The Secret Agent - SECTION – II Pages 121-123

 The Supramental Yoga

vs. Other Yogas etc.

1. I am totally dissatisfied with the present ego.  Man.
2. I welcome the Supramental Manifestation.
3. I shall work for it.
4. I recognise Sri Aurobindo and Mother as the Master or Lord of this new world and race.
5. I shall faithfully implement their battle – orders.
6. Relying on their strength I shall consciously and systematically train my body to be the vehicle of their will to express in all parts, planes of the being and body the characteristics declared as necessary for their disciples.  So far I have let my body be trained to serve the world EGO, mistakenly believing that I and body are one.  Now I know it is not so.  When I say it means ‘I’ who have agreed to be a supramental apprentice, a warrior of the race whose chief is Sri Aurobindo – Mother.

 A mantra for 40 days

7th October 1976 to 17th November 1976

OM AUROBINDO MIRA

OM I’M LOVE

CONSTANT OM I’M LAUGHTER

OM I’M SILENCE

OM SAVITRAI’ .. NAMAH

1. Divine Servant’s Prayer
2. Supramental Apprentice
3. Savitri - To complete again

To systematise all that is written

To translate some into Telugu

Teach Gita and Gita

ॐ

OM

    OM        OM

OM OM OM

OM OM OM

OM OM OM OM

OM OM OM OM

OM OM OM

OM OM

OM OM

OM

Energy Saving Mechanism

1. At each moment there is only one thing that can be done by one person.  Arguments on hypothetical bases wastes time.
2. One must know what he represents – what he can and skilfully use all opportunities and time to disseminate it.

9th October 1976 (Saturday)

Oh, Mother.

WHAT SRI AUROBINDO MEANS TO ME

Once the Mother said that the root cause for anything is the whole universe at the given moment. The reasons given by a person for his being at a given place doing a given thing rather than at another place doing another thing, are merely a presentation of material that permits itself to be converted into the currency of words and logic valid for the time and place.
I have been a physician and then a psychiatrist. By temperament and necessity my work has led me to look into the mechanics and dynamics of human behaviour as a whole.
The purely mechanist model of the human body adopted by medical practice, treating it as an object, a test-tube for pills to be put in or as a robot to repair by cutting off or by implanting new parts, seemed unsatisfactory to me. The body and the I are one dialectic unit not laboratory-produced by man or by a committee of many expert men.
The little of scriptures I had read like the Gita or the Dhammapada indicated to me, provoked in me many questions but did not offer practical interactional guidance. The role of the physical body was not delineated with sufficient cogency to enable me to use them as practical guidance in day to day work with 'bodies'. Why the body at all, has been left vague. Explicitly or implicitly they left me with the impression that the body is a burdensome appendage to be got rid off, a caprice of nature or a play of gods. When the answer to this important question, "Why the body at all", is left nebulous, then why the plethora of austerities and injunctions to which it is required to submit itself. Interpretative authority rather than personal inquiry rules the day and isms mushroom up. The problem of human health is intimately tied up with the goals of human life in the individual or the collective. At all times, perhaps, but most markedly today man seeks an answer to the question of why the body, and also a satisfactory working model of body-self interaction, at least sufficient enough to interest him further in the inquiry. Both practical religion and practical science have failed to satisfy me and my work concerned with living bodies.

Sri Aurobindo's work gave me a perspective of the whole problem of the body and its interactions with the self. This was not just a theoretical verbal dissertation. The life and teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother gifted a whole range of practical guidance to enable an interested worker to pursue the inquiry with increasing confidence. Anyone, especially a physician, must constantly explore within himself, in the course of day to day life, this body-self interaction in order to have any influence on the total health of the persons that come to him. This is or ought to be the first step.
I resigned from my post as head of a teaching and research institution of mental health and the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram graciously accepted me into the Ashram.
The attitude adopted by me to the best of my ability was that of a professional student of self-change, changing oneself into a more effective and harmonious instrument of health. Aspiration and effort and sincerity towards changing oneself to a better model, to me, is the key note of the Mother's teaching, or at least the key note I had chosen. The factors and forces and parts and functions involved in this self-change are indeed many, but the first requirement seemed to me to be a person who says, "I am dissatisfied with myself; I desperately want and need to change myself", and a person who remembers that he said so, and a person who does not forget he said so.
While changing oneself has been recognised by many spiritual organisations, they are overlaid in practice by philanthropical occupations to such an extent that one can hardly be blamed if the suspicion is there that their main occupation is to change others in the name of helping or saving them from themselves.
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in their own bodily lifetime explored the paths and the powers needed for transformation of the human frame to enable it to express a new type of behaviour on this earth, here. I cannot pretend to grasp all that they have seen or said, but for my work it is sufficient to say that they have left a mass of practical guidance enough to occupy me many lifetimes. Understanding to me does not come from books, but only from my body actually doing what it wants to learn.

