Suffering, conflict, confusion and despair

Andy Smith Says: December 29th, 2006 at 2:51 am Tusar: I hope your previous post was not intended to be an example of Aurobindo’s description of spiritual states. It may be very nice poetry, but it’s not very original, there are countless writers before him who have said much the same thing: boundless, infinite, rapture, drunkenness, etc. And not just mystics, there have been many writers/poets who were not enlightened, who did not submit themselves to a long and arduous discipline, who were capable of saying things like that.

In addition, these passages, like so many other descriptions I come across, are about a final state, they say nothing about what one experiences on the way, which is where virtually every seeker spends virtually all of his or her life. The day to day reality of the seeker is not much about rapture and bliss, it’s more about suffering, conflict, confusion and despair, about learning the consequences of our actions, the relationships between what we do and what we experience, the preciousness of energy, and so much more that I rarely find gurus writing about. You will forgive me for believing the reason they don’t write about such things is because they haven’t lived through them.

Tusar N. Mohapatra Says: December 29th, 2006 at 5:55 am I fail to understand why Andy Smith is so willing and eager to believe that “they haven’t lived through them” without even scratching the surface to acquaint himself with their biographical details. I can empathize with all of you for the sense of loss you are going through after the fall of your hero, but the grief has to be overcome, and the sooner the better.

Rather, this has created the most opportune moment to know about the teachings of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo. Don’t feel threatened that others have read more. Within a few weeks you can catch up and acquire an overview of things. Then only you will be able to critically analyze and judge for yourself. Otherwise, what you say about them now sounds so puerile and it doesn’t behove of a person of your eminence.