PAGES FROM AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY, I

I hold a clear memory of my first moments on earth. After sixty  years I can still recall the experience in full details.

At that moment I was a conscious witness with a deep perception of things, but I had no vocabulary for what I saw, I could see a cloud but I had no name for it or for everything else, just a blank observer.
Next is what I experienced once translated into a language:

I appeared as a bodiless point of consciousness floating on the top floor of a building, it was early dawn and dark clouds where recollecting in the sky menacing with an autumnal storm. 
Far in the distance the grey, almost black mantle of clouds was wounded by a neat cut which opened on a far-off world of everlasting light, sending a recordatory of it through the dark assemblage of clouds.  

I could see kind of silvery features, kind of strings floating in the air coming from the buildings around, later on I understood it was related with the presence of human beings sleeping and dreaming.

Suddenly I was aspired within the building, I passed through pink, half illuminated human fluids  and floated again, this time into a room.
I was now levitating close to the roof of the room where some white globes shaded some light, below me I could see a woman laying in a bed surrounded by four or five people all in white dress and very strong focuses of light illuminating the scene.

I moved towards one of the windows, again I could see the dark clouds and could ear the first heavy drops of rain beating the glasses.

Suddenly a terribly strong thunder resounded all over, I noticed the reaction of the people and some comment, a woman in white was holding a little human body by its feet beating him on his buttocks, that action produced a sudden angry reaction and the little body started to cry,  the woman in the bed stretched out her arms and took the baby over her breast, and I was suck into the little body by the tender action of the woman, which was my mother.

Since then, the approaching autumnal clouds always recall me of my first moments on earth.

In the following months it  started a process of identification -rather an integration- with that little body and with an incipient baby-consciousness other than myself,  at the beginning I could clearly mark a difference, later on all the centers would overlap as a single unity of consciousness, oftentimes I would simply float over the little body observing it with curiosity and concern, the baby had a developing consciousness of its own and could feel my invisible presence  babbling at my direction, sometimes I would be inside the body experiencing it from within, but  in the course of time our identification grew more and more. 

 I could register whatever relevant  and still hold in my memory many such happenings of my early months.

For the matter of explaining my inner life and my early interest for yoga, I remember an event which happened when I was only ten months old, I could not walk with security yet on my legs and alternated  going on hands and knees.

I was a keen observer, and my little mind could already plan some strategy for my own benefit, it was summertime and I noticed that in the afternoon everybody at home  would fall asleep for a while, but if I was awake there was always someone on guard for me, so I started simulate sleeping and wait for everybody else asleep, then I would silently leave the bed and venture myself out in the garden. I really enjoyed experiencing life in the garden all by myself.

That afternoon I ventured a bit farther till I reached a wall of the garden where I discovered a kennel for a dog which had probably died time before, because I never met a dog in the garden.The kennel  imitated a tiny house, with its roof and even a window and an arched entrance.

Of course, the new discovery attracted my attention and I stepped in  on my knees.
I felt very comfortable in that little house, and after exploring it I sat down crossed legs on the floor.

The gentle  breeze stirred the leaves of the trees drawing on the ground a shadow play which attracted my attention with delight: the fine weather, the whisper of the leaves, the air suddenly invaded by the buzz of the flies...  all conspired  to make me feel extremely comfortable.
 While observing the changing spectacle on the floor I was rapt by  its beauty
and  absorbed more and more  into a deep ecstasy, melting away in it. 

 I was called back later on by the worried voices of my mother and aunts, which after their sleep had miss me. 
 I babbled some incoherent sound as an answer and a moment later the smiling face of my mother peered through the entrance stretching her arms towards me.

There was not any rebuke, instead they brought me back home from arms to arms and lips to  lips  kissing and cheering me all the way back  because I was the darling of the house.

Somehow, that early ecstasy was already pointing out the trajectory of my life, but of course, at that moment I had not idea of  later developments.

