Krishna Prem

[gerard]

Krishna Prem

from his review of Aurobindo’s "The Riddle of this World" in The Aryan Path of May 1934



It is characteristic of this age of popular education that many people suppose that anything can be learnt by a patient study of books. But there are some things which can never be learnt in this manner, and yoga (in any form) is one of them. Yoga is the art of the soul and it can never be learnt without the living contact with a master. All attempts to practise yoga without a Guru, and a real Guru at that, end either in disappointed failure, trivial psychism, ill-health or madness. The present writer has seen with his own eyes cases of all the above occurring to uninstructed or ill-instructed would-be yogis.


***

Nor need the so-called " intellectual" turn up his nose in scorn. Here is no pseudo-science, no obsolete psychology, no fantastic cosmology. Though I, at least, am in no way prepared to admit that the old systems represent merely " the childish lispings of humanity " or whatever the silly phrase was, yet it must be admitted that they have long ceased to be understood by the majority, including many of their orthodox commentators who manage sometimes to shed more darkness upon light than light upon darkness.
In this system a new terminology has been forged, which is more easily intelligible to the mind trained in modern ways of thought.


***

One outstanding feature of the book is its clear differentiation between the spiritual experience of yoga and the merely intellectual concepts of idealistic philosophy or the emotional intuitions of poetry. The intuitions of the poet, shot through as they sometimes are with spiritual light, are too vague and evanescent to be of practical use. They are like the delicate plants that branch out in beautiful shapes beneath the surface of a lake but which collapse into a sloppy shapeless mass when you take them out of the water for examination.


***

Many have got into the way of supposing that the word "mystical" is synonymous with the word "vague," and that all spiritual writings will have an elusive dreamy texture, a sort of Celtic twilight which conceals more than it reveals, and, though rich in the suggestion of infinite possibilities, is apt to be poor in definite content and disappointing in realisation.
Such readers will find that the life of the spirit can be written about with a concrete clarity which will surprise them, a clarity of thought and expression which, while it too often crystallises into sterile dogmas at the hands of subsequent generations, is yet clearly visible in the writings of many of the great mystics.


***

Perhaps there will be some whose first question will be whether this yoga is a jnana yoga, a bhakti yoga or a karma yoga. I will leave such lovers of classification to find out the answer from the book itself or from the following few remarks. Here is knowledge, the knowledge that there is nothing but the One Divine Reality, the "sarvam khalvidam Brahma," of the Upanishads: here is bhakti for it sets forth the necessity for unchanging love of and self-surrender to the Lord, the atmanivedana which is the culminating stage of the nine-fold bhakti of the Srimad Bhagavat: and here is karma for it expounds the unattached skill in action, the "karmasu kaushalam" of the Gita.
Beyond all classifications stands the One, the Supreme, the Stainless Eternal, changeless amidst His own eternal change, effulgent amidst His own dark shadows. All paths are His paths and this book stands as one more testimony that, even in this age of dark materialism, the ancient, razor-edged Path is open for those who have the courage to walk therein: "tena dheera apiyanti Brahmavidah swargam lokamita urdhwam vimuktah"—"Thereby the calm wise who know the Brahman, released, come unto the high Heaven world beyond."

[Nitaidas]

Thanks for these excerpts, gerardji. As usual, you are a wealth of information and treasures. I moved the topic over here because even though Sri Krsnaprem's works are a little or maybe a lot different, he was indeed an initiated Caitanya Vaisnava through his guru Sri Yasoda Ma. I am reading some of the letters he wrote to Dilip Ray and in them his Vaisnavism comes through very clearly. I will post some of those passages here. Thanks also for doing some foot work and finding some of his reviews published in the Aryan Path. I will do some work too to see if I can track down some of his articles in that journal that you had no access to. The Theosophical Society has a library up near Chicago with is not too far from here, relatively speaking. Maybe they have a complete collection of the journal. Next time I am there I think I will pay a visit.

[gerard]

I'm glad you like it. I'll excerp some more, his opinions based on his experience are coming through quite clearly in these reviews. I hope you'll find his article on nama-japa, I'm also interested in what he has to say about it.


