In the Hour of God

Sri Aurobindo spoke of The Hour of God.

Not all moments are the Hour of God. There have been the Ages of Darkness on earth, on several places on earth. Men have been left to their ignorance and egoism, to their lack of knowledge and wisdom, to their imperfection and incompleteness, to their mortality.

But some Hours on earth are those of the Divine.

There are moments when the Spirit moves among men and the breath of the Lord is abroad upon the waters of our being; there are others when it retires and men are left to act in the strength or the weakness of their own egoism. The first are the periods when even a little effort produces great results and changes destiny; the second are spaces of time when much labour goes to the making of a little result. [ The Hour of God ]

This earth is a field of Evolution : Evolution of the Spirit involved in Matter. All living beings and all humans are the outcome of this Evolution. But Man is not in the final stage of Evolution. He is in the initial stage of the Manifestation of Consciousness. He is in a rudimentary stage. So imperfect, so incomplete he is !

As Sri Aurobindo said, the time has come when evolution must surpass man. Man is not the perfect being, not the complete being. But he aspires and dreams for becoming perfect, for becoming complete. Ultimately, the task of Evolution is to manifest the Divine, the Source of this Manifestation, the Supreme Existence-Consciousness-Bliss (in Sanskrit and other Indian languages called Sat-Chit-Ananda or Sachchidananda). The Superman is to emerge and manifest out of Man. Man has to prepare and transform himself for the coming of the Superman. He should grow and become the Superman. That is the purpose of Man's appearance — the Advent of the Superman, of the Supramental Consciousness — and the purpose must now be fulfilled, through man's surpassing himself will do that. If Man fails to collaborate with the new phase of evolution, the evolutionary forces will surpass him, push him aside, go beyond him and find out its own means.

During the periods when the Divine is not actively interfering with the Manifestation, and is in distance, Man may call the Divine and the ‘smoke of sacrifice’ that he offers through his work and aspiration and prayer reaches the Divine. The Hour of God is the answer of the Divine, and His Grace!

It is true that the latter [ordinary moments] may prepare the former [the Divine moments], may be the little smoke of sacrifice going up to heaven which calls down the rain of God’s bounty. [ The Hour of God ]

The Divine Consciousness descends and becomes ready to answer the Call and the Aspiration of the human being, to lift him up to Light and Force and Joy and Love, but Man fails. The Divine comes and gives us Light, shows us the Way, but we cover the Light with the Shades of Darkness and create hurdles on the Way by creating walls and barricades of Ignorance. We love Darkness and Ignorance and thus we ignore Light and Truth and Wisdom. We are never really prepared.

This is the Time when the field is ready for the human being to grow and become the supramental being. The Hour of God that has descended on earth with the coming of Sri Aurobindo still continues and will continue till the Work is accomplished, till the Supramental Beings emerge on earth.

If the Hour of God recedes back, the Supernature then will definitely have a different Plan, which will never be a welcome situation for Man. Humanity will then have to face warfares and destructions and irrecoverable losses.

Unhappy is the man or the nation which, when the divine moment arrives, is found sleeping or unprepared to use it, because the lamp has not been kept trimmed for the welcome and the ears are sealed to the call. But thrice woe to them who are strong and ready, yet waste the force or misuse the moment; for them is irreparable loss or a great destruction.
[The Hour of God]

Sri Aurobindo calls us for being prepared, for becoming ready, and never to waste the force or misuse the moment. He calls us to become pure, cleansing all self-deceit and hypocrisy and vanity, in this Hour of God. Any insincerity will bring in ‘the blow’ caused by the wrath of God.

In the hour of God cleanse thy soul of all self-deceit and hypocrisy and vain self-flattering that thou mayst look straight into thy spirit and hear that which summons it. All insincerity of nature, once thy defence against the eye of the Master and the light of the ideal, becomes now a gap in thy armour and invites the blow. Even if thou conquer for the moment, it is the worse for thee, for the blow shall come afterwards and cast thee down in the midst of thy triumph.
[The Hour of God]


Sri Aurobindo has said thus elsewhere on sincerity :

To walk through life armoured against all fear, peril and disaster, only two things are needed, two that go always together - the Grace of the Divine Mother and on your side an inner state made up of faith, sincerity and surrender.
[The Mother]

On sincerity, the Mother [Mira Alfassa] has said :

One must have an absolutely transparent sincerity. Lack of sincerity is the cause of the difficulties we meet at present. Insincerity is in all men. Insincerity is in all men. There are perhaps a hundred men on earth who are totally sincere. Man’s very nature makes him insincere — it is very complicated, he is constantly deceiving himself, hiding the truth himself, making excuses for himself. Yoga is the way to become sincere in all parts of the being.
It is difficult to be sincere, but at least one can be mentally sincere… The force is there, present as never before; men’s insincerity prevents it from descending, from being felt. The world lives in falsehood, all relations between men until now have been based on falsehood and deceit. Diplomatic nations between nations are based on falsehood. They claim to want peace, and meanwhile they are arming themselves. Only a transparent sincerity in man and among nations can usher in a transformed world.

[February 1968 : Words of the Mother]

Insincerity is thus ingrained in human beings. For a transformed world, they will have to become sincere and pure. Let us stand up in the truth of our purpose : a supramental manifestation on earth and a transformed world.

But being pure cast aside all fear; for the hour is often terrible, a fire and a whirlwind and a tempest, a treading of the winepress of the wrath of God; but he who can stand up in it on the truth of his purpose is he who shall stand; even though he fall, he shall rise again; even though he seem to pass on the wings of the wind, he shall return.

Nor let worldly prudence whisper too closely in thy ear; for it is the hour of the unexpected, the incalculable, the immeasurable. Mete not the power of the Breath by thy petty instruments, but trust and go forward. But most keep thy soul clear, even if for a while, of the clamour of the ego. Then shall a fire march before thee in the night and the storm be thy helper and thy flag shall wave on the highest height of the greatness that was to be conquered. [The Hour of God]

Thus, we must keep our soul clear and stop listening to the clamour of the ego. We may have fall and failure, but if we stand up with our purpose, we shall rise again, we shall return.

Now, in this Hour of God, even a little effort on our part in this direction will produce great results and change the human destiny.

In the Hour of God, let us be sincere, to ourselves, to the humanity, to the Divine.

The Mother has said:

Be honest towards yourself — (no self-deception).
Be sincere towards the Divine — (no bargaining in the surrender).
Be straightforward with humanity — (no pretence and show).

The Mother has further said in this connection:

Before the Eternal Consciousness a drop of sincerity has more value than an ocean of pretension and hypocrisy.

If we, the mankind as a whole and individually, really aspire for progress, for real progress, instead being and remaining stationed with all darkness, division, difficulties, ignorance, incompleteness and imperfection, then the only way is to be sincere.
If we really aspire to march towards the New Horizon, towards the New World, the first principle that is to be adopted by us should be sincerity.

The Mother has again said :

All division in the being is an insincerity.
The greatest insincerity is to dig an abyss between your body and the truth of your being.
When as abyss separates the true being from the physical being, Nature fills it up immediately with all kinds of adverse suggestions, the most formidable of which is fear, and the most pernicious, doubt.
Allow nothing anywhere to deny the truth of your being —this is sincerity.



Barindranath Chaki
2-11-2006