--- DICTIONARIES (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)

--- QUOTES [540 / 540 - 500 / 548] (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)

KEYS (10k)

  537 Sri Aurobindo
   1 Pindar
   1 M Alan Kazlev
   1 Hippocrates

NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

  487 Sri Aurobindo
   10 Sri Aurobindo

1:The difficult is not the impossible. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Baha i Faith,

2:There is no fear in the higher Nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Fear,

3:Ignorance is not a state of innocence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Purity,

4:Surrender is the best way of opening. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.2.10 - Opening,

5:Love must be turned singly towards the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Desire,

6:An outer renunciation by itself does not liberate. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Second Sex,

7:Even if there is real danger, fear does not help. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Fear,

8:Only a consciousness full of light can be pure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Purity,

9:Sorrow if indulged becomes a habit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Jainism and Buddhism,

10:Spiritually there is nothing big or small. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Work and Yoga,

11:Each victory gained over oneself means new strength to gain more victories. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga IV ,

12:The past cannot bind the future. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.2.01 - The Call and the Capacity,

13:Peace is a sign of mukti—Ananda moves towards siddhi. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II the Divine Peace,

14:The simple approach means trust. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism,

15:All quarrels proceed from egoism. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Problems in Human Relations,

16:If you pray, trust that he hears. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism,

17:One can be free only by living in the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I 5.4.01 - Occult Knowledge,

18:The vital does not like waiting. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Wrong Movements of the Vital,

19:If desire comes up, the Ananda is obliged to draw back. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Desire,

20:In the divine consciousness there is no ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Ego and Its Forms,

21:One cannot demand or compel grace. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism,

22:There can be no firm foundation in sadhana without equality, samata. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

23:It is from unsatisfied desire that all suffering arises. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Desire,

24:Only those who sympathise can help. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Problems in Human Relations,

25:Study cannot take the same or a greater importance than sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

26:The Yogi eats not out of desire, but to maintain the body. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Food,

27:Realisations are the essence of knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV 4.22 - The supramental Thought and Knowledge,

28:The principle of the Yoga is rejection-throwing out of the being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

29:It is the essentials alone that matter. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.2.01 - The Call and the Capacity,

30:Sincerity in Yoga means to respond to the Divine alone. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Sincerity,

31:There should be no big I, not even a small one. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Ego and Its Forms,

32:Faith is not intellectual belief but a function of the soul. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Baha i Faith,

33:All action is surrounded by a complexity of forces. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I 5.4.01 - Occult Knowledge,

34:Doubt is the mind’s persistent assailant. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 7.05 - Patience and Perseverance,

35:Ego is the reason of the difficulty in everybody. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Ego and Its Forms,

36:what matters in a symbol is what it means for you. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III The Animal World,

37:Prayer indeed is good, but while calling on the gods a man should himself lend a hand. ~ Hippocrates, Regimen Letters On Yoga IV,

38:The psychic is the support of the individual evolution ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I 1.05 - The Ascent of the Sacrifice - The Psychic Being,

39:Equality does not include inert acceptance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Equality - The Chief Support,

40:The tongue is always an easily erring member. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Depression and Despondency,

41:The Divine Grace comes in to help and save. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.4.01 - The Divine Grace and Guidance,

42:There is no such thing as a mere accident. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Accidents,

43:Vital desire grows by being indulged, it does not become satisfied. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Desire,

44:Yoga demands mastery over the nature, not subjection to the nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Desire,

45:Purity is to accept no other influence but only the influence of the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

46:Real faith is something spiritual, a knowledge of the soul. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I Morality and Yoga,

47:To be alone with the Divine is the highest of all privileged states for the sadhak. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

48:Sadhana can go on in the dream or sleep state as well as in the waking. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep,

49:Comparison with others brings in a wrong standard of values. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Ego and Its Forms,

50:Pride is only one form of ego—there are ten thousand others. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Ego and Its Forms,

51:Sraddha: the soul's belief in the Divine's existence, wisdom, power, love and grace. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

52:There is no other way than to persevere. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

53:All the values of the mind are constructions of ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV 4.22 - The supramental Thought and Knowledge,

54:For the physical plane the work always repeated is the foundation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Work and Yoga,

55:It is the going inward that most helps to deliver the nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Anger and Violence,

56:Love, joy and happiness come from the psychic. The Self gives peace or a universal Ananda. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I ,

57:Once one is in full sadhana, sleep becomes as much a part of it as waking. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep,

58:The mind forms or accepts the theories that support the turn of the being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Baha i Faith,

59:The inner must change before the outermost can follow. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I Transformation and the Body,

60:The mind and the vital are much more full of ego than the body. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Ego and Its Forms,

61:To each his own difficulties seem enormous and radical. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.2.01 - The Call and the Capacity,

62:It is when one mixes up sex and spirituality that there is the greatest havoc. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Second Sex,

63:One should not think too much of food either to indulge or unduly to repress. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Food,

64:those who rely on the Divine will arrive in spite of all difficulties, stumbles or falls. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

65:To be in full union with the Divine is the final aim. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.1.02 - The Aim of the Integral Yoga,

66:Desire always creates perturbation and even its fulfilment does not satisfy. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Desire,

67:The absolute immunity can only come with the supramental change. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Illness and Health,

68:The true individual is behind veiled by the activities of the outer nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II the Silence,

69:As the darkness disappears, the inner doors too will open. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 7.05 - Patience and Perseverance,

70:If one learns all by oneself, the chances are that one will learn all wrong. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 2.11 - The Guru,

71:Most people do not really choose—they undergo the play of the forces. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I 5.4.01 - Occult Knowledge,

72:One has to persevere until the light conquers there. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Peace - The Basis of the Sadhana,

73:There can be no physical life without an order and rhythm. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Practical Concerns in Work,

74:The Divine Force can always do more than the personal effort. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II The Divine Force in Work,

75:Vital forces want neither liberation nor transformation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Attacks by the Hostile Forces,

76:Rely on the Mother always. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Experiences on the Subtle Physical,

77:Grief too long continued does not help but delays the journey of the departed soul. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I 3.04 - The Spirit in Spirit-Land after Death,

78:Identification with the body is an error, not an illusion. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II The Adwaita of Shankaracharya,

79:Knowledge and Ignorance are in their nature subjective. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Inner Experience and Outer Life,

80:There is a power in the idea—a force of which the idea is a shape. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV 4.22 - The supramental Thought and Knowledge,

81:Aspiration is a call to the Divine, will is the pressure of the conscious force on Nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

82:The guru is always ready to give what can be given, if the disciple can receive. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 2.11 - The Guru,

83:What gives the force and joy of the work is however not physical but vital. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Work and Yoga,

84:A mental knowledge can always be blinded by the tricks of the vital. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV 4.22 - The supramental Thought and Knowledge,

85:In the full realisation the body is within us, not we in it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II The Adwaita of Shankaracharya,

86:One must persist however long it takes, so only one can achieve. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 7.05 - Patience and Perseverance,

87:One should be able to see the faults of others without hatred. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Problems in Human Relations,

88:Taste is natural and quite permissible so long as one is not the slave of the palate. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Food,

89:The true quiet is within and no other will give you the condition you want. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.3.03 - Quiet and Calm,

90:You must know what you want and want it with your whole will. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Wrong Movements of the Vital,

91:A sincere heart is worth all the extraordinary powers in the world. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I 5.4.02 - Occult Powers or Siddhis,

92:Even the animal is more in touch with a certain harmony in things than man. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I Science and Yoga,

93:Karma is only a machinery, it is not the fundamental cause of terrestrial existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I 3.1.15 - Rebirth,

94:What is expressed is always only a part of what is behind. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Power of Expression and Yoga,

95:One has not only to be sincere but to be faithful through all. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.4.01 - The Divine Grace and Guidance,

96:The physical consciousness is constitutionally ignorant. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Difficulties of the Physical Nature,

97:If the body is left insufficiently nourished, it will think of food more than otherwise. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Food,

98:It is the mind that turns concrete realities into abstractions. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Experiences and Realisations,

99:The free spirit can stand fearless before even the biggest forces of Nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I Morality and Yoga,

100:Violence in ordinary Nature does not justify violence in a spiritual work. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Anger and Violence,

101:It is only the Grace that can bring the real supramental change. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I The Supramental Transformation,

102:There can be no immortality of the body without supramentalisation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I Transformation and the Body,

103:What the mind wants is not at all always what is intended in a larger purpose. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I 5.4.01 - Occult Knowledge,

104:At the top of the head or above it is the right place for yogic concentration in reading or thinking. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

105:Look at the simplicity of the Truth with a straight and simple gaze. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Depression and Despondency,

106:Nobody can really help—only the Divine Grace. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

107:One can give not only one’s soul, but all one’s powers to the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.2.09 - Consecration and Offering,

108:The plants are very psychic, but they can express it only by silence and beauty. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I Science and Yoga,

109:To be by oneself very much needs a certain force of inner life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Asceticism and the Integral Yoga,

110:We are not the body, but the body is still something of ourselves. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II The Adwaita of Shankaracharya,

111:Selfishness is to live for oneself and not for something greater than the self. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Ego and Its Forms,

112:Those whom the Force has touched and taken up, belong thenceforth to the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.4.02 - The Divine Force,

113:To clear the vital, you must get out of it all compromise with falsehood. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Nature of the Vital,

114:It is on the Silence behind the cosmos that all the movement of the universe is supported. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II the Silence,

115:Cessation of thought and other vibrations is the climax of the inner silence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV 4.22 - The supramental Thought and Knowledge,

116:If you desire only the Divine, there is an absolute certitude that you will reach the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Baha i Faith,

117:Think of your work only when it is being done, not before and not after. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Practical Concerns in Work,

118:The human mind is an instrument not of truth but of ignorance and error. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Problems in Human Relations,

119:It is in the silence of the mind that the strongest and freest action can come. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV 4.22 - The supramental Thought and Knowledge,

120:All the play in this world is based on a certain relative free will in the individual being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.2.07 - Surrender,

121:All the play in this world is based on a certain relative free will in the individual being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.2.07 - Surrender,

122:All things attained by man have been only a possibility in their earlier stages. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I 4.1.01 - The Intellect and Yoga,

123:Compression without removal often increases the force of these things instead of destroying them. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Food,

124:In Yoga friendship can remain, but attachment has to fall away. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

125:Pain and suffering are necessary results of the Ignorance in which we live. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Depression and Despondency,

126:Perfection comes by renunciation of desires and surrender to a higher Will. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Practical Concerns in Work,

127:Silence of the being is the first natural aim of the Yoga. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness,

128:The soul can grow against or even by a material destiny that is adverse. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I 06.01 - The Word of Fate,

129:Nobody can become more than human if he refuses to make a sacrifice of his ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Nature of the Vital,

130:One is not bound to tell everything to everybody—it might often do more harm than good. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Speech and Yoga,

131:Peace, purity and silence can be felt in all material things—for the Divine Self is there in all. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II the Divine Peace,

132:The emergence of the Purusha is the beginning of liberation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Inner Detachment and the Witness Attitude,

133:All ways can lead to the Supermind, just as all ways can lead to the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism,

134:The vital can take part in a movement but it must not be in control. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Vital and Other Levels of Being,

135:Inexhaustible energy is an excellent thing, but not an energy without discipline. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Nature of the Vital,

136:Repentance even helps provided it does not bring discouragement or depression. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Depression and Despondency,

137:Sincerity ::: To allow no part of the being to contradict the highest aspiration towards the Divine ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II Agenda Vol 5,

138:The best expenditure of energy is that which flows easily without effort at all. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II The Divine Force in Work,

139:The psychic sorrow which does not disturb or depress but rather liberates the vital. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Jainism and Buddhism,

140:Also to think too much of the hostile Powers is to bring in their atmosphere. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Dealing with Hostile Attacks,

141:By having patience under all kinds of pressure you lay the foundations of peace. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 7.05 - Patience and Perseverance,

142:One must learn to speak the truth alone if one is to succeed truly in changing the nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Speech and Yoga,

143:There is a consciousness in each physical thing with which one can communicate. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Practical Concerns in Work,

144:In the silence of the self there is no time—it is akāla. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Experiences of the Self,

145:Knowledge of facts is a poor thing if one cannot see their true significance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Place of Study in Sadhana,

146:Knowledge of facts is a poor thing if one cannot see their true significance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Place of Study in Sadhana,

147:So long as desire and ego remain, there can be no surrender to the Divine, no fulfilment in the Yoga. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Desire,

148:Yoga is the founding of all the life and consciousness in the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

149:It is quietness and inwardness that enable one to feel the Presence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Experiences Associated with the Psychic,

150:One who has the call in him cannot fail to arrive, if he follows patiently the way towards the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Purity,

151:Reason and intellectuality cannot make you see the Divine, it is the soul that sees. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Difficulties of Yoga,

152:The unregenerate vital is not grateful for a benefit, it resents being under an obligation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Ego and Its Forms,

153:When the mind and soul have chosen the goal, the rest is bound to follow. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Imperfections and Periods of Arrest,

154:Be true to your true self always—that is the real sincerity. Persist and conquer. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Dealing with Hostile Attacks,

155:Mental knowledge cannot replace faith; so long as there is only mental knowledge, faith is still needed. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Baha i Faith,

156:Mental realisation is useful at the beginning and prepares spiritual experience. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Experiences and Realisations,

157:Not to kill emotion, but to turn it towards the Divine is the right way of the Yoga. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Bhakti,

158:Not to kill emotion, but to turn it towards the Divine is the right way of the Yoga. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Bhakti,

159:There is no law that wisdom should be something rigidly solemn and without a smile. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Cheerfulness and Happiness,

160:Throwing away the life does not improve the chances for the next time. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Dealing with Depression and Despondency,

161:Evil forces can always attack in moments of unconsciousness or half-consciousness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Dealing with Hostile Attacks,

162:It is through the Cosmic Shakti that the Divine creates. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I: Sachchidananda the Divine Existence,

163:To be above the mind one must first realise the self above the mind and live there. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Ascent to the Higher Planes,

164:Our inferences are often wrong and even when they are right touch only the surface of the matter. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I 5.4.01 - Occult Knowledge,

165:To become conscious of what is to be changed in the nature is the first step towards changing it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Speech and Yoga,

166:To live in the wideness of the Intuition is not possible with the limitation of the ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I 2.3.04 - The Higher Planes of Mind,

167:In a supramentalised body immunity from illness would be automatic, inherent in its new nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Illness and Health,

168:Faith and courage are the true attitude to keep in life and work always and in the spiritual experience also. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Baha i Faith,

169:Intellect is part of Mind and an instrument of half-truth like the rest of the Mind. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Intellect and the Intellectual,

170:Intelligence does not depend on the amount one has read, it is a quality of the mind. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Place of Study in Sadhana,

171:It does not help for spiritual knowledge to be ignorant of the things of this world. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Mental Development and Sadhana,

172:It is usually only if there is much activity of sadhana in the day that it extends also into the sleep state. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep,

173:No victory can be won without a fixed fidelity to the aim and a long effort. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

174:The consciousness of union with the Divine is for the spiritual seeker the supreme knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV 4.22 - The supramental Thought and Knowledge,

175:The mind does not record things as they are, but as they appear to it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Mental Difficulties and the Need of Quietude,

176:What one fears has the tendency to come until one is able to look it in the face and overcome one’s shrinking. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Fear,

177:Dread shows a weakness—the free spirit can stand fearless before even the biggest forces of Nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I Morality and Yoga,

178:Philosophy is of course a creation of the mind but its defect is not that it is false. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Place of Study in Sadhana,

179:The outer change is necessary but as a part of the inner change. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification,

180:There should be even in deep feeling a calm, a control, a purifying restraint and measure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Bhakti,

181:Friendship and love are indispensable notes in the harmony to which we aspire. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

182:It is rather a wider than a higher consciousness that is necessary for the liberation from the ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Ego and Its Forms,

183:Seek the Divine Love through the only gate through which it will consent to enter, the gate of the psychic being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Second Sex,

184:There can be an action in the Silence, undisturbed even as the universal action goes on in the cosmic Silence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II the Silence,

185:But no victory can be won without a fixed fidelity to the aim and a long effort. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

186:Concentration should be all on the immediate step—whatever is being done at the time. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Experiences on the Higher Planes,

187:It can come early or it can come late, but come it will if one is faithful in one’s call. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.4.01 - The Divine Grace and Guidance,

188:Large abiding realisations in Yoga do not usually come in trance but by a persistent waking sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Illness and Health,

189:Our Yoga is not an ascetic Yoga: it aims at purity, but not at a cold austerity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

190:Purification and consecration are two great necessities of sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification,

191:So long as there is complete sincerity, the Divine Grace will be there and assist at every moment on the way. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Sincerity,

192:To be able to work with full energy is necessary—but to be able not to work is also necessary. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II The Divine Force in Work,

193:Divine Love is based upon oneness and the psychic derives from the Divine Love. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Revelations of Divine Love,

194:Do not let your mind go back on a work that is finished. It belongs to the past and all re-handling of it is a waste of power. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

195:Drinking if excessive affects the substance and quality of the energy. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

196:All life is the play of universal forces. The individual gives a personal form to these universal forces. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I 5.4.01 - Occult Knowledge,

197:Inspiration comes from above in answer to a state of concentration which is itself a call to it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II The Divine Force in Work,

198:It is always preferable to have one’s face turned towards the future than towards the past. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Time and Change of the Nature,

199:However or from wheresoever it came, the only thing to do with a depression is to throw it out. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Depression and Despondency,

200:The supramental descent is necessary for a dynamic action of the Truth in mind, vital and body. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I Transformation and the Body,

201:To be alone with the Divine is the highest of all privileged states for the sadhak. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

202:A Force may be in action or in quiescence, but when it rests, it is as much a Force as when it acts. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I The Sankhya-Yoga System,

203:A philosophical system is only a section of the Truth which the philosopher takes as a whole. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Place of Study in Sadhana,

204:Even the saint and the sage continue to have difficulties and to be limited by their human nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Difficulties of Yoga,

205:It is often the experience that when one gives up the insistence of desire for a thing, then the thing itself comes. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Desire,

206:The psychic change is indeed the indispensable preliminary of any approach to the supramental path ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Difficulties of Yoga,

207:in absolute reliance on the Mother, fearing nothing, sorrowing over nothing ... a glad equanimity even in the face of difficulties... ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

208:It is not necessary to deny the past experience in order to go forward to the new realisation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Time and Change of the Nature,

209:It is only when the lower perversions are got rid of that the higher things in their truth can reign. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I The Sankhya-Yoga System,

210:It is the physical that fears and abhors suffering, but the vital takes it as part of the play of life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Sorrow and Suffering,

211:The intellect needs an inner light to guide, check and control it quite as much as the vital. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Intellect and the Intellectual,

212:Love and devotion to the Divine is the central feeling of the psychic nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III The Emergence or Coming Forward of the Psychic,

213:The Divine knows best and one has to have trust in His wisdom and attune oneself with His will. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.4.01 - The Divine Grace and Guidance,

214:The hostile forces do not need a cause for attacking—they attack whenever and whoever they can. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Attacks by the Hostile Forces,

215:The more you surrender to the Divine, the more will there be the possibility of perfection in you. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Practical Concerns in Work,

216:Destiny in the rigid sense applies only to the outer being so long as it lives in the Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I 06.01 - The Word of Fate,

217:Even imagined experiences (honestly imagined) can help to mental realisation and mental realisation can be a step to total realisation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

218:It is from the Silence that the peace comes; when the peace deepens and deepens, it becomes more and more the Silence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II the Silence,

219:One must be careful that no force comes through one except the right forces. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

220:There is one Purusha—its action is according to the position and need of the consciousness at the time. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I The Sankhya-Yoga System,

221:The very basis of this Yoga is bhakti and if one kills one’s emotional being there can be no bhakti. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Bhakti,

222:Do not let your mind labour in anticipation on a work that has to be done. The Power that acts in you will see to it at its own time. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

223:The development of capacities is not only permissible but right, when it can be made part of the Yoga ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.2.09 - Consecration and Offering,

224:The individual is only an instrument in the hands of a Universal Energy though his ego takes the credit of all he does. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.2.10 - Opening,

225:When once the higher consciousness begins to act, the difficulty diminishes and there is a clear progress from truth to greater truth. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

226:Action without desire is possible, action without attachment is possible, action without ego is possible. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I The Sankhya-Yoga System,

227:A touch of realisation is enough to set the higher mind knowledge or the illumined mind knowledge flowing. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV 4.22 - The supramental Thought and Knowledge,

228:Often indeed one sees easily in others faults which are there in oneself but which one fails to see. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Problems in Human Relations,

229:Suppression with inner indulgence in subtle forms is not a cure, but expression in outer indulgence is still less a cure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Desire,

230:Tests come sometimes from the hostile forces, sometimes in the course of Nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Hostile Forces and the Difficulties of Yoga,

231:There is an obscure mind and life even in the cells of the body, the stones or in molecules and atoms. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I 2.3.08 - The Physical Consciousness,

232:This body of ours is a symbol of our real being and everything is a symbol of some higher reality. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Symbols and Symbolic Visions,

233:In this world everything depends upon consciousness and its movements, even the things that seem not to do so. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Illness and Health,

234:The supramental influence must come first, the supramental transformation can only come afterwards. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I The Supramental Transformation,

235:In spiritual matters mental logic easily blunders; intuition, faith, a plastic spiritual reason are here the only guides. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 2.11 - The Guru,

236:Intensity is not a guarantee of entire truth and correctness in an experience. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification,

237:Thought perceptions come first—language comes to express the perceptions and itself leads to fresh thoughts. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV 4.22 - The supramental Thought and Knowledge,

238:We are creating new fate for the future even while undergoing old fate from the past in the present. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I 06.01 - The Word of Fate,

239:Concentrate more upon what you are to be, on the ideal, with the faith that, since it is the goal before you, it must and will come. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

240:It is by the process of repeated impressions that consciousness was made to manifest in matter. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Difficulties of the Physical Nature,

241:Material things are not to be despised—without them there can be no manifestation in the material world. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Practical Concerns in Work,

242:Until the final clarification and harmonising of the nature there are always contradictions in the being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Bhakti,

243:Bhakti and the heart’s call for the Divine have a truth—it is the truth of the divine Love and Ananda. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II The Adwaita of Shankaracharya,

244:Ego is a very curious thing and in nothing more than in its way of hiding itself and pretending it is not the ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Ego and Its Forms,

245:One has to go on till the struggle is over and there is the straight and open and thornless way before us. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 7.05 - Patience and Perseverance,

246:One ought not to settle down into a fixed idea of one’s own incapacity or allow it to become an obsession. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.2.01 - The Call and the Capacity,