Sri Krishna Prem

from his review of Aurobindo's book Lights On Yoga in The Aryan Path of August 1935


This book is a collection of extracts from Sri Aurobindo's letters to his pupils and deals with the theory and technique of yoga as practised in his ashram. It is the more welcome because, though there is no dearth of books on the subject, most of them are based not on experience but on other books. Glib plausibilities are set forth with assurance and misguided aspirants set about practising "concentration" or, worse still, breath control and hope by "raising kundalini" to prance about the world as supermen. If the aspirant is of the ordinary dilettante type no great harm will be done beyond the discrediting of the "yoga" by its lack of results but if he is of the psychic temperament or if he pursues his practices with ardour and perseverance, serious damage may be done to mind and body as a result of his unwise and misguided efforts.


***

The mainspring of the yoga is seen to be a surrender and self-dedication to the Divine. It is no mere upthrusting desire for "Self-development," no mere discipline of introversion but a complete offering of the whole nature to the Divine, for the sake of the Divine and in order that it may serve as a basis for Divine activity.
[...] it is this misconception that is at the basis of the pernicious half-truth that yoga has no concern with morality. Sri Aurobindo makes it abundantly clear that, in his yoga at least, no mere disciplines, meditations or psychic exercises will be effective save as embroideries or instruments of a thorough and whole-hearted self-dedication to That which is beyond all self.
[...] Without such an offering of the self the yoga is full of dangers. Too easily it is assumed by many that "divine" protection will be available to ward off serious harm but this is a sentimentality of popular religion.
Why on earth should it be? In the case of those ( perhaps a majority ) who practise yoga for the sake of having supernormal experiences or of mere self-development there is no reason to suppose that any such protection will be available any more than it is for the unauthorised fool who starts fiddling with the switches in a power station.


***

The last section of the book explains the necessity for a union of meditation, devotion and action in a yoga which must be what he terms "integral".
“Temporary retirement for meditation may be useful in certain circumstances but exclusive inwardness is as useless because just as unbalanced as an exclusive outwardness.”
This is profoundly true and as profoundly important though it is a truth from we always tend to slip away because of our innate one-sidedness.
Our natures are unbalanced and we wish to abstract ourselves in a pure contemplation, to luxuriate in a welter of unalloyed devotion or to give ourselves over to sheer activity unhampered by “the pale cast of thought”. But all these phases are one-sided if taken by themselves.
One is reminded of the words of the well-known theosophical book, Light on the Path: "seek it. ( the Path ) not by any one road. To each temperament there is one road which seems the most desirable but......... none alone can take the disciple more than one step forward."
The Gita, too, if we free our minds from the influence of one-sided commentators, clearly sets forth the same ideal, a harmonious blending of head, heart and hands in which all shall be transformed into an instrument of the Divine Lila.

[gerard]

It is striking how often Krishna Prem warns for the dangers of yoga. Here fragments from a review about Sadhu Sundar Singh who was a favourite of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands.


Sri Krishna Prem Vairagi

from his review of C.F. Andrews Sadhu Sundar Singh. A Personal Memoir Hodder & Stoughton, London in The Aryan Path of December 1934.



Always of a highly religious nature, he suffered intense emotional shock at the death of his mother. Unable to find satisfaction for his religious doubts, he was about to commit suicide when he had a vision of Christ which changed his whole life and converted him from a hysterical opponent to a devoted follower whose faith in his Master was shown by the deeds of a heroic and saintly life.

***

If a vision of Christ is to constitute a proof of the truth of the Christian creed or Bible, then the similar (and more numerous) visions of Krishna or Buddha will constitute proof of the truth of the Hindu and Buddhist beliefs
and Scriptures.

One may advert here to the curious delusion among orthodox Christians and that is, that when someone has a vision of Christ it is a proof of His existence as a historic person and "living God" while exactly similar visions of, say, Sri Krishna, are mere subjective experiences having no relation to history or truth! Undoubtedly the Christ is no dead myth but a living Truth but so, and on the same evidence, are Sri Krishna and others.


***

Mr. Andrews has added an appendix about some modern attempts to graft certain yogic practices upon the structure of traditional Christianity. These attempts, though springing from a praiseworthy realisation that an ounce of experience is worth a ton of doctrine, are nevertheless mistaken. An essential requirement of any real yoga is complete detachment from any personal prejudices or sectarian notions. Without such impersonality the practice of yoga will lead to no enlightenment but, by inducing subjective visions, will plunge the so-called yogi deeper and deeper into the net of his own personal notions which will seem to be confirmed by the experiences which, in point of fact, owe their form to those very notions.

