knowledge and power which will transform the law and Nature of external form and of discovery of the ‘greatest possible spiritual fulfilment’¹ directed towards ‘the most difficult transformation of all’² in resolving harmoniously ‘all problems of existence.’²⁹ It is situated ten kilometres west of the Bay of Bengal, eleven kilometres north-west away, in the outskirts of Brahmapur city in the state of Odisha, dedicated to dynamise Sri Aurobindo’s comprehensive vision and action either through the practice of Integral Yoga or through Nature’s conscious Integral Evolution.
Garden gladiolus
Receptivity
A Perfect Vessel
The contents, innovations, adventures and splendours of the Spirit cannot be exhausted by the profound revelations, exulted narrations and inspired writings of Saints and Seers of all Time. If the Divine Potter¹⁹ shapes one human pot more perfectly than another, then ‘the merit lies not in the vessel but the Maker.'³ It is ‘an exceedingly good fortune’⁴ for a seeker of integral Yoga as Sri Aurobindo pointed to meet a perfect vessel or ‘one who has realised or is becoming That’⁴ and it reproduces, multiplies and universalises through ‘an outburst of the same divine self-consciousness in other’⁵ unknown Souls in distant lands of our terrestrial humanity. In addition to it, all the creatures of the world are ‘seen and felt as the Divine manifested in many disguises become by that very fact part of integral Yoga.’⁶ The sons of Men, Nara, are also revered and adored as the sons of Gods, Narayana,and when both the faculties are equally paced then that localises the evolutionary thrust to lift up the general Consciousness of the race. They are at once the leader of all that are behind them in consciousness and follower of all that are ahead of them in cognition. The greatest Master is much less a Teacher, Instructor, Exemplar, Propagator, Orator, Writer, Savant, Scholar, Forecaster, Healer and Preacher than an Influence and Presence pouring down ‘the divine consciousness and its constituting light and power and purity and bliss into all who are receptive around him.’⁷
A Sadhaka of integral Yoga is primarily preoccupied with Self-concentration and secondarily preoccupied with self-expansion where the latter is identified as an outcome of universalised Consciousness activated through the rigorous self-disciplines of the former. Thus, he primarily emerges as a symbol of seven-fold indispensable self-concentration that of the follower, seeker of truth, disciple, servant, slave, instrument and child of Their limitless Divine Consciousness. The Divine demands from him ‘subordination and service’²⁰ for annulment of his ego and 'service and obedience'²⁴ for taming the lower Nature in his being. If he consents to become a slave of any human instrument for a long period then his fitness²⁸ for a higher life and Spiritual future is secured. His immediate aim and real business in the world is an 'ascent to the divine Life'²⁵ and 'not to become animals, living like cats and dogs'²⁶ and not to harbour a brute in him which is 'lower than the lowest reptile’s crawl.'²⁷ He secondarily experiences union with the Impersonal Divine followed by union with the Divine’s sevenfold personality of the Creator Father, Creatrix Mother, all-embracing Lover, hidden Master of all works, evolving as a child God, the inner Guide and compassionate Friend of all creatures. And his tertiary objective culminates in the distant aim of becoming above self-expansive sevenfold³⁰ Divine personalities.
Sri K. Anurakta
A profound Yogi and Occultist, established himself in Supreme Consciousness, a Britisher by birth and yet harmonised and synthesised the great traditions of the West and the East, universalised all Deities to realise the One; he lived in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. In his little hut inside the Sri Aurobindo Hand Made Paper Factory, he was found deeply united with The Mother pouring down Her infinite Love, Compassion and Help to the bereaved. Seeing his close relation with Indian deities, particularly Lord Sri Ganesh, out of curiosity we had asked him long years ago, around the year 2002, whether he is an emanation of Lord Sri Kartikeya, he nodded with monosyllable ‘Yes’, and when asked where his Consciousness is actually established, he explained to us that it is higher than Overmind; when again asked whether he lived in Consciousness where World, Self and God were reconciled, he confirmed with the single syllable ‘Yes.’ His recent state of Consciousness (around the year 2013) had established in absolute Divine state and when asked about his present state he explained that he was holding together The Mother and Sri Aurobindo in the heart, who were preoccupied in transforming his physical cells.
