Mahi

0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Mahimacharan and Pratap Hazra were two devotees outstanding for their pretentiousness and idiosyncrasies. But the Master showed them his unfailing love and kindness, though he was aware of their shortcomings. Mahimacharan Chakravarty had met the Master long before the arrival of the other disciples. He had had the intention of leading a spiritual life, but a strong desire to acquire name and fame was his weakness. He claimed to have been initiated by Totapuri and used to say that he had been following the path of knowledge according to his guru's instructions. He possessed a large library of English and Sanskrit books. But though he pretended to have read them, most of the leaves were uncut. The Master knew all his limitations, yet enjoyed listening to him recite from the Vedas and other scriptures. He would always exhort Mahima to meditate on the meaning of the scriptural texts and to practise spiritual discipline.
Pratap Hazra, a middle-aged man, hailed from a village near Kamarpukur. He was not altogether unresponsive to religious feelings. On a moment's impulse he had left his home, aged mother, wife, and children, and had found shelter in the temple garden at Dakshineswar, where he intended to lead a spiritual life. He loved to argue, and the Master often pointed him out as an example of barren argumentation. He was hypercritical of others and cherished an exaggerated notion of his own spiritual advancement. He was mischievous and often tried to upset the minds of the Master's young disciples, criticizing them for their happy and joyous life and asking them to devote their time to meditation. The Master teasingly compared Hazra to Jatila and Kutila, the two women who always created obstructions in Krishna's sport with the gopis, and said that Hazra lived at Dakshineswar to "thicken the plot" by adding complications.

01.06 - Vivekananda, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Yasyaite himavanto Mahitv
He whose greatness these snowy ranges declare

0 1959-06-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
3) X has not yet begun his work with me nor for you, as he has been unwell until today. One evening, he made a very beautiful reflection concerning you and your mantra, but it is inexpressible in words, it was above all the tone in which he said, Who, who, is there a single person in the world who can repeat like that TRIOMPHE TOI MahiMA MahiMA? etc. And three or four times he repeated your mantra with such an expression
He has not yet done what he plans to do with your mantra in his puja, for he has been unwell and had to interrupt his pujas. But now he is better.

1.02 - The Doctrine of the Mystics, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There are also female energies; for the Deva is both Male and Female and the gods also are either activising souls or passively executive and methodising energies. Aditi, infinite Mother of the Gods, comes first; and there are besides five powers of the Truthconsciousness, - Mahi or Bharati, the vast Word that brings us all things out of the divine source; Ila, the strong primal word of the Truth who gives us its active vision; Saraswati, its streaming current and the word of its inspiration; Sarama, the Intuition, hound of heaven who descends into the cavern of the subconscient and finds there the concealed illuminations; Dakshina, whose function is to discern rightly, dispose the action and the offering and distribute in the sacrifice to each godhead its portion. Each god, too, has his female energy.
All this action and struggle and ascension is supported by Heaven our Father and Earth our Mother Parents of the Gods, who sustain respectively the purely mental and psychic and the physical consciousness. Their large and free scope is the condition of our achievement. Vayu, master of life, links them together by the mid-air, the region of vital force. And there are other deities, - Parjanya, giver of the rain of heaven; Dadhikravan, the divine war-horse, a power of Agni; the mystic Dragon of the Foundations; Trita Aptya who on the third plane of existence consummates our triple being; and more besides.

1.04 - The Gods of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
(3) Corresponding to Mahas is Maharloka or Mahi Dyaus, the great heavens (pure Buddhi or Vijnana, the ideal world). The Pranava in its three essentialities rules over the three supreme worlds, the Satyaloka (divine being), Tapoloka (divine Awareness & Force), Anandaloka (divine Bliss) of the Puranas, which constitute Amritam, immortality or the true kingdom of heaven of the Vedic religion. These are the Vedic sapta dhamani & the seven different movements of consciousness to which they correspond are the sapta sindhu of the hymns.
(4) According to the Vedanta, man has five koshas or sheaths of existence, the material (Annamaya), vital (Pranamaya), mental (Manomaya) which together make up the aparardha or lower half of our conscious-being; the ideal (vijnanamaya) which links the lower to the parardha or higher half; the divine or Anandamaya in which the divine existence (Amrita) is concentrated for communion with our lower human being. These are the pancha kshitis, five earths or rather dwelling places of the Veda. But in Yoga we speak usually of the five koshas but the sapta bhumis, seven not five. The Veda also speaks of sapta dhamani.
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But by what power of Saraswatis are falsehood & error excluded and the mind and discerning reason held to truth & right-thinking? This, if I mistake not, is what the Rishi Madhuchchhanda, the drashta of Veda has seen for us in his last and culminating verse. I have said that arnas is a flowing water whether river or sea; for the word expresses either a flowing continuity or a flowing expanse. We may translate it then as the river of Mah or Mahas, and place arnas in apposition with Saraswati. This goddess will then be in our subjective being some principle to which the Vedic thinkers gave the names of Mah and Mahas for it is clear, if the rest of our interpretation is at all correct, that there can be no question of a material stream & arnas must refer to some stream or storehouse of subjective faculty. But there are strong objections to such a collocation. We shall find later that the goddess Mahi and not Saraswati is the objectivising feminine power and divine representative of this Vedic principle Mahas; prachetayati besides demands an object and maho arnas is the only object which the structure of the sentence and the rhythm of the verse will allow. I translate therefore Saraswati awakens by the perceptive intelligence the ocean (or, flowing expanse) of Mahas and governs diversely all the movements (or, all the faculties) of the understanding.
What is Mah or Mahas?The word means great, embracing, full, comprehensive. The Earth, also, because of its wideness & containing faculty is called Mahi,just as it is called prithivi, dhara, medini, dharani, etc. In various forms, the root itself, Mahi, Mahitwam, maha, magha, etc, it recurs with remarkable profusion and persistence throughout the Veda. Evidently it expressed some leading thought of the Rishis, was some term of the highest importance in their system of psychology. Turning to the Purana we find the term mahat applied to some comprehensive principle which is supposed itself to be near to the unmanifest, avyaktam but to supply the material of all that is manifest and always to surround, embrace and uphold it. Mahat seems here to be an objective principle; but this need not trouble us; for in the old Hindu system all that is objective had something subjective corresponding to it and constituting its real nature. We find it explicitly declared in the Vishnu Purana that all things here are manifestations of vijnana, pure ideal knowledge, sarvani vijnanavijrimbhitaniideal knowledge vibrating out into intensity of various phenomenal existences each with its subjective reason for existence and objective case & form of existence. Is ideal knowledge then the subjective principle of mahat? If so, vijnanam and the Vedic mahas are likely to be terms identical in their philosophical content and psychological significance. We turn to the Upanishads and find mention made more than once of a certain subjective state of the soul, which is called Mahan Atma, a state into which the mind and senses have to be drawn up as we rise by samadhi of the instruments of knowledge into the supreme state of Brahman and which is superior therefore to these instruments. The Mahan Atma is the state of the pure Brahman out of which the vijnana or ideal truth (sattwa or beness of things) emerges and it is higher than the vijnana but nearer us than the Unmanifest or Avyaktam (Katha: III.10, 11,13 & VI.7). If we understand by the Mahan Atma that status of soul existence (Purusha) which is the basis of the objective mahat or mahati prakriti and which develops the vijnanam or ideal knowledge as its subjective instrument, then we shall have farther light on the nature of Mahas in the ancient conceptions. We shall see that it is ideal knowledge, vijnanam, or is connected with ideal knowledge.
But we have first one more step in our evidence to notice,the final & conclusive link. In the Taittiriya Upanishad we are told that there are three vyahritis, Bhur, Bhuvar, Swar, but the Rishi Mahachamasya insisted on a fourth, Mahas. What is this fourth vyahriti? It is evidently some old Vedic idea and can hardly fail to be our maho arnas. I have already, in my introduction, outlined briefly the Vedic, Vedantic & Puranic system of the seven worlds and the five bodies. In this system the three vyahritis constitute the lower half of existence which is in bondage to Avidya. Bhurloka is the material world, our dwelling place, in which Annam predominates, in which everything is subject to or limited by the laws of matter & material consciousness. Bhuvar are the middle worlds, antariksha, between Swar & Bhur, vital worlds in which Prana, the vital principle predominates and everything is subject to or limited by the laws of vitality & vital consciousness. Swarloka is the supreme world of the triple system, the pure mental kingdom in which manasei ther in itself or, as one goes higher, uplifted & enlightened by buddhipredominates & by the laws of mind determines the life & movements of the existences which inhabit it. The three Puranic worlds Jana, Tapas, Satya,not unknown to the Vedaconstitute the Parardha; they are the higher ranges of existence in which Sat, Chit, Ananda, the three mighty elements of the divine nature predominate respectively, creative Ananda or divine bliss in Jana, the power of Chit (Chich-chhakti) or divine Energy in Tapas, the extension [of] Sat or divine being in Satya. But these worlds are hidden from us, avyaktalost for us in the sushupti to which only great Yogins easily attain & only with the Anandaloka have we by means of the anandakosha some difficult chance of direct access. We are too joyless to bear the surging waves of that divine bliss, too weak or limited to move in those higher ranges of divine strength & being. Between the upper hemisphere & the lower is Maharloka, the seat of ideal knowledge & pure Truth, which links the free spirits to the bound, the gods who deliver to the gods who are in chains, the wide & immutable realms to these petty provinces where all shifts, all passes, all changes. We see therefore that Mahas is still vijnanam and we can no longer hesitate to identify our subjective principle of mahas, source of truth & right thinking awakened by Saraswati through the perceptive intelligence, with the Vedantic principle of vijnana or pure buddhi, instrument of pure Truth & ideal knowledge.