I have learnt, thanks to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, that trying to change myself and the intricate mechanism therein is the most effective way of meeting the multitude of vicissitudes that assail it from every direction. To the degree this is done, to that degree the external environment effectively changes. The human society is a complexly interconnected collective nervous system. Each one acts as a reflector for the other. The present social chaos is the result of the laser-like effect of the disturbance in each single person reflected million, trillion fold from each person directly and through the mass media. If one single person, instead of passively reflecting the chaos and disturbance he receives, were to transform what is received within himself, and then only release it, the results might be better for society, but it, certainly, is good for personal health as this action protects the personal body from destructive wear and tear. The proverbial no-see evil, no-hear evil, no-speak evil monkeys of religion will need a whole welfare institution for the deaf, dumb and blind in this wicked world. The Mother said that the reception of all vibrations and their inner transformation and subsequent transmission was the task for which Sri Aurobindo came on earth and to tell others how to do it. To the interested apprentice who wants to know how and what, the answer is seriously to go practically into their guidance as best one can . Mere reading helps to improve one's glossary and gives an illusion of understanding which is unfortunate but usual.
This particular angle to the vibrations of interaction has been of great help to me in my health work.
With regard to total bodily health, the concepts of paying attention and/or directing harmonious consciousness to the various parts of the body in great detail; of the need for setting ever higher goals of performance for body and mind to bring out the best in them have been most helpful. It was not the concepts as such but the extremely practical clues and pointers they have delineated that are of great help to the interested student of human evolution.
For someone like me who has chosen to study, to learn the processes of human behaviour, taking myself as the first sample, to study in depth this sample, the Ashram has been the very life-breath. It appears to be a selfish occupation, but I now see more and more clearly that if concern for the correction of one's own instrument is not there, all its so-called efforts at helping others can lead to disasters. This does not mean sitting in a dark cave in a forest and meditating on self-transformation. It is in the very middle of life that transformation is to be progressively achieved. All that is asked is to learn to keep your attention on your own dash-board while piloting your vehicle called the body.

Meticulous personal experiment is necessary. The apprentice interested in learning has to methodically involve his body in perfecting its parts, powers and functions. The methods may vary, but the need for the same degree of precision and dedication displayed by a scientist trying to manipulate or modify a complex computer is underlined. Sri Aurobindo's work on fasting in its bodily economy; the Mother's meticulous work trying to establish the relation between the flowers of blessing and duration of effects, and many more examples and statements can be found in numbers sufficient to underline the importance they attached to the scientific experimental approach for an intelligent man engaged in conscious evolution of himself as an effective instrument. As long as the personal 'I' remains, the need for this process of accurate observation, experiment and experience in mutually enriching spirals seems necessary. If the need for learning the skills of piloting one's own body is desperately felt in the interests of personal and public safety, it is easy to see that most of us give to the learning of these skills for this most complex machine on earth called our body, not even a fraction of the time given to the learning of the driving of a car. If this need for personal practical involvement is not felt the pages of the Vishuddhi Marga of Buddhist teaching and Sri Aurobindo's Synthesis of Yoga might not be of much help to the serious apprentice.
The present state of the world is very much like that of a number of drunken drivers devising rules of the road for safe driving.
The Ashram and its residents provide a lively dedicated and challenging milieu in which one is exposed to a rich variety of material and interpersonal interactions loosely enmeshed in bewildering bonds of love, freedom, authority and discipline all emerging from the one thread that holds all to the teachers and the goal set by them.
Following strictly the instruction of the Mother not to speak of matters beyond my knowledge I have refrained from trying to speak of esoteric knowledge beyond my understanding.
For me, Sri Aurobindo Ashram has been the most satisfying university where I have learnt and continue to learn the science and profession of human health in its evolutionary totality, I am grateful to my teachers for having made me see that a health-worker who is not constantly engaged in progressively transforming himself into a more and more healthy and harmonious human being is of dubious if not decisively dangerous effects.
This article does not fully convey all that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother mean to me. It is outside any consensually shareable experience. I shall not undertake a futile exercise in communicating the incommunicable.