247:The control over the thoughts and the power of seeing the image of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo in the head are a very good beginning. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

248:The most ego-centric can change and do change by the psychic principle becoming established in the external nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Ego and Its Forms,

249:To be an empty vessel is a very good thing if one knows how to make use of the emptiness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness,

250:True love seeks for union and self-giving and that is the love one must bring to the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Revelations of Divine Love,

251:What is needed by each for his spiritual progress is the one consideration to be held in view. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

252:Pain and discomfort come from a physical consciousness not forceful enough to determine its own reaction to things. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Illness and Health,

253:What is being done here is a preparation for a work—a work which will be founded on Yogic consciousness and Yoga-Shakti. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Work and Yoga,

254:Grace is something spontaneous which wells out from the Divine Consciousness as a free flower of its being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism,

255:The difficulties of the character persist so long as one yields to them in action when they rise. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Steps towards Overcoming Difficulties,

256:The object of life is the growth of the soul, not outward success of the hour or even of the near future. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I 06.01 - The Word of Fate,

257:As for withdrawal of Grace, it might be said that few are those from whom the Grace withdraws, but many are those who withdraw from the Grace. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

258:But the most important thing for purification of the heart is an absolute sincerity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification,

259:The elimination of the sex-impulse is one of the most difficult things for human nature and, if it takes time, that is only natural. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Second Sex,

260:Devotion and a more and more complete inner consecration are the best way to open the psychic. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III The Psychic and Spiritual Transformations,

261:Emotion is a good element in Yoga; but emotional desire becomes easily a cause of perturbation and an obstacle. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Bhakti,

262:It is the vital passion for the Divine that creates the spiritual heroes, conquerors or martyrs. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Revelations of Divine Love,

263:Human affection is obviously unreliable because it is so much bound up with selfishness and desire. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

264:Nobody is entirely fit for this Yoga; one has to become fit by aspiration, by abhyāsa, by sincerity and surrender. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Nature of the Vital,

265:All change must come from within with the felt or the secret support of the Divine Power. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

266:A relation also can be established on a sure basis only when it is free from attachment . ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

267:Aspiration, call, prayer are forms of one and the same thing and are all effective; you can take the form that comes to you or is easiest to you. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

268:Pain is caused because the physical consciousness in the Ignorance is too limited to bear the touches that come upon it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Illness and Health,

269:The opening of the consciousness to the Divine Light and Truth and Presence is always the one important thing in the Yoga. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Kinds of Vision,

270:Men want to help each other with a motive behind or a feeling which proceeds from the ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

271:Not only in your inward concentration, but in your outward acts and movements you must take the right attitude. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Wrong Movements of the Vital,

272:If the reply takes long in coming, trust that he knows and loves and that he is wisest in the choice of the time. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism,

273:It is the psychic fidelity that brings the power to stand against the Asuras and enables the Protection to work. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Dealing with Hostile Attacks,

274:Remain fixed in the sunlight of the true consciousness—for only there is happiness and peace. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV 1.2.12 - Vigilance,

275:Keep full reliance on the Mother. When one does that, the victory even if delayed, is sure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Feelings and Sensations in the Process of Descent,

276:Small beginnings are of the greatest importance and have to be cherished and allowed with great patience to develop. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III The Value of Experiences,

277:Study is of importance only if you study in the right way and with the turn for knowledge and mental discipline. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Place of Study in Sadhana,

278:The Divine looks into the heart and removes the veil at the moment which he knows to be the right moment to do it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism,

279:Very often, if an inner communication has been established, a silent pressure is more effective than anything else. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Practical Concerns in Work,

280:A progress made often stirs the adverse forces to activity, they want to diminish its effect as much as possible. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Attacks by the Hostile Forces,

281:The object of meditation is to open to the Mother and grow through many progressive experiences into a higher consciousness in union with the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

282:The proper way to deal with a wrong movement is to look quietly at it and put the consciousness right at that point. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Depression and Despondency,

283:To enter into a deeper or higher consciousness or for that deeper or higher consciousness to descend into you-that is the true success of meditation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

284:A certain moderation is needed even in the eagerness for progress—moderation, not indifference or indolence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Difficulties of the Physical Nature,

285:All spiritual experience is a substantial experience—consciousness, Ananda even are felt as something substantial. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Experiences and Realisations,

286:It is a deep spiritual calm and peace that is the only stable foundation for a lasting Bhakti and Ananda. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

287:Whether for Nirvana or for this Yoga, calm and peace in the whole being are the necessary foundation of all siddhi. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Wrong Movements of the Vital,

288:A mere confused instability is not the right way. When the confusion comes, you should remain quiet, reject it and call in the Mother's light and force. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

289:The total ascent is impossible so long as sex-desire blocks the way; the descent is dangerous so long as sex-desire is powerful in the vital. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Second Sex,

290:The total ascent is impossible so long as sex-desire blocks the way; the descent is dangerous so long as sex-desire is powerful in the vital. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Second Sex,

291:Disquietude and depression create an unhelpful atmosphere for one who is ill or in difficulties. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

292:If there is energy, all must not be spent, some must be stored up so as to increase the permanent strength of the system. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II The Divine Force in Work,

293:Impersonality belongs to the intellectual mind and the static self, personality to the soul and heart and dynamic being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I 1.1.01 - The Divine and Its Aspects,

294:Not mental control but some descent of a control from above the mind is the power demanded in the realisation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Vital and Other Levels of Being,

295:The intellect can be as great an obstacle as the vital when it chooses to prefer its own constructions to the Truth. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Intellect and the Intellectual,

296:One has continually to leave behind his past selves and to see, act and live from an always higher and higher conscious level. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Lower Vital Being,

297:The human mind is stiff in its perceptions and the human vital insistent on its own way of action. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

298:The peace and spontaneous knowledge are in the psychic being and from there they spread to mind and vital and physical. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Levels of the Physical Being,

299:A great progress should only spur one on to a greater progress beside which the first will appear as nothing, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Right Attitude towards Difficulties,

300:The oneness with all is an internal realisation, but it does not necessarily impose the same dealing with all. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

301:Above us, within us, around us is the AllStrength and it is that that we have to rely on for our work, our development, our transforming change. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep,

302:Destruction in itself is neither good nor evil. It is a fact of Nature, a necessity in the play of forces as things are in this world. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I Morality and Yoga,

303:If the psychic were always there in front, the desert would be no longer a desert and the wilderness would blossom with the rose. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Lower Vital Being,

304:It is when you feel the universal or divine beauty or presence in things that the senses are open to the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III The Universal or Cosmic Consciousness,

305:Our help is there always, it is not given at one time and withheld at another, nor given to some and denied to others. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Difficulties of Human Nature,

306:To ascend is easier than to bring down; the higher consciousness gets entangled and impeded in the physical and the mind and vital. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III 4.4.1.04 - The Order of Ascent and Descent,

307:Do not let your mind go back on a work that is finished. It belongs to the past and all rehandling of it is a waste of power. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Practical Concerns in Work,

308:If one but tell a thing well, it moves on with undying voice, and over the fruitful earth and across the sea goes the bright gleam of noble deeds ever unquenchable. ~ Pindar, Isthmian Odes Letters On Yoga IV,

309:It is very often when one thinks a particular resistance is finished and is no longer in the vital that it surges up again. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Wrong Movements of the Vital,

310:In moments of trial faith in the Divine protection and the call for that protection; at all times the faith that what the Divine wills is the best. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Baha i Faith,

311:In the quiet mind turned towards the Divine the intuition (higher mind) comes of the Divine’s Will and the right way to do it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Becoming Conscious in Work,

312:No man ever succeeded in this sadhana by his own merit. To become open and plastic to the Mother is the one thing needed. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Difficulties of the Path - VII,

313:Occult powers can only be for the spiritual man an instrumentation of the Divine Power that uses him. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification,

314:The silence, the quietude of the nature is a touch from above and very necessary for purification and release. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III The Psychic and Spiritual Transformations,

315:When one is in the right consciousness, then there is the right movement, the right happiness, everything in harmony with the Truth. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III The Inward Movement,

316:Without the Grace of the Divine nothing can be done, but for the full Grace to manifest the sadhak must make himself ready. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.4.01 - The Divine Grace and Guidance,

317:The difference between suppression and an inward essential rejection is the difference between mental or moral control and a spiritual purification. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Desire,

318:Until we know the Truth (not mentally but by experience, by change of consciousness) we need the soul’s faith to sustain us and hold on to the Truth. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Baha i Faith,

319:If one is always in the inner consciousness, then one can be not dispersed even when doing outward things. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

320:Inequality of feelings towards others, liking and disliking, is ingrained in the nature of the human vital. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

321:The psychic and spiritual attitude is also not dependent on the good and bad in beings, but is self-existent. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III The Emergence or Coming Forward of the Psychic,

322:It is only when one looks from above in a consciousness clear of ego that one sees all sides of a thing and also their real truth. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Problems in Human Relations,

323:Do not let your mind labour in anticipation on a work that has to be done. The Power that acts in you will see to it at its own time. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Practical Concerns in Work,

324:Forms on earth do not last (they do in other planes) because these forms are too rigid to grow expressing the progress of the spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I Transformation and the Body,

325:Love and affection must be rooted in the Divine and a spiritual and psychic oneness in the Divine must be their foundation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

326:Most people who have not knowledge are apt to be opinionated—they have their ideas and don’t want them to be changed or their fixity disturbed. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV 4.22 - The supramental Thought and Knowledge,

327:One has to keep a certain balance by which the fundamental consciousness remains able to turn from one concentration to another with ease. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Becoming Conscious in Work,

328:There is only one aim to be followed, the increase of the Peace, Light, Power and the growth of a new consciousness in the being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Difficulties of the Physical Nature,

329:One who wants his Yoga to be a path of peace or joy, must be prepared to dwell in his soul rather than in his outer mental and emotional nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Lower Vital Being,

330:The hostile beings, they are always in battle with each other; but they make common cause against the Truth and Light. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Hostile Forces and the Difficulties of Yoga,

331:The inner loneliness can only be cured by the inner experience of union with the Divine; no human association can fill the void. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

332:After all, for the greatest as for the smallest of us our strength is not our own but given to us for the game that has to be played, the work that we have to do. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep,

333:The laws of this world as it is are the laws of the Ignorance and the Divine in the world maintains them so long as there is the Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Physical Mind and Sadhana,

334:There is only one logic in spiritual things: when a demand is there for the Divine, a sincere call, it is bound one day to have its fulfilment. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.2.01 - The Call and the Capacity,

335:Aspire for your will to be one with the Divine will, concentrate in the heart and be plastic to whatever experience comes, neither forcing nor resisting any spiritual experience ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I ,

336:By readiness I did not mean capacity but willingness. If there is the will within to face all difficulties and go through, no matter how long it takes, then the path can be taken. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

337:The very first lesson in this Yoga is to face life and its trials with a quiet mind, a firm courage and an entire reliance on the Divine Shakti. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 7.05 - Patience and Perseverance,

338:Agni in the form of an aspiration full of concentrated calm and surrender is certainly the first thing to be lighted in the heart. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Experiences Associated with the Psychic,

339:In order to be unattached one must be unattached everywhere, in the mental, vital, physical action and not only in the silent soul somewhere inside. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I The Sankhya-Yoga System,

340:Length of time is no proof of an ultimate incapacity to arrive—it is only a sign that there is something in oneself which has to be overcome. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.4.01 - The Divine Grace and Guidance,

341:One should always have one’s look turned forwards to the future—retrospection is seldom healthy as it turns one towards a past consciousness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Time and Change of the Nature,

342:Turn your emotions towards the Divine, aspire for their purification; they will then become a help on the way and no longer a cause of suffering. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Bhakti,

343:Turn your emotions towards the Divine, aspire for their purification; they will then become a help on the way and no longer a cause of suffering. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Bhakti,

344:There is a fundamental psychic feeling which is the same for all; but there can also be a special psychic feeling for one or another. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

345:the best means to bring forward the psychic ::: Aspiration, constant and sincere, and the will to turn to the Divine alone are the best means to bring forward the psychic. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III ,

346:The Overmind has to be reached and brought down before the Supermind descent is at all possible-for the Overmind is the passage through which one passes from mind to Supermind. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I 155,

347:Physical nature is slow and inert and unwilling to change; its tendency is to be still and take long periods of time for a little progress. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Transformation of the Physical,

348:The physical is an obstinate obstacle, but it must be enlightened, persuaded, pressed even to change, but not oppressed or violently driven. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Transformation of the Physical,

349:Where there is a soul that has once become awake, there is surely a capacity within that can outweigh all surface defects and can in the end conquer. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.2.01 - The Call and the Capacity,

350:Peace is never easy to get in the life of the world and never constant, unless one lives deep within and bears the external activities as only a surface front of our being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II the Divine Peace,

351:What has to be overcome is the opposition of the Ignorance that does not want the transformation of the nature. If that can be overcome, then old spiritual ideas will not form an obstacle. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I ,

352:Psychic love is distinguished by an essential purity and selflessness—but the vital can put on a very brilliant imitation of that character. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

353:In whatever centre the concentration takes place the Yoga force generated extends to the others and produces concentration or workings there. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Descent and Other Kinds of Experience,

354:It is only when the Divine is found and the consciousness lifted up into the true consciousness that the true relations with others can come. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

355:That is not right. Throwing away the life does not improve the chances for the next time. It is in this life and body that one must get things done. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Difficulties of the Path - VII,

356:The pressure of understanding and will in the mind and the Godward emotional urge in the heart are the two first agents of Yoga. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification,

357:It is better to be a stone on the road to the Divine than soft and weak clay in the muddy paths of the ordinary vital human nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

358:Divine Love is not merely a sublimation of human emotions; it is a different consciousness, with a different quality, movement and substance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Revelations of Divine Love,

359:The consent of all the being is necessary for the divine change, and it is the completeness and fullness of the consent that constitutes the integral surrender. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Lower Vital Being,

360:When you learn a lesson, you have to repeat it till the physical mind gets hold of it—otherwise it does not become a part of consciousness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Variations in the Intensity of Experience,

361:Each defect of the nature of the Ignorance is a deformation of something in the higher nature—a deformation which amounts to a contradiction even. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Aspects of the Cosmic Consciousness,

362:Grace may sometimes bring undeserved or apparently undeserved fruits, but one can’t demand Grace as a right and privilege—for then it would not be Grace. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.4.01 - The Divine Grace and Guidance,

363:It is not true that physical work is of an inferior value to mental culture, it is the arrogance of the intellect that makes the claim. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Hostile Forces and the Difficulties of Yoga,

364:Awake by your aspiration the psychic fire in the heart that burns steadily towards the Divine—that is the one way to liberate and fulfil the emotional nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Bhakti,

365:Awake by your aspiration the psychic fire in the heart that burns steadily towards the Divine—that is the one way to liberate and fulfil the emotional nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Bhakti,

366:It is by the Grace of the Divine and the aid of a Force greater than your own, not by personal capacity and worth that you can attain the goal of the sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.2.01 - The Call and the Capacity,

367:Each person has his own freedom of choice up to a certain point—unless he makes the full surrender—and as he uses the freedom, has to take the spiritual or other consequences. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.2.07 - Surrender,

368:If one throws away the body wilfully, one suffers much in the other worlds, and when one is born again, it is in worse, not in better conditions. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Dealing with Depression and Despondency,

369:To understand divine movements one must enter into the divine consciousness, till then faith and surrender are the only right attitude. How can the mind judge what is beyond all its measures? ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

370:It is quite natural to want to meditate after reading yogic literature - that is not the laziness. The laziness of the mind consists in not meditating, when the consciousness wants to do so. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

371:One has only to aspire sincerely and keep oneself as open as possible to the Mother's Force. Then whatever difficulties come, they will be overcome-it may take some time, but the result issue. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

372:The biggest intellects can make errors of the worst kind and confuse Truth and falsehood, if they have not the contact with Truth or the direct experience. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Intellect and the Intellectual,

373:It is fundamentally true for most people that the pleasure of life, of existence in itself, predominates over the troubles of life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I: Sachchidananda the Divine Existence,

374:As all religions and philosophies point to the Supreme but each in a different direction, so all medical fashions are ways to health—though they don’t always reach it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Doctors and Medicines,

375:Death is not a way to succeed in sadhana. If you die in that way, you will only have the same difficulties again with probably less favourable circumstances. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Difficulties of the Path - VII,

376:Man’s nature is like a cup of dirty water—the water has to be thrown out, the cup left clean and empty for the divine liquor to be poured into it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness,

377:The method of gathering of the mind is not an easy one. It is better to watch and separate oneself from the thoughts till one becomes aware of a quiet space within into which they come from outside. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

378:If one concentrates on a thought or a word, one has to dwell on the essential idea contained in the word with the aspiration to feel the thing which it expresses. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 2.3.01 - Concentration and Meditation,

379:Sometimes a malignant (not fair or well-intentioned) criticism can be helpful by some aspect of it, if one can look at it without being affected by the unfairness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Problems in Human Relations,

380:In following the heart in its purer impulses one follows something that is at least as precious as the mind’s loyalty to its own conceptions of what the Truth may be. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I 1.1.01 - The Divine and Its Aspects,

381:Men are always more able to criticise sharply the work of others and tell them how to do things or what not to do than skilful to avoid the same mistakes themselves. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Problems in Human Relations,

382:An overmastering impulse is not necessarily an inspiration of true guidance; in following always such impulses one is more likely to become a creature of random caprices. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Nature of the Vital,

383:In work there must be a rule and discipline and as much punctuality as possible in regard to time.*To be able to be regular is a great force, one becomes master of one's time and one's movements. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

384:One who has not the courage to face patiently and firmly life and its difficulties will never be able to go through the still greater inner difficulties of the sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 7.05 - Patience and Perseverance,

385:One should not expect too much from the Divine Protection for, constituted as we are and the world is, the Divine Protection has to act within limits. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV 1.2.12 - Vigilance,

386:So long as there is not an unreserved self-giving in both the internal and external, there will always be veilings, dark periods and difficulties. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification,

387:It is the disadvantage of helping others that one comes into contact with their consciousness and their difficulties and also gets more externalised. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

388:Faith, more faith! Faith in your possibilities, faith in the Power that is at work behind the veil, faith in the work that is to be done and the offered guidance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Steps towards Overcoming Difficulties,

389:It is, I suppose, the image of Sri Krishna as Lord of the divine Love and Ananda - and his flute calls the physical being to awake out of the attachments of the physical world and turn to that Love and Ananda. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I ,

390:It is not one’s personal fitness and worthiness that makes one succeed, but the Mother’s grace and power and the consent of the soul to her grace and the workings of her Force. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.2.01 - The Call and the Capacity,

391:The use of your writing is to keep you in touch with the inner source of inspiration and intuition, so as to wear thin the crude external crust in the consciousness and encourage the growth of the inner being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

392:Surrender is giving oneself to the Divine - to give everything one is or has to the Divine and regard nothing as one's own, to obey only the Divine will and no other, to live for the Divine and not for the ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

393:This Yoga can only be done to the end by those who are in total earnest about it and ready to abolish their little human ego and its demands in order to find themselves in the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Lower Vital Being,

394:The Divine is everywhere on all the planes of consciousness seen by us in different ways and aspects of his being. But there is a Supreme which is above all these planes and ways and aspects and from which they come. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I ,

395:Whatever name is called the Power that answers is the Mother. Each name indicates a certain aspect of the Divine and is limited by that aspect; the Mother's Power is universal. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II Namajapa or Repetition of the Name,

396:Medicine has gone through three stages in modern times—first (at the beginning in Molière’s days) it was \“bleed and douche\”, then \“drug and diet\”, now it is \“serum and injection\”. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Doctors and Medicines,

397:It is certainly much better to remain silent and collected for a time after the meditation. It is a mistake to take the meditation lightly - by doing that one fails to receive or spills what is received or most of it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

398:The vital is indispensable for the divine or spiritual action—without it there can be no complete expression, no realisation in life—hardly even any realisation in sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

399:It [the effectiveness of namajapa] depends on the person and how he does it. The Name of the Divine is in itself a power, if it is taken with the right faith and in the right attitude. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II Namajapa or Repetition of the Name,

400:With each person the guidance works differently according to his nature, the conditions of his life, his cast of consciousness, his stage of development, his need of farther experience. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II 1.4.01 - The Divine Grace and Guidance,

401:It is not at first easy to remember the presence in work; but if one revives the sense of the presence immediately after the work is over it is all right. In time the sense of the presence will become automatic even in work. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

402:It is not at first easy to remember the presence in work; but if one revives the sense of the presence immediately after the work is over it is all right. In time the sense of the presence will become automatic even in work. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

403:Reliable friendship is almost always with a very few; to have a horde of loving, unselfishly faithful friends is a phenomenon so rare that it can be safely taken as an illusion. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

404:When the will and energy are concentrated and used to control the mind, vital and physical and change them or to bring down the higher consciousness or for any other Yogic purpose or high purpose, that is called Tapasya. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II 102?,

405:Each activity is important in its own place—an electron or a molecule or a grain may be small things in themselves, but in their place they are indispensable to the building up of a world. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Resistances,

406:Things always come in the way when one wants to progress in the sadhana, but in the end if one is sincere in one’s aspiration these troubles help to prepare the victory of the soul over all that opposes. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Anger and Violence,

407:Work is part of the sadhana, and in sadhana the question of usefulness does not arise, that is an outward practical measure of things, though even in the outward ordinary life utility is not the only measure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Work and Yoga,

408:The stars merely record a destiny that has been already formed, they are a hieroglyph, not a Force,—or if their action constitutes a force, it is a transmitting energy, not an originating Power. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I 06.01 - The Word of Fate,

409:In the absolute retirement one lives a purely subjective life and the opportunity for extending the spiritual progress to the outer life and testing it thoroughly is not there. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

410:A resolution means the will to try to get a thing done by the given time. It is not a binding 'promise' that the thing will be done by that time. Even if it is not, the endeavour will have to continue, just as if no date had been fixed. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

411:Surrender means to consecrate everything in oneself to the Divine, to offer all one is and has, not to insist on one's ideas, desires, habits, etc., but to allow the divine Truth to replace them by its knowledge, will and action everywhere. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

412:The rough handling and careless breaking or waste and misuse of physical things is a denial of the Yogic Consciousness and a great hindrance to the bringing down of the Divine Truth to the material plane. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Practical Concerns in Work,

413:It is the light from within that you have to make room for; the light of the outer mind is quite insufficient for the discovery of the inner values or to judge the truth of spiritual experience. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Steps towards Overcoming Difficulties,