1.07 - Note on the word Go, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The word Go in the Vedas appears to bear two ordinary meanings, first, cow, secondly, ray, light or lustre. In the hymns of Madhuchchhanda it occurs 6 times, in five hymns. It occurs twice in the fourth hymn addressed to Indra in the first three verses which are all of them important for the discovery of the proper sense of the word as it is used in this passage. In the third verse which is the key to the passage, we find the prayer Then may we know (of) thy ultimate good thoughts. Then may we know. When? as a consequence to what? Obviously as a consequence to the result of the second verse, which I translate Come to us, O bringer out of the nectar (savana), thou the Soma-drinker; drink of the ecstatic Soma wine, a giver of illumination, enraptured or in better English bringing out the sense & association of the words, Come to us, O thou who art a distiller of the nectar, thou, the Soma-drinker, drink of the impetuously ecstatic Soma wine & be in the rapture of its intoxication our giver of illuminating light. Then may we know thy ultimate perceptions of the intellect. Pass us not byO come! Id lays emphasis on goda as the capacity in which, the purpose for which Indra is to drink. Revato and madah give the conditions under which Indra becomes a giver of illumination, the rushing & impetuous ecstasy produced by the Soma wine. It is then that men know the ultimate perceptions of mind, the highest realisations that can be given by the intellect when Indra, lord of mental force & power, is full of the ecstasy of the immortalising juice. This clear & easy sense being fixed for these two verses, we can return to the first & discover its connection with what follows. From sky to sky, its Rishi says to Indra, thou callest forth for uti, (for favour or kindness, as the ordinary interpretation would have it or for manifestation, expansion in being, as I suggest), the maker of beautiful forms, (who, being compared with a cow, must be some goddess), who is like one that gives milk freely to the milker of the cows, or, as I suggest, who milks freely to the milker of the rays. Undoubtedly, sudugham goduhe may be translated, a good milch cow to the milker of the cows; undoubtedly the poet had this idea in his mind when he wrote. The goddess is in the simile a milch cow, Indra is the milker. In each of the skies (the lower, middle & higher) he calls to her & makes her bring out the beautiful forms which she reveals to the drinker of the Soma. But it is impossible, when we take the connection with the two following verses, to avoid seeing that he is taking advantage of the double sense of go, and that while in the simile Indra is goduh the cow-milker, in the subject of the comparison he is goduh, the bringer out of the illumination, the flashes of higher light which produce the beautiful forms by the power of the goddess. The goddess herself must be one who is habitually associated with illumination, either Ila or Mahi. To anyone acquainted with the processes of Yoga, the whole passage at once becomes perfectly clear & true. The forms are those beautiful & myriad images of things in all the three worlds, the three akashas, dyavi dyavi, which appear to the eye of the Yogin when mental force in the Yoga is at its height, the impetuous & joyous activity (revato madah) of the mingled Ananda and Mahas fills the brain with Ojas and the highest intellectual perceptions, those akin to the supra-rational revelation, become not only possible, but easy, common & multitudinous. The passage describes the condition in which the mind, whether by drinking the material wine, the Karanajal of the Tantrics, or, as I hold, by feeding on the internal amrita, is raised to its highest exalted condition, before it is taken up into mahas or karanam, (whether in the state of Samadhi or in the waking state of the man who has realised his mahan atma, his ideal self), a state in which it is full of revealing thoughts & revealing visions which descend to it from the supra-rational level of the mahat, luminous & unerring, sunrita gomati Mahi, where all is Truth & Light. Uti is the state of manifestation in Sat, in being, when that conscious existence which we are is stimulated into intensity & produces easily to the waking consciousness states of existence, movements of knowledge, outpourings of bliss which ordinarily it holds guha, in the secret parts of being.
The next passage to which I shall turn is the eighth verse of the eighth hymn, also to Indra, in which occurs the expression , a passage which when taken in the plain and ordinary sense of the epithets sheds a great light on the nature of Mahi. Sunrita means really true and is opposed to anrita, false for in the early Aryan speech su and s would equally signify, well, good, very; and the euphonic n is of a very ancient type of sandhioriginally, it was probably no more than a strong anuswartraces of which can still be found in Tamil; in the case of su this n euphonic seems to have been dropped after the movement of the literary Aryan tongue towards the modern principle of Sandhi,a movement the imperfect progress of which we see in the Vedas; but by that time the form an, composed of privative a and the euphonic n, had become a recognised alternative form to a and the omission of the n would have left the meaning of words very ambiguous; therefore n was preserved in the negative form, omitted from the affirmative where its omission caused no inconvenience,for to write gni instead of anagni would be confusing, but to write svagni instead of sunagni would create no confusion. In the pair sunrita and anrita it is probable that the usage had become so confirmed, so much of an almost technical phraseology, that confirmed habit prevailed over new rule. The second meaning of the word is auspicious, derived from the idea good or beneficent in its regular action. The Vedic scholars give a third sense, quick, active; but this is probably due to confusion with an originally distinct word derived from the root , to move on rapidly, to be strong, swift, active from which we have to dance, & strong and a number of other derivatives, for although ri means to go, it does not appear that rita was used in the sense of motion or swiftness. In any case our choice (apart from unnecessary ingenuities) lies here between auspicious and true. If we take Mahi in the sense of earth, the first is its simplest & most natural significance.We shall have then to translate the earth auspicious (or might it mean true in the sense observing the law of the seasons), wide-watered, full of cows becomes like a ripe branch to the giver. This gives a clear connected sense, although gross and pedestrian and open to the objection that it has no natural and inevitable connection with the preceding verses. My objection is that sunrita and gomati seem to me to have in the Veda a different and deeper sense and that the whole passage becomes not only ennobled in sense, but clearer & more connected in sense if we give them that deeper significance. Gomatir ushasah in Kutsas hymn to the Dawn is certainly the luminous dawns; Saraswati in the third hymn who as chodayitri sunritanam chetanti sumatinam shines pervading all the actions of the understanding, certainly does so because she is the impeller to high truths, the awakener to right thoughts, clear perceptions and not because she is the impeller of things auspiciousa phrase which would have no sense or appropriateness to the context. Mahi is one of the three goddesses Ila, Saraswati and Mahi who are described as tisro devir mayobhuvah, the three goddesses born of delight or Ananda, and her companions being goddesses of knowledge, children of Mahas, she also must be a goddess of knowledge, not the earth; the word Mahi also bears the sense of knowledge, intellect, and Mahas undoubtedly refers in many passages to the vijnana or supra-rational level of consciousness, the fourth Vyahriti of the Taittiriya Upanishad. What then prevents us from taking Mahi, here as there, in the sense of the goddess of suprarational knowledge or, if taken objectively, the world of Mahat? Nothing, except a tradition born in classical times when Mahi was the earth and the new Nature-worship theory. In this sense I shall take it. I translate the line For thus Mahi the true, manifest in action, luminous becomes like a ripe branch to the giveror, again in better English, For thus Mahi the perfect in truth, manifesting herself in action, full of illumination, becomes as a ripe branch to the giver. For the Yogin again the sense is clear. All things are contained in the Mahat, derived from the Mahat, depend on theMahat, but we here in the movement of the alpam, have not our desire, are blinded & confined, enjoy an imperfect, erroneous & usually baffled & futile activity. It is only when we regain the movement of the Mahat, the large & uncontracted consciousness that comes from rising to the infinite,it is only then that we escape from this limitation. She is perfect in truth, full of illumination; error and ignorance disappear; she manifests herself virapshi in a wide & various activity; our activities are enlarged, our desires are fulfilled. The connection with the preceding stanzas becomes clear. The Vritras, the great obstructors & upholders of limitation, are slain by the help of Indra, by the result of the yajnartham karma, by alliance with the armed gods in mighty internal battle; Indra, the god within our mental force, manifests himself as supreme and full of the nature of ideal truth from which his greatness weaponed with the vajra, vidyut or electric principle, derives ( Mahitwam astu vajrine). The mind, instinct with amrita, is then full of equality, samata; it drinks in the flood of activity of all kinds as the sea takes in the rivers. For the condition then results in which the ideal consciousness Mahi is like a ripe branch to the giver, when all powers & expansions of being at once (without obstacle as the Vritras are slain) become active in consciousness as masterful and effective knowledge or awareness (chit). This is the process prayed for by the poet. The whole hymn becomes a consecutive & intelligible whole, a single thought worked out logically & coherently and relating with perfect accuracy of ensemble & detail to one of the commonest experiences of Yogic fulfilment. In both these passages the faithful adherence to the intimations of language, Vedantic idea & Yogic experience have shed a flood of light, illuminating the obscurity of the Vedas, bringing coherence into the incoherence of the naturalistic explanation, close & strict logic, great depth of meaning with great simplicity of expression, and, as I shall show when I take up the final interpretation of the separate hymns, a rational meaning & reason of existence in that particular place for each word & phrase and a faultless & inevitable connection with what goes before & with what goes after. It is worth noticing that by the naturalistic interpretation one can indeed generally make out a meaning, often a clear or fluent sense for the separate verses of the Veda, but the ensemble of the hymn has almost always about it an air bizarre, artificial, incoherent, almost purposeless, frequently illogical and self-contradictoryas in Max Mullers translation of the 39th hymn, Kanwas to the Maruts,never straightforward, self-assured & easy. One would expect in these primitive writers,if they are primitive,crudeness of belief perhaps, but still plainness of expression and a simple development of thought. One finds instead everything tortuous, rugged, gnarled, obscure, great emptiness with great pretentiousness of mind, a labour of diction & development which seems to be striving towards great things & effecting a nullity. The Vedic singers, in the modern version, have nothing to say and do not know how to say it. I sacrifice, you drink, you are fine fellows, dont hurt me or let others hurt me, hurt my enemies, make me safe & comfortablethis is practically all that the ten Mandalas have to say to the gods & it is astonishing that they should be utterly at a loss how to say it intelligibly. A system which yields such results must have at its root some radical falsity, some cardinal error.
I pass now to a third passage, also instructive, also full of that depth and fine knowledge of the movements of the higher consciousness which every Yogin must find in the Veda. It is in the 9th hymn of the Mandala and forms the seventh verse of that hymn. Sam gomad Indra vajavad asme prithu sravo brihat, visvayur dhehi akshitam. The only crucial question in this verse is the signification of sravas.With our modern ideas the sentence seems to us to demand that sravas should be translated here fame. Sravas is undoubtedly the same word as the Greek xo (originally xFo); it means a thing heard, rumour, report, & thence fame. If we take it in that sense, we shall have to translate Arrange for us, O universal life, a luminous and solid, wide & great fame unimpaired. I dismiss at once the idea that go & vaja can here signify cattle and food or wealth. A herded & fooded or wealthy fame to express a fame for wealth of cattle & food is a forceful turn of expression we might expect to find in Aeschylus or in Shakespeare; but I should hesitate, except in case of clear necessity, to admit it in the Veda or in any Sanscrit style of composition; for such expressions have always been alien to the Indian intellect. Our stylistic vagaries have been of another kind. But is luminous & solid fame much better? I shall suggest another meaning for sravas which will give as usual a deeper sense to the whole passage without our needing to depart by a hairs breadth from the etymological significance of the words. Sruti in Sanscrit is a technical term, originally, for the means by which Vedic knowledge is acquired, inspiration in the suprarational mind; srutam is the knowledge of Veda. Similarly, we have in Vedic Sanscrit the forms srut and sravas. I take srut to mean inspired knowledge in the act of reception, sravas the thing acquired by the reception, inspired knowledge. Gomad immediately assumes its usual meaning illuminated, full of illumination. Vaja I take throughout the Veda as a technical Vedic expression for that substantiality of being-consciousness which is the basis of all special manifestation of being & power, all utayah & vibhutayahit means by etymology extended being in force, va or v to exist or move in extension and the vocable j which always gives the idea of force or brilliance or decisiveness in action or manifestation or contact. I shall accept no meaning which is inconsistent with this fundamental significance. Moreover the tendency of the old commentators to make all possible words, vaja, ritam etc mean sacrifice or food, must be rejected,although a justification in etymology might always be made out for the effort. Vaja means substance in being, substance, plenty, strength, solidity, steadfastness. Here it obviously means full of substance, just as gomad full of luminousness,not in the sense arthavat, but with another & psychological connotation. I translate then, O Indra, life of all, order for us an inspired knowledge full of illumination & substance, wide & great and unimpaired. Anyone acquainted with Yoga will at once be struck by the peculiar & exact appropriateness of all these epithets; they will admit him at once by sympathy into the very heart of Madhuchchhandas experience & unite him in soul with that ancient son of Visvamitra. When Mahas, the supra-rational principle, begins with some clearness to work in Yoga, not on its own level, not swe dame, but in the mind, it works at first through the principle of Srutinot Smriti or Drishti, but this Sruti is feeble & limited in its range, it is not prithu; broken & scattered in its working even when the range is wide, not unlimited in continuity, not brihat; not pouring in a flood of light, not gomat, but coming as a flash in the darkness, often with a pale glimmer like the first feebleness of dawn; not supported by a strong steady force & foundation of being, Sat, in manifestation, not vajavad, but working without foundation, in a void, like secondh and glimpses of Sat in nothingness, in vacuum, in Asat; and, therefore, easily impaired, easily lost hold of, easily stolen by the Panis or the Vritras. All these defects Madhuchchhanda has noticed in his own experience; his prayer is for an inspired knowledge which shall be full & free & perfect, not marred even in a small degree by these deficiencies.

