For the widening, sit where you can see far: a window, a doorway, a roof, the open. For the inward way, a lamp's flame helps: a diya or a candle, at arm's length, a little below the eyes.
A lamp on the screen, bright at first. It dims to dark, the dark stays, and it grows back to where it began.
12, 20 or 30 minutes →खthe gaze widening into the lightDūr · wideningThe thing close to you, the far wall, out of the window, the horizon, the sky, the depth of the sky. Then no edge. Then back, the same way, to the thing close to you.
any length →गthe light behind closed eyesBhītar · withinLook at a flame, then close the eyes: the light that stays, the dark, the point between the brows, the heart. Then a light that is felt, not seen, and in it, silence. Then back out.
any length →घout, home, within, homeYātrā · the whole journeyFrom the nearest thing to the depth of the sky until there is no edge, and silence. Back, closer and closer, to the thing close to you. Then the eyes close, inward to the light at the heart. Then back, to where you began.
a quiet hour →Where this comes from
This is the journey of Nādamaya with light instead of sound, made at Jyotirgana from Arjun's own description. Its widening goes into the light of the sky, because sight belongs to fire and light. This form is ours, and its name is the site's own.
It has not been tested. We claim no result from it.
Sri Aurobindo, in A System of National Education (1910), on how a child should come to know a flower, what he should be encouraged to do:
to fix in his mind the exact shade, the peculiar glow, the precise intensity of the scent, the beauty of curve and design in the form.Early Cultural Writings, CWSA 1, p. 404
The Mother, on the psychic presence, writing for the Ashram's Bulletin in February 1952:
It is like a light that shines at the centre of the being, radiating through the thick coverings of the external consciousness.On Education, CWM 12, p. 30
रसोऽहमप्सु कौन्तेय प्रभास्मि शशिसूर्ययोः ।
प्रणवः सर्ववेदेषु शब्दः खे पौरुषं नृषु ॥
I am the taste in the waters, Kaunteya, the light in the moon and the sun; the Oṁ in all the Vedas, the sound in space, the strength in men.
Krishna speaks. The light at the end of the gaze is His.
ākāśaṃ vimalam paśyan kṛtvā dṛṣṭiṃ nirantarām |
stabdhātmā tatkṣaṇād devi bhairavaṃ vapur āpnuyāt || 84 ||
Gazing at the clear sky, the gaze unbroken, the self still: in that moment, O Devī, one takes on the form of Bhairava.
The widening, in an old book of such practices.
Bhagavad Gītā 7.8, in the text of sanskritdocuments.org; Vijñāna Bhairava 84, in the text of GRETIL (Göttingen), in Roman letters as it is given there. The translations are ours.