***

[…] this book is a record of a noble, lovable and saintly character, profoundly devoted to the service of that Deity which is One though called by many names.

[Nitaidas]

Thanks again, gerardji, for posting more excerpts from Krsnaprem's writings. I've checked the local libraries. The University of Missouri has a nearly complete collection of the journal missing a volume here or there. They cannot be requested, however. Maybe I will drive down at some point and see what else Sri Krsnaprem has published in it.

For now here is something from a letter to Dilip Kumar Roy dated 25th March, 1932:

My Dear Dilip,

I liked your poem on Radha immensely. I like your poems so much because they are the expression of real experience and not mere aesthetic shadows. At the same time I can't help wishing you could use regular verse (as opposed to free verse) in your English translations. I feel the absence of regular meter impairs the "soaring power" of poetry. On the other hand I quite see the difficulty of using the more regular meters in English. Your Gurudev [Sri Aurobindo], however, uses them magnificently. Incidentally, it was through his fine version of Kalidasa's Vikramorvasi---Hero and the Nymph---that I came to know of him. I wanted to stage it at Lucknow, but the project fell through.

To return, however, to your poem on Sri Radha. I have one---not quite criticism, but observation---to make. It seems to me you have universalized too much. You have sung really of the love of the soul for the Divine, taking Radha and Krsna as symbols of that. Now (although this perhaps sounds paradoxical) I believe that the truth is really the other way about. The love of the soul for the Divine is, as it were, a symbol or reflection of the love of Radha for Krsna. This is perhaps too extremely put to stand quite as it is, but I do really mean something by it which is hard to express. To put it another way, it is (to me) just the marvel of Sri Krishna that He dominated with the flashing wonder of His Divinity this apparently drab physical world. God is no less God, but, if possible, more when He is manushim tanumasritam (incarnated in human body), even though, as the Gita says, the mudhaH (fools) may not understand. (For heaven's sake, don't suppose that I mean any silly business about Man's being the true God and all that sort of stuff). That is why I cannot bear philosophisings such as that the blue color of Krishna is the Sunya (ether) and the music of the flute the Omkar dhwami, and so on and so forth. The blue color of Sri Krishna is the blue color of Sri Krsna, and by God, Dilip, the music of his flute is far greater than the Omkar dhwami, great and real though the latter is. Perhaps that is what Sri Aurobindo means (I speak with hesitation) when he speaks of the necessity for the Divine's dominating and transforming the physical world. It is Sri Krishna dancing on the head of the Kaliya Nag as opposed to Krsna reposing in the folds of Ananta. This is the meaning of what fools call idolatry. I do not refer to the half-hearted apologetic sort of worship which uses the image as a symbol or focus for meditation and what not, but the real full-blooded seva (worship) which sees the vigraha (image) as Krsna Himself, (pp 131-2, Yogi Sri Krishnaprem)

[More from this letter later.]

[Nitaidas]

Gerardji, what does Krishnaprem say about Paul Brunton's books? I read Jeffrey Masson's book My Father and His Guru recently. It was amusing and sad at the same time. A father's unshakable devotion to an unworthy guru.

[gerard]

Perhaps that is what Sri Aurobindo means (I speak with hesitation) when he speaks of the necessity for the Divine's dominating and transforming the physical world.

Krishna Prem seems to believe with Aurobindo (and Rudolf Steiner) that the physical world is in need of spiritualization. In line of the Boddhisattva vow one is not to do yoga only to ascend to the Divine but once there descend to the world and work there at that spiritualization.
If one is only interested in one's own moksha one is still selfish.


Krishna Prem Reviews


The Secret Path, By PAUL BRUNTON (Rider and Co. Ltd., London. 5s.) in The Aryan Path of May 1934

Who writes publishers' "blurbs"? In this case the book is termed "an amazing new system for unfolding the powers of the mysterious Overself". This sort of language only serves to prejudice readers against what is in fact a good book. It is certainly not new and scarcely "amazing". There is too much padding and far too much journalese but, all the same, it is a book which should be of service to many who are looking for the light and it is a welcome sign of the awakening spiritual aspirations of the West that such a book should have been written at the request of many of the readers of the author's previous work.