1.08 - The Gods of the Veda - The Secret of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
What then is maho arnas? Is it the great sea of general being, substance of general existence out of which the substance of thought & speech are formed? It is possible; but such an interpretation is not entirely in consonance with the context of this passage. The suggestion I shall advance will therefore be different. Mahas, as a neuter adjective, means great,maho arnas, the great water; but mahas may be equally a noun and then maho arnas will mean Mahas the sea. In some passages again, mahas is genitive singular or accusative plural of a noun mah; maho arnas may well be the flowing stream or flood of Mah, as in the expression vasvo arnavam, the sea of substance, in a later Sukta.We are therefore likely to remain in doubt unless we can find an actual symbolic use of either word Mah or Mahas in a psychological sense which would justify us in supposing this Maho Arnas to be a sea of substance of knowledge rather than vaguely the sea of general substance of being. For this is the significance which alone entirely suits the actual phraseology of the last Rik of the Sukta. We find our clue in the Taittiriya Upanishad. It is said there that there are three recognised vyahritis of the Veda, Bhur, Bhuvar, Swah, but the Rishi Mahachamasya affirmed a fourth. The name of this doubtful fourth vyahriti is Mahas. Now the mystic vyahritis of the Veda are the shabdas or sacred words expressing objectively the three worlds, subjectively mentalised material being, mentalised vital being & pure mental being, the three manifest states of our phenomenal consciousness. Mahas, therefore, must express a fourth state of being, which is so much superior to the other three or so much beyond the ordinary attainment of our actual human consciousness that it is hardly considered in Vedic thought a vyahriti, whatever one or two thinkers may have held to the contrary. What do we know of this Mahas from Vedantic or later sources? Bhuh, Bhuvah, Swar of the Veda rest substantially upon the Annam, Prana, Manas, matter, life & mind of the Upanishads. But the Upanishads speak of a fourth state of being immediately aboveManas, preceding it therefore & containing it, Vijnanam, ideal knowledge, and a fifth immediately above Vijnanam, Ananda or Bliss. Physically, these five are the pancha kshitayah, five earths or dwelling-places, of the Rig Veda and they are the pancha koshas, five sheaths or bodies of the Upanishads. But in our later Yogic systems we recognise seven earths, seven standing grounds of the soul on which it experiences phenomenal existence. The Purana gives us their names [the names of the two beyond the five already mentioned], Tapas and Satya, Energy&Truth. They are the outward expressions of the two psychological principles, Self-Awareness &Self-Being (Chit&Sat) which with Ananda, Self-Bliss, are the triune appearance in the soul of the supreme Existence which the Vedanta calls Brahman. Sat, Chit & Ananda constitute to Vedantic thought the parardha or spiritual higher half [of] our existence; in less imaginative language, we are in our supreme existence self-existence, self-awareness & self-delight. Annam, Prana & Manas constitute to Vedantic thought the aparardha or lower half; again, in more abstract speech, we are in our lower phenomenal existence mind, life & matter. Vijnana is the link; standing in ideal knowledge we are aware, looking upward, of our spiritual existence, looking downward, we pour it out into the three vyahritis, Bhur, Bhuvah & Swar, mental, vital & material existence, the phenomenal symbols of our self-expression. Objectively vijnana becomes mahat, the great, wide or extended state of phenomenal being,called also brihat, likewise signifying vast or great,into which says the Gita, the Self or Lord casts his seed as into a womb in order to engender all these objects & creatures. The Self, standing in vijnanam or mahat, is called the Mahan Atma, the great Self; so that, if we apply the significance [of] these terms to the Vedic words mah, mahas, Mahi, mahn, then, even accepting mahas as an adjective and maho arnas in the sense of the great Ocean, it may very well be the ocean of the ideal or pure ideative state of existence in true knowledge which is intended, the great ocean slumbering in our humanity and awakened by the divine inspiration of Saraswati. But have we at all the right to read these high, strange & subtle ideas of a later mysticism into the primitive accents of the Veda? Let us at least support for a while that hypothesis. We may very well ask, if not from the Vedic forefa thers, whence did the Aryan thinkers get these striking images, this rich & concrete expression of the most abstract ideas and persist in them even after the Indian mind had rarefied & lifted its capacity to the height of the most difficult severities & abstractions known to any metaphysical thinking? Our hypothesis of a Vedic origin remains not only a possible suggestion but the one hypothesis in lawful possession of the field, unless a foreign source or a later mixed ideation can be proved. At present this later ideation may be assumed, it has not been & cannot be proved. The agelong tradition of India assigns the Veda as the source & substance of our theosophies; Brahmana, Aranyaka, Upanishad & Purana as only the interpretation & later expression; the burden of disproof rests on those who negative the tradition.
Vjebhir vjinvat and maho arnas are therefore fixed in their significance. The word vashtu in the tenth Rik offers a difficulty. It is equivalent to vahatu, says the Brahmana; to kmayatu, says Sayana; but, deferring to the opinion of the Brahmana, he adds that it means really kmayitw vahatu. Undoubtedly the root va means in classical Sanscrit to desire; but from the evidence of the classical Sanscrit we have it established that in more ancient times its ordinary meaning must have been to subdue or control; for although the verb has lost this sense in the later language, almost all its derivatives bear that meaning & the sense of wish, will or desire only persists in a few of them, va, wish and possibly va, a woman. It is this sense which agrees best with the context of the tenth rik and is concealed in the vahatu of the Brahmanas. There is no other difficulty of interpretation in the passage.

1.096 - Powers that Accrue in the Practice, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
Then what happens? Patanjali says one gets eight siddhis: anima, Mahima, laghima, garima, prapti, prakamya, istava and vasitva. These are the eight powers that one gains by a control one acquires over the elements. If we hear what these eight siddhis are, we will leap in ecstasy. We can become small like a fibre of cotton, and we can become big like an iron hill as heavy as we can conceive, and as light as can be lifted up in the air and have the capacity to manipulate anything in the world in any manner whatsoever. Anima is the power by which one becomes very small. Mahima is the power by which one becomes very big. Laghima is the power by which one becomes very light. Garima is the power by which one becomes very heavy. Prapti is the power by which one can contact anything anywhere, whatever be the distance of that object. Prakamya is the capacity to fulfil any wish that is in the mind. Isatva is the capacity to bring anyone under ones subjection. And vasitva is the mastery over the whole universe. These are the powers, says Patanjali, that one can get by samyama on the five elements.
Do not try these methods. They are very dangerous and can lead to anything. You may end up in a mental hospital if you start these techniques without proper purification of the mind. It requires a Guru. Nobody may practise these samyamas without proper initiation under a competent master.

1.09 - Kundalini Yoga, #Amrita Gita, #Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #Hinduism
31. Anima, Mahima, Laghima, Garima, Prapti, Prakamya, Vasitvam, Ishatvam are the major eight Siddhis.
32. Doora-Darshana (clairvoyance), Doora-Sravana (clairaudience), Manojaya (control of the mind), Kamarupa, Parakaya Pravesha, Iccha-Mrityu are the minor Siddhis.