AUM

THE PIONEERS OF INDIAN PSYCHIATRY-I DR. N.C.SURYA-The Lone Rider N.N.Wig-Part 7

Surya's views on the concept of mental health
The gist of Dr Surya’s views on mental health is contained in a series of six lectures, which he delivered at Mysore University in 1965 and again in 1967 (already referred to above).Here we find Surya, at his best - original, forthright and devastating in his sarcasm, about the current Western concepts on the subject. When he talks about Indian heritage, he knows his subject and he talks with conviction. However, what makes this paper as outstanding among dozens of similar papers from India is that rare insight with which the author has grasped the essence of what constitutes mental health according to Indian traditions. In a nutshell, Dr Surya makes two significant points in this paper. First, he refuses to accept the “average or statistical norm” as a basis for mental health. Instead, he suggested “ideal norm” as a basis for mental health. Secondly, he succeeds in offering a simple three-point definition of mental health, based on Indian cultural tradition. In my reading of psychiatric literature, over the years, I must have come across many definitions of mental health by different authors. I still find Dr Surya's definition as the simplest, most elegant and very Indian. But rather than me, let Surya speak for himself. Here are the three quotes from this paper:

THE PIONEERS OF INDIAN PSYCHIATRY-I DR. N.C.SURYA-The Lone Rider N.N.Wig-Part 8

The signs of good mental health.

1.  The degree to which you have an inner sense of comfort in as many situations as possible, is the measure of your mental health.

2.  The faces of your intimate associates are an index of your level of mental health.  The more unhappy and tense they look, or the more happy and relaxed they look in your presence is the minus and plus of your store of mental health.

3. Your account may be very poor in the above two but the degree and duration of your aspiration and effort to change for the better is the most positive index of the state of your mental health.”

It is sad that Surya's views on mental health have not received the attention they deserve.  Once again he was ahead of his times.  At the time when he expounded his views in 1960s, the limited number of Indian psychiatrists was preoccupied with clinical and hospital work.  Thirty years later when we are reaching out to the community and talking repeatedly about promotion of mental health, we have to first tell our people what we mean by mental health.  It is here that Surya's views become very important.  Statistical norms may serve us when we are dealing with illness, but concept of health is based not only on the current scientific knowledge but also on the inherent value system of a culture.  Science alone cannot set the rules for human behaviour. Dr Surya has been a true pioneer, who has left an indelible mark on Indian psychiatry.  He taught us how Western science and medicine is to be understood and applied in the context of our own cultural heritage.  Dr Surya continues to lead an active life in Pondicherry reading, writing and providing services at a clinic.  Some of his students are continuing his style of psychotherapy at Sri Aurobindo Ashram under his guidance.  Time has not changed him much.  It is a pleasure to be in his company.  He continues to be sharp, provocative and delightful in his wit and humour.  I close this paper with his invocation in the beginning of his book AHAM:

“Lead Us
From Light
To Delight"

THE PIONEERS OF INDIAN PSYCHIATRY-I DR. N.C.SURYA-The Lone Rider N.N.Wig-Part 9

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Prof.  R.  Srinivasa Murthy of NIMHANS, Bangalore, for his helpful advice and suggestions during the preparation of this paper.
References

Everyone of us is in Alipore Jail. Nothing goes as one wants. So jump up. They want the whole world to move their little finger.

All you are is your imagination.

Imagination is the first power on earth.

Conscious power is imagination.

Put Mother (etc.) in the person you are anxious about saying "OM ANANDAMAYI CHAITANYAMAYI SATYAMAYI PARAME"

Everything is exactly at the right place at every second.

Change next second.

Synchronicity of Jung.