The Mother gave his name Anurakta, which means ‘especially and exceedingly devoted to the Divine;’ he later added the prefix Kartikeya, to his name due to his special contact with the south Indian deity Murugan. He was a part and conscious channel of The Mother’s present most difficult action of transforming the earth’s Subconscient hell, ‘where the gods and demons battle in night.’¹³ We got the special opportunity to meet in him ‘the Lover’s everlasting Yes’¹² and Sri Matriniketan Ashram grows under his all embracing Compassion and Grace, holding together the Dual Divine Power within him.
S. A. Maa Krishna
She was instrumental in developing Sri Matriniketan Ashram from a collective aspiration of study circle and a school for small children in 1991 with the conviction that one can aspire to begin this integral Yoga with rigorous self-control, without least human attachment, without desire towards earthly enjoyment and one should develop patience to arrive at the end of this Yoga, not in one life span but an endeavour extending over thousand years through successive rebirth.
She followed a long passage to move the Consciousness with the aid of her limited personality and traditional Bhakti Yoga with full of adverse trials, arduous difficulties, worst threats, flat failures and prolonged sufferings. She works out gradually the Divine’s dream of perennial Joy, imperishable Truth, ineffable Beauty, supreme creative Action and detailed organisation and execution of Divine Work with grace, faith, patience and courage. Thus, a shifting of concentration from single Avatara in the heart through partial Divine union of the existing traditional Teaching has extended the hope towards the intense movement of vertical Consciousness which leads one towards realisation of dual Avatara in the heart and integral Divine union.
The path she follows or the lessons learned from The Mother and Sri Aurobindo in successive years gives this conviction and certainty ‘I carry no power, no knowledge, no capacity to solve any problem, no ability to do thing’ and offer all to the Lord who is Omnipotent and Omniscient source of our existence. He decides everything and is responsible for whatever small or big work is executed through our consecration. He can give large Spiritual experiences which includes the realisation of the One and the Eternal in Impersonal Self, Nirguna Brahman and its extension as Cosmic Manifestation, Saguna Brahman, the infinite depths of universal Silence and the infinite largeness of the universal Action and working of the Divine Force in Subconscient and Inconscient sheaths, contact with Overmental Gods, the subtle physical wideness to reject falsehood and increasing intensity of Light to bridge the gulf between the higher planes of Consciousness and the gross physical world, Psycho-Spiritual communication and interchange with The Mother and the Master to mark the passing out of our limitation and transition in sadhana, confirming that Their each occasional personal appearance and constant impersonal Presence are special privilege to meet the hour of crisis, overcome the critical hour of the difficult gulf that all must cross. The future hope of this endeavour is the activation of seven-fold personal Divine Presence that predominates over the constant impersonal Divine once the Consciousness is established in the Universalised Psychic plane.
She received the inner call to serve The Mother in all life through inner and outer action, limit breaking personality and step by step Her Soul saving Divine Consciousness will be established. This is a collective action with Souls who are linked with The Mother and Sri Aurobindo from past births and the Time proves that they are not separated from each other in successive births and bodies. The literal meaning of her name is the Jivatma’s symbolic oneness with Paramatma, represented through triple Avatara, or the Psychic turn to the call of the child-God Krishna fluting to rapture lifted her being to Sri Aurobindo’s Consciousness resulting in the transformation of Nature of The Mother possessed outer life, one with the Love of Her limit breaking Love, Ananda of Her overwhelming flame-intense Bliss, the Consciousness of Her world-shaking Consciousness, of which she is a symbol of the living channel and emanation.