1.09 - Saraswati and Her Consorts, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Saraswati is not only connected with other rivers but with other goddesses who are plainly psychological symbols and especially with Bharati and Ila. In the later Puranic forms of worship Saraswati is the goddess of speech, of learning and of poetry and Bharati is one of her names, but in the Veda Bharati and Saraswati are different deities. Bharati is also called Mahi, the Large, Great or Vast. The three, Ila, Mahi or Bharati and
Saraswati are associated together in a constant formula in those hymns of invocation in which the gods are called by Agni to the
--
"May Ila, Saraswati and Mahi, three goddesses who give birth to the bliss, take their place on the sacrificial seat, they who stumble not," or "who come not to hurt" or "do no hurt." The epithet means, I think, they in whom there is no false movement with its evil consequences, duritam, no stumbling into pitfalls of sin and error. The formula is expanded in Hymn 110 of the tenth Mandala:
A no yajnam bharat tuyam etu, il.a manus.vad iha cetayant;
--
Bharati and Ila must also be different forms of the same Word or knowledge. In the eighth hymn of Madhuchchhandas we have a Rik in which Bharati is mentioned under the name of Mahi.
Eva hyasya sunr.ta, viraps gomat mah; pakva sakha na dasus.e.
"Thus Mahi for Indra full of the rays, overflowing in her abundance, in her nature a happy truth, becomes as if a ripe branch for the giver of the sacrifice."
The rays in the Veda are the rays of Surya, the Sun. Are we to suppose that the goddess is a deity of the physical Light or are we to translate "go" by cow and suppose that Mahi is full of cows for the sacrificer? The psychological character of
Saraswati comes to our rescue against the last absurd supposition, but it negatives equally the naturalistic interpretation. This characterisation of Mahi, Saraswati's companion in the sacrifice, the sister of the goddess of inspiration, entirely identified with her in the later mythology, is one proof among a hundred others that light in the Veda is a symbol of knowledge, of spiritual illumination. Surya is the Lord of the supreme Sight, the vast
Light, br.haj jyotih., or, as it is sometimes called, the true Light, r.tam jyotih.. And the connection between the words r.tam and br.hat is constant in the Veda.
--
Mahi is full of the rays of this Surya; she carries in her this illumination. Moreover she is sunr.ta, she is the word of a blissful Truth, even as it has been said of Saraswati that she is the impeller of happy truths, codayitr sunr.tanam. Finally, she is viraps, large or breaking out into abundance, a word which recalls to us that the Truth is also a Largeness, r.tam br.hat. And in another hymn, (I.22.10), she is described as varutr dhis.an.a, a widely covering or embracing Thought-power. Mahi, then, is the luminous vastness of the Truth, she represents the Largeness, br.hat, of the superconscient in us containing in itself the Truth, r.tam. She is, therefore, for the sacrificer like a branch covered with ripe fruit.
Ila is also the word of the truth; her name has become identical in a later confusion with the idea of speech. As Saraswati is an awakener of the consciousness to right thinkings or right states of mind, cetant sumatnam, so also Ila comes to the sacrifice awakening the consciousness to knowledge, cetayant.
--
Rishi, the Kavi, the Seer of the Truth, we can understand the close connection of Ila and Saraswati. Bharati or Mahi is the largeness of the Truth-consciousness which, dawning on man's limited mind, brings with it the two sister Puissances. We can also understand how these fine and living distinctions came afterwards to be neglected as the Vedic knowledge declined and
Bharati, Saraswati, Ila melted into one.

1.11 - The Seven Rivers, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
4. Avardhayan subhagam sapta yahvh., svetam jajnanam arus.am Mahitva;
Sisum na jatam abhyarur asva, devaso agnim janiman vapus.yan.

1.13 - Dawn and the Truth, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
VII.75.1, vyus.a avo divija r.tena, avis.kr.n.vana Mahimanam agat;
"Dawn born in heaven opens out things by the Truth, she comes manifesting the greatness." Again we have Dawn revealing all things by the power of the Truth and the result described as the manifestation of a certain Vastness.

1.18 - M. AT DAKSHINESWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Rkhl , Ltu, Harish, Ramlal, and M. had been staying with Sri Ramakrishna at the temple garden. About three o'clock in the afternoon M. found the Master on the west porch of his room engaged in conversation with a Tantrik devotee. The Tantrik was wearing an ochre cloth. Sri Ramakrishna asked M. to sit by his side. Perhaps the Master intended to instruct him through his talk with the Tantrik devotee. Mahima Chakravarty had sent the latter to the Master.
MASTER (to the Tantrik): "It is a part of the Tantrik discipline to drink wine from a human skull. This wine is called 'karana'. Isn't that so?"

1.19 - THE MASTER AND HIS INJURED ARM, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
IT WAS THREE O'CLOCK in the afternoon. Sri Ramakrishna had been conversing with Rkhl , Mahimacharan, Hazra, and other devotees, when M. entered the room and saluted him. He brought with him splint, pad, and lint to bandage the Master's injured arm.
Master's injured arm
--
MASTER (to Mahima): "Well, if I am the machine and God is its operator, then why should this have happened to me?"
The Master was sitting on the couch, listening to the story of Mahimacharan's pilgrimage. Mahima had visited several holy places twelve years before.
MAHlMA: "I found a brahmachari in a garden at Sicrole in Benares. He said he had been living there for twenty years but did not know its owner. He asked me if I worked in an office. On my answering in the negative, he said, 'Then are you a wandering holy man?'
--
Thus the Master taught the devotees how to pray. They were deeply touched. Tears filled Mahimacharan's eyes.
Sri Ramakrishna looked at him and sang:
--
It was evening and the worship in the temples was over. A few minutes later Adhar arrived from Calcutta to see the Master. Mahimacharan, Rkhl , and M. were in the room.
ADHAR: "How are you?"
--
The Master conversed with Mahimcharan.
MASTER: "It will be very good if you can practise unselfish love for God. A man who has such love says: 'O Lord, I do not seek salvation, fame, wealth, or cure of disease. None of these do I seek. I want only Thee.' Many are the people who come to a rich man with various desires. But if someone comes to him simply out of love, not wanting any favour, then the rich man feels attracted to him. Prahlada had this unselfish love, this pure love for God without any worldly end."
--
"One must renounce the 'I' that makes one feel, 'I am Mahima Chakravarty', 'I am a learned man', and so on. But the 'ego of Knowledge' does not injure one.
Sankaracharya retained the 'ego of Knowledge' in order to teach mankind.
--
(To Mahima) "Generally speaking there are two kinds of yoga: karmayoga and manoyoga, that is to say, union with God through work and through the mind.
Four stages of life
--
It was about eight o'clock in the evening. Sri Ramakrishna asked Mahimacharan to recite a few hymns from the scriptures. Mahima read the first verse of the Uttara Git, describing the nature of the Supreme Brahman:
He, Brahman, is one, partless, stainless, and beyond the ether; Without beginning or end, unknowable by mind or intelligence.
--
After a long time the Master regained consciousness of the outer world and took his seat. He asked Mahima to recite verses describing the love of God. The latter recited from the Nrada Pancharatra:
What need is there of penance if God is worshipped with love?
--
Next Mahima read the Six Stanzas of Nirvna: Om. I am neither mind, intelligence, ego, nor chitta, Neither ears nor tongue nor the senses of smell and sight; Nor am I ether, earth, fire, water, or air:
I am Pure Knowledge and Bliss: I am iva! I am iva!
--
Each time Mahima repeated: "I am iva! I am iva!", the Master rejoined with a smile: "Not I! Not I! Thou art Knowledge Absolute."
Mahima read a few more verses and also a description of the six psychic centres of the body. He said that in Benares he had witnessed the death of a yogi in the state of yoga.
--
Adhar and Mahima saluted the Master and departed.
At noon the following day, after his midday meal, Sri Ramakrishna was sitting on the small couch, when Ram, Surendra, and a few other devotees arrived from Calcutta.

1.20 - RULES FOR HOUSEHOLDERS AND MONKS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER (to Mahima): "Please recite that verse, the one about devotion to Hari"
Mahimacharan recited, quoting from the Nrada Pancharatra: What need is there of penance if God is worshipped with love?
--
"Therefore when the youngsters come here I ask them whether they have anyone at home. (To Mahima) Why should householders renounce the world? What great troubles the wandering monks pass through! The wife of a certain man said to him: 'You want to renounce the world? Why? You will have to beg morsels from eight different homes. But here you get all your food at one place. Isn't that nice?'
"Wandering monks, while searching for a sadavrata, may have to go six miles out of their way. I have seen them travelling along the regular road after their pilgrimage to Puri and making a detour to find an eating-place.
--
Sri Ramakrishna was sitting on the semicircular porch west of his room, talking with Mahima and other devotees about the hathayogi. The talk drifted to Ramprasanna, the son of Krishnakishore. The Master was fond of the young man.
MASTER: "Ramprasanna roams about aimlessly. The other day he came here and sat in the room, but he did not speak a word. He pressed his nostrils with his fingers, practising pranayama. I offered him something to eat, but he wouldn't take it. On another occasion I had asked him to sit by me. He squatted on the floor placing one leg upon the other. He was rather discourteous to Captain. I weep at his mother's suffering.
(To Mahima) "Ramprasanna asked me to speak to you about the hathayogi. The yogi's daily expenses are six and a half nns. But he won't tell you about it himself."
MahiMA: "Who will listen to him even if he does?"
--
It was not yet dusk. The Master, seated on the couch, was talking to M. Mahimacharan was on the semicircular porch engaged in a loud discussion of the scriptures with the physician friend of Mani Sen. Sri Ramakrishna heard it and with a smile said to M.: "There! He is delivering himself. That is the characteristic of rajas. It stimulates the desire to 'lecture' and to show off one's scholarship. But sattva makes one introspective. It makes one hide one's virtues. But I must say that Mahima is a grand person. He takes such delight in spiritual talk."
Adhar entered the room, saluted the Master, and sat by M.'s side. He had not come for the past few days.
--
MASTER (to Mahima): "What I said about aspirants practising continence is true.
Without chastity one cannot assimilate these teachings.
--
Mahima and the other devotees remained silent. After a time Mahima said, "Please pray to God for us that we may acquire the necessary strength."
MASTER: "Be on your guard even now. It is difficult, no doubt, to check the torrent in the rainy season. But a great deal of water has gone out. If you build the embankment now it will stand.