414:What is most important [in meditation] is the change of consciousness of which this feeling of oneness is a part. The going deep in meditation is only a means and it is not always necessary if the great experiences come easily without it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

415:The psychic has its own more personal love, bhakti, surrender. Love in the higher or spiritual mind is more universal and impersonal. The two must join together to make the highest divine love. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II Revelations of Divine Love,

416:You can remember at the beginning and offer your reading to the Divine and at the end again. There is a state of consciousness in which only a part of it is reading or doing the work and behind there is the consciousness of the Divine always. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

417:We must find the Self, the Divine, then only can we know what is the work the Self or the Divine demands from us. Until then our life and action can only be a help or means towards finding the Divine and it ought not to have any other purpose. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

418:Psychic love can have a warmth and a flame as intense and more intense than the vital, only it is a pure fire, not dependent on the satisfaction of ego-desire or on the eating up of the fuel it embraces. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

419:The attitude you express in your letter is quite the right one - whatever sufferings come on the path, are not too high a price for the victory that has to be won and, if they are taken in the right spirit, they become even a means towards the victory. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

420:I have said that we are always with you and it is true, but to feel it you must draw back from your vital and be able to concentrate in your inner being. If you do that faithfully and sincerely, after a time you will feel the connection and the support. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

421:It is (sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly) by the power of the Overmind releasing the mind from its close partitions that the cosmic consciousness opens in the seeker and he becomes aware of the cosmic spirit and the play of the cosmic forces. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I 152,

422:You have either to train the memory by practising to remember - or if you cannot do that, try only to understand, read much and let the memory remember what it can. There are people who have a bad memory but they succeed in their studies in spite of it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

423:Knowledge of the way is not enough - one must tread it, or if one cannot do that, allow oneself to be carried along it. The human vital and physical external nature resist to the very end, but if the soul has once heard the call, it arrives, sooner or later. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

424:If you can't as yet remember the Divine all the time you are working, it does not greatly matter. To remember and dedicate at the beginning and give thanks at the end ought to be enough for the present. Or at the most to remember too when there is a pause... ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

425:The real rest is in the inner life founded in peace and silence and absence of desire. There is no other rest—for without that the machine goes on whether one is interested in it or not. The inner mukti is the only remedy. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Difficulties of the Path - VII,

426:ChārvākaThy thoughts are gleams that pass on Matter’s verge,Thy life a lapsing wave on Matter’s sea. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Cheerfulness and Happiness,

427:[...]The Divine is Anandamaya and one can seek him for the Ananda he gives; but he has also in him many other things and one may seek him for any of them, for peace, for liberation, for knowledge, for power, for anything else of which one may feel the pull or impulse. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

428:the spiritual transformation ::: The spiritual change is the established descent of the peace, light, knowledge, power, bliss from above, the awareness of the Self and the Divine and of a higher cosmic consciousness and the change of the whole consciousness to that. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III ,

429:Kama (Desire)Delight and laughter walking hand in handGo with Me, and I play with grief and pain. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I Karma and Heredity,

430:To want to be a superman is a mistake, it only swells the ego. One can aspire for the Divine to bring about the supramental transformation, but that also should not be done till the being has become psychic and spiritualised by the descent of the Mother's peace, force, light and purity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

431:Suicide is an absurd solution; he is quite mistaken in thinking that it will give him peace. He will only carry his difficulties with him into a more miserable condition of existence beyond and bring them back to another life on earth. The only remedy is ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Difficulties of the Path - VII,

432:These drops [of consciousness] happen to all sadhaks; their causes are various; sometimes it is a pull from below, sometimes an invasion from outside, sometimes a less ascertainable cause. When it happens, one must always remain as quiet as possible behind and call back the better condition. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III ,

433:Sadhana has to be done in the body, it cannot be done by the soul without the body. When the body drops, the soul goes wandering in other worlds—and finally it comes back to another life and another body. Then all the difficulties it had not solved meet i ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Difficulties of the Path - VII,

434:That is the inconvenience of going away from a difficulty,—it runs after one,—or rather one carries it with oneself, for the difficulty is truly inside, not outside. Outside circumstances only give it the occasion to manifest itself and so long as the inn ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Difficulties of the Path - VII,

435:All thoughts really come from outside, but one is not conscious of their coming. You have become conscious of this movement. There are different ways of getting rid of them; one is to reject them one by one before they can come in; another is to look at them with detachment till they fade away. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

436:The house of the Divine is not closed to any who knock sincerely at its gates, whatever their past stumbles and errors. Human virtues and human errors are bright and darkwrappings of a divine element within which once it pierces the veil, can burn through both towards the heights of the Spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

437:Remind yourself always that the Divine Force is there, that you have felt it and that, even if you seem to lose consciousness of it for a time or it seems something distant, still it is there and is sure to prevail For those whom the Force has touched and taken up, belong thenceforth to the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

438:In the Upanishad the sun is the symbol of the supramental Truth and it is said that those who pass into it may return but those who pass through the gates of the Sun itself do not; possibly this means that an ascent into the supermind itself above the golden lid of overmind was the definitive liberation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

439:Concentration, for our Yoga, means when the consciousness is fixed in a particular state (e.g. peace) or movement (e.g. aspiration, will, coming into contact with the Mother, taking the Mother's name); meditation is when the inner mind is looking at things to get the right knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II 7.5.56 - Omnipresence,

440:The goal of yoga is always hard to reach, but this one is more difficult than any other, and it is only for those who have the call, the capacity, the willingness to face everything and every risk, even the risk of failure, and the will to progress towards an entire selflessness, desirelessness and surrender. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

441:(1) Offer yourself more and more - all the consciousness, all that happens in it, all your work and action.(2) If you have faults and weaknesses, hold them up before the Divine to be changed or abolished.(3) Try to do what I told you, concentrate in the heart till you constantly feel the Presence there. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

442:The descent of the supramental is an inevitable necessity in the logic of things and is therefore sure. It is because people do not understand what the Supermind is or realise the significance of the emergence of consciousness in a world of inconscient matter that they are unable to realise this inevitability. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I ,

443:When the vital joins in the love for the Divine, it brings into it heroism, enthusiasm, intensity, absoluteness, exclusiveness, the spirit of self-sacrifice, the total and passionate self-giving of all the nature. It is the vital passion for the Divine that creates the spiritual heroes, conquerors or martyrs. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

444:The TranscendentThis is what is termed the Adya Shakti; she is the Supreme Consciousness and Power above the universe and it is by her that all the Gods are manifested, and even the supramental Ishwara comes into manifestation through her - the supramental Purushottama of whom the Gods are Powers and Personalities. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga ,

445:The Truth-Consciousness that can only manifest when ego and desire are overcome. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Time and Change of the Nature,

446:It is necessary first to found the higher consciousness in the mind and heart. To deal with the lower nature before that means to fall into the struggle and confusion and disorder of the vital, for it all comes up. With the mind and heart prepared, one can deal with the vital without all that superfluous trouble. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I ,

447:A certain amount of purification is necessary before there can be any realisation of the Divine and that is what has been going on in you. It is after all not a very long time since the real purification began and it is never an easy work. So the impatience may be natural, but it is not exactly reasonable. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II Purity,

448:It is no doubt as you say, [1] but that is always the difficulty of the physical consciousness until it has been enlightened from within. [1] The correspondent wrote that although she wanted to get rid of her desires, confusions and wrong movements, the outward, physical part of her being wanted to hold on to them. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

449:The wife unsung remainsSharing his pleasures, taking half his painsWhile to dream faces mounts the poet’s song. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Right Attitude towards Difficulties,

450:Where you are? In the Mother's presence here and close to me. Where you are going? Towards union with the Divine through dedication and service. What you are doing here? Service and self-giving to the Divine. The rest depends, as the Mother writes to you, on the simplicity and fullness with which you give yourself and serve. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

451:People say like that [the Transcendent is something beyond Sachchidananda] because the transcendent Absolute is not only what to us is existence but also what to us is non-existence. But there is really no such thing as non-existence. So the Transcendent can be conceived as transcendent Sat, transcendent Chit, transcendent Ananda. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I ,

452:The name of the Divine is usually called in for protection, for adoration, for increase of bhakti, for the opening up of the inner consciousness, for the realisation of the Divine in that aspect. As far as it is necessary to work in the subconscious for that, the Name must be effective there. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II Namajapa or Repetition of the Name,

453:Sincerity means more than mere honesty. It means that you mean what you say, feel what you profess, are earnest in your will. As the sadhak aspires to be an instrument of the Divine and one with the Divine, sincerity in him means that he is really in earnest in his aspiration and refuses all other will or impulse except the Divine's. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

454:The main difficulty in the sadhana consists in the movements of the lower nature, ideas of the mind, desires and attractions of the vital, habits of the body consciousness that stand in the way of the growth of the higher consciousness - there are other difficulties, but these make the bulk of the opposition. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III Difficulties of the Path,

455:A thousand questions can be asked about anything whatsoever, but to answer would require a volume, and even then the mind would understand nothing. It is only by a growth in the consciousness itself that you can get some direct perception of these things. But for that the mind must be quiet and a direct feeling and intuition take its place. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

456:All visions have a significance of one kind or another. This power of vision is very important for the Yoga and should not be rejected although it is not the most important thing-for the most important thing is the change of the consciousness. All other powers like this of vision should be developed without attachment as parts and aids of the Yoga. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

457:Lure of the InfiniteWith a hundred marvellous facesAlways he lures us to love him, always he draws us to pleasureLeaving remembrance and anguish behind for our only treasure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Second Sex,

458:When you fall from the contact, the first and only thing you have to do is to reestablish it - to remain quiet and open yourself. Everything else you must detach yourself from and reject. It is because you listen to ideas and suggestions of all kinds and still attach value to the old kind of "experiences", that you cannot reestablish the contact. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

459:The boy with the flute is Sri Krishna, the Lord descended into the world-play from the divine Ananda; his flute is the music of the call which seeks to transform the lower ignorant play of mortal life and bring into it and establish in its place the lila of his divine Ananda. It was the psychic being in you that heard the call and followed after it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III ,

460:conditions of the psychic opening ::: The realisation of the psychic being, its awakening and the bringing of it in front depend mainly on the extent to which one can develop a personal relation with the Divine, a relation of Bhakti, love, reliance, self-giving, rejection of the insistences of the separating and self-asserting mental, vital and physical ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III ,

461:The Isha Upanishad also speaks of the golden lid hiding the face of the Truth by removing which the Law of the Truth is seen and the highest knowledge in which the One Purusha is known (so'ham asmi) is described as the kalyan.atama form of the Sun. All this seems to refer to the supramental states of which the Sun is the symbol. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I Integral Yoga and Other Paths -IV,

462:All human beings are full of ego. If you want to change, you must be very quiet and always aspire for a higher consciousness to come down into you in which there is not the ego. When it comes down, the real change will come. But you must be quiet within, not worried and restless - you must open confidently to the Mother's Force and let it work in you. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV Ego and Its forms,

463:Wherever the Divine is, everything is - it is only concealed, not non-existent. The Divine is there below in the inconscience itself - mind and life are concealed in Matter, so is Supermind and Sachchidananda. The below is not something outside the Divine Existence. But as mind manifested in Matter only after the descent of Mind opened it into creation, so it is with Supermind. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I ,

464:God is, but man's conceptions of God are reflections in his own mentality, sometimes of the Divine, sometimes of other Beings and powers and they are what his mentality can make of the suggestions that come to him, generally very partial and imperfect so long as they are still mental, so long as he has not arrived at a higher and truer, a spiritual or mystic knowledge.. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I ,

465:When we look beyond our first exclusively concentrated vision, we see behind Vishnu all the personality of Shiva and behind Shiva all the personality of Vishnu. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV The Difficulties of Yoga,

466:The Divine Grace and Power can do anything, but with the full assent of the sadhak. To learn to give the full assent, is the whole meaning of the sadhana. It may take time either because of ideas in the mind, desires in the vital or inertia in the physical consciousness, but these things have to be and can be removed with the aid or by calling in the action of the Divine Force. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

467:An ocean of electric EnergyFormlessly formed its strange wave-particlesConstructing by their dance this solid scheme, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV Mental Development and Sadhana,

468:To be in full union with the Divine is the final aim. When one has some kind of constant union, one can be called a yogi, but the union has to be made complete. There are yogis who have only the union on the spiritual plane, others who are united in mind and heart, others in the vital also. In our yoga our aim is to be united too in the physical consciousness and on the supramental plane. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

469:To be miserable may remind you of the defects of your external nature, but I do not see how it is going to cure them. I am not asking you to be frivolously happy, but to be quiet and quietly confident, rejecting these old movements, but for the rest trusting not in a restless self-torturing personal effort but to the Divine Force to change the external nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV Dealing with Depression and Despondency,

470:Concentration is a gathering together of the consciousness and either centralising at one point or turning on a single object, e.g. the Divine-there can also be a gathered condition throughout the whole being, not at a point. In meditation it is not indispensable to gather like this, one can simply remain with a quiet mind thinking of one subject or observing what comes in the consciousness and dealing with it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

471:Sadhana is the practice of Yoga.Tapasya is the concentration of the will to get the results of sadhana and to conquer the lower nature.Aradhana is worship of the Divine, love, self-surrender, aspiration to the Divine, calling the name, prayer.Dhyana is inner concentration of the consciousness, meditation, going inside in Samadhi.Dhyana, tapasya and aradhana are all parts of sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II 215 [sadhana is:],

472:Illusion lost her aggrandising lens;As from her failing hand the measures fell,Atomic looked the things that loomed so large.The little ego’s ring could join no more; ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III Experiences and Realisations,

473:Meditation means thinking on one subject in a concentrated way. In concentration proper there is not a series of thoughts, but the mind is silently fixed on one object, name, idea, place etc. There are other kinds of concentration, e.g. concentrating the whole consciousness in one place, as between the eyebrows, in the heart, etc. One can also concentrate to get rid of thought altogether and remain in a complete silence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

474:In your nature there are many obstacles, chiefly a great activity of the outward-going mind and a thick crust of the impure lower Prakriti that covers the heart and the vital being. Quieting of the mind and purification of the nature are what you must have before you can fulfil your aim. Aspire for these two things first; ask for them constantly from above. You will not be able to achieve them by your own unaided effort. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II Purity,

475:... The sadhana of inner concentration consists in:(1) Fixing the consciousness in the heart and concentrating there on the idea, image or name of the Divine Mother, whichever comes easiest to you.(2) A gradual and progressive quieting of the mind by this concentration in the heart.(3) An aspiration for the Mother's presence in the heart and the control by her of mind, life and action. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II Combining Work,

476:What you say is quite true. A simple, straight and sincere call and aspiration from the heart is the one important thing and more essential and effective than capacities. Also to get the consciousness to turn inwards, not remain outward-going is of great importance - to arrive at the inner call, the inner experience, the inner Presence. The help you ask will be with you. Let the aspiration grow and open the inner consciousness altogether. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I ,

477:The means of realisation is to be found in an integral Yoga, a union in all the parts of our being with the Divine and a consequent transmutation of all their now jarring elements into the harmony of a higher divine consciousness and existence; this yoga implies not only the realisation of God but the entire conseceration and change of the inner and outer life till it is fit to manifest a divine consciousness and become part of the divine work. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

478:The sadhana of this Yoga does not proceed through any set mental teaching or prescribed forms of meditation, mantras or others, but by aspiration, by a self-concentration inwards or upwards, by self-opening to an Influence, to the Divine Power above us and its workings, to the Divine Presence in the heart, and by the rejection of all that is foreign to these things. It is only by faith, aspiration and surrender that this self-opening can come. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

479:It was a no man’s land of evil air,A crowded neighbourhood without one home,A borderland between the world and hell.There unreality was Nature’s lord:It was a space where nothing could be true,For nothing was what it had claimed to be:A h ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I Morality and Yoga,

480:I was speaking of your experiences of the higher consciousness, of your seeing the Mother in all things - these are what are called spiritual realisations, spiritual knowledge. Realisations are the essence of knowledge - thoughts about them, expression of them in words are a lesser knowledge and if the thoughts are merely mental without experience or realisation, they are not regarded as jnana in the spiritual sense at all. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III Transformation of the Mind,

481:Death is not a way to succeed in sadhana. If you die in that way [suicide], you will only have the same difficulties again with probably less favourable circumstances.The way to succeed in sadhana is to refuse to be discouraged, to aspire simply and sincerely so that the Mother's force may work in you and bring down what is above. No man ever succeeded in this sadhana by his own merit. To become open and plastic to the Mother is the one thing needed. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

482:Not to be disturbed by either joy or grief, pleasure or displeasure by what people say or do or by any outward things is called in yoga a state of samata, equality to all things. It is of immense importance in sadhana to be able to reach this state. It helps the mental quietude and silence as well as the vital to come. It means indeed that the vital itself and the vital mind are already falling silent and becoming quiet. The thinking mind is sure to follow. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

483:One does not say to God, Show your love for me first, shower on me the experience of yourself, satisfy my demand, then I will see whether I can love you so long as you deserve it. It is surely the seeker who must seek and love first, follow the quest, become impassioned for the Sought-then only does the veil move aside and the Light be seen and the Face manifest that alone can satisfy the soul after its long sojourn in the desert ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II Sadhana through Love and Devotion,

484:the one thing needful ::: It is the lesson of life that always in this world everything fails a man - only the Divine does not fail him, if he turns entirely towards the Divine. It is not because there is something bad in you that blows fall on you - blows fall on all human beings because they are full of desire for things that cannot last and they lose them or, even if they get, it brings disappointment and cannot satisfy them. To turn to the Divine is the only truth in life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

485:There can be no firm foundation in sadhana without equality, samata. Whatever the unpleasantness of circumstances, however disagreeable the conduct of others, you must learn to receive them with a perfect calm and without any disturbing reaction. These things are the test of equality. It is easy to be calm and equal when things go well and people and circumstances are pleasant; it is when they are the opposite that the completeness of the calm, peace, equality can be tested, reinforced, made perfect. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

486:These questionings and depressions are very foolish movements of the mind. If you were not open to the Grace, you would not have had these descents or experiences and there would have been no such progress as you have made. You have not to put such questions but to take it as a settled fact, and with full faith in the Mother and her working in you go on with your sadhana. Whatever difficulties there may be, will be solved in time by the natural progress of the sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV Dealing with Depression and Despondency,

487:The fundamental realisations of this yoga are: 1. The psychic change so that a compete devotion can be the main motive of the heart and the ruler of the thought, life and action in constant union with the Mother and in her Presence. 2. The descent of the Peace, Power, Light, etc. of the Higher Consciousness through the head and heart into the whole being, occupying the very cells of the body. 3. The perception of the One and Divine infinitely everywhere, the Mother everywhere and living in that infinite consciousness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

488:...to quiet the mind and get the spiritual experience it is necessary first to purify and prepare the nature. This sometimes takes many years. Work done with the right attitude is the easiest means for that - i.e. work done without desire or ego, rejecting all movements of desire, demand or ego when the come, done as an offering to the Divine Mother, with the remembrance of her and prayer to her to manifest her force and take up the action so that there too and not only in inner silence you can feel her presence and working. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

489:... What you should do, is always to reject the lower experiences and concentrate on a fixed and quiet aspiration towards the one thing needed, the Light, the Calm, the Peace, the Devotion that you felt for two or three days. It is because you get interested in the lower vital experiences and in observing and thinking about them that they take hold, and then comes the absence of the Contact and the confusion. You have surely had enough of this kind of experience already and should make up your mind to steadily reject it when it comes. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

490:As a rule the only mantra used in this sadhana is that of the Mother or of my name and the Mother. The concentration in the heart and the concentration in the head can both be used - each has its own result. The first opens up the psychic being and brings bhakti, love and union with the Mother, her presence within the heart and the action of her Force in the nature. The other opens the mind to self-realisation, to the consciousness of what is above mind, to the ascent of the consciousness out of the body and the descent of the higher consciousness into the body. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

491:It is the peace you feel - the peace that is taking little by little hold of the inner being - that has to deepen and strengthen itself till it can take hold of the physical also. When it can do that, the externalised physical consciousness will feel it no longer alien to itself. The Peace will enable the Force and Light to enter also into the physical and the true understanding will come there too and remove the sense of distance and difference. That is how the Yoga force always works in principle - but the more the quietude, the more rapidly and surely it will work. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV? ,

492:To be free from all preference and receive joyfully whatever comes from the Divine Will is not possible at first for any human being. What one should have at first is the constant idea that what the Divine wills is always for the best when the mind does not see how it is so, to accept with resignation what one cannot yet accept with gladness and so to arrive at a calm equality which is not shaken even when on the surface there may be passing movements of a momentary reaction to outward happenings, If that is once firmly founded, the rest can come. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II Equality - The Chief Support [134],

493:aspiration and dryness ::: Naturally, the more one-pointed the aspiration the swifter the progress. The difficulty comes when either the vital with its desires or the physical with its past habitual movements comes in - as they do with almost everyone. It is then that the dryness and difficulty of spontaneous aspiration come. This dryness is a well-known obstacle in all sadhana. But one has to persist and not be discouraged. If one keeps the will fixed even in these barren periods, they pass and after their passage a greater force of aspiration and experience becomes possible. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

494:There are only three fundamental obstacles that can stand in the way: (1) Absence of faith or insufficient faith. (2) Egoism - the mind clinging to its own ideas, the vital preferring its own desires to a true surrender, the physical adhering to its own habits. (3) Some inertia or fundamental resistance in the consciousness, not willing to change because it is too much of an effort or because it does not want to believe in its own capacity or the power of the Divine - or for some other more subconscient reason. You have to see for yourself which of these it is. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III Difficulties of the Path,

495:In all doubt and depression, to say 'I belong to the Divine, I cannot fail'; to all suggestions of impurity and unfitness, to reply 'I am a child of Immortality chosen by the Divine; I have but to be true to myself and to Him-the victory is sure; even if I fell, I would be sure to rise again'; to all impulses to depart and serve some smaller ideal, to reply 'This is the greatest, this is the Truth that alone can satisfy the soul within me; I will endure through all tests and tribulations to the very end of the divine journey.' This is what I mean by faithfulness to the Light and the Call. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

496:What we call destiny is only in fact the result of the present condition of the being and the nature and energies it has accumulated in the past acting on each other and determining the present attempts and their future results. But as soon as one enters the path of spiritual life, this old predetermined destiny begins to recede. There comes in a new factor, the Divine Grace, the help of a higher Divine Force other than the force of Karma, which can lift the sadhak beyond the present possibilities of his nature. One's spiritual destiny is then the divine election which ensures the future. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I ,