Her realisation or understanding follows the Mother-nature’s Intentions towards existence; that of firstly, the emergence of the Divine is slow in the mass as their outer Nature is closed between two mental firmaments of brute outwardness and domination of sense activities that refuse to go within whereas its pace can be swift and uninterrupted with the rare individual Soul known as Divine Instrument, Yantra, Emanation, Vibhuti and Incarnation, Avatara; secondly, the basis of Divine collective living, sadhunam rajyam, begins with the discernment of Truth from falsehood, by loss of separative identity in the Divine and it can be more organised and harmonious by going deep into silence to create an atmosphere of Oneness; thirdly, all manifestation, sthabarajangamam,¹⁷ takes place by union of Spirit with Matter and the Creator of this world, even though exceeding His creation, He is Immanent in it as evolving Consciousness; fourthly, all evolving knowledge is useful for a brief period of time and becomes obsolete afterwards and in order to prevent a knowledge from becoming out dated and remain new for a long time to come it must descend from a very high universal and transcendental plane; fifthly, an individual’s help to collectivity and all humanity is dependent on his degree of realisation of Truth or Soul cultivation by transcending ego which can be measured through his catholicity of universal action, descended knowledge through writings, overflowing expression and captivating Divine Love and he can discharge his greatest service to humanity when he possesses the highest Knowledge which illumines, integralises, harmonises all Knowledge and cures all Ignorance; sixthly, an individual’s capacity in reconciling the Matter and the Spirit or his knowledge on the Unknowable is dependent on the exploration and extension of the whole range of Consciousness from the nether Inconscient plane to the highest Supracosmic plane; seventhly, all destruction, small or big, executed either through human agency or through the Nature’s intervention is generally the outcome of Kali’s wrath and Her limit breaking world action, and the extent of damage gives the measure of human imperfection and unwillingness to change and whatever remains untouched by these disaster and destruction is considered Divine in its essence and lastly, all Spirituality or possession of God’s power of Omnipotence and Omniscience is to be generalised in humanity either through Nature’s unconscious Yoga of popular Religion stumblingly through elementary stage of propaganda or through Nature’s semi-conscious Yoga of less popular Ascetic schools and emergence of multiple liberated Souls as Sannyasa has been ‘widely preached and numerously practiced’¹⁶ or through conscious Yoga of lesser popular ancient Vedantic schools with its ideal freedom and self-ruling universalised king Consciousness of the few individuals or through largely developed Yoga of least popular ancient Vedic schools of thought with its ideal of Divine transformation of Nature and of physical Immortality, which is an action left for the last Avatara to accomplish and the physical Presence of successive Avataras organise immense evolutionary movement as They sign ‘salvation's testament’¹⁵ with Their blood and bear the law of earth’s pain and death. And all the above formulations can lead the existence far ahead beyond our imagination through the intervention of Nature’s most creative power of Bliss action through prepared conscious human vessel.
Her task of becoming the beginner of endless integral Yoga, God’s obedient slave who demands subordination and service, The Mother’s consecrated child, mediocre action in consciousness to uncover the infinitely superior Divine wisdom or the entire range of Sri Aurobindo’s vision are that; firstly, her liberated existence before the spaceless Infinity and timeless Eternity appears to be nothing but a tiny grain of dust; secondly, within this limited boundary her physical sheath seems to have large enduring capacity ‘to bear the wounds of Time’¹⁸ which stands as indispensable condition for cellular transformation and her vital sheath is made up of increasing clear purity and intense capacity to hold the divine Love; her mental sheath aspires to liberate herself from all twilight thoughts; thirdly, Divine’s action and Yoga move ahead both in proportion and newness as one unveils initially a Spiritual path of his own fulfilling the norm that the ‘perfection of the integral Yoga will come’¹⁰ when each Sadhaka ‘is able to follow his own path of Yoga’¹⁰ in conformity with its aim with ‘considerable free diversity in the self expression’⁸ and finally all effort, all self-discipline, all set method is transcended by ‘natural, simple, powerful and happy disclosing of the flower of the Divine Shakti out of the bud of a purified and perfected nature;’¹¹ fourthly, integral Yoga of Self-perfection can begin after one is thoroughly established in traditional Karma, Jnana and Bhakti Yoga and direct the perfect Spirit to penetrate into imperfect Matter; fifthly, the Divine has created a commune through her minimised instrumental guidance³¹ in which the inner Spiritual life and outer living of a Seeker is nurtured and protected through double evolution of Mind and Spirit or slow evolution by movement of three modes of Nature, Gunas and swift Spiritual evolution by movement of Psychic and Spiritual Consciousness and the collective living ‘would create its own body of the life of the spirit’⁸ for the unrestricted prolonged free flow of Psychic and Spiritual Intuition and subsequently seven streams of Overmental Truth, Light, Word, Love, Force, Life-Radiances and Substance-Energy; sixthly, His Yoga will attain culmination by synthesis, integration and universalisation of all Yoga, all Evolution, all the Powers and Personalities of the Mother, all the Occult Science and all Education, and entire love for Him, His Law and His human collectivity for which Sri Matriniketan Ashram is preparing its base and lastly, through ceaseless consecrated Divine action combined with provisional intermittent self-isolation to reduce the hour of outward activities, one can concentrate on the worlds beyond this material world, their universal rhythm, mighty energies, self-existent laws, in order to give instrumental thrust to the pioneering incarnated large subjective action in Consciousness of Their unfinished Evolution in the visible world which is a very small extension of Their present invisible action in the subtle world.
