Gaining Perspective On Our Desires and Focus Within the Grand Canvas of Time and Space

We spend most of our lives fixated on the external life we are living, including our internal reactions to that life, such as our feelings, desires, sense impressions, thoughts, ideas, motivations and physical comforts and discomforts (among other things). We focus on earning our livelihood, building relationships, raising families, dealing with various crises that arise in our lives, and dealing with the demands of the outer life generally. From morning to evening we are occupied with these things, and then we carry them with us into our times of rest, recreation and sleep. As a result we tend to become bound up in all of the forces at work in our lives, and, given the proximity of these things to our minds and senses, we magnify their importance and urgency.

It is said that day for the ordinary person is night for the yogic practitioner and vice versa. We can gain some insight from this observation. During the day the sunshine circumscribes our view of the world within what is called the “vault of the sky”. Whether clear or cloudy, our vision stops us from viewing the galaxy and the vast number of stars that become visible at night when the sun’s force is not keeping us fixated on the world around us. The yogi is able to move his consciousness outside the realm of these daily activities and cares and commune with the larger universal creation that becomes visible at night. It is usefu to note that most people, even during the nighttime, do not occupy themselves with observing the stars and space, and with the increase of cloud cover and light pollution, many actually do not have that opportunity.

The lesson that the yogi can provide is that we need to shift our view from the finite to the infinite, from the circumscribed elements of our daily lives, to something wider, deeper, freer and not bound to our human limitations. Some people do this through contemplation of the galaxy, some through viewing the vastness of the ocean, some through viewing open remote areas that provide a sense of wideness. With the advent of the internet, people can actually view the incredible photographs and photo-montages of the galaxy (or multiple galaxies) created by the James Webb Space Telescope, and use this as a subject of contemplation if they really have no other options for experiencing the wideness. The contemplation of the immensity of the universe helps us attain perspective about our own concerns, desires, fears and actions.

The Rig Vedic seers understood this issue, when they referred to “satyam, rtam, brihat”, ‘the truth, the right, the vast.’

The Mother observes: “… if at a particular moment there is something which holds you, grips you like that, holds you tight, close pressed, and you absolutely want it to happen, and you are fighting against a terrible obstacle, you see, something which is preventing it from happening; if simply just at that moment you begin to feel, to realise the myriads and myriads of years there were before this present moment, and the myriads and myriads of years there will be after this present moment, and what importance this little event has in relation to all that — there is no need to enter a spiritual consciousness or anything else, simply enter into relation with space and time, with all that is before, all that is after and all that is happening at the same time — if one is not an idiot, immediately he tells himself, ‘Oh, well, I am attaching importance to something which doesn’t have any.’ Necessarily so, you see. It loses all importance, immediately.”

“If you can visualise, you know, simply the immensity of the creation — I am not now speaking of rising to spiritual heights — simply the immensity of the creation in time and space, and this little event on which you are concentrated with an importance… as though it were something of some importance… immediately it does this (gesture) and it dissolves, if you do it sincerely. If, naturally, there is one part of yourself which tells you, ‘Ah, but for me it has an importance’, then, there, you have only to leave that part behind and keep your consciousness as it is. But if sincerely you want to see the true value of things, it is very easy.”

“There are other methods, you know. There is a Chinese sage who advises you to lie down upon events as one floats on one’s back upon the sea, imagining the immensity of the ocean and that you let yourself go floating upon this… upon the waves, you see, like something contemplating the skies and letting itself be carried away. In Chinese they call this Wu Wei. When you can do this all your troubles are gone. I knew an Irishman who used to lie flat o his back and look outside, as much as possible on an evening when stars were in the sky, he looked, contemplated the sky and imagined that he was floating in that immensity of countless luminous points.”

“And immediately all troubles are calmed.”

“There are many ways. But sincerely, you have only to… have the sense of relativity between your little person and the importance you give to the things which concern you, and the universal immensity; this is enough. Naturally, there is another way, it is to free oneself rrom the earth consciousness and rise into a higher consciousness where these terrestrial things take their true place — which is quite small, you see.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 4, Ordeals and Difficulties, pp..99-100