1.23 - FESTIVAL AT SURENDRAS HOUSE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Just then Mahimacharan arrived. He lived at Cossipore near Calcutta. Mahimacharan held the Master in great respect and was a frequent visitor at the temple garden. He was a man of independent means, having inherited some ancestral property. He devoted his time to religious thought and to the study of the scriptures. He was a man of some scholarship, having studied many books, both Sanskrit and English.
MASTER (to Mahima): "What is this? I see a steamship here. (All laugh.) We expect here a small boat at the most, but a real steamship has arrived. But then I know. It's the rainy season!" (Laughter.)
The Master was conversing with Mahimacharan. He asked him: "Isn't feeding people a kind of service to God? God exists in all beings as fire. To feed people is to offer oblations to that Indwelling Spirit. But then one shouldn't feed the wicked, I mean people who are entangled in gross worldliness or who have committed heinous crimes like adultery. Even the ground where such people sit becomes impure to a depth of seven cubits. Once Hriday fed a number of people at his native place. A good many of them were wicked. I said to Hriday: 'Look here. If you feed such people I shall leave your house at once.' (To Mahima) I hear that you used to feed people; but now you don't give any such feasts. Is it because your expenses have gone up?" (Laughter.) The meal was to be served on the south verandah of the house. Leaf-plates were being placed on the floor. The Master said to Mahimacharan: "Please go there and see what they are doing. You may help them a little in serving the food. But I shouldn't ask you."
Mahimacharan said: "Let them bring in the food. I shall see." Hemming and hawing, he went toward the kitchen, but presently he came back.

1.27 - AT DAKSHINESWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Om! Om! Om Kli!" Again he said, "Let me have a smoke." Many of the devotees stood around. Mahimacharan was fanning him. The Master asked him to sit down and recite from the scriptures. Mahimacharan recited from the Mahanirvana Tantra: Om; I bow to Thee, the Everlasting Cause of the world; I bow to Thee, Pure Consciousness, the Soul that sustains the whole universe.
I bow to Thee, who art One without duality, who dost bestow liberation; I bow to Thee, Brahman, the all-pervading Attri buteless Reality.

1953-05-20, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
According to Sri Aurobindo, this true movement behind respiration is the same as the one governing electrical and magnetic fields; it is what the ancient yogis used to call Vayu, the Life-Energy. The breathing exercises (pryma) are simply one system (among others) for acquiring mastery over Vayu which eventually enables you to be free from gravitation and gives certain powers know to the ancients: the power to be extremely light or extremely heavy, very big or very tine (garim, laghim, Mahim, aim). As an appendix to this talk we publish an extract from a conversation of Sri Aurobindo with a French scientist-disciple, dealing with some of these "true movements" behind the external movement of Matter.
It is remarkable to observe that since then (1926) we have indeed discovered a third "fire", that which accompanies nuclear reactionsand that this fire is in fact that of the sun, the enormous radiation of which is liberated in course of the fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium (Be the cycle). The first fire is that of chemical reactions wherein molecules get destroyed and reconstituted without the constituent atoms being changed. The second fire comes from the modifications of the peripheral levels of the electrons in the atom, modifications which are at the origin of all electro-magnetic phenomena.

1.kbr - Dohas II (with translation), #Songs of Kabir, #Kabir, #Sufism
Jyon Naino Mein Putli, Tyon Maalik Ghat Mahin
Moorakh Log Na Janhin, Baahar Dhudhan Jahin

1.rt - Brahm, Viu, iva, #Tagore - Poems, #Rabindranath Tagore, #Poetry
tapasas tan Mahinajayataikam.
Of a sudden sea of joy surges through his heart
--
retodha asan, Mahimana asan;
svadha avasat, prayatih parastat.

20.01 - Charyapada - Old Bengali Mystic Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Mahinda says, "Yes, I entered here and lost sight of all else.
XVII53

2.01 - Mandala One, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
(9) May Ila, Saraswati and Mahi, the three goddesses born of the sphere of delight sit unfailingly beside our flame.
(10) I call here Twastha supreme whose shape is the world; may he be to us absolute and pure.

2.02 - The Ishavasyopanishad with a commentary in English, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
Bhavani Mahishamardini, in yourself and She will externalize
armed with sword & trident to crush the triumphing Asura. This

2.06 - WITH VARIOUS DEVOTEES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
IT WAS AFTERNOON, and many devotees were present in the Master's room. Among them were Manomohan, Mahimacharan, and M. They were joined later by Ishan and Hazra. Balarm and Rkhl were still staying at Vrindvan. The many young boys who at this time began to seek the Master's company later became his intimate disciples. Ltu lived with the Master, and Jogin, who lived in the village, was a frequent visitor.
Sri Ramakrishna, happy child of the Divine Mother that he was, radiated a joy and peace that were reflected in the hearts of his devotees and found expression in their happy faces. They were seated on the floor and had their eyes fixed on the Master, who was standing in a pensive mood, like a boy.
--
MASTER (to Mahimacharan): "There is no question of my being truthful; but must I develop a mania for it? If I once say that I shall not eat, then it is impossible for me to eat, even if I am hungry. Again, if I ask a particular man to take my water-jug to the pine-grove, he alone must carry it. If another man carries it, he will have to take it back.
What a fix I am in! Is there no way out of it?
--
MASTER (to Mahimacharan): "How much of the scriptures can you read? What will you gain by mere reasoning? Try to realize God before anything else. Have faith in the guru's words, and work. If you have no guru, then pray to God with a longing heart. He will let you know what He is like.
"What will you learn of God from books? As long as you are at a distance from the marketplace you hear only an indistinct roar. But it is quite different when you are actually there. Then you hear and see everything distinctly. You hear people saying: 'Here are your potatoes. Take them and give me the money.' "From a distance you hear only the rumbling noise of the ocean. Go near it and you will see many boats sailing about, birds flying, and waves rolling.
--
"Milk must be turned to curd and the curd must be churned. Only then will you get butter. (To Mahima) What a nuisance! Someone must show God to a man, while he himself sits idly by all the while! Someone must extract the butter and hold it in front of his mouth! (All laugh.) What a bother! Someone else must catch the fish and give it to him!
"A man wanted to see the king. The king lived in the inner court of the palace, beyond seven gates. No sooner did the man pass the first gate than he exclaimed, 'Oh, where is the king?' But there were seven gates, and he must pass them one after another before he could see the king."
--
(To Mahima) "You are a householder. Therefore you should hold both to 'this' and to 'that'-both to the world and to God."
MAHlMA: "Sir, can one who holds to 'that' also hold to 'this'?"
--
(To Mahima) "You should renounce mentally. Live the life of a house holder in a spirit of detachment."
MahiMA: "Can a man live in the world if his mind is once directed to God?"
--
"There is another big man: Captain. Though a man of the world, he is a great lover of God. (To Mahima) Talk to him some time. He knows the Vedas, the Vednta, the Bhagavata, the Git, the Adhytma Rmyana, and other scriptures by heart. You will find that out when you talk to him.
"He has great piety. Once I was going along a street in Baranagore and he held an umbrella over my head. He invites me to his house and shows me great attention. He fans me, massages my feet, and feeds me with various dishes. Once at his house I went into samdhi in the toilet; and he took care of me there though he is so particular about his orthodox habits. He didn't show any abhorrence for the place.
--
(To Mahimacharan) "In the light of Vedantic reasoning the world is illusory, unreal as a dream. The Supreme Soul is the Witness-the witness of the three states of waking, dream, and deep sleep. These things are in your line of thought. The waking state is only as real as the dream. Let me tell you a story that agrees with your attitude.
"There was a farmer who lived in the countryside. He was a real Jnni. He earned his living by farming. He was married, and after many years a son was born to him, whom he named Haru. The parents loved the boy dearly. This was natural, since he was the one precious gem in the family. On account of his religious nature the farmer was loved by the villagers. One day he was working in the field when a neighbour came and told him that Haru had had an attack of cholera. The farmer at once returned home and arranged for treatment for the boy. But Haru died. The other members of the family were grief-stricken, but the farmer acted as if nothing had happened. He consoled his family and told them that grieving was futile. Then he went back to his field. On returning home he found his wife weeping even more bitterly. She said to him: "How heartless you are! You haven't shed one tear for the child.' The farmer replied quietly: 'Shall I tell you why I haven't wept? I had a very vivid dream last night. I dreamt I had become a king; I was the father of eight sons and was very happy with them. Then I woke up. Now I am greatly perplexed. Should I weep for those eight sons or for this one Haru?'
--
MASTER: 'The jnanis regard everything as illusory, like a dream; but the bhaktas accept all the states. The milk flows only in dribblets from the Jnni. (All laugh.) There are some cows that pick and choose their fodder; hence their milk flows only in dribblets. But cows that don't discriminate so much, and eat whatever they get, give milk in torrents. A superior devotee of God accepts both the Absolute and the Relative; therefore he is able to enjoy the Divine even when his mind comes down from the Absolute. Such a devotee is like the cows that give milk in torrents." (All laugh.) MahiMA: "But the milk of a cow that eats without discrimination smells a little."
(Laughter.)
--
(To Mahima) "You explain 'Aum' with reference to 'a', 'u', and 'm' only."
AHIMA: "'A', 'u', and 'm' mean creation, preservation, and destruction."
--
After the devotees had left the Master, Mahimacharan brought Hazra to the room. M.
was present. Mahima said to Sri Ramakrishna: "Sir, I have a complaint against you. Why have you asked Hazra to go home? He has no desire to return to his family."
Duty to one's mother
--
Sri Ramakrishna was in his room, seated on the small couch and facing the east. The devotees were sitting on the floor. It was about midday when M. arrived and took a seat after saluting the Master. Gradually other devotees began to gather. Vijaykrishna Goswami was there with several Brahmo devotees. The priest Ram Chakravarty was present also. Mahimacharan, Narayan, and Kishori arrived a few minutes later.
It was the beginning of winter. Sri Ramakrishna had felt the need of some shirts and had asked M. to bring them. Besides two broad cloth shirts, M. had brought another of a heavy material, for which Sri Ramakrishna had not asked.
--
Sri Ramakrishna remained silent a few moments watching the devotees. He had heard that Mahimacharan did not believe in following a guru. He began the conversation again.
Faith in guru
--
MASTER (to Mahima): "The aim of the Jnni is to know the nature of his own Self. This is Knowledge; this is liberation. The true nature of the Self is that It is the Supreme Brahman: I and the Supreme Brahman are one. But this Knowledge is hidden on account of my.
"I said to Harish; 'This is the whole thing: the gold is hidden under a few basketfuls of earth, and you must remove the earth.'
--
Sri Ramakrishna now addressed Mahimacharan, who was a householder.
MASTER: "What need is there of renouncing the world altogether? It is enough if you can rid yourself of attachment. But you must have sdhan you have to fight the sense-organs.
--
Many devotees were present, including Vijay, Mahimacharan, Narayan, M., and the younger Gopal. Soon Narayan came back to the verandah and took his seat by the Master.
About three o'clock Adhar arrived. At the sight of him Sri Ramakrishna appeared excited.

