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How to Experience the Influx of Universal Forces Directly Through the Experience of a Wider Consciousness · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  The Vedic Rishis described a change in conscious awareness as
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  representing Satyam, Rutham, Brihat, the Truth, the right,
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  the vast. It is difficult for most people
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  living in the modern world to gain a conception of the
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  vastness of existence. We may know intellectually that
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  the universe is large. We may know that the world from
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  our individual perspective is large, but the sense of
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  Infinity, the sense of unending wideness, is missing as we
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  remain circumscribed by the limits of our daily life and the
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  frenetic pace of interaction that occurs within that life.
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  Few are the times or occasions when an individual is able to
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  extract himself from the hustle and bustle of daily life and
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  focus his attention on the vastness that automatically
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  widens his consciousness and opens it up to the direct impact
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  of the universal forces. In the days of the Vedic Rishis,
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  there was not a pervasive and overwhelming buzz of
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  electricity, artificial lighting, and constant
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  vibrations of sound of television, radio, Internet,
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  fluorescent lights, billboard signs, motor vehicles, et
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  cetera. They could sit quietly in nature
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  and naturally observe the stars, the ocean, the mountain ranges,
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  and thereby open themselves to an experience of nature.
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  Until an individual has an actual experience of that vast
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  consciousness, it remains purely a mental concept and does not
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  thereby create the necessary status of consciousness for the
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  kind of direct connection that is described by the Rishis.
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  The First Nations people of North America have a tradition
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  for those with a calling to go on a vision quest.
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  Typically, they go out alone into the wilderness to commune
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  with nature, to experience a touch of the infinite expanse of
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  the universal creation and to let the day-to-day life slip
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  away so they can experience a deeper realization and
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  understand who they are and why they are alive.
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  If one takes the time to travel to isolated places, to the
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  mountains, to the ocean, to a great old growth forest and
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  observes the night sky, for instance, there arises within a
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  feeling of unlimited wideness that corresponds to the outer
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  view. One can share in the experience
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  of Infinity, of a timelessness that escapes our normal daily
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  awareness of a beauty that captivates our souls, as one
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  leaves behind the limiting factors that distract us from
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  the greater reality within which we live.
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  Truly, it is said, the day for the ordinary man is night for
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  the sage. Sri Aurobindo describes this
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  sense of wideness and the power of nature in his epic poem
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  Savitri. A legend and a symbol when he
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  writes quote, I know there shall inform the inconscient selves.
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  At one with nature and at height with heaven.
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  A spirit vast as the containing sky, and swept with ecstasy from
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  invisible founts. End Quote.
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  The mother notes quote. But when one has this capacity
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  and his own consciousness. For example, you go for a walk
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  and come to a place which is somewhat vast, like the
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  seashore, or like a great plain, or the summit of a mountain, a
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  place where the horizon is fairly vast.
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  Then if you have this kind of physical instinct which suddenly
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  makes you as vast as the horizon, you have a sense of
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  Infinity, immensity and the vaster you become, the quieter
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  and more peaceful you become. It is enough for you to have a
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  contact with nature like that. There are many other means, but
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  this one is very spontaneous. There is also when you see
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  something very beautiful, you can have the same thing, a kind
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  of inner joy and an opening to the forces, and so this widens
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  you and fills you at the same time.
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  There are many means, but usually 1 does not use them.
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  Naturally, if you enter into contemplation and aspire for a
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  higher life and call down the forces from above, this
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  recuperates your energies more than anything else.
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  But there are numerous methods. End Quote reference.
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  Shriorobindo and the Mother. The Hidden Forces of Life,
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  Chapter 4. Cosmic and Universal Forces,
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  pages 95 to 96.