The Path described is the age-old one of detachment from the various sheaths of the Self, the physical body, the emotions and thoughts, leading to a realisation of the true Self, the God within the heart. It is the same Path that is set forth in the twelve verses of the Mandukya Upanishad but it is here presented in simple unsymbolic language which should be clear to the average reader though, to another class, the very fact that it has been found possible to dispense with symbolism may suggest a limitation.
The "yoga breathing exercise” which is “revealed” in the book is also a perfectly standard one being that which was recommended long ages ago in the Gita :—
"Pranapanau samau kritwa nasabhyantaracharinau"

The author is convinced that the path recommended by him is a perfectly safe one even in the absence of a teacher, and it is certainly true that it is refreshingly free from all mystery-mongering and is as safe for a normally balanced man as any path can be which leads to the inner worlds. But, in truth, in the absence of a competent teacher, no inner path can be absolutely devoid of dangerous pitfalls. The independence-loving Westerner is too little apt to realise that the necessity of the teacher arises, not only in connection with spectacular " yogic" techniques, but is inherent in any method, however "safe"—provided it is one which will give any results at all!
The pursuit of what the author calls “mental quiet” can, and only too often does, lead to a passive mediumship and to a misinterpretation of the psychic experiences which may come to the sadhaka. The teacher is always necessary to dispel the lure of the psychic and, above all, to ward off what is perhaps the greatest danger of all for many Westerners, namely, the intensification of the separated personal life by a sort of sucking down of the spiritual power that is brought about by the passionate thirst for personal advancement.

For this reason, if I have any criticism to offer, it is that insufficient stress is laid upon the strenuous moral effort to transform the character that is the only possible safeguard on this path. Morality is apt to be unpopular nowadays and I recently read a review praising Patanjali for his supposed indifference to it but the truth remains that, however much we may react from the canting respectability that often passes for morality, no lasting spiritual edifice can ever be erected except on a basis of a sound moral character. I think the author would assent to this but, in view of the current delusions about the non-moral nature of yoga, it would perhaps have been wise to place a stronger emphasis on this aspect of the path. It is fatally easy to fancy oneself "beyond good and evil".

Nevertheless, it is a book which should prove a source of inspiration to many and, above all, it is delightfully free from all theological nonsense. It might be read with profit by a follower of any religion—or of none!— and, even if not as absolutely fool-proof as the author believes, yet it must be admitted to give a truer, more useful and safer account of yoga than many far more pretentious treatises.




A Search in Secret India. By PAUL BRUNTON, with a Foreword by Sir Francis Younghusband. (Rider and Co., London. 15s.) in The Aryan Path of November 1934

Ever since the days of Apollonius of Tyana and even earlier, a few in the West have known and many have believed in the existence of the Wise Men of India. Out of India has come the wisdom of the ages and also the fantastic cults of a day. This book is a record of a search for those Wise Men made, apparently a few years ago, by an English journalist who, as he puts it, "combined within his complex nature the two elements of scientific scepticism and spiritual sensitivity".

Considering that he had to "cram investigations into a minimum time since he could not afford to spend years out of life upon a single quest," he has been singularly fortunate, for it is seldom to such impatient knockers that the gates of wisdom swing open.
As it is, he has met many of the better known and some, too, of the less known sadhus and yogis of this country. To all these he went with his hard, but not ignoble, scepticism which, if it inevitably shut him out from some of the deeper things, yet enabled him to keep his balance amidst the mass of imposture and folly that lives parasitically upon the wisdom of the few and which has engulfed many and disgusted more.

Among those lie met were a Hatha Yogi who demonstrated some remarkable physiological feats such as voluntary stoppage of the heart and breathing; Meher Baba, the celebrated Parsi Messiah; Sri Shankaracharya, the Pontiff of Kumbakonam Math and spiritual descendant of the great Shankara ; Sahabji Maharaj, the guru of the Radhaswami sect, whose attempt to combine yoga with the running of a model industrial community aroused his admiration; Sudhei Babu, an astrologer of Benares who seriously shook his proud faith in free-will; Vishuddhananda, the yogi of Benares, whose power of making magical scents out of the solar rays has been described by several writers; and, to pass over a number of other figures, some interesting, others amusing, the " Maharishee," a saintly recluse living with his disciples in Arunachala in the South, whom our author visited early in his tour and to whom he came back in the end as "the one man who impressed me more than any other man I had ever met".