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As I have observed in my life and compared with biographical notes from Sri Aurobindo, Vivekananda and Ramakrishna, as well in autobiographies of cristian saints, ecstasy is progressive, in its first development it requires the stillness of the body, respiration is suspended, the being totally lose self identity and consciousness of the environment.
 Later on,  there is yet the need of a still body, and respiration is suspended too, the mind stills, but the being do not lose self-identity and consciousness of the environment. 
Finally there is another stage, body may be moving, and breath air, mind is silent, the being is conscious of itself and of an eternal presence which seat is somehow above the physical head. 
The study of the stages and progression of the ecstasy is not very common, but it shade light on the process and suggests not only a progression but even a tendency to evolve.
More exactly, there is an evolution of consciousness in it. I mention it here as  a biographical coordinate and an inspiring and revelatory study for anyone to undertake.   

THE YOGA OF THE CELLS, I

What exactly is the "yoga of the cells"?

We can surely say it is a yoga which deals with physical matter and body.

Yoga means union or balance of two principles, applied to the cells it is the balance of the two principles which rule the physical body, as in the case of the yin and yang applied to the physical body and in last terms to the cells themselves.

The producing of a stable harmony of the two principles in the physical body is a real science, because it is this expanded harmony in time which may, and surely will, produce substantial changes into the very mental substance through its material counterpart and in last terms an increased harmony of mind and thought.

The integral yoga is an integrity of body mind and soul, in that, the soul takes control of the sadhana directing a superior kind of yoga which has been called integral yoga.

The fact is that not all the aspirants to such yoga can rely upon a direct action of the soul, and the truth is that oftentimes they can´t even aspire to an indirect intervention of the soul, it is because the outer personality is too concentrated on itself and too confidant in its powers, and this creates an heavy curtain which impeaches us to be sensitive to the requirements and suggestions of the soul.

 From another perspective -say a soul perspective-  this tendency of a mind too confidant on its own powers  rather looks as an overstressed mind, because there is nothing that cannot be better achieved by an harmony of the mind and a calm, integrative vision of life rather then an hammering and unresting mind.

It is for this lack of soul power that was suggested a yoga of the cells which is, when it comes under our direct control, a veritable action on our side in the field we may more directly control: the physical body processes and its cells.

In order to produce a change in the cells we need a physical mean, and that is food.

Macrobiotic well understood the need of balancing yin and yang (the basic/alkaline principles in the body), a principle present in any body, even in vegetable bodies.

Macrobiotic as a general principle appears not only in physical bodies but in every expression of life with its subsequent seasons, its days and nights etc, reconnecting and integrating our balancing action on the cells to greater rhythms of life.

It is out of question that among the actual tendencies, macrobiotic is the science which most deepened into the actions, reactions and inter reactions between the two principles which sustain physical body and cells.

In itself macrobiotic is not a new science or an achievement of later times, but it is the result of human observation (and experimentation) since early times and in different cultures all over the world, having at its origin the observation of the two great intervening powers in life: Light and Darkness, with all their court of antinomes as hot and cold, day and night, man and woman, etc.

Well understood, macrobiotic is an integrating and integrative science, which do not merely suggest the use of japanese products but the application of the principles to which they are submitted, and people should be able to do macrobiotic with local available food processing them according to that principles.

Pure food, uncontaminated by chemical products has a great desintoxicating and transforming power on physical bodies, and should be considered the base for the yoga of the cells.

The knowledge and application of the balancing principles is what increases even farther the natural power of pure food, because at length it will produce a refining of our taste and promote the need for an ever increasing assumption of lighter (sattwic) foods through the development of an increased power of assimilation and utilization of all the constituents of that food.

The taste for heavy, tamasic food as meat  etc, will progressively disappear once the body has got rid of the toxins accumulated within the body, and surely it has to be suggested of not pretending a sudden desintoxication because of the real power of organic-macrobiotic food.
 It has been observed that a too strict application of the macrobiotic principles and the use of organic food at the beginning of a change of diet may have as a consequence a too fast release of toxins delivered into the blood stream and other eliminating systems, which the body, untrained for such a task, may not be able to deal with,  producing as a consequence an overload of the elimination systems and a general poisoning of the body.

It is a real serious matter because it produced some death, and the writer here can assure you he had to deal with unexpected and very painful eliminating processes even without the application of a too strict dietary regimen, so please do not undervalue the force and power within pure, uncontaminated by chemical, organic food.