497:The visions you describe are those which come in the earliest stages of sadhana. At this stage most of the things seen are formations of the mental plane and it is not always possible to put on them a precise significance, for they depend on the individual mind of the sadhak. At a later stage the power of vision becomes important for the sadhana, but at first one has to go on without attaching excessive importance to the details - until the consciousness develops more. The opening of the consciousness to the Divine Light and Truth and Presence is always the one important thing in the yoga. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II Visions and Symbols,

498:It is from the Overmind that all these different arrangements of the creative Truth of things originate. Out of the Overmind they come down to the Intuition and are transmitted from it to the Illumined and higher Mind to be arranged there for our intelligence. But they lose more and more of their power and certitude in the transmission as they come down to the lower levels. What energy of directly perceived Truth they have is lost in the human mind; for to the human intellect they present themselves only as speculative ideas, not as realised Truth, not as direct sight, a dynamic vision coupled with a concrete undeniable experience. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I 155,

499:conditions of the psychic opening ::: For the opening of the psychic being, concentration on the Mother and self-offering to her are the direct way. The growth of Bhakti which you feel is the first sign of the psychic development. A sense of the Mother's presence or force or the remembrance of her supporting and strengthening you is the next sign. Eventually, the soul within begins to be active in aspiration and psychic perception guiding the mind to the right thoughts, the vital to the right movements and feelings, showing and rejecting all that has to be put away and turning the whole being in all its movements to the Divine alone. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III ,

500:There is always some tendency to looseness, forgetfulness and inattention in the physical consciousness. One has to be very vigilant and careful to prevent this tendency having its way. There are many [defects of the physical consciousness] - but mainly obscurity, inertia, tamas, a passive acceptance of the play of wrong forces, inability to change, attachment to habits, lack of plasticity, forgetfulness, loss of experiences or realisations gained, unwillingness to accept the Light or to follow it, incapacity (through tamas or through attachment or through passive reaction to accustomed forces) to do what it admits to be the Right and the Best. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

501:It is an inertia of the physical consciousness which allows these desires to come and does not react against the suggestions; it is that also which responds to the pains and suggestion of illness. But you must not accept the suggestion that you cannot react and be free, - the physical consciousness itself cannot as yet, but the will can if it is called on to act and made accustomed to act always. Not the struggling will, but a quiet will insisting on the quietude of the mind and vital and insisting on the rejection of these adverse things. That would soon prove sufficient to hold the ground for the Peace and Force to act and they would do the rest. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

502:The dream is evidently an indication of the difficulty you are experiencing. The sea is the sea of the vital nature whose flood is pursuing you (desires are the sea water) on your road of sadhana.The Mother is there in your heart but sleeping - i.e. her power has not become conscious in your inner consciousness because she is surrounded by the thin curtain of skin (the obscurity of the physical nature). It is this (it is not thick any longer but still effective to veil her from you) which has to go so that she may awake. It is a matter of persistence in the will and the endeavour - the response from within, the awaking of the Mother in the heart will come. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III ,

503:It is in the silence of the mind that the strongest and freest action can come, e.g. the writing of a book, poetry, inspired speech etc. When the mind is active it interferes with the inspiration, puts in its own small ideas which get mixed up with the inspiration or starts something from a lower level or simply stops the inspiration altogether by bubbling up with all sorts of mere mental suggestions. So also intuitions or action etc. can come more easily when the ordinary inferior movement of the mind is not there. It is also in the silence of the mind that it is easiest for knowledge to come from within or above, from the psychic or from the higher consciousness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

504:There is no method in this Yoga except to concentrate, preferably in the heart, and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness; one can concentrate also in the head or between the eyebrows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is a beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. For the rest one must not depend on one's own efforts only, but succeed in establishing a contact with the Divine and a receptivity to the Mother's Power and Presence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

505:The vital can rise to the head in two ways - one to cloud the mind with the vital impulses, the other to aspire and join with the higher Consciousness. If you noticed the aspiration, it was evidently the latter movement. It is true that for the external vital an outer discipline is necessary for the purification, otherwise it remains restless and fanciful and at the mercy of its own impulses - so that no basis can be built there for a quiet and abiding higher consciousness to remain firmly. The attitude you have taken for the work is of course the best one and, applying it steadily, the progress you feel was bound to come and is sure to increase. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV The Vital Being and Sadhana,

506:There is only one way if you cannot exert your will - it is to call the Force; even the call only with the mind or the mental word is better than being extremely passive and submitted to the attack, - for although it may not succeed instantaneously, the mental call even ends by bringing the Force and opening up the consciousness again. For everything depends upon that. In the externalised consciousness obscurity and suffering can always be there; the more the internalised consciousness reigns, the more these things are pushed back and out, and with the full internalised consciousness they cannot remain - if they come, it is as outside touches unable to lodge themselves in the being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

507:The contribution of the psychic being to the sadhana is: (1) love and bhakti, a love not vital, demanding and egoistic but unconditioned and without claims, self-existent; (2) the contact or the presence of the Mother within; (3) the unerring guidance from within; (4) a quieting and purification of the mind, vital and physical consciousness by their subjection to the psychic influence and guidance; (5) the opening up of all this lower consciousness to the higher spiritual consciousness above for its descent into a nature prepared to receive it with a complete receptivity and right attitude - for the psychic brings in everything, right thought, right perception, right feeling, right attitude. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III ,

508:Faith ::: One must say, "Since I want only the Divine, my success is sure, I have only to walk forward in all confidence and His own Hand will be there secretly leading me to Him by His own way and at His own time." That is what you must keep as your constant mantra. Anything else one may doubt but that he who desires only the Divine shall reach the Divine is a certitude and more certain than two and two make four. That is the faith every sadhak must have at the bottom of his heart, supporting him through every stumble and blow and ordeal. It is only false ideas still casting their shadows on your mind that prevent you from having it. Push them aside and the back of the difficulty will be broken. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

509:It depends on what is meant by the higher buddhi - whether you use the word to mean the higher part of the intellect or the higher Mind. The higher Mind in itself on its own level knows, but when it is involved in the ordinary human intelligence and works under limitations, it often does not know - or it has the idea merely that it must be so but has not the consciousness of its separate existence. The intellect can rise above its ordinary movements and feel itself as a separate power no longer working under the limitations of the vital and physical mind and the senses. It then begins to reflect something of the action of the higher mind but without the full freedom and greater light and truth of the higher mind. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I ,

510:The theory of masturbation as a physiological necessity is a most extraordinary idea. It weakens the nervous force and nervous balance,-as is natural since it is an artificial and wholly uncompensated waste of the energy-and it disorganises the sex-centre. Those who indulge in it inordinately may even upset their nervous balance altogether and bring about neurasthenia or worse. It is not by disorganisation of the sex-centre and sex-functioning that one should avoid the consequences of the sex-action, but by control of the sex itself so that it may be turned into higher forms of Energy. It is perfectly possible to check the habit. There are any number of people who have had it for years and yet been able to stop it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

511:Overmind is the highest source of the cosmic consciousness available to the embodied being in the Ignorance. It is part of the cosmic consciousness-but the human individual when he opens into the cosmic usually remains in the cosmic Mind-Life-Matter receiving only inspirations and influences from the higher planes of Intuition and Overmind. He receives through the spiritualised higher and illumined mind the fundamental experiences on which spiritual knowledge is based; he can become even full of intuitive mind movements, illuminations, various kinds of powers and illumined light, liberation, Ananda. But to rise fully into the Intuition is rare, to reach the Overmind still rarer- although influences and experiences can come down from there. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I 152,

512:I have read your account of your sadhana. There is nothing to say, I think, - for it is all right - except that the most important thing for you is to develop the psychic fire in the heart and the aspiration for the psychic being to come forward as the leader of the sadhana. When the psychic does so, it will show you the 'undetected ego-knots' of which you speak and loosen them or burn them in the psychic fire. This psychic development and the psychic change of mind, vital and physical consciousness is of the utmost importance because it makes safe and easy the descent of the higher consciousness and the spiritual transformation without which the supramental must always remain far distant. Powers etc. have their place, but a very minor one so long as this is not done. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III ,

513:Why do you indulge in these exaggerated feelings of remorse and despair when these things come up from the subconscient? They do not help and make it more, not less difficult to eliminate what comes. Such returns of an old nature that is long expelled from the conscious parts of the being always happen in sadhana. It does not at all mean that the nature is unchangeable. Try to recover the inner quietude, draw back from these movements and look at them calmly, reducing them to their true proportions. Your true nature is that in which you have peace and ananda and the love of the Divine. This other is only a fringe of the outer personality which in spite of these returns is destined to drop away as the true being extends and increases. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV Dealing with Depression and Despondency,

514:The up and down movement which you speak of is common to all ways of Yoga. It is there in the path of bhakti, but there are equally alternations of states of light and states of darkness, sometimes sheer and prolonged darkness, when one follows the path of knowledge. Those who have occult experiences come to periods when all experiences cease and even seem finished for ever. Even when there have been many and permanent realisations, these seem to go behind the veil and leave nothing in front except a dull blank, filled, if at all, only with recurrent attacks and difficulties. These alternations are the result of the nature of human consciousness and are not a proof of unfitness or of predestined failure. One has to be prepared for them and pass through. They are the day and night of the Vedic mystics. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

515:The only truth in your other experience - which, you say, seems at the time so true to you, - is that it is hopeless for you or anyone to get out of the inferior consciousness by your or his unaided effort. That is why when you sink into this inferior consciousness, everything seems hopeless to you, because you lose hold for a time of the true consciousness. But the suggestion is untrue, because you have an opening to the Divine and are not bound to remain in the inferior consciousness. When you are in the true consciousness, then you see that everything can be done, even if at present only a slight beginning has been made; but a beginning is enough, once the Force, the Power is there. For the truth is that it can do everything and only time and the soul's aspiration are needed for the entire change and the soul's fulfilment. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

516:what is meant by the psychic ::: What is meant in the terminology of the yoga by the psychic is the soul element in the nature, the pure psyche or divine nucleus which stands behind mind, life and body (it is not the ego) but of which we are only dimly aware. It is a portion of the Divine and permanent from life to life, taking the experience of life through its outer instruments. As this experience grows it manifests a developing psychic personality which insisting always on the good, true and beautiful, finally becomes ready and strong enough to turn the nature towards the Divine. It can then come entirely forward, breaking through the mental, vital and physical screen, govern the instincts and transform the nature. Nature no longer imposes itself on the soul, but the soul, the Purusha, imposes its dictates on the nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III ,

517:The hostile forces have a certain self-chosen function: it is to test the condition of the individual, of the work, of the earth itself and their readiness for the spiritual descent and fulfilment. At every step of the journey, they are there attacking furiously, criticising, suggesting, imposing despondency or inciting to revolt, raising unbelief, amassing difficulties. No doubt, they put a very exaggerated interpretation on the rights given them by their function, making mountains even out of what seems to us a mole-hill. A little trifling false step or mistake and they appear on the road and clap a whole Himalaya as a barrier across it. But this opposition has been permitted from of old not merely as a test or ordeal, but as a compulsion on us to seek a greater strength, a more perfect self-knowledge, an intenser purity and force of aspiration, a faith that nothing can crush, a more powerful descent of the Divine Grace. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

518:The Vedic poets regarded their poetry as mantras, they were the vehicles of their own realisations and could become vehicles of realisation for others. Naturally, these mostly would be illuminations, not the settled and permanent realisation that is the goal of Yoga - but they could be steps on the way or at least lights on the way. Many have such illuminations, even initial realisations while meditating on verses of the Upanishads or the Gita. Anything that carries the Word, the Light in it, spoken or written, can light this fire within, open a sky, as it were, bring the effective vision of which the Word is the body. In all ages spiritual seekers have expressed their aspirations or their experiences in poetry or inspired language and it has helped themselves and others. Therefore there is nothing absurd in my assigning to such poetry a spiritual or psychic value and effectiveness to poetry of a psychic or spiritual character. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

519:To be able to receive the Divine Power and let act through you in the things of the outward life, there are three necessary conditions: (i) Quietude, equality - not to be disturbed by anything that happens, to keep the mind still and firm, seeing the play of forces, but itself tranquil. (ii) Absolute faith - faith that what is for the best will happen, but also that if one can make oneself a true instrument, the fruit will be that which one's will guided by the Divine Light sees as the thing to be done - kartavyam karma. (iii) Receptivity - the power to receive the Divine Force and to feel its presence and the presence of the Mother in it and allow it to work, guiding one's sight and will and action. If this power and presence can be felt and this plasticity made the habit of the consciousness in action, - but plasticity to the Divine force alone without bringing in any foreign element, - the eventual result is sure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

520:What you write is no doubt true and it is necessary to see it so as to be able to comprehend and grasp the true attitude necessary for the sadhana. But, as I have said, one must not be distressed or depressed by perceiving the weaknesses inherent in human nature and the difficulty of getting them out. The difficulty is natural, for they have been there for thousands of lives and are the very nature of man's vital and mental ignorance. It is not surprising that they should have a power to stick and take time to disappear. But there is a true being and a true consciousness that is there in us hidden by these surface formations of nature and which can shake them off once it emerges. By taking the right attitude of selfless devotion within and persisting in it in spite of the surface nature's troublesome self-repetitions one enables this inner being and consciousness to emerge and with the Mother's Force working in it deliver the being from all return of the movements of the old nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV Dealing with Depression and Despondency,

521:There is nothing unintelligible in what I say about strength and Grace. Strength has a value for spiritual realisation, but to say that it can be done by strength only and by no other means is a violent exaggeration. Grace is not an invention, it is a face of spiritual experience. Many who would be considered as mere nothings by the wise and strong have attained by Grace; illiterate, without mental power or training, without "strength" of character or will, they have yet aspired and suddenly or rapidly grown into spiritual realisation, because they had faith or because they were sincere. ... Strength, if it is spiritual, is a power for spiritual realisation; a greater power is sincerity; the greatest power of all is Grace. I have said times without number that if a man is sincere, he will go through in spite of long delay and overwhelming difficulties. I have repeatedly spoken of the Divine Grace. I have referred any number of times to the line of the Gita: "I will deliver thee from all sin and evil, do not grieve." ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

522:It is necessary to observe and know the wrong movements in you; for they are the source of your trouble and have to be persistently rejected if you are to be free.But do not be always thinking of your defects and wrong movements. Concentrate more upon what you are to be, on the ideal, with the faith that, since it is the goal before you, it must and will come.To be always observing faults and wrong movements brings depression and discourages the faith. Turn your eyes more to the coming Light and less to any immediate darkness. Faith, cheerfulness, confidence in the ultimate victory are the things that help, - they make the progress easier and swifter. Make more of the good experiences that come to you; one experience of the kind is more important than the lapses and failures. When it ceases, do not repine or allow yourself to be discouraged, but be quiet within and aspire for its renewal in a stronger form leading to still deeper and fuller experience. Aspire always, but with more quietude, opening yourself to the Divine simply and wholly. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

523:It is a fact always known to all yogis and occultists since the beginning of time, in Europe and Africa as in India, that wherever yoga or Yajna is done, there the hostile Forces gather together to stop it by any means. It is known that there is a lower nature and a higher spiritual nature - it is known that they pull different ways and the lower is strongest at first and the higher afterwards. It is known that the hostile Forces take advantage of the movements of the lower nature and try to spoil through them, smash or retard the siddhi. It has been said as long ago as the Upanishads (hard is the path to tread, sharp like a razor's edge); it was said later by Christ 'hard is the way and narrow the gate by which one enters into the kingdom of heaven' and also 'many are called, few chosen' - because of these difficulties. But it has also always been known that those who are sincere and faithful in heart and remain so and those who rely on the Divine will arrive in spite of all difficulties, stumbles or falls. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III Opposition of the Hostile Forces - I,

524:[...]For these are aspects of the Divine Nature, powers of it, states of his being, - but the Divine Himself is something absolute, someone self-existent, not limited by his aspects, - wonderful and ineffable, not existing by them, but they exist because of Him. It follows that if he attracts by his aspects, all the more he can attract by his very absolute selfness which is sweeter, mightier, profounder than any aspect. His peace, rapture, light, freedom, beauty are marvellous and ineffable, because he is himself magically, mysteriously, transcendently marvellous and ineffable. He can then be sought after for his wonderful and ineffable self and not only for the sake of one aspect of another of his. The only thing needed for that is, first, to arrive at a point when the psychic being feels this pull of the Divine in himself and, secondly, to arrive at the point when the mind, vital and each thing else begins to feel too that that was what it was wanting and the surface hunt after Ananda or what else was only an excuse for drawing the nature towards that supreme magnet. ... ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

525:In the early part of the sadhana - and by early I do not mean a short part - effort is indispensable. Surrender of course, but surrender is not a thing that is done in a day. The mind has its ideas and it clings to them; the human vital resists surrender, for what it calls surrender in the early stages is a doubtful kind of self-giving with a demand in it; the physical consciousness is like a stone and what it calls surrender is often no more then inertia. It is only the psychic that knows how to surrender and the psychic is usually very much veiled in the beginning. When the psychic awakens, it can bring a sudden and true surrender of the whole being, for the difficulty of the rest is rapidly dealt with and disappears. But till then effort is indispensable. Or else it is necessary till the Force comes flooding down into the being from above and takes up the sadhana, does it for one more and more and leaves less and less to individual effort - but even then, it not effort, at least aspiration and vigilance are needed till the possession of mind, will, life and body by the Divine Power is complete. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

526:The whole principle of this Yoga is to give oneself entirely to the Divine alone and to nobody and to nothing else, and to bring down into ourselves by union with the Divine Mother-Power all the transcendent light, force, wideness, peace, purity, truth-consciousness and Ananda of the supramental Divine. In this Yoga, therefore, there can be no place for vital relations or interchanges with others; any such relation or interchange immediately ties down the soul to the lower consciousness and its lower nature, prevents the true and full union with the Divine and hampers both the ascent to the supramental Truth consciousness and the descent of the supramental Ishwari Shakti. Still worse would it be if this interchange took the form of a sexual relation or a sexual enjoyment, even if kept free from any outward act; therefore these things are absolutely forbidden in the sadhana. It goes without saying that any physical act of the kind is not allowed, but also any subtler form is ruled out. It is only after becoming one with the supramental Divine that we can find our true spiritual relations with others in the Divine; in that higher unity this kind of gross lower vital movement can have no place. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV ,

527:Supermind and the human mind are a number of ranges, planes or layers of consciousness - one can regard it in various ways - in which the element or substance of mind and consequently its movements also become more and more illumined and powerful and wide. The Overmind is the highest of these ranges; it is full of lights and powers; but from the point of view of what is above it, it is the line of the soul's turning away from the complete and indivisible knowledge and its descent towards the Ignorance. For although it draws from the Truth, it is here that begins the separation of aspects of the Truth, the forces and their working out as if they were independent truths and this is a process that ends, as one descends to ordinary Mind, Life and Matter, in a complete division, fragmentation, separation from the indivisible Truth above. There is no longer the essential, total, perfectly harmonising and unifying knowledge, or rather knowledge for ever harmonious because for ever one, which is the character of Supermind. In the Supermind mental divisions and oppositions cease, the problems created by our dividing and fragmenting mind disappear and Truth is seen as a luminous whole. In the Overmind there is not yet the actual fall into Ignorance, but the first step is taken which will make the fall inevitable. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I ,

528:the psychic transformation ::: The soul, the psychic being is in direct touch with the divine Truth, but it is hidden in man by the mind, the vital being and the physical nature. One may practise yoga and get illuminations in the mind and the reason; one may conquer power and luxuriate in all kinds of experiences in the vital; one may establish even surprising physical Siddhis; but if the true soul-power behind does not manifest, if the psychic nature does not come into the front, nothing genuine has been done. In this yoga the psychic being is that which opens the rest of the nature to the true supramental light and finally to the supreme Ananda. Mind can open by itself to its own higher reaches; it can still itself in some kind of static liberation or Nirvana; but the supramental cannot find a sufficient base in a spiritualised mind alone. If the inmost soul is awakened, if there is a new birth out of the mere mental, vital and physical into the psychic consciousness, then this yoga can be done; otherwise (by the sole power of the mind or any other part) it is impossible.... If there is a refusal of the psychic new birth, a refusal to become the child new born from the Mother, owing to attachment to intellectual knowledge or mental ideas or to some vital desire, then there will be a failure in the sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III ,

529:Endure and you will triumph. Victory goes to the most enduring. And with the Grace and divine love nothing is impossible. My force and love are with you. At the end of the struggle there is Victory And so we find once more that the Ego-idea must be ruthlessly rooted out before Understanding can be attained The emptiness that you described in your letter yesterday was not a bad thing - it is this emptiness inward and outward that often in Yoga becomes the first step towards a new consciousness. Man's nature is like a cup of dirty water - the water has to be thrown out, the cup left clean and empty for the divine liquor to be poured into it. The difficulty is that the human physical consciousness feels it difficult to bear this emptiness - it is accustomed to be occupied by all sorts of little mental and vital movements which keep it interested and amused or even if in trouble and sorrow still active. The cessation of these things is hard to bear for it. It begins to feel dull and restless and eager for the old interests and movements. But by this restlessness it disturbs the quietude and brings back the things that had been thrown out. It is this that is creating the difficulty and the obstruction for the moment. If you can accept emptiness as a passage to the true consciousness and true movements, then it will be easier to get rid of the obstacle. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III ,

530:subtle ::: In Vedanta (Mandukya Upanishad and later teachings - e.g. Advaita - based on it) "subtle" is used to designate the "dream state" of consciousness, and in Advaita this also includes the Prana, Manas, and Vijnana koshas (= the vehicles of vital force, mind, and higher consciousness) re-interpreted from of the Taittiriya Upanishad.In Tibetan and Tantric Buddhism it refers to an intermediate grade between the "gross" and "very subtle" "minds" and "winds" (vayu = prana).The Sukshma Sthula or Subtle Body is one of the seven principles of man in Blavatskian Theosophy; it is also called the "astral body" (this has little similarity with the astral body of Out of Body experience, because it cannot move far from the gross physical vehicle, it seems to correspond to what Robert Monroe calls the "second body", and identified with the Double or KaIn Sant Mat / Radhasoami cosmology - the Anda (Cosmic Egg) / Sahans-dal Kanwal (Crown Chakra) is sometimes called the Subtle; hence Subtle = AstralThe term Subtle Physical is used somewhat generically by Sri Aurobindo (in Letters on Yoga) to refer to a wider reality behind the external physical.Ken Wilber uses the term Subtle to indicate the yogic and mystic holonic-evolutionary level intermediate between "Psychic" (in his series = Nature Mysticism) and "Causal" (=Realisation"); it includes many psychic and occult experiences and can be considered as pertaining to the Subtle as defined here (although it also includes other realities and experiences that might also be interpreted as "Inner Gross" - e.g. Kundalini as a classic example). ~ M Alan Kazlev, Kheper planes/subtle,