2.10 - THE MASTER AND NARENDRA, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
SRl RAMAKRISHNA was seated on the small couch in his room, absorbed in deep samdhi. Mahimacharan, Ram, Manomohan, Nabai Chaitanya, M., and other devotees were sitting on a mat spread on the floor. They were watching the Master intently.
It was the day of the Dolayatra, a Hindu religious festival. Sri Krishna and Radha are the central figures of this celebration, their images being placed on a swing, which is rocked now and then. A red powder is showered on the images. Later, friends and relatives throw the powder at one another. This festival is celebrated when winter passes into spring, on a full-moon day rendered doubly sacred by its association with the birth of Sri Chaitanya.
--
The Master said to Mahimacharan, "My dear sir, please tell us something about love of God."
What need is there of penance if God is worshipped with love?
--
MASTER: "You may enjoy 'woman and gold'. What has passed between us is no concern of yours." Mahimacharan, a householder devotee, heard everything and sat speechless.
MASTER (to Mahima): "Go forward. Push on. You will discover the forest of sandalwood.
Go farther and you will find the silver-mine. Go farther still and you will see the gold-mine. Do not stop there. Go forward, and you will reach the mines of rubies and diamonds. Therefore I say, go forward."
--
Narendra was arguing on the verandah with a Vedantist. Now and then the Master went out to look at them. As the devotees gathered in the room he asked Mahima to recite a hymn. Mahima chanted a verse from the Mahanirvana Tantra: We worship the Brahman-Consciousness in the Lotus of the Heart,
The Undifferentiated, who is adored by Hari, Hara, and Brahma. . . .
Mahima recited a few more hymns and at last one to iva, by Sankaracharya, that compared the world to a deep well and a wilderness. Mahima was a householder.
The hymn ran thus:
--
MASTER (to Mahima): "Why do you call the world a deep well or a trackless forest? An aspirant may think so in the beginning; but how can he be frightened by the world if he holds fast to God? Then he finds that-
This very world is a mansion of mirth;
--
Sri Ramakrishna referred to the hymns chanted by Mahima.
Nabai Chaitanya and the other devotees began to sing. They were joined by the Master, who danced, drunk with divine love. Afterwards he said: "This is the one thing needful, the chanting of God's name. All else is unreal. Love and devotion alone are real, and other things are of no consequence."
--
M: "One day I saw Mahima Chakravarty and had a talk with him. It seems that Mahendra visits him."
MASTER: "But Mahima talks about bhakti also. He loves to recite the hymn: 'what need is there of penance if God is worshipped with love?' "
M. (smiling): "He says that because you make him say it."

2.12 - THE MASTERS REMINISCENCES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
To M.) Mahima Chakravarty has read many books, hasn't he?"
M: "Yes, sir, he has read a great deal."

2.13 - THE MASTER AT THE HOUSES OF BALARM AND GIRISH, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Sri Ramakrishna entered Girish's house. The latter had invited a large number of devotees to join the festival. Many of them were present. They all stood up to receive the Master, who, smiling, took his seat. The devotees sat around him. Among them were Girish, Mahimacharan, Ram, and Bhavanth, and also Baburam, Narendra, Jogin, the younger Naren, Chuni, Balarm, M., and the other devotees who had accompanied the Master from Balarm's house.
MASTER (to Mahimacharan): "I said to Girish about you, 'There is one-very deep. You are only knee-deep.' Now you must help me check up on what I said. I want to see you two argue. But don't compromise." (All laugh.) Girish and Mahimacharan started their discussion. Soon Ram said: "Let them stop. Let us have some kirtan."
MASTER (to Ram): "No, no! This has a great deal of meaning. They are 'Englishmen'. I want to hear what they say."
--
MASTER (aside to Mahima): "You see, what I said was right, wasn't it?"
MahiMA: "Yes, sir. As you say, both paths are right."
--
MASTER: "Don't misunderstand me. (To Narendra) You say you understand people; that is why I am telling you all this. Do you know how I look on people like Hazra? I know that just as God takes the form of holy men, so He also takes the form of cheats and rogues. (To Mahimacharan) What do you say? All are God."
MahiMA: "Yes, sir. All are God."
--
(To Mahimacharan) "The Jnni wants neither a form of God nor His Incarnation. While wandering in the forest, Ramachandra saw a number of rishis. They welcomed Him to their rama with great love and said to Him: 'O Rma, today our life is blessed because we have seen You. But we know You as the son of Daaratha. Bharadvaja and other sages call You a Divine Incarnation; but that is not our view. We meditate on the Indivisible Satchidananda.' Rma was pleased with them and smiled.
Master's exalted mood
--
MASTER (in a low voice, to Mahima): "I shall tell you privately. You are the only one fit to hear it.
Difference between a jiva and an Incarnation

2.14 - AT RAMS HOUSE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
He was surrounded by devotees and was conversing with them. Mahima sat in front of him, M. to his left. Paltu, Bhavanth, Nityagopal, Haramohan, and a few others sat around him. It was about five o'clock in the afternoon. The Master inquired after several devotees.
MASTER (to M.): "Hasn't the younger Naren arrived yet?"
--
(To Mahima, smiling) He says the same thing."
Ram had arranged the kirtan. With folded hands the musician said to Sri Ramakrishna, "Sir, I can begin if you give the order."
--
Sri Ramakrishna closed his eyes and said: "Is it only this? Does God exist only when the eyes are closed, and cease to exist when the eyes are opened? The Lila belongs to Him to whom the Nitya belongs, and the Nitya belongs to Him to whom the Lila belongs. (To Mahima) My dear sir, let me tell you-"
MahiMA: "Revered sir, both are according to the will of God."
--
The devotees listened silently to the Master. Sri Ramakrishna asked Mahima, laughing, "What is the thing you enjoy most?"
MahiMA (smiling): "Nothing, sir. I like mangoes."
--
MASTER (to Mahima): "Sambhu once said to me: 'I have some money. It is my desire to spend it for good works-for schools and dispensaries, roads, and so forth.' I said to him: ' It will be good if you can do these works in a selfless spirit. But it is extremely difficult to perform unselfish action. Desire for fruit comes from nobody knows where. Let me ask you something. Suppose God appears before you; will you pray to Him; then, for such things as schools and dispensaries and hospitals?' "
A DEVOTEE: "Sir, what is the way for worldly people?"

2.17 - THE MASTER ON HIMSELF AND HIS EXPERIENCES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
It was eight o'clock. Sri Ramakrishna was talking to Mahimacharan. Rkhl, M., and one or two companions of Mahimacharan were in the room. Mahimacharan was going to spend the night at the temple garden.
Mahima's estimate of the devotees
MASTER (to Mahima): "Well, how do you find Kedr? Has he only seen milk, or has he drunk it too?"
MahiMA "Yes, he is enjoying bliss."
--
Sri Ramakrishna came down to the floor and sat near Mahimacharan. M. and a few other devotees were near him. Rkhl also was in the room.
MASTER (to Mahima): "For a long time I have wanted to tell you my spiritual experiences, but I could not. I feel like telling you today.
Master's intimate vision of God
--
But did Mahimacharan understand the import of these words? Even after hearing them, he said to the Master, "These things have happened to you on account of your meritorious actions in your past births." Mahima still thought that Sri Ramakrishna was a sdhu or a devotee of God. The Master nodded assent to Mahima's words and said: "Yes, the result of past actions. God is like an aristocrat who has many mansions. Here [referring to himself] is one of His drawing-rooms. The bhakta is God's drawing-room."
It was nine o'clock in the evening. Sri Ramakrishna was sitting on the small couch. It was Mahimacharan's desire to form a brahmachakra in the presence of the Master.
Mahima formed a circle, on the floor, with Rkhl, M., Kishori, and one or two other devotees. He asked them all to meditate. Rkhl went into an ecstatic state. The Master came down from the couch and placed his hand on Rkhl's chest, repeating the name of the divine Mother. Rkhl regained consciousness of the outer world.
--
In the early hours of the morning Mahimacharan and M. lay down on the floor of the Master's room. Rkhl slept on a camp cot. Now and then Sri Ramakrishna paced up and down the room with his clothes off, like a five-year-old child.
Monday, August 10
--
Purna, Mahima Chakravarty, and the others."
Sunday, August 16, 1885
--
They thought it was just a sore in his throat. Many devotees arrived at Dakshineswar to visit him. Among them were Girish, Ram, Nityagopal, Mahima, Kishori, and Pundit Shashadhar.
Sri Ramakrishna was in his usual happy mood. He was talking to the devotees.