This sage, claiming no occult powers or hierophantic knowledge, impressed him profoundly and, despite barriers of language, his brief sojourn in the "sublime spirituality" of the Maharishee's atmosphere brought him a spiritual experience which enabled him to leave India “quietly content because the battle for spiritual certitude had been won and won without sacrificing my dearly loved rationalism for a blind credulity”.

Are these men the genuine Sages of whom tradition speaks? This question must be left for the reader to answer according to his own light. Different people have different ideas as to what constitutes a Mahatma, and will judge accordingly. One thing at least is certain, namely, that the book contains genuine accounts of remarkable men and should be sufficient to dispel the delusion that the wisdom and magic of the East are an empty legend traded on by knaves and believed in by fools.

One mistake, however, our author makes, and that is in speaking more than once of the Maharishee as "one of the last of India's race of spiritual supermen". More than once, too, he voices the thought that the yoga is a dying science, the yogis, a dying race, destined, unless they descend from their mountain heights and take a more "practical" view of life, to inevitable extinction. "We shall roughly turn our heads away," he says, and India will follow suit. Perhaps so; perhaps not. Anyway, as Blake would have said, "Hear a plain fact!":— The Wisdom is Eternal and the Race of its Teachers lasts from Eternity to Eternity. The insolent scepticism of the modern age can no more affect that Race than the making of an underground railway can affect the sun. The Yogi does descend from his world to ours but he does it at his own time, not at ours, and whether we "turn our heads roughly away" or not, though a matter of considerable consequence to us, is of no importance to him at all.

Our friend's values on this point are quite wrong. What he calls the "musty lore" of the East does not exist in order that Europeans, after “poking about” may "add a few pebbles of knowledge to our heap"! If this is all he has learnt from his sages then we can scarcely consider his search to have been very successful. Perhaps, however, these sentences are meant as mere concessions to contemporary folly. Let us therefore allow him to conclude in his own words:—

What I did arrive at was a new acceptance of the Divine. This may seem quite an insignificant and personal thing to do but, as a child of this modern generation which relies on hard facts and cold reason and which lacks enthusiasm for things religious, I regard it as quite an achievement. This faith was restored in the only way a sceptic could have it restored, not by argument but by the witness of an overwhelming experience.

To this we need only add that if one wishes more than that he must emulate that merchant who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

[Nitaidas]

Thanks for these posts, gerardji. There might be another book lurking here: the collected works of Sri Krishnaprem.

I found another letter dated 31st Dec, 1932 in Yogi Sri Krishnaprem. He apparently did not want it published. It goes deeper into his Vaisnavism than most of the others. He apparently did not like to talk about his deeper faith in public forums. He kept his bhakti for Radha and Krishna to himself. I will post some portions of this letter over the next few days.


My dear Dilip,

...

How do we know that the Shastra is true? How do we know that the Grand Trunk Road leads to Delhi? Because thousands and thousands have passed along it and reached the goal described. Has any one yet been known to reach God through Russellism? "By their fruits shall ye know them." No one has yet reached God by reliance on sense-testimony alone.

The next point you raise is about the concreteness of Sri Krishna. You use the term sarupya as equivalent to milan. This is not quite clear to me. In Vaisnava terminology sarupya means merely having a similar form to that of Sri Krishna and is not used for Radha Bhava. However, that is a mere matter of names. I am myself utterly certain that Sri Krishna can be experienced in perfect concreteness. As I think I said once before, He is the concrete of concretes and no mere misty abstraction or imagined form. He is no semi-imaginary projection of a formless Brahman, but is the reality which supports all else. I am not denying the reality of the experience of the Nirvishesha Brahman but saying that the latter is like seeing the sunlight while to see Krishna is to see the sun itself.

[gerard]

Nov 10, 2010 10:55:38 GMT -6 Nitaidas said:

I am myself utterly certain that Sri Krishna can be experienced in perfect concreteness. As I think I said once before, He is the concrete of concretes and no mere misty abstraction or imagined form.

This is a remarkable letter to Roy, indeed far more vaishnava than theosophical. But what could he mean with experiencing Sri Krishna in concreteness? In flesh & blood?