531:Contact and Union with the Divine;Seeing is of many kinds. There is a superficial seeing which only erects or receives momentarily or for some time an image of the Being seen; that brings no change, unless the inner bhakti makes it a means for change. There is also the reception of the living image of the Divine in one of his forms into oneself, - say, in the heart, - that can have an immediate effect or initiate a period of spiritual growth. There is also the seeing outside oneself in a more or less objective and subtle physical or physical way. As for milana, the abiding union is within and that can be there at all times; the outer milana or contact is not usually abiding. There are some who often or almost invariably have the contact whenever they worship, the Deity may become living to them in the picture or other image they worship, may move and act through it; others may feel him always present, outwardly, subtle-physically, abiding with them where they live or in the very room, but sometimes this is only for a period. Or they may feel the Presence with them, see it frequently in a body (but not materially except sometimes), feel its touch or embrace, converse with it constantly - that is also a kind of milana. The greatest milana is one in which one is constantly aware of the Deity abiding in oneself, in everything in the world, holding all the world in him, identical with existence and yet supremely beyond the world - but in the world too one sees, hears, feels nothing but him, so that the very senses bear witness to him alone - and this does not exclude such specific personal manifestations as those vouchsafed to Krishnaprem and his guru. The more ways there are of the union, the better. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

532:What your reasoning ignores is that which is absolute or tends towards the absolute in man and his seeking as well as in the Divine - something not to be explained by mental reasoning or vital motive. A motive, but a motive of the soul, not of vital desire; a reason not of the mind, but of the self and spirit. An asking too, but the asking that is the soul's inherent aspiration, not a vital longing. That is what comes up when there is the sheer self-giving, when "I seek you for this, I seek you for that" changes to a sheer "I seek you for you." It is that marvellous and ineffable absolute in the Divine that Krishnaprem means when he says, "Not knowledge nor this nor that, but Krishna."The pull of that is indeed a categorical imperative, the self in us drawn to the Divine because of the imperative call of its greater Self, the soul ineffably drawn towards the object of its adoration, because it cannot be otherwise, because it is it and He is He. That is all about it.I have written all that only to explain what we mean whenwe speak of seeking the Divine for himself and not for anything else - so far as it is explicable. Explicable or not, it is one of the most dominant facts of spiritual experience. The call to selfgiving is only an expression of this fact. But this does not mean that I object to your asking for Ananda. Ask for that by all means, so long as to ask for it is a need of any part of your being - for these are the things that lead on towards the Divine so long as the absolute inner call that is there all the time does not push itself to the surface. But it is really that that has drawn from the beginning and is there behind - it is the categorical spiritual imperative, the absolute need of the soul for the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II 1.1.01 - Seeking the Divine,

533:One can concentrate in any of the three centres which is easiest to the sadhak or gives most result. The power of the concentration in the heart-centre is to open that centre and by the power of aspiration, love, bhakti, surrender remove the veil which covers and conceals the soul and bring forward the soul or psychic being to govern the mind, life and body and turn and open them all-fully-to the Divine, removing all that is opposed to that turning and opening. This is what is called in this Yoga the psychic transformation. The power of concentration above the head is to bring peace, silence, liberation from the body sense, the identification with mind and life and open the way for the lower (mental vital-physical) consciousness to rise up to meet the higher Consciousness above and for the powers of the higher (spiritual or divine) Consciousness to descend into mind, life and body. This is what is called in this Yoga the spiritual transformation. If one begins with this movement, then the Power from above has in its descent to open all the centres (including the lowest centre) and to bring out the psychic being; for until that is done there is likely to be much difficulty and struggle of the lower consciousness obstructing, mixing with or even refusing the Divine Action from above. If the psychic being is once active this struggle and these difficulties can be greatly minimised. The power of concentration in the eyebrows is to open the centre there, liberate the inner mind and vision and the inner or Yogic consciousness and its experiences and powers. From here also one can open upwards and act also in the lower centres; but the danger of this process is that one may get shut up in one's mental spiritual formations and not come out of them into the free and integral spiritual experience and knowledge and integral change of the being and nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II 7.5.56 - Omnipresence,

534:I know perfectly well that pain and suffering and struggle and excesses of despair are natural - though not inevitable - on the way, - not because they are helps, but because they are imposed on us by the darkness of this human nature out of which we have to struggle into the Light. . . .The dark path is there and there are many who make like the Christians a gospel of spiritual suffering; many hold it to be the unavoidable price of victory. It may be so under certain circumstances, as it has been in so many lives at least at the beginning, or one may choose to make it so. But then the price has to be paid with resignation, fortitude or a tenacious resilience. I admit that if borne in that way the attacks of the Dark Forces or the ordeals they impose have a meaning. After each victory gained over them, there is then a sensible advance; often they seem to show us the difficulties in ourselves which we have to overcome and to say, "Here you must conquer us and here."But all the same it is a too dark and difficult way which nobody should follow on whom the necessity does not lie.In any case one thing can never help and that is to despond always and say, "I am unfit; I am not meant for the Yoga." And worse still are these perilous mental formations such as you are always accepting that you must fare like X (one whose difficulty of exaggerated ambition was quite different from yours) and that you have only six years etc. These are clear formations of the Dark Forces seeking not only to sterilise your aspiration but to lead you away and so prevent your sharing in the fruit of the victory hereafter. I do not know what Krishnaprem has said but his injunction, if you have rightly understood it, is one that cannot stand as valid, since so many have done Yoga relying on tapasya or anything else but not confident of any Divine Grace. It is not that, but the soul's demand for a higher Truth or a higher life that is indispensable. Where that is, the Divine Grace whether believed in or not, will intervene. If you believe, that hastens and facilitates things; if you cannot yet believe, still the soul's aspiration will justify itself with whatever difficulty and struggle. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

535:10000 ::: The True Object of Spiritual Seeking: To find the Divine is indeed the first reason for seeking the spiritual Truth and the spiritual life; it is the one thing indispensable and all the rest is nothing without it. The Divine once found, to manifest Him,-that is, first of all to transform one's own limited consciousness into the Divine Consciousness, to live in the infinite Peace, Light, Love, Strength, Bliss, to become that in one's essential nature and, as a consequence, to be its vessel, channel, instrument in one's active nature. To bring into activity the principle of oneness on the material plane or to work for humanity is a mental mistranslation of the Truth-these things cannot be the first or true object of spiritual seeking. We must find the Self, the Divine, then only can we know what is the work the Self or the Divine demands from us. Until then our life and action can only be a help or means towards finding the Divine and it ought not to have any other purpose. As we grow in the inner consciousness, or as the spiritual Truth of the Divine grows in us, our life and action must indeed more and more flow from that, be one with that. But to decide beforehand by our limited mental conceptions what they must be is to hamper the growth of the spiritual Truth within. As that grows we shall feel the Divine Light and Truth, the Divine Power and Force, the Divine Purity and Peace working within us, dealing with our actions as well as our consciousness, making use of them to reshape us into the Divine Image, removing the dross, substituting the pure gold of the Spirit. Only when the Divine Presence is there in us always and the consciousness transformed, can we have the right to say that we are ready to manifest the Divine on the material plane. To hold up a mental ideal or principle and impose that on the inner working brings the danger of limiting ourselves to a mental realisation or of impeding or even falsifying by a half-way formation the true growth into the full communion and union with the Divine and the free and intimate outflowing of His will in our life. This is a mistake of orientation to which the mind of today is especially prone. It is far better to approach the Divine for the Peace or Light or Bliss that the realisation of Him gives than to bring in these minor things which can divert us from the one thing needful. The divinisation of the material life also as well as the inner life is part of what we see as the Divine Plan, but it can only be fulfilled by an outflowing of the inner realisation, something that grows from within outward, not by the working out of a mental principle. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

536:Concentration is a gathering together of the consciousness and either centralising at one point or turning on a single object, e.g., the Divine; there can be also be a gathered condition throughout the whole being, not at a point. In meditation it is not indispensable to gather like this, one can simply remain with a quiet mind thinking of one subject or observing what comes in the consciousness and dealing with it. ... Of this true consciousness other than the superficial there are two main centres, one in the heart (not the physical heart, but the cardiac centre in the middle of the chest), one in the head. The concentration in the heart opens within and by following this inward opening and going deep one becomes aware of the soul or psychic being, the divine element in the individual. This being unveiled begins to come forward, to govern the nature, to turn it and all its movements towards the Truth, towards the Divine, and to call down into it all that is above. It brings the consciousness of the Presence, the dedication of the being to the Highest and invites the descent into our nature of a greater Force and Consciousness which is waiting above us. To concentrate in the heart centre with the offering of oneself to the Divine and the aspiration for this inward opening and for the Presence in the heart is the first way and, if it can be done, the natural beginning; for its result once obtained makes the spiritual path far more easy and safe than if one begins the other ways. That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre. This, if it brings about the silence of the surface mind, opens up an inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge. But once concentrated here one must open the silent mental consciousness upward and in the end it rises beyond the lid which has so long kept it tied in the body and finds a centre above the head where it is liberated into the Infinite. There it begins to come into contact with the universal Self, the Divine Peace, Light, Power, Knowledge, Bliss, to enter into that and become that, to feel the descent of these things into the nature. To concentrate in the head with the aspiration for quietude in the mind and the realisation of the Self and Divine above is the second way of concentration. It is important, however, to remember that the concentration of the consciousness in the head in only a preparation for its rising to the centre above; otherwise, one may get shut up in one's own mind and its experiences or at best attain only to a reflection of the Truth above instead of rising into the spiritual transcendence to live there. For some the mental concentration is easier, for some the concentration in the heart centre; some are capable of doing both alternatively - but to begin with the heart centre, if one can do it, is the most desirable. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

537:There is no invariable rule of such suffering. It is not the soul that suffers; the Self is calm and equal to all things and the only sorrow of the psychic being is the sorrow of the resistance of Nature to the Divine Will or the resistance of things and people to the call of the True, the Good and the Beautiful. What is affected by suffering is the vital nature and the body. When the soul draws towards the Divine, there may be a resistance in the mind and the common form of that is denial and doubt - which may create mental and vital suffering. There may again be a resistance in the vital nature whose principal character is desire and the attachment to the objects of desire, and if in this field there is conflict between the soul and the vital nature, between the Divine Attraction and the pull of the Ignorance, then obviously there may be much suffering of the mind and vital parts. The physical consciousness also may offer a resistance which is usually that of a fundamental inertia, an obscurity in the very stuff of the physical, an incomprehension, an inability to respond to the higher consciousness, a habit of helplessly responding to the lower mechanically, even when it does not want to do so; both vital and physical suffering may be the consequence. There is moreover the resistance of the Universal Nature which does not want the being to escape from the Ignorance into the Light. This may take the form of a vehement insistence on the continuation of the old movements, waves of them thrown on the mind and vital and body so that old ideas, impulses, desires, feelings, responses continue even after they are thrown out and rejected, and can return like an invading army from outside, until the whole nature, given to the Divine, refuses to admit them. This is the subjective form of the universal resistance, but it may also take an objective form - opposition, calumny, attacks, persecution, misfortunes of many kinds, adverse conditions and circumstances, pain, illness, assaults from men or forces. There too the possibility of suffering is evident. There are two ways to meet all that - first that of the Self, calm, equality, a spirit, a will, a mind, a vital, a physical consciousness that remain resolutely turned towards the Divine and unshaken by all suggestion of doubt, desire, attachment, depression, sorrow, pain, inertia. This is possible when the inner being awakens, when one becomes conscious of the Self, of the inner mind, the inner vital, the inner physical, for that can more easily attune itself to the divine Will, and then there is a division in the being as if there were two beings, one within, calm, strong, equal, unperturbed, a channel of the Divine Consciousness and Force, one without, still encroached on by the lower Nature; but then the disturbances of the latter become something superficial which are no more than an outer ripple, - until these under the inner pressure fade and sink away and the outer being too remains calm, concentrated, unattackable. There is also the way of the psychic, - when the psychic being comes out in its inherent power, its consecration, adoration, love of the Divine, self-giving, surrender and imposes these on the mind, vital and physical consciousness and compels them to turn all their movements Godward. If the psychic is strong and master... ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV Resistances,

538:The Teachings of Some Modern Indian YogisRamana MaharshiAccording to Brunton's description of the sadhana he (Brunton) practised under the Maharshi's instructions,1 it is the Overself one has to seek within, but he describes the Overself in a way that is at once the Psychic Being, the Atman and the Ishwara. So it is a little difficult to know what is the exact reading.*The methods described in the account [of Ramana Maharshi's technique of self-realisation] are the well-established methods of Jnanayoga - (1) one-pointed concentration followed by thought-suspension, (2) the method of distinguishing or finding out the true self by separating it from mind, life, body (this I have seen described by him [Brunton] more at length in another book) and coming to the pure I behind; this also can disappear into the Impersonal Self. The usual result is a merging in the Atman or Brahman - which is what one would suppose is meant by the Overself, for it is that which is the real Overself. This Brahman or Atman is everywhere, all is in it, it is in all, but it is in all not as an individual being in each but is the same in all - as the Ether is in all. When the merging into the Overself is complete, there is no ego, no distinguishable I, or any formed separative person or personality. All is ekakara - an indivisible and undistinguishable Oneness either free from all formations or carrying all formations in it without being affected - for one can realise it in either way. There is a realisation in which all beings are moving in the one Self and this Self is there stable in all beings; there is another more complete and thoroughgoing in which not only is it so but all are vividly realised as the Self, the Brahman, the Divine. In the former, it is possible to dismiss all beings as creations of Maya, leaving the one Self alone as true - in the other it is easier to regard them as real manifestations of the Self, not as illusions. But one can also regard all beings as souls, independent realities in an eternal Nature dependent upon the One Divine. These are the characteristic realisations of the Overself familiar to the Vedanta. But on the other hand you say that this Overself is realised by the Maharshi as lodged in the heart-centre, and it is described by Brunton as something concealed which when it manifests appears as the real Thinker, source of all action, but now guiding thought and action in the Truth. Now the first description applies to the Purusha in the heart, described by the Gita as the Ishwara situated in the heart and by the Upanishads as the Purusha Antaratma; the second could apply also to the mental Purusha, manomayah. pran.asarı̄ra neta of the Upanishads, the mental Being or Purusha who leads the life and the body. So your question is one which on the data I cannot easily answer. His Overself may be a combination of all these experiences, without any distinction being made or thought necessary between the various aspects. There are a thousand ways of approaching and realising the Divine and each way has its own experiences which have their own truth and stand really on a basis, one in essence but complex in aspects, common to all, but not expressed in the same way by all. There is not much use in discussing these variations; the important thing is to follow one's own way well and thoroughly. In this Yoga, one can realise the psychic being as a portion of the Divine seated in the heart with the Divine supporting it there - this psychic being takes charge of the sadhana and turns the ......1 The correspondent sent to Sri Aurobindo two paragraphs from Paul Brunton's book A Message from Arunachala (London: Rider & Co., n.d. [1936], pp. 205 - 7). - Ed. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II ,

539:I have never been able to share your constantly recurring doubts about your capacity or the despair that arises in you so violently when there are these attacks, nor is their persistent recurrence a valid ground for believing that they can never be overcome. Such a persistent recurrence has been a feature in the sadhana of many who have finally emerged and reached the goal; even the sadhana of very great Yogis has not been exempt from such violent and constant recurrences; they have sometimes been special objects of such persistent assaults, as I have indeed indicated in Savitri in more places than one - and that was indeed founded on my own experience. In the nature of these recurrences there is usually a constant return of the same adverse experiences, the same adverse resistance, thoughts destructive of all belief and faith and confidence in the future of the sadhana, frustrating doubts of what one has known as the truth, voices of despondency and despair, urgings to abandonment of the Yoga or to suicide or else other disastrous counsels of déchéance. The course taken by the attacks is not indeed the same for all, but still they have strong family resemblance. One can eventually overcome if one begins to realise the nature and source of these assaults and acquires the faculty of observing them, bearing, without being involved or absorbed into their gulf, finally becoming the witness of their phenomena and understanding them and refusing the mind's sanction even when the vital is still tossed in the whirl or the most outward physical mind still reflects the adverse suggestions. In the end these attacks lose their power and fall away from the nature; the recurrence becomes feeble or has no power to last: even, if the detachment is strong enough, they can be cut out very soon or at once. The strongest attitude to take is to regard these things as what they really are, incursions of dark forces from outside taking advantage of certain openings in the physical mind or the vital part, but not a real part of oneself or spontaneous creation in one's own nature. To create a confusion and darkness in the physical mind and throw into it or awake in it mistaken ideas, dark thoughts, false impressions is a favourite method of these assailants, and if they can get the support of this mind from over-confidence in its own correctness or the natural rightness of its impressions and inferences, then they can have a field day until the true mind reasserts itself and blows the clouds away. Another device of theirs is to awake some hurt or rankling sense of grievance in the lower vital parts and keep them hurt or rankling as long as possible. In that case one has to discover these openings in one's nature and learn to close them permanently to such attacks or else to throw out intruders at once or as soon as possible. The recurrence is no proof of a fundamental incapacity; if one takes the right inner attitude, it can and will be overcome. The idea of suicide ought never to be accepted; there is no real ground for it and in any case it cannot be a remedy or a real escape: at most it can only be postponement of difficulties and the necessity for their solution under no better circumstances in another life. One must have faith in the Master of our life and works, even if for a long time he conceals himself, and then in his own right time he will reveal his Presence. I have tried to dispel all the misconceptions, explain things as they are and meet all the points at issue. It is not that you really cannot make progress or have not made any progress; on the contrary, you yourself have admitted that you have made a good advance in many directions and there is no reason why, if you persevere, the rest should not come. You have always believed in the Guruvada: I would ask you then to put your faith in the Guru and the guidance and rely on the Ishwara for the fulfilment, to have faith in my abiding love and affection, in the affection and divine goodwill and loving kindness of the Mother, stand firm against all attacks and go forward perseveringly towards the spiritual goal and the all-fulfilling and all-satisfying touch of the All-Blissful, the Ishwara. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV ,

540:summary of the entire process of psychic awakening ::: You have asked what is the discipline to be followed in order to convert the mental seeking into a living spiritual experience. The first necessity is the practice of concentration of your consciousness within yourself. The ordinary human mind has an activity on the surface which veils the real Self. But there is another, a hidden consciousness within behind the surface one in which we can become aware of the real Self and of a larger deeper truth of nature, can realise the Self and liberate and transform the nature. To quiet the surface mind and begin to live within is the object of this concentration. Of this true consciousness other then the superficial there are two main centres, one in the heart (not the physical heart, but the cardiac centre in the middle of the chest), one in the head. The concentration in the heart opens within and by following this inward opening and going deep one becomes aware of the soul or psychic being, the divine element in the individual. This being unveiled begins to come forward, to govern the nature, to turn it an d all its movements towards the Truth, towards the Divine, and to call down into it all that is above. It brings the consciousness of the Presence, the dedication of the being to the Highest and invites the descent into our nature of a greater Force and Consciousness which is waiting above us. To concentrate in the heart centre with the offering of oneself to the Divine and the aspiration for this inward opening and for the Presence in the heart is the first way and, if it can be done, the natural beginning; for its result once obtained makes the spiritual path far more easy and safe than if one begins the other way. That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre. This, if it brings about the silence of the surface mind, opens up an inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge. But once concentrated here one must open the silent mental consciousness upward to all that is above mind. After a time one feels the consciousness rising upward and it the end it rises beyond the lid which has so long kept it tied in the body and finds a centre above the head where it is liberated into the Infinite. There it behind to come into contact with the universal Self, the Divine Peace, Light, Power, Knowledge, Bliss, to enter into that and become that, to feel the descent of these things into the nature. To concentrate in the head with the aspiration for quietude in the mind and the realisation of the Self and Divine above is the second way of concentration. It is important, however, to remember that the concentration of the consciousness in the head is only a preparation for its rising to the centre above; otherwise, one may get shut up in one's own mind and its experiences or at best attain only to a reflection of the Truth above instead of rising into the spiritual transcendence to live there. For some the mental consciousness is easier, for some the concentration in the heart centre; some are capable of doing both alternatively - but to begin with the heart centre, if one can do it, is the more desirable. The other side of the discipline is with regard to the activities of the nature, of the mind, of the life-self or vital, of the physical being. Here the principle is to accord the nature with the inner realisation so that one may not be divided into two discordant parts. There are here several disciplines or processes possible. One is to offer all the activities to the Divine and call for the inner guidance and the taking up of one's nature by a Higher Power. If there is the inward soul-opening, if the psychic being comes forward, then there is no great difficulty - there comes with it a psychic discrimination, a constant intimation, finally a governance which discloses and quietly and patiently removes all imperfections, bring the right mental and vital movements and reshapes the physical consciousness also. Another method is to stand back detached from the movements of the mind, life, physical being, to regard their activities as only a habitual formation of general Nature in the individual imposed on us by past workings, not as any part of our real being; in proportion as one succeeds in this, becomes detached, sees mind and its activities as not oneself, life and its activities as not oneself, the body and its activities as not oneself, one becomes aware of an inner Being within us - inner mental, inner vital, inner physical - silent, calm, unbound, unattached which reflects the true Self above and can be its direct representative; from this inner silent Being proceeds a rejection of all that is to be rejected, an acceptance only of what can be kept and transformed, an inmost Will to perfection or a call to the Divine Power to do at each step what is necessary for the change of the Nature. It can also open mind, life and body to the inmost psychic entity and its guiding influence or its direct guidance. In most cases these two methods emerge and work together and finally fuse into one. But one can being with either, the one that one feels most natural and easy to follow. Finally, in all difficulties where personal effort is hampered, the help of the Teacher can intervene and bring above what is needed for the realisation or for the immediate step that is necessary. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II 6,

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:The difficult is not the impossible. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Faith,

2:There is no fear in the higher Nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Fear,

3:Ignorance is not a state of innocence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Purity,

4:Surrender is the best way of opening. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Opening,

5:Love must be turned singly towards the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Desire,

6:An outer renunciation by itself does not liberate. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Sex,

7:Even if there is real danger, fear does not help. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Fear,

8:Only a consciousness full of light can be pure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Purity,

9:Sorrow if indulged becomes a habit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Jainism and Buddhism,

10:Spiritually there is nothing big or small. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Work and Yoga,

11:The past cannot bind the future. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Call and the Capacity,

12:Peace is a sign of mukti—Ananda moves towards siddhi. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Peace,

13:The simple approach means trust. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism,