Secret Agent

The previous blog entry AUM seems to be from a book Dr. Surya was planning to write/wrote (His writings are scattered among his disciples).

What I have in hand is a kind of early form of a print out. Would that I had it in some form by which I could just directly feed it as input for the blog.

Anyway, I got a "huh?" from a friend who happens to have come upon a feed.

So I shall try and explain what I think it means. The writings of such as Dr. Surya will always sadly remain a bit obscure which is, in a way, dangerous but there seems to be no choice as the Truth is a pathless land.

Dr.Surya often used the comparison between a Seeker and a Secret Agent. This is much in tune with the poetic likening of the relationship between God and the human soul as a kind of adultery- it is a secret love affair. This state is quite useful in the early years of practice as Faith seems to be by definition a feeble thing which requires sheltering.

So AUM follows through with this imagery of the Secret Agent who has to report to HQ (Head Quarters). As the case may be, one can take HQ to be God or one's Higher Self. In other words, as a psychiatrist he was exploring the Spiritual Path from the angle of neuroscience.

Mere objective observation seems to have certain effects on us. And thus

Your duty is to be at the listening post-Communication Centre.

You maintain as best you can an inner silence and neutrality so that the Universe can speak to you.

Your duty is not to understand or interpret or assess.

Surya said:

Do not be a cricket commentator on life

. Many of the Great Ones ask us not to sit judgement on others.

Your duty is to put all that comes from first base before the Communication Centre

.When I was a child, Surya was friends with an eminent Buddhist monk-Buddharakhita Thera. One of the monks in his monastery had made it a practice to keep reporting everything to the Buddha: Buddha I'm sweeping the floor, Buddha I'm stirring the soup, etc.

Your sole company in the midst of all company is the Communication Centre. Wherever you are you will be at the CC.

Indeed Sri Aurobindo had told his disciples: "Always behave as if the Mother was looking at you, because she is, indeed, always present."

Consciousness, awareness at all times. Some Hindus might beleive that the Divine is Consciousness- a kind of simultaneous universal awareness.

“sarvatha panipadam tat
sarvata shishiromukham,
sarvathasrutimanloke,
sarvamavritya thishtati.”

Roughly translated on the above site this means:
Having feet and hands on all sides, faces, eyes and noses everywhere, It... listens to both the throb of the universe as well as the silence of eternity. Though bodiless it has a million bodies. It is the perceiver of all things even though it has no sense organs. It is without attributes yet is the enjoyer and sustainer of all attributes. Attached to nothing, it supports all the action and movement of its Prakriti. It is at once the inner and the outer, the far and the near, the moving and the unmoving. It is the subtlest of the subtle, beyond the grasp of our minds as well as the density of matter which we can see and touch and smell and hear."
Surya would of course snort at the translation as he was totally at ease with Sanskrit being of Brahmin birth.

Your sole loyalty is to the Communication Center.
Such a single minded focus is Concentration, which is one of the ways to try and explain what we commonly understand by meditation.
To return to the Gita again:

sarva DharmAn parithyajya

mAm Ekam sharaNam vraja |

aham thvAm sarva pApEbhyO

mOkshayishyAmi mA shuchaha ||

As the person on the above site tries to explain:
The literary meaning for this would be as follows-

Completely

relinquishing all dharmas, seek me alone for refuge. I shall release

you from all sins. Grieve not !

Let me take the liberty of trying to explain what Dharma means to me: Duty roughly put- but it is rather a set of duties as it were because at another point in the Gita we see Dharma as being a kind of Governance so to speak.

Far more than all this gibberish it just means "Toss aside all your confusions abut what this book or that authority said and focus on ME."

6. Your Guide or the codeword given by the guide is the Communication Centre.
We all have a special Someone or something to whom we give devotion. This line also seems to refer to the uttering of the rosary or of some prayer or mantra- a practice in most religions.

7. You unceasingly be with this till all parts of your territory become a Communication Centre.

The Mother's given mantra was:

Om Namo Bhagavathe- May I be like Thee.

8. Are you at the Communication Centre.

Yes, this is addressed to you, reader.

9. Nothing else is required of you.

And so unless it is tried with sincerity there will be nothing but the spouting of a lot of hot air!