2.18 - January 1939, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
They had the faith that nothing could happen to them. Once when the police came to arrest them they were all singing and dancing. Seeing them in exaltation the police went away. They thought that they were invincible. The Government sent soldiers who arrested them. Then their faith was shaken. One of the prominent disciples, Mahindra Dey, also lost his faith, though he was the victim of his own enthusiasm.
Disciple: How can ones vital forces be drawn out when one is in contact with the Divine?

2.19 - THE MASTER AND DR. SARKAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
It was about one o'clock in the afternoon. Sri Ramakrishna was seated on the second floor of the house at Syampukur. Dr. Sarkar, Narendra, Mahimacharan, M., and other devotees were in the room. Referring to the homeopathic system of medicine, the Master said to Dr. Sarkar, "This treatment of yours is very good."
DOCTOR: "According to homeopathy the physician has to check up the symptoms of the disease with the medical book. It is like Western music. The singer follows the score.
--
M. (to Dr. Sarkar): "He (pointing to Mahimacharan) has studied science a great deal"
DOCTOR (smiling): "What science? Do you mean Max Muller's Science of Religion?"
--
MASTER: "Oh, stay a little. Girish Ghosh has been sent for. (Pointing to Mahima) He is a scholar, yet he dances in the name of Hari. He has no pride. He went to Konnagar just because we were there. He is wealthy; he is free; he serves nobody. (Pointing to Narendra) What do you think of him?"
DOCTOR: "Excellent!"
--
Dr. Sarkar on Mahima
The conversation turned to Mahima Chakravarty. He had been with the Master when Dr.
Sarkar had visited him the previous Saturday. Pointing to the doctor, Mahima had said to Sri Ramakrishna, "Sir, you yourself have created this disease in order to pamper the doctor's pride."
M. (to the doctor): " Mahima Chakravarty used to come to your place to attend your lectures on medical science."
--
M: "He described Mahima Chakravarty as 'God's Lower Third'. Now he admits that all the qualities-sattva, rajas, and tamas-exist in God. (The Master laughs.) Then he told me that he had waked at three in the morning and had been thinking of you ever since.
When I saw him it was eight o'clock. He said to me, 'Even now the Paramahamsa is in my mind.' "

2.20 - Nov-Dec 1939, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: No. Imet Mahindra Dey, one of his disciples who was a scientist in the Bengal National College. When Iwrote about the future Avatar, he said the Avatar was already there. After the shooting affair took place he recanted Dayananda's Avatarhood.
Disciple: He used to keep nothing for the morrow in his organisation they depended entirely on Divine Grace.

2.20 - THE MASTERS TRAINING OF HIS DISCIPLES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
The doctor took M. in his carriage. He had to see a few patients on the way to Syampukur. They continued their conversation in the carriage. Dr. Sarkar referred to Mahima Chakravarty's pride.
Master's humility & M. and Dr. Sarkar

2.21 - IN THE COMPANY OF DEVOTEES AT SYAMPUKUR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
M. went to Dr.Sarkar's house to report Sri Ramakrishna's condition. The doctor talked to M. about Sri Ramakrishna, Mahimacharan, and the other devotees.
DOCTOR: " Mahimacharan didn't bring the book he promised to show me. He said he had forgotten all about it. It is quite possible. I am forgetful too."

2.22 - THE MASTER AT COSSIPORE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
NARENDRA: "I am going home. (To M.) I shall visit Mahimacharan on the way. Will you come with me?"
M. did not want to go. Looking at M., Sri Ramakrishna asked Narendra, "Why?"
NARENDRA: "I am going that way; so I shall stop at Mahima's place and have a chat with him."
Sri Ramakrishna looked at Narendra intently.
--
NARENDRA: "The other day we went to visit Mahimacharan."
MASTER (smiling): "Well?"
--
"On hearing this song, Mahimacharan said: 'Why such songs here? I don't care for love and all that nonsense. Besides, I live here with my wife and children. Why all these songs here?'"
MASTER (to M.): "Do you see how afraid he is?"

2.27 - Hathayoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The body, thus liberated from itself, purified from many of its disorders and irregularities, becomes, partly by Asana, completely by combined Asana and Pranayama, a perfected instrument. It is freed from its ready liability to fatigue; it acquires an immense power of health; its tendencies of decay, age and death are arrested. The Hathayogin even at an age advanced beyond the ordinary span, maintains the unimpaired vigour, health and youth of the life in the body; even the appearance of physical youth is sustained for a longer time. He has a much greater power of longevity, and from his point of view, the body being the instrument, it is a matter of no small importance to preserve it long and to keep it for all that time free from impairing deficiencies. It is to be observed, also, that there is an enormous variety of Asanas in Hathayoga, running in their fullness beyond the number of eighty, some of them of the most complicated and difficult character. This variety serves partly to increase the results already noted, as well as to give a greater freedom and flexibility to the use of the body, but it serves also to alter the relation of the physical energy in the body to the earth energy with which it is related. The lightening of the heavy hold of the latter, of which the overcoming of fatigue is the first sign and the phenomenon of utthapana or partial levitation the last, is one result. The gross body begins to acquire something of the nature of the subtle body and to possess something of its relations with the life-energy; that becomes a greater force more powerfully felt and yet capable of a lighter and freer and more resolvable physical action, powers which culminate in the Hathayogic Siddhis or extraordinary powers of garima, Mahima, anima and laghima. Moreover, the life ceases to be entirely dependent on the action of the physical organs and functionings, such as the heart-beats and the breathing. These can in the end be suspended without cessation of or lesion to the life. All this, however, the result in its perfection of Asana and Pranayama, is only a basic physical power and freedom. The higher use of Hathayoga depends more intimately on Pranayama. Asana deals more directly with the more material part of the physical totality, though here too it needs the aid of the other; Pranayarna, starting from the physical immobility and self-holding which is secured by Asana, deals more directly with the subtler vital parts, the nervous system. This is done by various regulations of the breathing, starting from equality of respiration and inspiration and extending to the most diverse rhythmic regulations of both with an interval of inholding of the breath. In the end the keeping in of the breath, which has first to be done with some effort, and even its cessation become as easy and seem as natural as the constant taking in and throwing out which is its normal action. But the first objects of the Pranayama are to purify the nervous system, to circulate the life-energy through all the nerves without obstruction, disorder or irregularity, and to acquire a complete control of its functionings, so that the mind and will of the soul inhabiting the body may be no longer subject to the body or life or their combined limitations. The power of these exercises of breathing to bring about a purified and unobstructed state of the nervous system is a known and well established fact of our physiology. It helps also to clear the physical system, but is not entirely effective at first on all its canals and openings; therefore the Hathayogin uses supplementary physical methods for clearing them out regularly of all their accumulations. The combination of these with Asana, -particular Asanas have even an effect in destroying particular diseases, -- and with Pranayama maintains perfectly the health of the body. But the principal gain is that by this purification the vital energy can be directed anywhere, to any part of the body and in any way or with any rhythm of its movement.
The mere function of breathing into and out of the lungs is only the most sensible, outward and seizable movement of the Prana, the Breath of Life in our physical system. The Prana has according to Yogic science a fivefold movement pervading all the nervous system and the whole material body and determining all its functionings. The Hathayogin seizes on the outward movement of respiration as a sort of key which opens to him the control of all these five powers of the Prana. He becomes sensibly aware of their inner operations, mentally conscious of his whole physical life and action. He is able to direct the Prana through all the Nadis or nerve-channels of his system. He becomes aware of its action in the six Chakras or ganglionic centres of the nervous system, and is able to open it up in each beyond its present limited, habitual and mechanical workings. He gets, in short, a perfect control of the life in the body in its most subtle nervous as well as in its grossest physical aspects, even over that in it which is at present involuntary and out of the reach of our observing consciousness and will. Thus a complete mastery of the body and the life and a free and effective use of them established upon a purification of their workings is founded as a basis for the higher aims of Hathayoga.

2 - Other Hymns to Agni, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
8. May Ila, Saraswati and Mahi,7 the three goddesses who create the bliss sit on the sacred seat, they who never err.
9. O maker of forms, hither benignant arrive all-pervading in thy fostering to us and in thyself; in sacrifice on sacrifice us upward guard.
7 Ila, goddess of revelation; Saraswati, goddess of inspiration; Mahi, goddess of the Vast Truth, Mahas or r.tam br.hat.
10. O Tree,8 there where thou knowest the secret names of the gods make rich our offerings.

32.06 - The Novel Alchemy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
What is this world that is to be the fruit of the new spiritual realisation? Where will it be? It would appear to be a supraphysical and transcendent realisation. Chardin has clearly suggested that the new earth will not be anything like a planet renovated into a "sidereal" body illumined by its own light and not that of another. It will not be a thing of the gross material world at all. It would rather come into being as if by rending through the old earth and destroying it, almost as a result of a universal catastrophe, pralaya.Would it then be something non-material? If it were to be made up of pure consciousness, then it might be termed the realisation of Brahman,the Brahmic status. Is then evolution of the manifested universe moving towards this final destruction or dissolution? Or else is the new world to be conceived as something belonging to the supra-physical? But the supra-physical world too has its planes, and this new world may be the field of a spiritual realisation somewhere among these planes beyond life, mind and the above-mind. The Vedantins speak of the world of Brahman, they aim at realising the grand status of Brahman, brahma-loke Mahiyate.But theirs is. something outside the created universe, beyond manifestation. The Vaishnavas have spoken of a highest spiritual world, go-taka,which is within the manifestation. The Christians too speak of their Heaven. We also hear of the world of Shiva, the world of Vishnu; these too are not entirely outside the manifestation or created universe. Does then Chardin aim at something overmental, utterly beyond and above the mind?
In the vision of Sri Aurobindo, the process of creation is not merely an ascent and upward movement, it has a movement of descent too. There is not merely a crossing of levels upon levels, not merely a progressive purification, enlargement, deepening, intensification and sharpening of the consciousness and status; the aim is to transfigure all in the image of the divine being. This process involves a going upward and a, descent with a view to reshape the lower reaches anew in the mould of the heights, not a final extinction, nirvana,in the world of Brahmanby a rejection of all individuality and collectivity. No level of the created universe has to be bypassed or abolished, not even the lowest material plane. On the contrary, the aim is to take one's stand on this material plane itself and transmute it into a new matter, even as the secret aim of the old alchemists had been to transmute the base metal into gold.

