Delight of Existence

If we look at World-Existence in its relation to the self-delight of eternally existent being, we may regard, describe and realize it as Lila, the play, the child's joy, the poet's joy, the actor's joy, the mechanician's joy of the Soul of things eternally young, perpetually inexhaustible, creating and re-creating Himself in Himself for the sheer bliss of that self-creation, of that self-representation, - Himself the play, Himself the player, Himself the playground.

Sri Aurobindo

Rough Ramble

Sawai Jai Singh restructured Amber into divisions or nizamats to create a modern state with a feudal hierarchy, parallel to that of the Mughals. The founding of a new capital city, Jaipur was the most visible sign of this reordering of the state.
In the realm of religion, he was a devotee of the god Rama in his youth, but in adulthood he became a patron of the worship of Krishna which had a direct relationship with his management of his state through Shri Govind.
The Vajapeya Yajna ( 1708 ) exclusively meant for a universal ruler and twice commissioning of the Ashvamedha Yajna later in his reign privilege of a paramount king only and setting himself up personally as an arbiter of religious disputes which was not normally a function of even the greatest of kings, Sawai Jai Singh not only projected himself as surpassing other rulers but commercial aspect of his ambition was integral to the establishment of a new capital as a leading trading city.
With a favorable Geography he sent personal invitations to noted merchants of the time, offering them tax concessions and gifts of land on which to build houses, if they agreed to settle in Jaipur . Jains were specially invited.
A haveli was built for each thakur within the city and the cost was recovered through the remission to the state of 10 % of their incomes , thus obliging them to establish their own headquarters within the capital. By distributing the chiefs around the city, Sawai Jai Singh ensured that a wealthy dignitary had a personal interest in the maintenance of services in each of its districts. By obliging the thakurs to attend in the capital, he also kept them by his side, thus limiting the extent to which they could build autonomous power within their thikanas ( domains )-and their presence in Jaipur created a market for the luxury goods in which the merchants traded.

Rajasthan Rough Ramble

Raja of Amber, Bhar Mal received Emperor Akbar at Sanganer on 20/01/1562. Akbar persuaded him to join the imperial service. The advantage to the Muhghals of this treaty was to secure the route to the Emperor's present destination, the pilgrim centre at Ajmer, and beyond to the ports of Gujarat. The advantage to Amber was the immediate return of territory recently lost to Rao Maldeo of Jodhpur, and beyond that, a privileged status within the empire.
Raja Man Singh (r.1592-1615) served his imperial master and brother-in-law in far-flung corner of the empire, notably in Bengal.
Mirza Raja Jai Singh I (r. 1623-1667 )occupied similar position of trust and service, under the Emperor Shah Jahan
In the long reign of Aurangzeb ( 1656-1707) Emperor's religious policies weakened the perception of the empire as a shared enterprise. Nevertheless, when Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II came to the throne of Amber in 1699, he served Emperor in the Deccan.
Sawai Jai Singh backed Azam Shah and being the loser at the battle of Jajau on 08 June 1707; lost as a punishment for this tactical error, Amber.
Jodhpur, Udaipur combine help was instrumental in recovery of Jodhpur in July 1708, and Amber in following October.
Jahandar Shah (r.1712-1713 ) appointed Sawai Jai Singh governor of Malwa, a position  he maintained off and on through much of the reign of Farrukh Siyar (r.1713-1719); and he developed a close understanding with Muhammad Shah (r.1719-1748 )
Temporary invasion and sack of Delhi by Nadir Shah of Iran in 1739, encroachments of the Marathas in the South, and the Sikhs in the north-west damaged Mughal power considerably and kingdom of Amber asserted itself.

Rajasthan Rough Notes

Closer to Jaipur there is a town Sanganer, founded in the early eleventh century within the former state of Amber employing a 2 x2 square mandala : the outer wall is pierced by four gates at the cardinal points, while the town has two bisecting roads, from north to south and from west to east, meeting at a central crossroads.
Following the same pattern is the late seventeenth-century town of Sikar.
Court historian during the reign of Sawai Ram Singh II, eulogizes its  distinctive aspects , speaking of the king's palace with its golden pinnacles and battlements, the beautiful crossroads and bazars, the numerous balconies and stone screens, and the traders and shopkeepers who sit like kubera in front of their stalls.
City of Jaipur, founded in north-eastern Rajasthan in 1727, at a time of waning Mughal authority and resurgent Rajput power.

The Kachchwaha rulers of Amber are best remembered for their close association with the expansion and governance of the Mughal empire.
The Sisodias of  Mewar, who attempted to sustain a more detached stance, which some construe as proudly independent, others as ruinously stubborn.
Early rulers of Amber had fought alongside the great Rajput leader Prithviraj Chauhan of Delhi against the forces of Muhammad of Ghur at the end of twelveth century.
In the above and encounter of Maharana Sanga with Babur in1527, Rajput confederacy was soundly defeated, a lesson the Kachchwahas could not afford to overlook.
         