14:All quarrels proceed from egoism. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Problems in Human Relations,

15:If you pray, trust that he hears. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism,

16:One can be free only by living in the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Occult Knowledge,

17:The vital does not like waiting. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Wrong Movements of the Vital,

18:If desire comes up, the Ananda is obliged to draw back. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Desire,

19:In the divine consciousness there is no ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms,

20:One cannot demand or compel grace. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism,

21:It is from unsatisfied desire that all suffering arises. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Desire,

22:Only those who sympathise can help. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Problems in Human Relations,

23:The Yogi eats not out of desire, but to maintain the body. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Food,

24:Realisations are the essence of knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Thought and Knowledge,

25:It is the essentials alone that matter. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Call and the Capacity,

26:Sincerity in Yoga means to respond to the Divine alone. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Sincerity,

27:There should be no big I, not even a small one. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms,

28:Faith is not intellectual belief but a function of the soul. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Faith,

29:All action is surrounded by a complexity of forces. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Occult Knowledge,

30:Doubt is the mind’s persistent assailant. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Patience and Perseverance,

31:Ego is the reason of the difficulty in everybody. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms,

32:what matters in a symbol is what it means for you. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Animal World,

33:There can be no firm foundation in sadhana without equality, samata.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

34:Study cannot take the same or a greater importance than sadhana.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV, [T2],

35:The psychic is the support of the individual evolution ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Psychic Being,

36:Each victory gained over oneself means new strength to gain more victories. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga IV,

37:Equality does not include inert acceptance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Equality - The Chief Support,

38:The principle of the Yoga is rejection-throwing out of the being.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, [T5],

39:The tongue is always an easily erring member. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Depression and Despondency,

40:The Divine Grace comes in to help and save. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Divine Grace and Guidance,

41:There is no such thing as a mere accident. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Accidents, Possession, Madness,

42:Vital desire grows by being indulged, it does not become satisfied. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Desire,

43:Yoga demands mastery over the nature, not subjection to the nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Desire,

44:Real faith is something spiritual, a knowledge of the soul. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Morality and Yoga,

45:Sadhana can go on in the dream or sleep state as well as in the waking. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Sleep,

46:Comparison with others brings in a wrong standard of values. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms,

47:Pride is only one form of ego—there are ten thousand others. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms,

48:There is no other way than to persevere. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

49:All the values of the mind are constructions of ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Thought and Knowledge,

50:For the physical plane the work always repeated is the foundation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Work and Yoga,

51:It is the going inward that most helps to deliver the nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Anger and Violence,

52:Once one is in full sadhana, sleep becomes as much a part of it as waking. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Sleep,

53:The mind forms or accepts the theories that support the turn of the being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Faith,

54:The inner must change before the outermost can follow. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Transformation and the Body,

55:The mind and the vital are much more full of ego than the body. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms,

56:To each his own difficulties seem enormous and radical. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Call and the Capacity,

57:It is when one mixes up sex and spirituality that there is the greatest havoc. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Sex,

58:One should not think too much of food either to indulge or unduly to repress. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Food,

59:To be in full union with the Divine is the final aim. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Aim of the Integral Yoga,

60:Desire always creates perturbation and even its fulfilment does not satisfy. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Desire,

61:Purity is to accept no other influence but only the influence of the Divine.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, [T5],

62:The absolute immunity can only come with the supramental change. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Illness and Health,

63:The true individual is behind veiled by the activities of the outer nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Silence,

64:As the darkness disappears, the inner doors too will open. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Patience and Perseverance,

65:To be alone with the Divine is the highest of all privileged states for the sadhak.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,

66:If one learns all by oneself, the chances are that one will learn all wrong. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Guru,

67:Most people do not really choose—they undergo the play of the forces. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Occult Knowledge,

68:One has to persevere until the light conquers there. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Peace - The Basis of the Sadhana,

69:Sraddha: the soul's belief in the Divine's existence, wisdom, power, love and grace.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

70:There can be no physical life without an order and rhythm. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Practical Concerns in Work,

71:The Divine Force can always do more than the personal effort. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Divine Force in Work,

72:Vital forces want neither liberation nor transformation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Attacks by the Hostile Forces,

73:Rely on the Mother always. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Experiences on the Subtle Physical, Vital and Mental Planes,

74:Grief too long continued does not help but delays the journey of the departed soul. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Death,

75:Identification with the body is an error, not an illusion. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Adwaita of Shankaracharya,

76:Knowledge and Ignorance are in their nature subjective. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Inner Experience and Outer Life,

77:Love, joy and happiness come from the psychic. The Self gives peace or a universal Ananda. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I,

78:There is a power in the idea—a force of which the idea is a shape. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Thought and Knowledge,

79:The guru is always ready to give what can be given, if the disciple can receive. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Guru,

80:What gives the force and joy of the work is however not physical but vital. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Work and Yoga,

81:A mental knowledge can always be blinded by the tricks of the vital. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Thought and Knowledge,

82:In the full realisation the body is within us, not we in it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Adwaita of Shankaracharya,

83:One must persist however long it takes, so only one can achieve. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Patience and Perseverance,

84:One should be able to see the faults of others without hatred. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Problems in Human Relations,

85:Taste is natural and quite permissible so long as one is not the slave of the palate. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Food,

86:The true quiet is within and no other will give you the condition you want. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Quiet and Calm,

87:those who rely on the Divine will arrive in spite of all difficulties, stumbles or falls.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,

88:You must know what you want and want it with your whole will. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Wrong Movements of the Vital,

89:A sincere heart is worth all the extraordinary powers in the world. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Occult Powers or Siddhis,

90:Even the animal is more in touch with a certain harmony in things than man. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Science and Yoga,

91:Karma is only a machinery, it is not the fundamental cause of terrestrial existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Rebirth,

92:What is expressed is always only a part of what is behind. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Power of Expression and Yoga,

93:Impatience is always a mistake, it does not help but hinders. ~ Sri Aurobindo[Letters on Yoga] #sriaurobindo #themother #pondicherry

94:One has not only to be sincere but to be faithful through all. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Divine Grace and Guidance,

95:The physical consciousness is constitutionally ignorant. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Difficulties of the Physical Nature,

96:If the body is left insufficiently nourished, it will think of food more than otherwise. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Food,

97:It is the mind that turns concrete realities into abstractions. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Experiences and Realisations,

98:The free spirit can stand fearless before even the biggest forces of Nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Morality and Yoga,

99:Violence in ordinary Nature does not justify violence in a spiritual work. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Anger and Violence,

100:It is only the Grace that can bring the real supramental change. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Supramental Transformation,

101:There can be no immortality of the body without supramentalisation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Transformation and the Body,

102:What the mind wants is not at all always what is intended in a larger purpose. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Occult Knowledge,

103:Look at the simplicity of the Truth with a straight and simple gaze. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Depression and Despondency,

104:Nobody can really help—only the Divine Grace. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

105:One can give not only one’s soul, but all one’s powers to the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Consecration and Offering,

106:The plants are very psychic, but they can express it only by silence and beauty. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Science and Yoga,

107:To be by oneself very much needs a certain force of inner life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Asceticism and the Integral Yoga,

108:We are not the body, but the body is still something of ourselves. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Adwaita of Shankaracharya,

109:Aspiration is a call to the Divine, will is the pressure of the conscious force on Nature.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, [T5],

110:Selfishness is to live for oneself and not for something greater than the self. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms,

111:Those whom the Force has touched and taken up, belong thenceforth to the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Divine Force,

112:To clear the vital, you must get out of it all compromise with falsehood. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Nature of the Vital,

113:It is on the Silence behind the cosmos that all the movement of the universe is supported. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Silence,

114:Cessation of thought and other vibrations is the climax of the inner silence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Thought and Knowledge,

115:If you desire only the Divine, there is an absolute certitude that you will reach the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Faith,

116:Think of your work only when it is being done, not before and not after. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Practical Concerns in Work,

117:The human mind is an instrument not of truth but of ignorance and error. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Problems in Human Relations,

118:It is in the silence of the mind that the strongest and freest action can come. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Thought and Knowledge,

119:All the play in this world is based on a certain relative free will in the individual being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Surrender,

120:All things attained by man have been only a possibility in their earlier stages. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Intellect and Yoga,

121:At the top of the head or above it is the right place for yogic concentration in reading or thinking.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

122:Compression without removal often increases the force of these things instead of destroying them. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Food,

123:In Yoga friendship can remain, but attachment has to fall away. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

124:Pain and suffering are necessary results of the Ignorance in which we live. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Depression and Despondency,

125:Perfection comes by renunciation of desires and surrender to a higher Will. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Practical Concerns in Work,

126:Silence of the being is the first natural aim of the Yoga. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Emptiness, Voidness, Blankness and Silence,

127:The soul can grow against or even by a material destiny that is adverse. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Fate, Free Will and Prediction,

128:Nobody can become more than human if he refuses to make a sacrifice of his ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Nature of the Vital,

129:One is not bound to tell everything to everybody—it might often do more harm than good. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Speech and Yoga,

130:Peace, purity and silence can be felt in all material things—for the Divine Self is there in all. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Peace,

131:The emergence of the Purusha is the beginning of liberation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Inner Detachment and the Witness Attitude,

132:All ways can lead to the Supermind, just as all ways can lead to the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism,

133:The vital can take part in a movement but it must not be in control. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Vital and Other Levels of Being,

134:Inexhaustible energy is an excellent thing, but not an energy without discipline. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Nature of the Vital,

135:Repentance even helps provided it does not bring discouragement or depression. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Depression and Despondency,

136:The best expenditure of energy is that which flows easily without effort at all. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Divine Force in Work,

137:The psychic sorrow which does not disturb or depress but rather liberates the vital. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Jainism and Buddhism,

138:Also to think too much of the hostile Powers is to bring in their atmosphere. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Dealing with Hostile Attacks,

139:By having patience under all kinds of pressure you lay the foundations of peace. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Patience and Perseverance,

140:One must learn to speak the truth alone if one is to succeed truly in changing the nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Speech and Yoga,

141:There is a consciousness in each physical thing with which one can communicate. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Practical Concerns in Work,

142:In the silence of the self there is no time—it is akāla. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Experiences of the Self, the One and the Infinite,

143:Knowledge of facts is a poor thing if one cannot see their true significance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Place of Study in Sadhana,

144:So long as desire and ego remain, there can be no surrender to the Divine, no fulfilment in the Yoga. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Desire,

145:Yoga is the founding of all the life and consciousness in the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

146:It is quietness and inwardness that enable one to feel the Presence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Experiences Associated with the Psychic,

147:One who has the call in him cannot fail to arrive, if he follows patiently the way towards the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Purity,

148:Reason and intellectuality cannot make you see the Divine, it is the soul that sees. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Difficulties of Yoga,

149:The unregenerate vital is not grateful for a benefit, it resents being under an obligation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms,

150:When the mind and soul have chosen the goal, the rest is bound to follow. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Imperfections and Periods of Arrest,

151:Be true to your true self always—that is the real sincerity. Persist and conquer. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Dealing with Hostile Attacks,

152:Mental knowledge cannot replace faith; so long as there is only mental knowledge, faith is still needed. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Faith,

153:Mental realisation is useful at the beginning and prepares spiritual experience. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Experiences and Realisations,

154:Not to kill emotion, but to turn it towards the Divine is the right way of the Yoga. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Bhakti, Devotion, Worship,

155:There is no law that wisdom should be something rigidly solemn and without a smile. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Cheerfulness and Happiness,

156:Throwing away the life does not improve the chances for the next time. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Dealing with Depression and Despondency,

157:Evil forces can always attack in moments of unconsciousness or half-consciousness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Dealing with Hostile Attacks,

158:It is through the Cosmic Shakti that the Divine creates. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I: Sachchidananda, Existence, Consciousness-Force and Bliss,

159:To be above the mind one must first realise the self above the mind and live there. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Ascent to the Higher Planes,

160:Our inferences are often wrong and even when they are right touch only the surface of the matter. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Occult Knowledge,

161:Sincerity ::: To allow no part of the being to contradict the highest aspiration towards the Divine    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, [50], [T6],

162:To become conscious of what is to be changed in the nature is the first step towards changing it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Speech and Yoga,

163:To live in the wideness of the Intuition is not possible with the limitation of the ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Higher Planes of Mind,

164:In a supramentalised body immunity from illness would be automatic, inherent in its new nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Illness and Health,

165:Faith and courage are the true attitude to keep in life and work always and in the spiritual experience also. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Faith,

166:Intellect is part of Mind and an instrument of half-truth like the rest of the Mind. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Intellect and the Intellectual,

167:Intelligence does not depend on the amount one has read, it is a quality of the mind. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Place of Study in Sadhana,

168:It does not help for spiritual knowledge to be ignorant of the things of this world. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Mental Development and Sadhana,

169:It is usually only if there is much activity of sadhana in the day that it extends also into the sleep state. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Sleep,

170:No victory can be won without a fixed fidelity to the aim and a long effort. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

171:The consciousness of union with the Divine is for the spiritual seeker the supreme knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Thought and Knowledge,

172:The mind does not record things as they are, but as they appear to it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Mental Difficulties and the Need of Quietude,

173:What one fears has the tendency to come until one is able to look it in the face and overcome one’s shrinking. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Fear,

174:Dread shows a weakness—the free spirit can stand fearless before even the biggest forces of Nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Morality and Yoga,

175:Few are those from whom the Grace withdraws, but many are those who withdraw from the Grace. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga, p.613 ~ Sri Aurobindo

176:Philosophy is of course a creation of the mind but its defect is not that it is false. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Place of Study in Sadhana,

177:The outer change is necessary but as a part of the inner change. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification,

178:There should be even in deep feeling a calm, a control, a purifying restraint and measure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Bhakti, Devotion, Worship,

179:Friendship and love are indispensable notes in the harmony to which we aspire. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

180:It is rather a wider than a higher consciousness that is necessary for the liberation from the ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms,

181:Seek the Divine Love through the only gate through which it will consent to enter, the gate of the psychic being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Sex,

182:There can be an action in the Silence, undisturbed even as the universal action goes on in the cosmic Silence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Silence,

183:But no victory can be won without a fixed fidelity to the aim and a long effort. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

184:Concentration should be all on the immediate step—whatever is being done at the time. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Experiences on the Higher Planes,

185:It can come early or it can come late, but come it will if one is faithful in one’s call. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Divine Grace and Guidance,

186:Large abiding realisations in Yoga do not usually come in trance but by a persistent waking sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Illness and Health,

187:Our Yoga is not an ascetic Yoga: it aims at purity, but not at a cold austerity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

188:Purification and consecration are two great necessities of sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification,

189:So long as there is complete sincerity, the Divine Grace will be there and assist at every moment on the way. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Sincerity,

190:To be able to work with full energy is necessary—but to be able not to work is also necessary. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Divine Force in Work,

191:Divine Love is based upon oneness and the psychic derives from the Divine Love. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Divine Love, Psychic Love and Human Love,

192:Drinking if excessive affects the substance and quality of the energy. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

193:All life is the play of universal forces. The individual gives a personal form to these universal forces. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Occult Knowledge,

194:Inspiration comes from above in answer to a state of concentration which is itself a call to it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Divine Force in Work,

195:It is always preferable to have one’s face turned towards the future than towards the past. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Time and Change of the Nature,

196:However or from wheresoever it came, the only thing to do with a depression is to throw it out. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Depression and Despondency,

197:The supramental descent is necessary for a dynamic action of the Truth in mind, vital and body. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Transformation and the Body,

198:To be alone with the Divine is the highest of all privileged states for the sadhak. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

199:A Force may be in action or in quiescence, but when it rests, it is as much a Force as when it acts. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Sankhya-Yoga System,

200:A philosophical system is only a section of the Truth which the philosopher takes as a whole. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Place of Study in Sadhana,

201:Even the saint and the sage continue to have difficulties and to be limited by their human nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Difficulties of Yoga,

202:It is often the experience that when one gives up the insistence of desire for a thing, then the thing itself comes. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Desire,

203:The psychic change is indeed the indispensable preliminary of any approach to the supramental path ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Difficulties of Yoga,

204:It is not necessary to deny the past experience in order to go forward to the new realisation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Time and Change of the Nature,

205:It is only when the lower perversions are got rid of that the higher things in their truth can reign. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Sankhya-Yoga System,

206:It is the physical that fears and abhors suffering, but the vital takes it as part of the play of life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Sorrow and Suffering,

207:The intellect needs an inner light to guide, check and control it quite as much as the vital. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Intellect and the Intellectual,

208:Love and devotion to the Divine is the central feeling of the psychic nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Emergence or Coming Forward of the Psychic,

209:The Divine knows best and one has to have trust in His wisdom and attune oneself with His will. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Divine Grace and Guidance,

210:The hostile forces do not need a cause for attacking—they attack whenever and whoever they can. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Attacks by the Hostile Forces,

211:The more you surrender to the Divine, the more will there be the possibility of perfection in you. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Practical Concerns in Work,

212:Destiny in the rigid sense applies only to the outer being so long as it lives in the Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Fate, Free Will and Prediction,

213:It is from the Silence that the peace comes; when the peace deepens and deepens, it becomes more and more the Silence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Silence,

214:One must be careful that no force comes through one except the right forces. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

215:There is one Purusha—its action is according to the position and need of the consciousness at the time. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Sankhya-Yoga System,

216:The very basis of this Yoga is bhakti and if one kills one’s emotional being there can be no bhakti. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Bhakti, Devotion, Worship,

217:Do not let your mind go back on a work that is finished. It belongs to the past and all re-handling of it is a waste of power.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

218:The development of capacities is not only permissible but right, when it can be made part of the Yoga ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Consecration and Offering,

219:The individual is only an instrument in the hands of a Universal Energy though his ego takes the credit of all he does. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Opening,

220:Action without desire is possible, action without attachment is possible, action without ego is possible. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Sankhya-Yoga System,

221:A touch of realisation is enough to set the higher mind knowledge or the illumined mind knowledge flowing. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Thought and Knowledge,

222:Often indeed one sees easily in others faults which are there in oneself but which one fails to see. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Problems in Human Relations,

223:Suppression with inner indulgence in subtle forms is not a cure, but expression in outer indulgence is still less a cure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Desire,

224:Tests come sometimes from the hostile forces, sometimes in the course of Nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Hostile Forces and the Difficulties of Yoga,

225:There is an obscure mind and life even in the cells of the body, the stones or in molecules and atoms. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Physical Consciousness,

226:This body of ours is a symbol of our real being and everything is a symbol of some higher reality. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Symbols and Symbolic Visions,

227:In this world everything depends upon consciousness and its movements, even the things that seem not to do so. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Illness and Health,

228:The supramental influence must come first, the supramental transformation can only come afterwards. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Supramental Transformation,

229:In spiritual matters mental logic easily blunders; intuition, faith, a plastic spiritual reason are here the only guides. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Guru,

230:Intensity is not a guarantee of entire truth and correctness in an experience. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification,

231:Thought perceptions come first—language comes to express the perceptions and itself leads to fresh thoughts. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Thought and Knowledge,

232:We are creating new fate for the future even while undergoing old fate from the past in the present. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Fate, Free Will and Prediction,

233:It is by the process of repeated impressions that consciousness was made to manifest in matter. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Difficulties of the Physical Nature,

234:Material things are not to be despised—without them there can be no manifestation in the material world. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Practical Concerns in Work,

235:Until the final clarification and harmonising of the nature there are always contradictions in the being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Bhakti, Devotion, Worship,

236:Bhakti and the heart’s call for the Divine have a truth—it is the truth of the divine Love and Ananda. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Adwaita of Shankaracharya,

237:Ego is a very curious thing and in nothing more than in its way of hiding itself and pretending it is not the ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms,

238:in absolute reliance on the Mother, fearing nothing, sorrowing over nothing ... a glad equanimity even in the face of difficulties... ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,

239:One has to go on till the struggle is over and there is the straight and open and thornless way before us. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Patience and Perseverance,

240:One ought not to settle down into a fixed idea of one’s own incapacity or allow it to become an obsession. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Call and the Capacity,

241:The most ego-centric can change and do change by the psychic principle becoming established in the external nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Ego and Its Forms,

242:To be an empty vessel is a very good thing if one knows how to make use of the emptiness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Emptiness, Voidness, Blankness and Silence,

243:True love seeks for union and self-giving and that is the love one must bring to the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Divine Love, Psychic Love and Human Love,

244:What is needed by each for his spiritual progress is the one consideration to be held in view. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

245:Do not let your mind labour in anticipation on a work that has to be done. The Power that acts in you will see to it at its own time.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

246:Even imagined experiences (honestly imagined) can help to mental realisation and mental realisation can be a step to total realisation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

247:Pain and discomfort come from a physical consciousness not forceful enough to determine its own reaction to things. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Illness and Health,

248:What is being done here is a preparation for a work—a work which will be founded on Yogic consciousness and Yoga-Shakti. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Work and Yoga,

249:Grace is something spontaneous which wells out from the Divine Consciousness as a free flower of its being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism,

250:The difficulties of the character persist so long as one yields to them in action when they rise. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Steps towards Overcoming Difficulties,

251:The object of life is the growth of the soul, not outward success of the hour or even of the near future. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Fate, Free Will and Prediction,

252:When once the higher consciousness begins to act, the difficulty diminishes and there is a clear progress from truth to greater truth.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,

253:But the most important thing for purification of the heart is an absolute sincerity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification,

254:The elimination of the sex-impulse is one of the most difficult things for human nature and, if it takes time, that is only natural. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Sex,

255:Devotion and a more and more complete inner consecration are the best way to open the psychic. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Psychic and Spiritual Transformations,

256:Emotion is a good element in Yoga; but emotional desire becomes easily a cause of perturbation and an obstacle. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Bhakti, Devotion, Worship,

257:It is the vital passion for the Divine that creates the spiritual heroes, conquerors or martyrs. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Divine Love, Psychic Love and Human Love,

258:Human affection is obviously unreliable because it is so much bound up with selfishness and desire. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

259:Nobody is entirely fit for this Yoga; one has to become fit by aspiration, by abhyāsa, by sincerity and surrender. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Nature of the Vital,

260:The love of the sadhak should be for the Divine. It is only when he has that fully that he can love others in the right way. Letters on Yoga, vol.24, p.814 ~ Sri Aurobindo

261:All change must come from within with the felt or the secret support of the Divine Power. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

262:A relation also can be established on a sure basis only when it is free from attachment . ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

263:Concentrate more upon what you are to be, on the ideal, with the faith that, since it is the goal before you, it must and will come.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV, [T1],

264:Pain is caused because the physical consciousness in the Ignorance is too limited to bear the touches that come upon it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Illness and Health,