It is deeply felt that there is no other hope,²³ joy and aspiration other than Their Divine Presence received by giving Them equal service and equal entry into Their Teachings. Their Teachings insist on remaining Truthful under all circumstances and keeping mind, life and body untouched from world perversion and invasion of Subconscient impurity; They further insist to realise total consecration through rigorous Self-control/Concentration extending over a long period and to move the Consciousness vertically by activation of double consecration of Vedantic and Vedic sacrifice. From Them, she understands that what she has known is nothing in comparison to what remains to be known and her service to the Divine is just the starting point and her manifesting action, a mere ripple in the Infinite representing the whole quantum of Divine Mission. All her perception is a long beginning of tracing one’s own unique path in Sadhana, the preliminary stumble of a novice, an infant longing, a forceful determination to leave nothing unchanged within and without and offered this limited understanding of Their vast and catholic Teachings at Their Lotus FEET.
Hibiscus
Power of Consciousness
Why Sri Matriniketan Ashram?
Many have enquired with curiosity about the subjective inner action and patient inner unfolding of the Unknowable at Sri Matriniketan Ashram. Some expressed their doubt and impatience regarding the completeness and fulfillment of this effort that can change the principle and persistent character of human life and pursue its immaculate Divine living beyond all sects, clans, language, religions or its striving towards long slow ultimate human perfection whose highest terms are Immortality, the satisfied delight of the whole being, Omnipotence, freedom and mastery over Self, God and World extending over All Life, replacing either the quest of hurried, immediate, practical, mundane and human achievements of this life or to make itself light and comfortable for the race by throwing away its impedimenta or the indifference to the cry that rises up from a labouring helpless humanity or the selfishness that cares not what becomes of those who left behind us in Consciousness. Few recognise it as a fortress where the highest Spiritual ideal and the motiveless quest could maintain itself in its most absolute purity and the Presence of the eternal Vrindavan, where the imperishable union and oneness of the eternal lover Sri Krishna is entrenched between the intoxicating sweetness of the Divine beloved Sri Radha and all-embracing ecstasy of His manifestation, the Gopis.
Sri Matriniketan Ashram aspires to become a bridge of all that Sri Aurobindo had attempted in accumulating the lost Spiritual Truth and enlarged them into hierarchies of Consciousness in Time through His tapasya and the present Sri Aurobindo through His subtle physical Presence extending far ahead of His future Divine action and vision. This Supreme action enforces change in the individual, group, community, State, Nation and the World through discovery of Psychic and Spiritual Being and Subconscient transformation of few select individuals. This change accepts all the problems of existence including all that are most obstinate, hostile and infirm as a field of slow infiltration of Divine Force. This Force heals the apparent opposition between the Spiritual life and that of the present imperfect World, reconciles life’s discord with the Integral Divine Truth and insists ceaselessly on our waking surface mentality to be wholly Spiritualised and dynamises waking and non-waking trance that can permit adventure through movement in multiple planes of Consciousness.
