Well, questions are aplenty and many a time, a question begets a question in the form of an answer! And as to what the exact answer is, not just to this question but to every, that, only the Divine Mother knows, Her answer changing in keeping with our hunger, in keeping with the nature of the hunger — in keeping with the Aspiration that She Herself Incites and Invokes in us so as to push and propel us to invoke Her. 

After all, nothing happens without a purpose, nothing falling outside Her Purpose. Thus, usually She seems to be conspiring against us, and usually less oft, in our favour. 

Such are these times, when humanity collectively is striving and crying, aspiring consciously or otherwise, for the ‘whys’, the ‘hows’, the ‘whens’, the ‘whats’, seeking a way out, and comprehensively. Man is suffocated by the physical mask that he has been made to wear… and is still being made to wear. He is weary too. 

But is it only the physical mask that he wants to tear and breathe freely the air without fear — the very air which he has been taking for granted, putting on all sorts of airs? 

In this material plane, all apparent is formed of and filled with duality. Thus, even the sign of ‘life’ in man, his breath too depicts the same: inhalation and exhalation. One simply can’t do with one. If he inhales, he has to exhale. This is the relation, unavoidable, of the many, between oxygen and carbon dioxide, between inhalation and exhalation…

So, is man suffocated by that that he wants to exhale, but cannot fully because of the mask?  Because, however optimal might be the membranes of the mask, there are things which cannot escape the mask. The Divine Mother seems to have taken us to task! Our so-called progress has its mask peeled-off and torn. 

“God’s contract signed with Ignorance is torn.” (1)

We have been seeing and blaming the enemies without, but, this mask and “work-from-home” forcing to ‘work at home’ has kind-of forced man to unmask himself.  So now, is he afraid of what he cannot exhale, having to inhale himself?

“In the mind’s silence the Transcendent acts

And the hushed heart hears the unuttered Word.” (2)

And then, all denials have to be denied. Denials can no more be of Truth. The more we deny, the more our troubles we intensify. No more can the Word be defied. All previously ‘absoluted’, deified, – man’s intellect, intelligence and their deduced and derived – accept their subjugation to and limitation by the Ignorance; Mind accepts its defeat at the Feet of Truth-Light…

“Light, endless Light! darkness has room no more,

Life’s ignorant gulfs give up their secrecy:” (3)

Thus, these whys and whens, whats and hows as engulf, as linear thinking leads to frightful predictions, called we are to go beyond and rise above the predilections of intellect and intelligence. We are made to invoke the unpredictability of the Divine Mother. And hence, we aspire to see the Sun shining bright, dispelling the gloom of the darkening clouds. The Divine Mother is not bound to any prediction, cannot be read by the ‘weather-forecasting’ agencies, however ‘advanced’ they might be. We call upon the beauty and ‘suddenness’ of Her unpredictability, Her apparent severity too Her solicitude, our saviour.  

As is the dirt and grime, so is the required nature of scrubbing and cleansing. Fed-up with all that we have been fed, fed-up with the limitations of the utility of predictability, fed-up with our affiliation to fate, we call upon the Hands Invisible… 

“Alive in a dead rotating universe

We whirl not here upon a casual globe

Abandoned to a task beyond our force;

Even through the tangled anarchy called Fate

And through the bitterness of death and fall

An outstretched Hand is felt upon our lives.” (4)

These Hands, as embrace and cuddle, protecting and guiding through all adverse and adversity, so do They cull and slay all enemies within which invite and respond to those from without. 

Though always She is to be called upon, yet, these are those times when Her Intervention is ardently and urgently sought, prayed and aspired for — individually and universally, and in full integrality. 

“Mother Durga! Thou art Kali, naked, garlanded with human heads, sword in hand, thou slayest the Asura. Goddess, do thou slay with thy pitiless cry the enemies who dwell within us, may none remain alive there, not one. May we become pure and spotless, this is our prayer, O Mother, make thyself manifest.” (5)

As we have been unmasked, laid bare and torn the invisible masks that we had been hitherto wearing, the enemies seen and being seen gradually, we call upon Her, “the magnet of our difficult ascent,” (6) 

O Divine Mother, hold back no more Thyself, hide no more. We seek Thy overt, no more covert, action and intervention. Unmask Thyself…

References

(1) “Immortality” by Sri Aurobindo (CWSA Volume 2, p. 625).

(2) Savitri by Sri Aurobindo, p. 315.

(3) “Light” by Sri Aurobindo (CWSA Volume 2, p. 618).

(4) Savitri by Sri Aurobindo, p. 59.

(5) “Hymn to Durga” by Sri Aurobindo (CWSA Volume 9).

(6) Savitri by Sri Aurobindo, p. 314.