Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / Reading as a Method of Entering into a Wider and Deeper Consciousness

Transcript

Reading as a Method of Entering into a Wider and Deeper Consciousness · Sri Aurobindo Studies

• 0:01
  A teenager was observed as she was deeply absorbed in reading
• 0:04
  the famous novel by Alexander Dumas, The Count of Monte
• 0:09
  Cristo. This novel spanned some 1000
• 0:12
  pages and encompasses themes of deep and abiding interest but
• 0:17
  does so in a captivating storyline.
• 0:21
  It so happened that this teenager was reading the book
• 0:24
  during an extended road trip across the United States,
• 0:27
  including visits to national parks and the Hopi Reservation
• 0:32
  of the First Nation's people. She was so absorbed in her
• 0:36
  reading that she noticed nothing at all for days at a time, and
• 0:40
  even when she exited the vehicle, she carried the book in
• 0:44
  front of her and read it while walking.
• 0:47
  She entered deeply into the spirit of the story and came
• 0:51
  away with a deeper understanding of the forces that drive human
• 0:55
  life in a way that aided her in her adult life and way of seeing
• 1:01
  and looking at the world. The method of entering into the
• 1:05
  spirit of the written word is not restricted to reading of
• 1:08
  novels. Many people have engrossed
• 1:11
  themselves deeply in reading and becoming receptive to the
• 1:14
  writings of Sri Aurobindo. Reading in his epic poem
• 1:18
  Savitri, a legend and a symbol, has been known to evoke
• 1:23
  spiritual experiences of visual and auditory phenomena and to
• 1:28
  transport the individual into another domain of conscious
• 1:33
  awareness. We tend to read with a somewhat
• 1:36
  voracious mental appetite, and we read quickly and
• 1:40
  superficially. We look at how much we have
• 1:44
  read, not how deeply we have understood what we have read.
• 1:48
  We feed the mind but do not take the time to create the receptive
• 1:54
  focus to truly enter into the spirit of what is written and
• 1:59
  engage directly with the consciousness of the writer.
• 2:03
  Those who undertake to do this are rewarded with an entirely
• 2:08
  new understanding and viewpoint. An experiment was reported which
• 2:13
  actually started some years ago, to read Shiro Bindo's writings
• 2:18
  in a much deeper and more reflective manner, to read
• 2:22
  slowly, approximately 1 page per day, and to let it sink in, let
• 2:29
  it marinate in the being, and thereby allow it to actually
• 2:33
  begin to transform the understanding.
• 2:38
  Starting with the Life Divine, this process systematically
• 2:42
  moved through all the major writings of Shiro Bindo in a
• 2:46
  span of time of more than 15 years, day by day.
• 2:51
  During that time, the individual observed within himself changes
• 2:55
  of his ways of looking at his life, his relationships, his
• 3:00
  interactions, along with a widening of his understanding of
• 3:04
  things. In some cases, his reflections
• 3:08
  and the insights that arose actually preceded an explanation
• 3:12
  provided by Sri Aurobindo in the pages following the daily
• 3:16
  passage. In other instances, he had a
• 3:19
  distinct impression of some inner experience, which was
• 3:23
  later described by Sri Robindo in a succeeding section.
• 3:28
  This was particularly the case in his reading of Savitri.
• 3:33
  If we read with the mind, we obtain mental knowledge,
• 3:37
  formulaic linear thoughts that we can repeat and regurgitate on
• 3:41
  demand. We gain facts, but we do not
• 3:45
  gain the essential insight behind the facts.
• 3:49
  But if we read with the soul, deeply, reflectively,
• 3:54
  receptively, we gain something potentially much more valuable
• 4:00
  and access point to an entirely new aspect of consciousness.
• 4:05
  We make the knowledge part of ourselves rather than something
• 4:08
  we can simply parrot back without understanding the deeper
• 4:12
  sense. This process is progressive, and
• 4:16
  the more sincerely 1 undertakes it, and the longer one works
• 4:20
  with it, the more transformative action can be observed in the
• 4:24
  being the mother observes. Quote for instance, when you are
• 4:31
  reading a book that interests you very much, a wonderful novel
• 4:35
  full of exciting adventures. When you are completely absorbed
• 4:39
  in the story. At times you forget your class
• 4:43
  hour or even dinner time or your bedtime.
• 4:47
  You are completely absorbed in what you are reading.
• 4:51
  Well, this is a phenomenon of self identification and if you
• 4:56
  do it with a certain perfection, you succeed in understanding
• 5:00
  ahead what is going to happen. There is a moment when, being
• 5:05
  fully absorbed in the story, you come to know, without trying to
• 5:09
  look for it, towards what end the author is leading you, how
• 5:13
  he is going to unfold his story and come to his conclusion.
• 5:18
  For you have identified yourself with the creative thought of the
• 5:22
  author. You do it more or less perfectly
• 5:26
  without knowing that you are doing it.
• 5:29
  But these are phenomena of self identification.
• 5:33
  End Quote Reference Sri Aurobindo and the Mother Powers
• 5:38
  within Chapter 13 Power of Identification pages one O 7 to
• 5:44
  one O 8.