Common laburnum
Descent of the Light
Bougainvillea
Protection
Sri Matriniketan Ashram is a formative fortress of the Divine Mother which is intermittently and frequently invaded, possessed, embraced and conquered by the Supreme Lord manifested as Sri Krishna, who wears the glory of Sri Aurobindo’s Consciousness, fulfilling one of the great assurances and visions of The Mother. The Mother was meeting regularly Sri Krishna during Her pre and post Pondicherry life. Later She verified that it was Sri Aurobindo who was coming to Her in that form. When Sri Aurobindo left His body, He used to come often to The Mother in His own form. Day by day this experience was so intense that She started thinking, “Why look after people and things, I want to remain like this forever!”⁹ Sri Aurobindo caught Her thought and stopped walking with Her in subtle Form. Then The Mother attempted Her effort and tried a lot to persuade the Supreme Lord to walk with Her with His own form. In this exercise, She felt Him, the absolutely concrete Presence, more and more clearly in an impersonal manner. And it was the Supreme Lord who told Her, “First Krishna, then Sri Aurobindo, then I (which means the Supreme Lord)”⁹. The Divine Mother’s interaction and fusion with Sri Krishna, Sri Aurobindo and the Supreme Lord are the different circumstances of the manifesting Lila of the One. It is the Divine who uses the individual as a centre, means of His pure receiving and transmitting channel, Consciousness as universal Witness and world action cannot proceed without this Witness, collectivity as a condition and field of action, human race as dual union of Nara-Narayana, seeks to express in them some image of unity, omniscience and omnipotence.
Its aspiration to become the Naimisaranya, the ancient Spiritual Centre, a forest land which was famous for its accumulation of Yoga Shakti to such degree that even the Yama, the king of Death was unable to enter that protected forest. All remained ever young including birds and animals and there was no disharmony, violence, suffering, old age, decay and death. Or as described in Savitri, “Age never came, care never lined the face.”²¹ or “His young unaging look on deathless things, His (Divine’s) joy in our escape from death and Time, His immortality and light and bliss.”²²
From the above point of view, Sri Matriniketan Ashram's collectivity stands to bridge partly the highest individual aspiration and the ultimate Spiritual destiny of the race. The Ashram has developed as an isolated cave of tapasya, with deep internal Silence and Peace of The Mother possessed Consciousness extending its Influence directly to the world. Those who step into Sri Matriniketan Ashram, the Guru’s Grace, Force, Light, Peace, Ananda and Protection follow behind them.
OM TAT SAT
References
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CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/254, 547,
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CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/247,
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CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/250,
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CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/130,
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CWSA-21/The Life Divine/45,
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CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/165,
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CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/67,
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CWSA-22/The Life Divine/1068-69,
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The Mother’s Agenda-6/131-136,
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CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/57,
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CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-87,
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Savitri-310,
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Savitri-686,
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CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga-296,
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Savitri-445,
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SABCL-17/The Hour of God/90,
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“All manifestation, sthabarajangamam, takes place by the union between Field, Matter, Kshetra and Knower of the Field, Spirit, Kshetrajna.” The Gita-13.27,
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Savitri-647,
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“The Maker shall recast us and impose
A plan of godhead on the mortal’s mould
Lifting our finite minds to his infinite,
Touching the moment with eternity.” Savitri-67,
20. CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-106,
21. Savitri-126,
22. Savitri-484,
23: “In the beginning of the Yoga you are apt to forget the Divine very often. But by constant aspiration you increase your remembrance and you diminish the forgetfulness. But this should not be done as a severe discipline or a duty; it must be a movement of love and joy. Then very soon a stage will come when, if you do not feel the presence of the Divine at every moment and whatever you are doing, you feel at once lonely and sad and miserable.