[Nitaidas]

Well, gerardji, I don't know if he meant in the flesh and blood, but it seems something like it. Here is his next paragraph from that letter (31st Dec. 1932):

I quite agree with you that love of Sri Krishna is far more satisfying than any mere impersonal Ananda and one who has once reached the level even of desiring such love can never be satisfied with less. But on the other hand I do also feel that one must make no demands on Him that He should show Himself to receive our love. There is no doubt whatever that He both can and does do so, and that, too, in as concrete a form as anyone could desire, but I feel that one must leave that entirely to Him and---if it is His will---be content to love Him without any return or even any Darsan. Till then our love is tainted with selfishness. Gopi-prema is not the desire to enjoy Krishna but the desire to serve and be enjoyed by Him. One must make no demands and no bargain. But at the same time that does not mean, as some 'adhyatmikizers' teach, that love of Krishna is thus merely a means to establish in an easy manner the state of unselfishness and that when that is attained there is no further need of the personal Krishna at all. It is quite the other way round. Unselfishness is the means to attain Him and at his own time He does accept the love of His bhakta in as personal and real a form as can be desired and a great deal more real than we can conceive. He is more real, more vivid than 'sunlight on the retina' as you put it. We have got so used to consider spiritual realities as vague and unsubstantial that we quite fail to realise that whatever 'reality' and 'vividness' is to be found in our sense-perceptions is but a faint shadow of His vividness. Krishna's embraces are no mere damned allegory about purusa and prakrti. And for God's sake, Dilip, remember that Krishna's feet are more real than yours.

[More from this interesting letter later]

[Deleted]

Jay Nitai,

What a quote:

remember that Krishna's feet are more real than yours

Jay Sri Krishna Prem Ji.

Jay Nitai

[gerard]

Maybe interesting for a brief desciption of Yashoda Ma, here in The Masters Speak: An American Businessman Encounters Ashish and Gurdjieff by Seymour B. Ginsburg on page 17 :

books.google.com/books?id=5idZCmh_nM8C&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=the+complete+works+of+krishna+prem&source=bl&ots=B5IzKZdsaY&sig=EOlZ3-3FC1B6blAy4musdrfU7Mw&hl=en&ei=SqbeTKSbPJCcOpexrNMO&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDUQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false


***


I had some problems with the photocopy of a review of Aurobindo. So here is the rest. The [...] indicate the fragments already in post # 1.

Sri Krishna Prem

review of Aurobindo’s "The Riddle of this World" in The Aryan Path of May 1934


A new work from the pen of Sri Aurobindo is an event. The present volume is a collection of writings dealing with problems and difficulties raised for the most part by some of those who are aspiring to lead the spiritual life under his guidance and consequently has for sadhakas an even greater interest than works addressed primarily to an outside public.

To avoid possible misunderstandings it is perhaps as well to say that the yoga treated in this book has nothing in common with the so-called “yoga " which, I am told, is having quite a vogue in the sillier circles of the West and which concerns itself with such things as standing on one's head and breathing rhythmically, psychic trivialities or ridiculous "concentration" on health, wealth and happiness. It deals with the high spiritual quest that even so long ago as the time of Yajnavalkya, was anuh panthâ vitatah purano—"the ancient narrow Path that stretches far away."

There is perhaps no one writing in India whose words on this subject will be listened to with more respect than Sri Aurobindo, and that for two very good reasons: first, his powerful and keen intellect, and secondly his prolonged and arduous sadhana, a sadhana which, I understand, he is still pursuing. This book, moreover, is clearly based on the author's own experience.
It may be briefly stated that the central method of this yoga is an integral and comprehensive offering of the whole nature to the Divine Reality. The technical methods of the classic yogas are not rejected but are all subordinated to this central ''samarpan" which is, as it were, their soul and must include our whole being, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. There is to be no ascetic dualism but an ascent which springs from the whole nature. Rejecting the selfish desire to "live one's own life” the aspirant bends all his powers, purified by the discipline of yoga, to a winged ascent to the one Divine Reality and to a poised waiting at the feet of that Reality.