265:The opening of the consciousness to the Divine Light and Truth and Presence is always the one important thing in the Yoga. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Kinds of Vision,

266:Men want to help each other with a motive behind or a feeling which proceeds from the ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

267:Not only in your inward concentration, but in your outward acts and movements you must take the right attitude. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Wrong Movements of the Vital,

268:If the reply takes long in coming, trust that he knows and loves and that he is wisest in the choice of the time. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism,

269:It is the psychic fidelity that brings the power to stand against the Asuras and enables the Protection to work. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Dealing with Hostile Attacks,

270:Remain fixed in the sunlight of the true consciousness—for only there is happiness and peace. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Vigilance, Resolution, Will and the Divine Help,

271:The control over the thoughts and the power of seeing the image of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo in the head are a very good beginning.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV, [T5],

272:Keep full reliance on the Mother. When one does that, the victory even if delayed, is sure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Feelings and Sensations in the Process of Descent,

273:Small beginnings are of the greatest importance and have to be cherished and allowed with great patience to develop. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Value of Experiences,

274:Study is of importance only if you study in the right way and with the turn for knowledge and mental discipline. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Place of Study in Sadhana,

275:The Divine looks into the heart and removes the veil at the moment which he knows to be the right moment to do it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism,

276:Very often, if an inner communication has been established, a silent pressure is more effective than anything else. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Practical Concerns in Work,

277:A progress made often stirs the adverse forces to activity, they want to diminish its effect as much as possible. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Attacks by the Hostile Forces,

278:As for withdrawal of Grace, it might be said that few are those from whom the Grace withdraws, but many are those who withdraw from the Grace.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

279:The proper way to deal with a wrong movement is to look quietly at it and put the consciousness right at that point. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Depression and Despondency,

280:A certain moderation is needed even in the eagerness for progress—moderation, not indifference or indolence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Difficulties of the Physical Nature,

281:All spiritual experience is a substantial experience—consciousness, Ananda even are felt as something substantial. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Experiences and Realisations,

282:It is a deep spiritual calm and peace that is the only stable foundation for a lasting Bhakti and Ananda. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

283:Whether for Nirvana or for this Yoga, calm and peace in the whole being are the necessary foundation of all siddhi. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Wrong Movements of the Vital,

284:The total ascent is impossible so long as sex-desire blocks the way; the descent is dangerous so long as sex-desire is powerful in the vital. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Sex,

285:Aspiration, call, prayer are forms of one and the same thing and are all effective; you can take the form that comes to you or is easiest to you.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

286:Disquietude and depression create an unhelpful atmosphere for one who is ill or in difficulties. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

287:If there is energy, all must not be spent, some must be stored up so as to increase the permanent strength of the system. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Divine Force in Work,

288:Impersonality belongs to the intellectual mind and the static self, personality to the soul and heart and dynamic being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Divine and Its Aspects,

289:Not mental control but some descent of a control from above the mind is the power demanded in the realisation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Vital and Other Levels of Being,

290:The intellect can be as great an obstacle as the vital when it chooses to prefer its own constructions to the Truth. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Intellect and the Intellectual,

291:One has continually to leave behind his past selves and to see, act and live from an always higher and higher conscious level. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Lower Vital Being,

292:The human mind is stiff in its perceptions and the human vital insistent on its own way of action. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

293:The peace and spontaneous knowledge are in the psychic being and from there they spread to mind and vital and physical. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Levels of the Physical Being,

294:A great progress should only spur one on to a greater progress beside which the first will appear as nothing, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Right Attitude towards Difficulties,

295:One can have a psychic feeling of love for someone, a universal love for all creatures, but one has to give oneself only to the Divine. Letters on Yoga, vol.24, p.815 ~ Sri Aurobindo

296:The oneness with all is an internal realisation, but it does not necessarily impose the same dealing with all. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

297:Above us, within us, around us is the AllStrength and it is that that we have to rely on for our work, our development, our transforming change. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Sleep,

298:The object of meditation is to open to the Mother and grow through many progressive experiences into a higher consciousness in union with the Divine.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

299:To enter into a deeper or higher consciousness or for that deeper or higher consciousness to descend into you-that is the true success of meditation.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

300:Destruction in itself is neither good nor evil. It is a fact of Nature, a necessity in the play of forces as things are in this world. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Morality and Yoga,

301:If the psychic were always there in front, the desert would be no longer a desert and the wilderness would blossom with the rose. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Lower Vital Being,

302:It is when you feel the universal or divine beauty or presence in things that the senses are open to the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Universal or Cosmic Consciousness,

303:Our help is there always, it is not given at one time and withheld at another, nor given to some and denied to others. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Difficulties of Human Nature,

304:To ascend is easier than to bring down; the higher consciousness gets entangled and impeded in the physical and the mind and vital. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Ascent and Descent,

305:Do not let your mind go back on a work that is finished. It belongs to the past and all rehandling of it is a waste of power. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Practical Concerns in Work,

306:It is very often when one thinks a particular resistance is finished and is no longer in the vital that it surges up again. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Wrong Movements of the Vital,

307:A mere confused instability is not the right way. When the confusion comes, you should remain quiet, reject it and call in the Mother's light and force.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,

308:In moments of trial faith in the Divine protection and the call for that protection; at all times the faith that what the Divine wills is the best. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Faith,

309:In the quiet mind turned towards the Divine the intuition (higher mind) comes of the Divine’s Will and the right way to do it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Becoming Conscious in Work,

310:No man ever succeeded in this sadhana by his own merit. To become open and plastic to the Mother is the one thing needed. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Difficulties of the Path - VII,

311:Occult powers can only be for the spiritual man an instrumentation of the Divine Power that uses him. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification,

312:The silence, the quietude of the nature is a touch from above and very necessary for purification and release. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Psychic and Spiritual Transformations,

313:When one is in the right consciousness, then there is the right movement, the right happiness, everything in harmony with the Truth. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Inward Movement,

314:Without the Grace of the Divine nothing can be done, but for the full Grace to manifest the sadhak must make himself ready. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Divine Grace and Guidance,

315:The difference between suppression and an inward essential rejection is the difference between mental or moral control and a spiritual purification. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Desire,

316:Until we know the Truth (not mentally but by experience, by change of consciousness) we need the soul’s faith to sustain us and hold on to the Truth. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Faith,

317:If one is always in the inner consciousness, then one can be not dispersed even when doing outward things. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

318:Inequality of feelings towards others, liking and disliking, is ingrained in the nature of the human vital. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

319:The psychic and spiritual attitude is also not dependent on the good and bad in beings, but is self-existent. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Emergence or Coming Forward of the Psychic,

320:It is only when one looks from above in a consciousness clear of ego that one sees all sides of a thing and also their real truth. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Problems in Human Relations,

321:Do not let your mind labour in anticipation on a work that has to be done. The Power that acts in you will see to it at its own time. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Practical Concerns in Work,

322:Forms on earth do not last (they do in other planes) because these forms are too rigid to grow expressing the progress of the spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Transformation and the Body,

323:Quarrels and clashes are a proof of the absence of the yogic poise and those who seriously wish to do yoga must learn to grow out of these things. Letters on Yoga, vol.24, p.825 ~ Sri Aurobindo

324:Love and affection must be rooted in the Divine and a spiritual and psychic oneness in the Divine must be their foundation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

325:Most people who have not knowledge are apt to be opinionated—they have their ideas and don’t want them to be changed or their fixity disturbed. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Thought and Knowledge,

326:One has to keep a certain balance by which the fundamental consciousness remains able to turn from one concentration to another with ease. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Becoming Conscious in Work,

327:There is only one aim to be followed, the increase of the Peace, Light, Power and the growth of a new consciousness in the being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Difficulties of the Physical Nature,

328:One who wants his Yoga to be a path of peace or joy, must be prepared to dwell in his soul rather than in his outer mental and emotional nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Lower Vital Being,

329:The hostile beings, they are always in battle with each other; but they make common cause against the Truth and Light. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Hostile Forces and the Difficulties of Yoga,

330:The inner loneliness can only be cured by the inner experience of union with the Divine; no human association can fill the void. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

331:After all, for the greatest as for the smallest of us our strength is not our own but given to us for the game that has to be played, the work that we have to do. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Sleep,

332:The laws of this world as it is are the laws of the Ignorance and the Divine in the world maintains them so long as there is the Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Physical Mind and Sadhana,

333:There is only one logic in spiritual things: when a demand is there for the Divine, a sincere call, it is bound one day to have its fulfilment. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Call and the Capacity,

334:The very first lesson in this Yoga is to face life and its trials with a quiet mind, a firm courage and an entire reliance on the Divine Shakti. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Patience and Perseverance,

335:Agni in the form of an aspiration full of concentrated calm and surrender is certainly the first thing to be lighted in the heart. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Experiences Associated with the Psychic,

336:In order to be unattached one must be unattached everywhere, in the mental, vital, physical action and not only in the silent soul somewhere inside. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Sankhya-Yoga System,

337:Length of time is no proof of an ultimate incapacity to arrive—it is only a sign that there is something in oneself which has to be overcome. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Divine Grace and Guidance,

338:One should always have one’s look turned forwards to the future—retrospection is seldom healthy as it turns one towards a past consciousness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Time and Change of the Nature,

339:Turn your emotions towards the Divine, aspire for their purification; they will then become a help on the way and no longer a cause of suffering. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Bhakti, Devotion, Worship,

340:Remain fixed in the sunlight of the true consciousness - for only there is happiness and peace. They do not depend upon outside happenings, but on this alone. Letters on Yoga, vol 2, p.1709 ~ Sri Aurobindo

341:There is a fundamental psychic feeling which is the same for all; but there can also be a special psychic feeling for one or another. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

342:Physical nature is slow and inert and unwilling to change; its tendency is to be still and take long periods of time for a little progress. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Transformation of the Physical,

343:The physical is an obstinate obstacle, but it must be enlightened, persuaded, pressed even to change, but not oppressed or violently driven. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Transformation of the Physical,

344:Where there is a soul that has once become awake, there is surely a capacity within that can outweigh all surface defects and can in the end conquer. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Call and the Capacity,

345:Aspire for your will to be one with the Divine will, concentrate in the heart and be plastic to whatever experience comes, neither forcing nor resisting any spiritual experience    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I,

346:By readiness I did not mean capacity but willingness. If there is the will within to face all difficulties and go through, no matter how long it takes, then the path can be taken. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

347:Peace is never easy to get in the life of the world and never constant, unless one lives deep within and bears the external activities as only a surface front of our being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Peace,

348:Psychic love is distinguished by an essential purity and selflessness—but the vital can put on a very brilliant imitation of that character. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

349:In whatever centre the concentration takes place the Yoga force generated extends to the others and produces concentration or workings there. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Descent and Other Kinds of Experience,

350:It is only when the Divine is found and the consciousness lifted up into the true consciousness that the true relations with others can come. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

351:That is not right. Throwing away the life does not improve the chances for the next time. It is in this life and body that one must get things done. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Difficulties of the Path - VII,

352:The pressure of understanding and will in the mind and the Godward emotional urge in the heart are the two first agents of Yoga. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification,

353:It is better to be a stone on the road to the Divine than soft and weak clay in the muddy paths of the ordinary vital human nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

354:the best means to bring forward the psychic ::: Aspiration, constant and sincere, and the will to turn to the Divine alone are the best means to bring forward the psychic. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III, [T5],

355:The Overmind has to be reached and brought down before the Supermind descent is at all possible-for the Overmind is the passage through which one passes from mind to Supermind.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I, 155,

356:Divine Love is not merely a sublimation of human emotions; it is a different consciousness, with a different quality, movement and substance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Divine Love, Psychic Love and Human Love,

357:The consent of all the being is necessary for the divine change, and it is the completeness and fullness of the consent that constitutes the integral surrender. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Lower Vital Being,

358:When you learn a lesson, you have to repeat it till the physical mind gets hold of it—otherwise it does not become a part of consciousness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Variations in the Intensity of Experience,

359:Each defect of the nature of the Ignorance is a deformation of something in the higher nature—a deformation which amounts to a contradiction even. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Aspects of the Cosmic Consciousness,

360:Grace may sometimes bring undeserved or apparently undeserved fruits, but one can’t demand Grace as a right and privilege—for then it would not be Grace. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Divine Grace and Guidance,

361:It is not true that physical work is of an inferior value to mental culture, it is the arrogance of the intellect that makes the claim. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Hostile Forces and the Difficulties of Yoga,

362:Awake by your aspiration the psychic fire in the heart that burns steadily towards the Divine—that is the one way to liberate and fulfil the emotional nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Bhakti, Devotion, Worship,

363:It is by the Grace of the Divine and the aid of a Force greater than your own, not by personal capacity and worth that you can attain the goal of the sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Call and the Capacity,

364:Each person has his own freedom of choice up to a certain point—unless he makes the full surrender—and as he uses the freedom, has to take the spiritual or other consequences. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Surrender,

365:If one throws away the body wilfully, one suffers much in the other worlds, and when one is born again, it is in worse, not in better conditions. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Dealing with Depression and Despondency,

366:The biggest intellects can make errors of the worst kind and confuse Truth and falsehood, if they have not the contact with Truth or the direct experience. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Intellect and the Intellectual,

367:What has to be overcome is the opposition of the Ignorance that does not want the transformation of the nature. If that can be overcome, then old spiritual ideas will not form an obstacle. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I,

368:It is fundamentally true for most people that the pleasure of life, of existence in itself, predominates over the troubles of life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I: Sachchidananda, Existence, Consciousness-Force and Bliss,

369:As all religions and philosophies point to the Supreme but each in a different direction, so all medical fashions are ways to health—though they don’t always reach it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Doctors and Medicines,

370:Death is not a way to succeed in sadhana. If you die in that way, you will only have the same difficulties again with probably less favourable circumstances. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Difficulties of the Path - VII,

371:Remain faithful to the Light of your soul even when it is hidden by clouds. My help and the Mother's will be there working behind even in the moments when you cannot feel it. Letters on Yoga, vol.24, p.1425 ~ Sri Aurobindo

372:Man’s nature is like a cup of dirty water—the water has to be thrown out, the cup left clean and empty for the divine liquor to be poured into it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Emptiness, Voidness, Blankness and Silence,

373:If one concentrates on a thought or a word, one has to dwell on the essential idea contained in the word with the aspiration to feel the thing which it expresses. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Concentration and Meditation,

374:Sometimes a malignant (not fair or well-intentioned) criticism can be helpful by some aspect of it, if one can look at it without being affected by the unfairness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Problems in Human Relations,

375:In following the heart in its purer impulses one follows something that is at least as precious as the mind’s loyalty to its own conceptions of what the Truth may be. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Divine and Its Aspects,

376:To understand divine movements one must enter into the divine consciousness, till then faith and surrender are the only right attitude. How can the mind judge what is beyond all its measures?    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

377:It is quite natural to want to meditate after reading yogic literature - that is not the laziness.    The laziness of the mind consists in not meditating, when the consciousness wants to do so.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

378:Men are always more able to criticise sharply the work of others and tell them how to do things or what not to do than skilful to avoid the same mistakes themselves. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Problems in Human Relations,

379:One has only to aspire sincerely and keep oneself as open as possible to the Mother's Force. Then whatever difficulties come, they will be overcome-it may take some time, but the result issue.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

380:An overmastering impulse is not necessarily an inspiration of true guidance; in following always such impulses one is more likely to become a creature of random caprices. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Nature of the Vital,

381:One who has not the courage to face patiently and firmly life and its difficulties will never be able to go through the still greater inner difficulties of the sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Patience and Perseverance,

382:The method of gathering of the mind is not an easy one. It is better to watch and separate oneself from the thoughts till one becomes aware of a quiet space within into which they come from outside. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

383:One should not expect too much from the Divine Protection for, constituted as we are and the world is, the Divine Protection has to act within limits. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Vigilance, Resolution, Will and the Divine Help,

384:So long as there is not an unreserved self-giving in both the internal and external, there will always be veilings, dark periods and difficulties. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, The Danger of the Ego and the Need of Purification,

385:It is the disadvantage of helping others that one comes into contact with their consciousness and their difficulties and also gets more externalised. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

386:Faith, more faith! Faith in your possibilities, faith in the Power that is at work behind the veil, faith in the work that is to be done and the offered guidance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Steps towards Overcoming Difficulties,

387:In work there must be a rule and discipline and as much punctuality as possible in regard to time. * To be able to be regular is a great force, one becomes master of one's time and one's movements. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

388:It is not one’s personal fitness and worthiness that makes one succeed, but the Mother’s grace and power and the consent of the soul to her grace and the workings of her Force. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Call and the Capacity,

389:THEME ASPIRATIONIt [aspiration] is the call in the being for the Divine or for the higher things that belong to the Divine Consciousness. (To "aspire" always means to call for higher things.) ~ Sri Aurobindo(Letters on Yoga - II)#SriAurobindo

390:This Yoga can only be done to the end by those who are in total earnest about it and ready to abolish their little human ego and its demands in order to find themselves in the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Lower Vital Being,

391:Medicine has gone through three stages in modern times—first (at the beginning in Molière’s days) it was \“bleed and douche\”, then \“drug and diet\”, now it is \“serum and injection\”. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Doctors and Medicines,

392:It is, I suppose, the image of Sri Krishna as Lord of the divine Love and Ananda - and his flute calls the physical being to awake out of the attachments of the physical world and turn to that Love and Ananda.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I,

393:The use of your writing is to keep you in touch with the inner source of inspiration and intuition, so as to wear thin the crude external crust in the consciousness and encourage the growth of the inner being.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

394:Surrender is giving oneself to the Divine - to give everything one is or has to the Divine and regard nothing as one's own, to obey only the Divine will and no other, to live for the Divine and not for the ego.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

395:The vital is indispensable for the divine or spiritual action—without it there can be no complete expression, no realisation in life—hardly even any realisation in sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

396:The Divine is everywhere on all the planes of consciousness seen by us in different ways and aspects of his being. But there is a Supreme which is above all these planes and ways and aspects and from which they come. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I,

397:Whatever name is called the Power that answers is the Mother. Each name indicates a certain aspect of the Divine and is limited by that aspect; the Mother's Power is universal. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, Namajapa or Repetition of the Name,

398:With each person the guidance works differently according to his nature, the conditions of his life, his cast of consciousness, his stage of development, his need of farther experience. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Divine Grace and Guidance,

399:Reliable friendship is almost always with a very few; to have a horde of loving, unselfishly faithful friends is a phenomenon so rare that it can be safely taken as an illusion. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

400:It is certainly much better to remain silent and collected for a time after the meditation. It is a mistake to take the meditation lightly - by doing that one fails to receive or spills what is received or most of it.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

401:Each activity is important in its own place—an electron or a molecule or a grain may be small things in themselves, but in their place they are indispensable to the building up of a world. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Resistances, Sufferings and Falls,

402:It [the effectiveness of namajapa] depends on the person and how he does it. The Name of the Divine is in itself a power, if it is taken with the right faith and in the right attitude. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, Namajapa or Repetition of the Name,

403:Things always come in the way when one wants to progress in the sadhana, but in the end if one is sincere in one’s aspiration these troubles help to prepare the victory of the soul over all that opposes. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Anger and Violence,

404:Work is part of the sadhana, and in sadhana the question of usefulness does not arise, that is an outward practical measure of things, though even in the outward ordinary life utility is not the only measure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Work and Yoga,

405:It is not at first easy to remember the presence in work; but if one revives the sense of the presence immediately after the work is over it is all right. In time the sense of the presence will become automatic even in work. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

406:The stars merely record a destiny that has been already formed, they are a hieroglyph, not a Force,—or if their action constitutes a force, it is a transmitting energy, not an originating Power. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Fate, Free Will and Prediction,

407:In the absolute retirement one lives a purely subjective life and the opportunity for extending the spiritual progress to the outer life and testing it thoroughly is not there. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga,

408:When the will and energy are concentrated and used to control the mind, vital and physical and change them or to bring down the higher consciousness or for any other Yogic purpose or high purpose, that is called Tapasya.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, 102?,

409:Other things can come in their proper time. What is the need now is not insistence on physical nearness, which is one of these other things, but the psychic opening in the physical consciousness and the constant presence and guidance there. ~ Sri AurobindoLetters on Yoga

410:The rough handling and careless breaking or waste and misuse of physical things is a denial of the Yogic Consciousness and a great hindrance to the bringing down of the Divine Truth to the material plane. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Practical Concerns in Work,

411:It is the light from within that you have to make room for; the light of the outer mind is quite insufficient for the discovery of the inner values or to judge the truth of spiritual experience. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Steps towards Overcoming Difficulties,

412:The psychic has its own more personal love, bhakti, surrender. Love in the higher or spiritual mind is more universal and impersonal. The two must join together to make the highest divine love. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Divine Love, Psychic Love and Human Love,

413:A resolution means the will to try to get a thing done by the given time. It is not a binding 'promise' that the thing will be done by that time. Even if it is not, the endeavour will have to continue, just as if no date had been fixed.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

414:Surrender means to consecrate everything in oneself to the Divine, to offer all one is and has, not to insist on one's ideas, desires, habits, etc., but to allow the divine Truth to replace them by its knowledge, will and action everywhere. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

415:The sex-vampire eats up the other’s vital and gives nothing or very little. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV: Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga Sec-Vampire In myself is the seed of all my creation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Karma,

416:What is most important [in meditation] is the change of consciousness of which this feeling of oneness is a part. The going deep in meditation is only a means and it is not always necessary if the great experiences come easily without it.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

417:You have to put your inner will and the Mother's light on the vital so that it shall change, not leave it to do what it likes. The Mother's force or the psychic can act, but on condition that the assent of the being is there. Letters on Yoga, vol.24, p.1343 ~ Sri Aurobindo

418:Psychic love can have a warmth and a flame as intense and more intense than the vital, only it is a pure fire, not dependent on the satisfaction of ego-desire or on the eating up of the fuel it embraces. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Human Relations and the Spiritual Life,

419:You can remember at the beginning and offer your reading to the Divine and at the end again. There is a state of consciousness in which only a part of it is reading or doing the work and behind there is the consciousness of the Divine always.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,

420:We must find the Self, the Divine, then only can we know what is the work the Self or the Divine demands from us. Until then our life and action can only be a help or means towards finding the Divine and it ought not to have any other purpose. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, [T5],

421:The attitude you express in your letter is quite the right one - whatever sufferings come on the path, are not too high a price for the victory that has to be won and, if they are taken in the right spirit, they become even a means towards the victory. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,

422:I have said that we are always with you and it is true, but to feel it you must draw back from your vital and be able to concentrate in your inner being. If you do that faithfully and sincerely, after a time you will feel the connection and the support.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,