Whenever you find that you can do something without feeling the presence of the Divine and yet be perfectly comfortable, you must understand that you are not consecrated in that part of your being. That is the way of the ordinary humanity which does not feel any need of the Divine. But for a seeker of the Divine Life it is very different. And when you have entirely realised unity with the Divine, then, if the Divine were only for a second to withdraw from you, you would simply drop dead; for the Divine is now the Life of your life, your whole existence, your single and complete support. If the Divine is not there, nothing is left.” The Mother/TMCW-3/Questions and Answers-1929-1931/p-26–27,
24: CWSA-17/Isha Upanishad/p-195,
25: “The ascent to the divine Life is the human journey, the Work of works, the acceptable Sacrifice. This alone is man’s real business in the world and the justification of his existence, without which he would be only an insect crawling among other ephemeral insects on a speck of surface mud and water which has managed to form itself amid the appalling immensities of the physical universe.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-21/The Life Divine-p-48
26: "We are here to give up all desires and to turn towards the Divine and to become conscious of the Divine. To realize and manifest the Divine in our life is the way, not to become animals, living like cats and dogs." The Mother/The Mother’s Agenda-30.03.1972
27: "In street and house, in councils and in courts
Beings he met who looked like living men
And climbed in speech upon high wings of thought
But harboured all that is subhuman, vile
And lower than the lowest reptile’s crawl." Savitri-215
28: “There are two who are unfit for greatness and freedom, the man who has never been a slave to another and the nation that has never been under the yoke of foreigners.” SABCL/17/The Hour of God-115,
29: "For all problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony. They arise from the perception of an unsolved discord and the instinct of an undiscovered agreement or unity. To rest content with an unsolved discord is possible for the practical and more animal part of man, but impossible for his fully awakened mind, and usually even his practical parts only escape from the general necessity either by shutting out the problem or by accepting a rough, utilitarian and unillumined compromise." CWSA-21/The Life Divine-4,
30: “(The Divine is) the perfect Personality capable of all relations even to the most human, concrete and intimate; for he is friend, comrade, lover, playmate, guide, teacher, master, ministrant of knowledge or ministrant of joy, yet in all relations unbound, free and absolute. This too the divinised man becomes in the measure of his attainment...” CWSA/19/Essays on the Gita-141, “But behind all these and in them he (a Sadhaka) has felt a Divinity who is all these things, a Bringer of Light, a Guide and All-Knower, a Master of Force, a Giver of Bliss, Friend, Helper, Father, Mother, Playmate in the world-game, an absolute Master of his being, his soul’s Beloved and Lover. All (the seven-fold personal) relations known to human personality are there in the soul’s contact with the Divine; but they rise towards super human levels and compel him (a Sadhaka) towards a divine nature.” CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga-129,
31: “Distrust a man who has never failed and suffered; follow not his fortune, fight not under his banner.” Sri Aurobindo/SABCL/17/The Hour of God/115, “Help men, but do not pauperise them of their energy; lead and instruct men, but see that their initiative and originality remain intact; take others into thyself, but give them in return the full godhead of their nature. He who can do this is the leader and the guru.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-13/Essays in Philosophy and Yoga-p-208,
‘The Mother’s International Centre Trust’ was registered on the auspicious Siddhi Day of 24th November 1997 and all its necessary forms and manifestations were chosen by THEIR Divine Grace. The Trust was formed by the pressure of a Supracosmic vision revealed to me (S. A. Maa Krishna) as its Central Representative. In the vision I had been to a world of greater tranquil sweetness where there was no soil and no ground but a subtle ether’s field. People were walking, but not on the soil but floating on the surface with feet downward. In that world, trees were there but they had no roots in the soil. I was sitting on the chair whose legs were floating in the space. There was joy everywhere. In the vision, I told myself that this is the Supramental world where there is no Time and Space, no aging and no death and form is represented by the Soul’s brightness. I was sitting near a tree and at the end of the vision a leaf came to my hand from the air in which it was written ‘Mother’s International Centre’. During that time from June-1997 to November-1997, I was living in full of inner pain in the being and was concentrating on my future mission. After that inner seeking one day I saw this vision. Sri K. Anurakta consented to form a Trust based on this vision by incorporating a small correction, which reads ‘The Mother’s International Centre Trust.’