In the long term, anyone who deals with a reconversion of his diet will surely experience not only a change in the health of the physical body and its activities but, what is more, experience a pronounced, balanced harmony of his/her own mind and thoughts.  

Yoga of the cells is the science dealing with physical body through a conscious consumption of pure organic, sattwic food.

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Humans think: Oh, yoga of the cells? Sounds fine, i'm gonna do that!
As the over-human possibilities were in need of a mental asset of... what after all?
A few ideas to run a yoga of the cell?
To work for themselves, not letting God do his work, is terribly presumptuous, as God were in need of a few badly picked-up ideas on how to run a physical body, from a man that has not even full control on his own body and its continuity.
What a lack of better circumstances to grow!
There are two sections to self-realization, the first one the man is doing the work, which eventually with a lot of unrecognized help from God is succesfull. The second half is when definitively leaves God doing his own work. When this second half is not achieved is because man loves to varnish himself with the divine varnish, the other option is to completely disappear as a human figure -before- ever knowing what will be next and what you will become, only leaving that confiance into the Divine itself. Man can´t imagine what he can become, if he could, it would not be true but a projection of his own mind. 

PAGES ON INTEGRAL YOGA, IV

Evolutive yoga versus static yoga

Integral yoga much as life, is -it has to be- evolutive, if it weren´t so we would be in  need of another yoga.
When I say evolutive I mean that all that is been written on the subject must be reliable of modifications while life and consciousness evolve on earth.

I don´t think is correct when people makes of integral yoga a static belief, a progression and a transformation which has to be repeated in all the details to be valid, much as yogis produced by a kind of supernatural machine which will make of them a copy of each other.

I found that people often get stuck to their belief opposing them to other creeds, in a childish attempt  to convince themselves (and everybody else) that their yoga is better and higher then others, but in the case of integral yoga, which is evolution itself, we cannot say a final word, and if we could, it wouldn´t be integral yoga at all but a parody.

For these same reasons the words integral yoga will one day be out of date and substituted for other words, but not the principles which were set up in the idea of an integral yoga.

When Sri Aurobindo said that all life is yoga he was saying exactly the above, integral yoga is the yoga of life, and because life is evolution and evolves, integral yoga too is evolution and has to evolve. So, in a sense, integral yoga is condemned to disappear substituted for an ever inclusive yoga, a yoga which cannot be fully described nor one to which we can put a final point, because evolution itself, and its mode, is after all in the hands of the Divine and will be what the Divine will decide it to be.  

PAGES ON INTEGRAL YOGA III

The problem of mistrustfulness


For some reason, some people still cannot accept that I had a personal relation with Sri Aurobindo; instead of taking the chance to reflect on the messages and visions which were meant for them too, they prefer to think that it was not Sri Aurobindo himself but some kind of vital being which took his features to mislead me and the people to whom the visions were directed. (The visions were meant to be public by express wish of the Master).
Evidently, they did not bore in considering the tenor and quality of visions and messages, much less they grasped at my personal trajectory.

The devil or evil of mistrustfulness is, especially in self-thought integral yoga or Sri Aurobindo´s followers, a real danger, and we can plainly talk of a real obsession, directed or suggested (and unconsciously accepted),  by such kind of devils or dark forces, or else beings from a darker vital.

This people end up by following without any kind of control whatever is unconsciously suggested to them because they have some kind of opening in their mental aura,  but of course they are not really innocent because they hold their intellectual scrutiny in high esteem.

"Some people want to be taller than others by cutting their heads!" said once Sri Yukteswar.

The fact remains that they may turn themselves poorly arrogant and unable to accept that someone else other than themselves may have reached or discovered something they couldn´t, this kind of people is never in the disposition to accept that someone may have gone farther than themselves.

Of course, it is a childish and even unhealthy way of thinking, and I mean it literally, because when I was taken to Auroville in my subtle body by Sri Aurobindo, I could  witness how such aura was  suffocating and unbearable to the point of getting almost sick from its emanations. (You can read the whole experience in my post of 8/10/13, "The Hour before the Gods Awake".


The fact remains that it is a very dangerous practice which will bring them many problems and ultimately represent a serious obstacle in their yoga.