423:It is (sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly) by the power of the Overmind releasing the mind from its close partitions that the cosmic consciousness opens in the seeker and he becomes aware of the cosmic spirit and the play of the cosmic forces.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I, 152,

424:The real rest is in the inner life founded in peace and silence and absence of desire. There is no other rest—for without that the machine goes on whether one is interested in it or not. The inner mukti is the only remedy. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Difficulties of the Path - VII,

425:You have either to train the memory by practising to remember - or if you cannot do that, try only to understand, read much and let the memory remember what it can. There are people who have a bad memory but they succeed in their studies in spite of it.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,

426:Chārvāka Thy thoughts are gleams that pass on Matter’s verge, Thy life a lapsing wave on Matter’s sea. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Gospel of Death and Vanity of the Ideal Chārvāka Cheerfulness is the salt of sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Cheerfulness and Happiness,

427:Knowledge of the way is not enough - one must tread it, or if one cannot do that, allow oneself to be carried along it. The human vital and physical external nature resist to the very end, but if the soul has once heard the call, it arrives, sooner or later. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

428:If you can't as yet remember the Divine all the time you are working, it does not greatly matter. To remember and dedicate at the beginning and give thanks at the end ought to be enough for the present. Or at the most to remember too when there is a pause...    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

429:Kama (Desire) Delight and laughter walking hand in hand Go with Me, and I play with grief and pain. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems: Kama Kama (Desire) All energies put into activity—thought, speech, feeling, act—go to constitute Karma. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Karma and Heredity,

430:[...]The Divine is Anandamaya and one can seek him for the Ananda he gives; but he has also in him many other things and one may seek him for any of them, for peace, for liberation, for knowledge, for power, for anything else of which one may feel the pull or impulse.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

431:There can be no immortality of the body without supramentalisation; the potentiality is there in the yogic force and yogis can live for 200 or 300 years or more, but there can be no real principle of it without the supramental. Letters On Yoga, vol.24, The Triple Transformation, p.1229 ~ Sri Aurobindo

432:the spiritual transformation ::: The spiritual change is the established descent of the peace, light, knowledge, power, bliss from above, the awareness of the Self and the Divine and of a higher cosmic consciousness and the change of the whole consciousness to that. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III,

433:The goal of yoga is always hard to reach, but this one is more difficult than any other, and it is only for those who have the call, the capacity, the willingness to face everything and every risk, even the risk of failure, and the will to progress.... Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga, p.545 ~ Sri Aurobindo

434:Suicide is an absurd solution; he is quite mistaken in thinking that it will give him peace. He will only carry his difficulties with him into a more miserable condition of existence beyond and bring them back to another life on earth. The only remedy is ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Difficulties of the Path - VII,

435:Sadhana has to be done in the body, it cannot be done by the soul without the body. When the body drops, the soul goes wandering in other worlds—and finally it comes back to another life and another body. Then all the difficulties it had not solved meet i ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Difficulties of the Path - VII,

436:That is the inconvenience of going away from a difficulty,—it runs after one,—or rather one carries it with oneself, for the difficulty is truly inside, not outside. Outside circumstances only give it the occasion to manifest itself and so long as the inn ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Difficulties of the Path - VII,

437:To want to be a superman is a mistake, it only swells the ego. One can aspire for the Divine to bring about the supramental transformation, but that also should not be done till the being has become psychic and spiritualised by the descent of the Mother's peace, force, light and purity.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

438:Keep faith in your spiritual destiny, draw back from error and open more the psychic being to the direct guidance of the Mother's light and power. If the central will is sincere, each recognition of a mistake can become a stepping-stone to a truer movement and a higher progress. Letters on Yoga, vol.24, p.1509 ~ Sri Aurobindo

439:These drops [of consciousness] happen to all sadhaks; their causes are various; sometimes it is a pull from below, sometimes an invasion from outside, sometimes a less ascertainable cause. When it happens, one must always remain as quiet as possible behind and call back the better condition.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III,

440:All thoughts really come from outside, but one is not conscious of their coming. You have become conscious of this movement. There are different ways of getting rid of them; one is to reject them one by one before they can come in; another is to look at them with detachment till they fade away.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

441:The house of the Divine is not closed to any who knock sincerely at its gates, whatever their past stumbles and errors. Human virtues and human errors are bright and darkwrappings of a divine element within which once it pierces the veil, can burn through both towards the heights of the Spirit.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

442:Remind yourself always that the Divine Force is there, that you have felt it and that, even if you seem to lose consciousness of it for a time or it seems something distant, still it is there and is sure to prevail For those whom the Force has touched and taken up, belong thenceforth to the Divine.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

443:In the Upanishad the sun is the symbol of the supramental Truth and it is said that those who pass into it may return but those who pass through the gates of the Sun itself do not; possibly this means that an ascent into the supermind itself above the golden lid of overmind was the definitive liberation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

444:Concentration, for our Yoga, means when the consciousness is fixed in a particular state (e.g. peace) or movement (e.g. aspiration, will, coming into contact with the Mother, taking the Mother's name); meditation is when the inner mind is looking at things to get the right knowledge.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, [concentration is:],

445:The Truth-Consciousness that can only manifest when ego and desire are overcome. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III: The Universal or Cosmic Forces Truth-Consciousness Spiritual truths are not warring enemies—they are parts of a single truth and complete each other. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Time and Change of the Nature,

446:The goal of yoga is always hard to reach, but this one is more difficult than any other, and it is only for those who have the call, the capacity, the willingness to face everything and every risk, even the risk of failure, and the will to progress towards an entire selflessness, desirelessness and surrender. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

447:(1) Offer yourself more and more - all the consciousness, all that happens in it, all your work and action. (2) If you have faults and weaknesses, hold them up before the Divine to be changed or abolished. (3) Try to do what I told you, concentrate in the heart till you constantly feel the Presence there. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

448:The descent of the supramental is an inevitable necessity in the logic of things and is therefore sure. It is because people do not understand what the Supermind is or realise the significance of the emergence of consciousness in a world of inconscient matter that they are unable to realise this inevitability.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I,

449:When the vital joins in the love for the Divine, it brings into it heroism, enthusiasm, intensity, absoluteness, exclusiveness, the spirit of self-sacrifice, the total and passionate self-giving of all the nature. It is the vital passion for the Divine that creates the spiritual heroes, conquerors or martyrs.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

450:People who are vitally weak do unconsciously and automatically pull on others. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV: Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga Pull on the Vital The lame foot of Punishment reaches at last the successful offender. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Rebirth and Other Worlds; Karma, the Soul and Immortality,

451:The wife unsung remains Sharing his pleasures, taking half his pains While to dream faces mounts the poet’s song. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems: Euphrosyne Poet's wife Look at things from an inner point of view and try to get the benefit of all that happens. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Right Attitude towards Difficulties,

452:It is necessary first to found the higher consciousness in the mind and heart. To deal with the lower nature before that means to fall into the struggle and confusion and disorder of the vital, for it all comes up. With the mind and heart prepared, one can deal with the vital without all that superfluous trouble.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I,

453:The Transcendent This is what is termed the Adya Shakti; she is the Supreme Consciousness and Power above the universe and it is by her that all the Gods are manifested, and even the supramental Ishwara comes into manifestation through her - the supramental Purushottama of whom the Gods are Powers and Personalities. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga,

454:A certain amount of purification is necessary before there can be any realisation of the Divine and that is what has been going on in you. It is after all not a very long time since the real purification began and it is never an easy work. So the impatience may be natural, but it is not exactly reasonable. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, Purity,

455:It is no doubt as you say, [1] but that is always the difficulty of the physical consciousness until it has been enlightened from within.    [1] The correspondent wrote that although she wanted to get rid of her desires, confusions and wrong movements, the outward, physical part of her being wanted to hold on to them.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,

456:Where you are? In the Mother's presence here and close to me. Where you are going? Towards union with the Divine through dedication and service. What you are doing here? Service and self-giving to the Divine. The rest depends, as the Mother writes to you, on the simplicity and fullness with which you give yourself and serve.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,

457:People say like that [the Transcendent is something beyond Sachchidananda] because the transcendent Absolute is not only what to us is existence but also what to us is non-existence. But there is really no such thing as non-existence. So the Transcendent can be conceived as transcendent Sat, transcendent Chit, transcendent Ananda. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I,

458:The name of the Divine is usually called in for protection, for adoration, for increase of bhakti, for the opening up of the inner consciousness, for the realisation of the Divine in that aspect. As far as it is necessary to work in the subconscious for that, the Name must be effective there. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, Namajapa or Repetition of the Name,

459:Sincerity means more than mere honesty. It means that you mean what you say, feel what you profess, are earnest in your will. As the sadhak aspires to be an instrument of the Divine and one with the Divine, sincerity in him means that he is really in earnest in his aspiration and refuses all other will or impulse except the Divine's. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

460:The main difficulty in the sadhana consists in the movements of the lower nature, ideas of the mind, desires and attractions of the vital, habits of the body consciousness that stand in the way of the growth of the higher consciousness - there are other difficulties, but these make the bulk of the opposition.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III, Difficulties of the Path,

461:A thousand questions can be asked about anything whatsoever, but to answer would require a volume, and even then the mind would understand nothing. It is only by a growth in the consciousness itself that you can get some direct perception of these things. But for that the mind must be quiet and a direct feeling and intuition take its place.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,

462:Lure of the Infinite With a hundred marvellous faces Always he lures us to love him, always he draws us to pleasure Leaving remembrance and anguish behind for our only treasure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems: Ahana Lure of the Infinite Lust is the perversion or degradation which prevents love from establishing its reign. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Sex,

463:All visions have a significance of one kind or another. This power of vision is very important for the Yoga and should not be rejected although it is not the most important thing-for the most important thing is the change of the consciousness. All other powers like this of vision should be developed without attachment as parts and aids of the Yoga.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

464:When you fall from the contact, the first and only thing you have to do is to reestablish it - to remain quiet and open yourself. Everything else you must detach yourself from and reject. It is because you listen to ideas and suggestions of all kinds and still attach value to the old kind of "experiences", that you cannot reestablish the contact. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, [T4],

465:The boy with the flute is Sri Krishna, the Lord descended into the world-play from the divine Ananda; his flute is the music of the call which seeks to transform the lower ignorant play of mortal life and bring into it and establish in its place the lila of his divine Ananda. It was the psychic being in you that heard the call and followed after it.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III, #index,

466:conditions of the psychic opening ::: The realisation of the psychic being, its awakening and the bringing of it in front depend mainly on the extent to which one can develop a personal relation with the Divine, a relation of Bhakti, love, reliance, self-giving, rejection of the insistences of the separating and self-asserting mental, vital and physical ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III,

467:The Isha Upanishad also speaks of the golden lid hiding the face of the Truth by removing which the Law of the Truth is seen and the highest knowledge in which the One Purusha is known (so'ham asmi) is described as the kalyan.atama form of the Sun. All this seems to refer to the supramental states of which the Sun is the symbol.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I, Integral Yoga and Other Paths -IV,

468:All human beings are full of ego. If you want to change, you must be very quiet and always aspire for a higher consciousness to come down into you in which there is not the ego. When it comes down, the real change will come. But you must be quiet within, not worried and restless - you must open confidently to the Mother's Force and let it work in you.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV, Ego and Its forms,

469:Wherever the Divine is, everything is - it is only concealed, not non-existent. The Divine is there below in the inconscience itself - mind and life are concealed in Matter, so is Supermind and Sachchidananda. The below is not something outside the Divine Existence. But as mind manifested in Matter only after the descent of Mind opened it into creation, so it is with Supermind. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I,

470:When we look beyond our first exclusively concentrated vision, we see behind Vishnu all the personality of Shiva and behind Shiva all the personality of Vishnu. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga: The Divine Personality Shiva-Vishnu For most the siddhi of the path, whatever it is, must be the end of a long, difficult and persevering endeavour. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Difficulties of Yoga,

471:An ocean of electric Energy Formlessly formed its strange wave-particles Constructing by their dance this solid scheme, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Godheads of the Little Life Wave-particles The dictum that each has his own way is not true; each has his own way of following the common way and the \“own way\” may often be very defective. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Mental Development and Sadhana,

472:God is, but man's conceptions of God are reflections in his own mentality, sometimes of the Divine, sometimes of other Beings and powers and they are what his mentality can make of the suggestions that come to him, generally very partial and imperfect so long as they are still mental, so long as he has not arrived at a higher and truer, a spiritual or mystic knowledge..    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I, [T9],

473:The Divine Grace and Power can do anything, but with the full assent of the sadhak.    To learn to give the full assent, is the whole meaning of the sadhana. It may take time either because of ideas in the mind, desires in the vital or inertia in the physical consciousness, but these things have to be and can be removed with the aid or by calling in the action of the Divine Force.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, [T9],

474:To be in full union with the Divine is the final aim. When one has some kind of constant union, one can be called a yogi, but the union has to be made complete. There are yogis who have only the union on the spiritual plane, others who are united in mind and heart, others in the vital also. In our yoga our aim is to be united too in the physical consciousness and on the supramental plane.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, [T2],

475:To be miserable may remind you of the defects of your external nature, but I do not see how it is going to cure them. I am not asking you to be frivolously happy, but to be quiet and quietly confident, rejecting these old movements, but for the rest trusting not in a restless self-torturing personal effort but to the Divine Force to change the external nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV, Dealing with Depression and Despondency,

476:Concentration is a gathering together of the consciousness and either centralising at one point or turning on a single object, e.g. the Divine-there can also be a gathered condition throughout the whole being, not at a point. In meditation it is not indispensable to gather like this, one can simply remain with a quiet mind thinking of one subject or observing what comes in the consciousness and dealing with it.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

477:Illusion lost her aggrandising lens; As from her failing hand the measures fell, Atomic looked the things that loomed so large. The little ego’s ring could join no more; ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Yoga of the King: The Yoga of the Spirit’s Freedom and Greatness Illusion (World) When one is living in the physical mind, the only way to escape from it is by imagination. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Experiences and Realisations,

478:Sadhana is the practice of Yoga. Tapasya is the concentration of the will to get the results of sadhana and to conquer the lower nature. Aradhana is worship of the Divine, love, self-surrender, aspiration to the Divine, calling the name, prayer. Dhyana is inner concentration of the consciousness, meditation, going inside in Samadhi. Dhyana, tapasya and aradhana are all parts of sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, 215 [sadhana is:],

479:Meditation means thinking on one subject in a concentrated way. In concentration proper there is not a series of thoughts, but the mind is silently fixed on one object, name, idea, place etc. There are other kinds of concentration, e.g. concentrating the whole consciousness in one place, as between the eyebrows, in the heart, etc. One can also concentrate to get rid of thought altogether and remain in a complete silence.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

480:In your nature there are many obstacles, chiefly a great activity of the outward-going mind and a thick crust of the impure lower Prakriti that covers the heart and the vital being. Quieting of the mind and purification of the nature are what you must have before you can fulfil your aim. Aspire for these two things first; ask for them constantly from above. You will not be able to achieve them by your own unaided effort. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, Purity,

481:... The sadhana of inner concentration consists in: (1) Fixing the consciousness in the heart and concentrating there on the idea, image or name of the Divine Mother, whichever comes easiest to you. (2) A gradual and progressive quieting of the mind by this concentration in the heart. (3) An aspiration for the Mother's presence in the heart and the control by her of mind, life and action. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, Combining Work, Meditation and Bhakti,

482:What you say is quite true. A simple, straight and sincere call and aspiration from the heart is the one important thing and more essential and effective than capacities. Also to get the consciousness to turn inwards, not remain outward-going is of great importance - to arrive at the inner call, the inner experience, the inner Presence. The help you ask will be with you. Let the aspiration grow and open the inner consciousness altogether.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I,

483:It was a no man’s land of evil air, A crowded neighbourhood without one home, A borderland between the world and hell. There unreality was Nature’s lord: It was a space where nothing could be true, For nothing was what it had claimed to be: A h ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Descent into Night No-Man's Land Non-violence is better than violence as a rule, and still sometimes violence may be the right thing. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Morality and Yoga,

484:The means of realisation is to be found in an integral Yoga, a union in all the parts of our being with the Divine and a consequent transmutation of all their now jarring elements into the harmony of a higher divine consciousness and existence; this yoga implies not only the realisation of God but the entire conseceration and change of the inner and outer life till it is fit to manifest a divine consciousness and become part of the divine work.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

485:The sadhana of this Yoga does not proceed through any set mental teaching or prescribed forms of meditation, mantras or others, but by aspiration, by a self-concentration inwards or upwards, by self-opening to an Influence, to the Divine Power above us and its workings, to the Divine Presence in the heart, and by the rejection of all that is foreign to these things. It is only by faith, aspiration and surrender that this self-opening can come.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, [T3],

486:I was speaking of your experiences of the higher consciousness, of your seeing the Mother in all things - these are what are called spiritual realisations, spiritual knowledge. Realisations are the essence of knowledge - thoughts about them, expression of them in words are a lesser knowledge and if the thoughts are merely mental without experience or realisation, they are not regarded as jnana in the spiritual sense at all.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - III, Transformation of the Mind,

487:Death is not a way to succeed in sadhana. If you die in that way [suicide], you will only have the same difficulties again with probably less favourable circumstances. The way to succeed in sadhana is to refuse to be discouraged, to aspire simply and sincerely so that the Mother's force may work in you and bring down what is above. No man ever succeeded in this sadhana by his own merit. To become open and plastic to the Mother is the one thing needed. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,

488:Not to be disturbed by either joy or grief, pleasure or displeasure by what people say or do or by any outward things is called in yoga a state of samata, equality to all things. It is of immense importance in sadhana to be able to reach this state. It helps the mental quietude and silence as well as the vital to come. It means indeed that the vital itself and the vital mind are already falling silent and becoming quiet. The thinking mind is sure to follow.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,

489:One does not say to God, Show your love for me first, shower on me the experience of yourself, satisfy my demand, then I will see whether I can love you so long as you deserve it. It is surely the seeker who must seek and love first, follow the quest, become impassioned for the Sought-then only does the veil move aside and the Light be seen and the Face manifest that alone can satisfy the soul after its long sojourn in the desert    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, Sadhana through Love and Devotion,

490:the one thing needful ::: It is the lesson of life that always in this world everything fails a man - only the Divine does not fail him, if he turns entirely towards the Divine. It is not because there is something bad in you that blows fall on you - blows fall on all human beings because they are full of desire for things that cannot last and they lose them or, even if they get, it brings disappointment and cannot satisfy them. To turn to the Divine is the only truth in life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,

491:There can be no firm foundation in sadhana without equality, samata. Whatever the unpleasantness of circumstances, however disagreeable the conduct of others, you must learn to receive them with a perfect calm and without any disturbing reaction. These things are the test of equality. It is easy to be calm and equal when things go well and people and circumstances are pleasant; it is when they are the opposite that the completeness of the calm, peace, equality can be tested, reinforced, made perfect.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

492:These questionings and depressions are very foolish movements of the mind. If you were not open to the Grace, you would not have had these descents or experiences and there would have been no such progress as you have made. You have not to put such questions but to take it as a settled fact, and with full faith in the Mother and her working in you go on with your sadhana. Whatever difficulties there may be, will be solved in time by the natural progress of the sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV, Dealing with Depression and Despondency,

493:The fundamental realisations of this yoga are: 1. The psychic change so that a compete devotion can be the main motive of the heart and the ruler of the thought, life and action in constant union with the Mother and in her Presence. 2. The descent of the Peace, Power, Light, etc. of the Higher Consciousness through the head and heart into the whole being, occupying the very cells of the body. 3. The perception of the One and Divine infinitely everywhere, the Mother everywhere and living in that infinite consciousness.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,

494:...to quiet the mind and get the spiritual experience it is necessary first to purify and prepare the nature. This sometimes takes many years. Work done with the right attitude is the easiest means for that - i.e. work done without desire or ego, rejecting all movements of desire, demand or ego when the come, done as an offering to the Divine Mother, with the remembrance of her and prayer to her to manifest her force and take up the action so that there too and not only in inner silence you can feel her presence and working.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

495:... What you should do, is always to reject the lower experiences and concentrate on a fixed and quiet aspiration towards the one thing needed, the Light, the Calm, the Peace, the Devotion that you felt for two or three days. It is because you get interested in the lower vital experiences and in observing and thinking about them that they take hold, and then comes the absence of the Contact and the confusion. You have surely had enough of this kind of experience already and should make up your mind to steadily reject it when it comes.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

496:As a rule the only mantra used in this sadhana is that of the Mother or of my name and the Mother. The concentration in the heart and the concentration in the head can both be used - each has its own result. The first opens up the psychic being and brings bhakti, love and union with the Mother, her presence within the heart and the action of her Force in the nature. The other opens the mind to self-realisation, to the consciousness of what is above mind, to the ascent of the consciousness out of the body and the descent of the higher consciousness into the body. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,

497:It is the peace you feel - the peace that is taking little by little hold of the inner being - that has to deepen and strengthen itself till it can take hold of the physical also. When it can do that, the externalised physical consciousness will feel it no longer alien to itself. The Peace will enable the Force and Light to enter also into the physical and the true understanding will come there too and remove the sense of distance and difference. That is how the Yoga force always works in principle - but the more the quietude, the more rapidly and surely it will work. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV?,

498:Vainly the sands of Time have been strewn with the ruins of empires, Signs that the gods had left, but in vain. For they look for a nation, One that can conquer itself having conquered the world, but they find none. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems: Ilion Self-conquest When one conquers a difficulty or goes forward, it creates a right current in the atmosphere. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV: The Right Attitude towards Difficulties Self-Conquest Self-denial is a necessary discipline for the soul of man, because his heart is ignorantly attached. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Renunciation,

499:To be free from all preference and receive joyfully whatever comes from the Divine Will is not possible at first for any human being. What one should have at first is the constant idea that what the Divine wills is always for the best when the mind does not see how it is so, to accept with resignation what one cannot yet accept with gladness and so to arrive at a calm equality which is not shaken even when on the surface there may be passing movements of a momentary reaction to outward happenings, If that is once firmly founded, the rest can come.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, Equality - The Chief Support [134],

500:aspiration and dryness ::: Naturally, the more one-pointed the aspiration the swifter the progress. The difficulty comes when either the vital with its desires or the physical with its past habitual movements comes in - as they do with almost everyone. It is then that the dryness and difficulty of spontaneous aspiration come. This dryness is a well-known obstacle in all sadhana. But one has to persist and not be discouraged. If one keeps the will fixed even in these barren periods, they pass and after their passage a greater force of aspiration and experience becomes possible. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,