Rajasthan Rough Notes

Sukraniti lists the eight functions of the king as punishing the wicked, dispensing charity , protecting his subjects, performing rites and sacrifices, acquiring revenue , converting independent princes into tributary chiefs , conquering enemies and generating wealth from the land.
Manasara on vastu shastra stresses respect for the guru and defines nine ranks of kings. Maharaja is born of the solar or lunar race. He is well versed in politics and ethics, and that he holds ' three-fold royal powers .......is aware of the six royal policies, ( and ) possesses six kingly strengths.'
Arthashastra defines royal power as three-fold, comprising the power of knowledge through counsel, the power of majesty through the treasury and the army and the power of energy through valour.
Manusmriti tells us that the six tactics of foreign policy are making alliances, waging war, marching , camping, taking shelter and being duplicitous.
According to the Manasara , the north-eastern corner of the inner enclosure houses the king's dining hall, while the same corner of the second enclosure has a temple, and the north-east section of the third enclosure accommodates the cowsheds,with their entrances facing outwards, towards the east. In the south-west of the inner enclosure are found the queens' apartments, and in the corresponding part of the second is the audience hall. The arsenal is located slightly to the north of west in the inner enclosure, and the apartment of the king's son in the corresponding part of the second enclosure. On the northern side of the palace we should find the
concubines' house in the inner enclosure, a flower garden and dancing court in the second and a pavilion for cockfights in the outer enclosure.
The outermost area of the palace should have a stone or brick protective wall , with guards ( implying entrances  ) stationed on the east and south sides.

Shaping the psychic for understanding vision of Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo ( 1872-1950 ) opines, " the races of mankind have come too close to each other, are being thrown together in a certain unavoidable life unity " and conceded truth behind the dictum of Professor Lowes Dickinson that " the opposition is not so much between Asia and Europe as between India and the rest of the world."
India, " the heart of Asia " has become the symbolic representation of all the difficulties of modern mankind. India will be the land of its resurrection- the resurrection to a higher and true life.
Pessimism and negative evaluation of the present period is that the appreciation of its values is in most cases the opinion of the mass, of average man. In our time " elitism " is a dirty word. It is an assumption of post-modernism that " high " and " low " have to be mingled, and therefore that mass culture is what suits our era. Our habitual way of seeing the world is truncated. The only difference between the broken stick and our habitual vision of the world is that former is a mere optical illusion, while the later is a serious one. We persist in seeing as a broken stick which is not. This world is perfect.
True knowledge, Sri Aurobindo said, is not attained by thinking. It is what you are ; it is what you become. Sri Aurobindo  noted the momentous fact that a linear realization on one point is not enough : a global realization of all points is needed, one that embraces the totality of the individual .
The overmind being a godlike consciousness can broaden the human circle, not change it. It can divinize man, but also colossalise him if man harnesses it to his ego instead of harnessing it to his soul. We need a different consciousness. The overmind would still not change life, for the same reasons that prevented Christ and all the great prophets from changing it. The overmind clearly sees that all is one, but owing to the very structure of its consciousness, in practice it cannot help dividing the oneness : it sees all but sees all from ( its ) own viewpoint whether mental or overmental, the consciousness can experience one and only one truth at a time.
Superamental vision of Sri Aurobindo is a global vision. It sees not only the whole world of things and beings in a single vision, which connects all the beams together without opposing anything, but it also sees the view point of each thing, each being, each force- it is a rounded vision that does not end in a central point, but in myriads of points.
The superamental consciousness captures not only all view points, but also the deeper forces at work behind each thing and the truth in each thing- it is a Truth-consciousness. We need ego-transformation in Indian subcontinent and not western habit of ego-adjustment. Now we should vigorously indoctrinate the vision of Sri Aurobindo for world harmony.

On Mind from Life Divine

Mind is not a faculty of knowledge nor an instrument of omniscience; it is a faculty for the seeking of knowledge, for expressing as much as it can gain of it in certain forms of a relative thought and for using it towards certain capacities of action. Even when it finds, it does not possess; it only keeps a certain fund of current coin of Truth-not Truth itself- in the bank of Memory to draw upon according to its needs.

Mind is that which does not know, which tries to know and which never knows except as a glass darkly. It is the power which interprets truth of universal existence for the practical uses of a certain order of things ; it is not the power which knows and guides that existence and therefore it can not be the power which created or manifested it.

Integral Psychology: Western & Indian Perspective

In the Western intellectual/ philosophical /tradition, the term person refers to human beings as entities who have certain rights and duties, whereas  the term personality refers to individuality.'Self' and 'ego' are two other terms,more or less equivalent, referring to a particular person distinct from others. In the Indian context, the nature of the self, and the nature of reality as a whole are the two central topics of enquiry in the Upanisads.
The first and most important point to note is that individuals are located at different levels and points in the gradient of consciousness. A vaster universe unfolds when we become tuned to the wider range of energies and forces, which are only accessible when we turn inward.
The first step in accessing the inner mind is silencing of the outer- we have to get out of the feverish mental activity that we are used to.'As a matter of fact, step by step we discover that that there is no necessity to think: something behind, or above, does all the work, with a precision and infallibility that grow as we get into the habit of referring to it; there is no necessity to remember, since the exact indication comes forth just when it is needed; no necessity to plan our action, since a secret spring sets it in motion without our willing it or thinking about it, and makes us do exactly what we have to do, with a wisdom and a foresight of which our ( outer) mind, forever shortsighted, is quite incapable'

Suneet Varma .

Tasks

Our tasks are given, we are but instruments;
Nothing is all our own that we create.....

From Savitri