At this point, the point at which many mystics stop, the second movement of this yoga commences. The sadhaka, emptied of self but tilled with the Light and Power of the Divine according to the level to which he has been able to rise, now seeks to retrace his steps and to descend again to the lower world bringing down with him as much as he can hold of the Light and Power with which he has been filled, thus transforming his lower nature and ultimately making of it a centre in this lower world through which can take place the manifestation of a diviner reality than has heretofore been possible. Thus there is a twofold movement; an ascent to the Divine and a descent with the Divine; an ascent to the "kingdom of Heaven" and a building of that kingdom of Heaven here on this earth; no mere shaking off of the dust of this world in “a flight of the Alone to the Alone” but an attempt to transmute, to divinise life here by providing channels and centres of manifestation for that spiritual Reality which is, even now, the very basis of this and all other worlds but is hammered and clogged in expression by the "tamasic " inertness of the world of matter and the inharmonious self-seeking of the world of mind.

This, and nothing less than this, is the aim of this yoga. Soul, mind and body, all must be transmuted. The soul must no longer remain a pale starved shadow but must become a vivid and radiant existence, a centre pulsating with Divine Light and energy, dominating and using the mind and body. The mind, too, must no longer remain a mere analytic machine, revelling in its proud independence. Instead it must realise its subordination to the soul and assume its proper function, that of the formative power, that which impresses with form, not merely the raw material of the world but also the formless (in the sense of transcending form ) truth of the soul. Even the body, the " despised and rejected " of so many mystics, must become a harmonious vehicle of the Divine Life in the same way that a block of marble from being a lump of dead matter becomes a radiant expression of the sculptor's idea. It is no narrow or unworthy ideal, no mere salvation-seeking, but a noble attempt to “remould things nearer to—not the heart's—but the Divine desire,” and it is one which should commend itself to the attention of all whose eyes are not utterly blinded by the follies of materialism.

[…]

Some of the dangers and difficulties on the path are discussed in the chapter on " The Intermediate Zone ". Its perusal will enable the reader to understand how it is that there are so many "Avatars" and "Jivanmuktas" roaming about the world nowadays and so many prophets with "divine inspiration" seeking to save our souls though their own seem to the outer eye as much in need of salvation as ours. The prevalence of such people, by no means all charlatans, is often a ground of scepticism to the superficial, but it is, in reality, an inevitable phenomenon, always liable to occur to those who essay the mystic path without adequate guidance. In this sphere, as in others, Sri Aurobindo gives us advice which is clear and definite, that is to say, as definite as could be expected in a realm which he well describes as one of "half-lights and tempting, but often mixed and misleading experiences".

[…]

The concluding section of the book contains a gallant attempt to give some explanation of the origin of the cosmos which, if it cannot be the whole truth, will yet serve as some sort of a prop to those whose minds cannot stand alone but demand some answer at least to the great question as to why this cosmic process with all its misery emerged from out the blissful splendour which lies beyond the flaming ramparts of the world.

Let us, however, turn away from the contemplation of the ultimate insolubility back to the yoga which, with its double movement, stands before us like a challenge. Are we going to remain in our own selfish littlenesses, forever chasing the tail of our own desires, or are we going to lose our selves that we may find them again in selfless co-operation with the one Divine Reality which rules us all, mystic and materialist alike ?

[...]

[Nitaidas]

Thanks for this, gerardji and for the link to the book by Sy Ginsburg. As it happens, I am using it for my course Exploring Religions in the Spring here at Truman. I finished reading it some time back. It is an interesting collection of Madhava Ashish's letters and writings. There is not a hint of Vaisnavism in any of them. That I find quite curious since he was the disciple of Krishnaprem. Anyway, about Yasoda Mai. There is one mistake in Sy's description that jumped out at me. He says that her husband Dr Cakravarti gave her Vaisnava renunciant initiation. Actually, she got in from one of the Goswamis of the Radharaman Temple in Vrndavana. Dilip mentions this in his reminiscences in Yogi Sri Krishnaprem (page 47):

"About a year had gone by when Dhurjati wrote to me from Lucknow that Krishnaprem had been initiated into Vaisnavism by Monika Devi, exchanged his English dress for the ochre-color habit and flowered into an imposing Indian sadhu. Joygopal wrote, a few days later, that Monika Devi had taken full sannyas, changed her name and shaved her head at the instance of her Guru, a Goswami of a Brindaban temple. Naturally, I was startled, but I was moved to my depths as well."

The year he was speaking about would have been 1924, because he first meets Monika Devi and Krishnaprem in 1923. Dr. Kapoor give her guru's name as Balakrishna Goswami of Radharaman temple. She first took diksa from him and later sannyas. There are some nice descriptions of her from Dilip's reminiscences that I will give later.

[Nitaidas]

Here is some more of that letter from Krishnaprem:

Why do you doubt that Krishna will respond to you? Because you feel you are unworthy? So are we all. We are no Rukminis that we can write to Krishna saying as she did that: "I have such and such good qualities and only you are worthy of them." We have nothing to recommend us to Krishna except our desire for Him. That is why the Brajavasis must be our Gurus and not Rukmini and the Queens of Dwarka. He Himself is full of all good qualities and powers. Will you try to dazzle a jeweler with a handful fo imitation diamonds or astonish a Yogi with a few conjuring tricks? All we can offer Him is our love and that He will never reject. Would to God we had more of it ...


[more tomorrow]

[Deleted]

Jay Nitai,

Just a side note. It seems Sri Krishna Prem Ji was trying to instruct Sri Krishna's supremacy over Nirvisesh Brahma to Dilip Roy who happens to be disciple of Sri Aurovindo and directing D L to his own Guru’s position knowingly or unknowingly.

Though Sri Aurovindo is originally from Yoga background and from Advaitic tradition, but he was univocal about Sri Krishna's supremacy like any Vaishnava tradition (More aligned with AchintyaVedaVeda Doctrine of Gaudiya Vaishnava) which is very apparent in his various writings and in his personal experience level. He even protested Sri Shakara's Mayabada Idea in his various writings on Gita. For e.g in relation with discussion of Gita’s 15/ 16 - 18 “Dwabimou Puroshou … Vedhe chaw PrathitoH PurushottamaH’ Sri Aurovindo asserted

The Sri Krishna of Gita is the ultimate reality and highest truth. He is Savishesh with all qualities. He is far far greater than his other manifestations as Nirvisesh ( impersonal ), Akshar form and he is the shelter of Brahman. - The Higest secret of all, 'uttama rahasayam', is the Purushottama. This is the Supreme Divine God, the Purushottama, as higher even than the still and immutable Brahman. The Supreme is Purushottama, eternal beyond all manifestation, infinite beyound all limitation by Time or Space or Causality or any of his numberless qualities and features. He is Supreme Soul and all souls are tireless flames of this one Soul."

--- Sri Aurovinda in his famous "Essays on Gita" first series , pp 127,173

Sri Aurovindo further stated:

"But the Gita is going to represent Iswara, the Purushattama, as higher even than the still and immutable Brahman, and the loss of ego in the impersonal comes in the beginning as only a great initial and necessary step towards union with the Purushottama. This is the Supreme, Divine, God who possesess both the infinite and the finite, and in Whom the personal and impersonal, the one Self and the many existence are united"

--- Sri Aurovinda in his famous "Essays on Gita"

For a reference of information, Sri Aurovindo in his younger age was the leader of revolutionary freedom fighting movement against then British Govt. of India. For that reason he was arrested by British Govt. in Calcutta and brought to prison. In the prison he underwent a major change in heart and it is said he had a Darshan of Sri Vasudeva in the prison itself which leads to his immediate worldly renunciation and settlement in Pandicherry with his spiritual life.

The above fact open up the possibility of transformation of D L Roy in sidhdhanta by the influence of Sri Krishnaprem and his own Guru Sri Aurovindo ( may be at the time interaction with Sri Krishna Prem D L Roy may not aware of Sri Aurovinda’s position on Sri Krishna.

Another interesting fact Sri Dilip Roy was competent son of famous singer and poet of Bengal that time Sri Dijendralal Roy ( D L Roy ) hailed from dist. Nadia of Bengal and lover bhakta of Sri Gaur Nityananda. Some of his own kirtan was very famous and popular among elite of Bengal.

A further evidence of influence of Sri Krishna Prem Ji on D L Roy, may be with me at US. D L Roy had become famous Krishna bhajan singer both in Bengali and hindi. At present I have music cd by him “Hey Gopal Nandalal’ which start with opening sloka from Srimad Bhagavatam “Jayati Tehadhikang” and most of the bhajan songs written and composed by D L Roy himself.

Jay Nitai