33.07 - Alipore Jail, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
yasyaite himavanto Mahitva
"Whose glory these Himalayan snows declare."

33.11 - Pondicherry II, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
ajanata Mahimanam tavedam
maya pramadat pranayena vapi.

3.7.1.05 - The Significance of Rebirth, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There are certain limitations of our own thought over which all these solutions stumble, and the chief of these obstacles are our sense of the mechanical nature of the universe and our inability to see forward to a greater than our present type of humanity. We see the superconscient Spirit in its effulgence and freedom and we see the universe in its inconscient bondage to the cycle of its mechanical recurrences, or we see existence as an abstract entity and Nature as a mechanical force; the conscient soul stands between as a link between these opposites, but it is itself so incomplete that we cannot find in this linksecret or make of it a strong master of reconciliation. Then we pronounce birth to be an error of the soul and see our one chance of liberation in a shaking off of these natal shackles and a violent reversion to supracosmic consciousness or the freedom of abstract being. But what if rebirth were in truth no long dragging chain, but rather at first a ladder of the souls ascension and at last a succession of mighty spiritual opportunities? It will be so if the infinite existence is not what it seems to the logical intellect, an abstract entity, but what it is to intuition and in deeper soul experience, a conscious spiritual Reality, and that Reality as real here as in any far off absolute Superconscience. For then universal Nature would be no longer a mechanism with no secret but its own inconscient mechanics and no intention but the mere recurrent working; it would be the conscient energy of the universal Spirit hidden in the greatness of its processes, Mahimnam asya. And the soul ascending from the sleep of matter through plant and animal life to the human degree of the power of life and there battling with ignorance and limit to take possession of its royal and infinite kingdom would be the mediator appointed to unfold in Nature the spirit who is hidden in her subtleties and her vastnesses. That is the significance of life and the world which the idea of evolutionary rebirth opens to us; life becomes at once a progressive ascending series for the unfolding of the Spirit. It acquires a supreme significance: the way of the Spirit in its power is justified, no longer a foolish and empty dream, an eternal delirium, great mechanical toil or termless futility, but the sum of works of a large spiritual Will and Wisdom: the human soul and the cosmic spirit look into each others eyes with a noble and divine meaning.
The questions which surround our existence elucidate themselves at once with a certain satisfactory fullness. What we are is a soul of the transcendent Spirit and Self unfolding itself in the cosmos in a constant evolutionary embodiment of which the physical side is only a pedestal of form corresponding in its evolution to the ascending degrees of the spirit, but the spiritual growth is the real sense and motive. What is behind us is the past terms of the spiritual evolution, the upward gradations ofspirit already climbed, by which through constant rebirth we have developed what we are, and are still developing this present and middle human term of the ascension. What is around us is the constant process of the unfolding in its universal aspect: the past terms are there contained in it, fulfilled, overpassed by us, but in general and various type still repeated as a support and background; the present terms are there not as an unprofitable recurrence, but in active pregnant gestation of all that is yet to be unfolded by the spirit, no irrational decimal recurrence helplessly repeating for ever its figures, but an expanding series of powers of the Infinite. What is in front of us is the greater potentialities, the steps yet unclimbed, the intended mightier manifestations. Why we are here is to be this means of the spirits upward self-unfolding. What we have to do with ourselves and our significances is to grow and open them to greater significances of divine being, divine consciousness, divine power, divine delight and multiplied unity, and what we have to do with our environment is to use it consciously for increasing spiritual purposes and make it more and more a mould for the ideal unfolding of the perfect nature and self-conception of the Divine in the cosmos. This is surely the Will in things which moves, great and deliberate, unhasting, unresting, through whatever cycles, towards a greater and greater informing of its own finite figures with its own infinite Reality.

3.7.1.06 - The Ascending Unity, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
the greatness of its complete and highest reality. The word of the ancient Veda stands, - out of all the ocean of inconscience, apraketam salilam sarvam idam, it is that one spiritual Existent who is born by the greatness of his own energy, tapasas tan Mahina ajayata ekam. Where in this evolution does the thing we call soul make its first appearance? One is obliged to ask, was it not there, must it not have been there from the first beginnings, even though asleep or, as we may say, somnambulist in matter? If man were only a superior animal with a greater range of physical mind, we might conceivably say that there was no soul or spirit, but only three successive powers of Energy in a series of the forms of matter. But in this human intelligence there does appear at its summit a greater power of spirit; we rise up to a consciousness which is not limited by its physical means and formulas. This highest thing is not, as it might first appear, an unsubstantial sublimation of mind and mind a subtle sublimation of living matter. This greatness turns out to have been the very self-existent substance and power of our being; all other things seem in comparison only its lesser forms of itself which it uses for a progressive revelation; spirit in the end proves itself the first and not only the last, Alpha as well as
Omega, and the whole secret of existence from its beginning.

3.7.1.07 - Involution and Evolution, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
involution in the material energy. We might almost speak here of a double evolution. A Force inherent in the Infinite brings out of it eternally the structure of its action in a universe of which the last descending scale is based upon an involution of all the powers of the spirit into an inconscient absorption in her selfoblivious passion of form and structural working. Thence comes an ascent and progressive liberation of power after power till the spirit self-disclosed and set free by knowledge and mastery of its works repossesses the eternal fullness of its being which envelops then and carries in its grasp the manifold and unified splendours of its nature. At any rate the spiritual process of which our human birth is a step and our life is a portion, appears as the bringing out of a greatness, asya Mahimanam, which is secret, inherent and self-imprisoned, absorbed in the form and working of things. Our world-action figures an evolution, an outrolling of a manifold Power gathered and coiled up in the crude intricacy of Matter. The upward progress of the successive births of things is a rise into waking and larger and larger light of a consciousness shut into the first hermetic cell of sleep of the eternal Energy.
There is a parallel in the Yogic experience of the Kundalini, eternal Force coiled up in the body in the bottom root vessel or chamber, muladhara, pedestal, earth-centre of the physical nervous system. There she slumbers coiled up like a Python and filled full of all that she holds gathered in her being, but when she is struck by the freely coursing breath, by the current of Life which enters in to search for her, she awakes and rises flaming up the ladder of the spinal chord and forces open centre after centre of the involved dynamic secrets of consciousness till at the summit she finds, joins and becomes one with the spirit. Thus she passes from an involution in inconscience through a series of opening glories of her powers into the greatest eternal superconscience of the spirit. This mysterious evolving Nature in the world around us follows even such a course. Inconscient being is not so much a matrix as a chamber of materialised energy in which are gathered up all the powers of the spirit; they are there, but work in the conditions of the material energy, involved, we say, and therefore not apparent as themselves because they have

3 - Commentaries and Annotated Translations, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
to Daksha & Saraswati, Ila, Sarama & Mahi the activities of the
Truth & Right, to the Rudras, Maruts & Adityas, the play of

5.4.01 - Notes on Root-Sounds, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Valetudo (stem in): health, good or bad. O.S. valatud, state of health formed from valat, health by adding da (danam, like ma, manam in Mahima) preceded by the enclitic u.
Valgus: bandylegged crooked, wry (e.g. valga suavia). O.S. valgas, crooked, curving. Rt val to turn, bend, with the nominal suffix ga.

r1912 07 02, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
8, 9 and 7 constantly reappear in the lipi. They indicate the chief points on which the struggle with the objective resistance is now concentrated. The secondary utthapana commenced feebly on the first attained on the night of the second some strength. There was perfect Mahima & laghima (perfect in nature, not intensity) in the legs, but the defect of anima prevented sustainment for more than 15 minutes. In the arms it is general adhogati working through unease and general hostile physical sanskara that opposes; the special defect of anima is less prominent, though entirely absent only in one or two positions. Even in those the adhogati works through kala to recreate it.
The first or, less likely, the second occurrence of "vishayananda" is a slip for "vaidyutananda".Ed.

r1912 12 11, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The rupadrishti has advanced today; perfect crude forms now sit easily in the akasha, perfect crude dense & crude developed forms appear frequently & with some stability; absolutely perfect forms are more frequent, but not yet stable. The akasha is of itself bringing forward the lipi with more ease & force. The trikaldrishti is normally perfect, except in arrangement & exact time, unless it is confused with the shaktiprayoga,all that is perceived is seen to be correct, only all is not seen in its exact place. The range also is widening. Shaktiprayoga has now more force & normal effectiveness. The force of bhautasiddhi is also increasing, in the ordinary Mahima & laghima. Intellectual infallibility is now seen to be a possibility & not far from realisation, at least where it can be immediately tested. Kama Ananda today was continuous for some minutes, though not of the greater intensity already achieved. Sukshma sparsha is increasing in force & keenness, but is still usually only a subtle physical sensation, except in touches of water, fire or electric atoms which have now a great sthula reality & linger on the body both in the solid sensation & in its physical-nervous effects. Other touches do not yet materialise. Sukshma gandha & gandha-rasa with sparsha is keen & powerful, but irregular in occurrence. Sravana & drishti of actual forms & voices as opposed to images & symbolic sounds are still behindhand. All these are now recognised as parts of samadhi or visvagati, the fifth member of the third chatusthaya. Health is still attacked, but dully, not with yesterdays force.
Written Dec 12th

r1912 12 16, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The lipi has definitely conquered in the Akash, but its invariable success of vividness & legibility is not yet allowed. The jnanam has now an invariable correctness, but the trikaldrishti is still clouded by the relics of the twilit intellectual activity. Shakti of chitta & prana is now being finally perfected on the basis of the perfect samata, shanti, sukha & atmaprasada. Dasyam is taking entire possession of all the functions, attended by dasyabuddhi in the devatas, and the Master of the Yoga is now habitually manifest in his personal relation. The two sortileges are being progressively fulfilled. Physical activity10.45 to 11.45. Adhogati is strong and seeks to base itself on defect of anima. Pranic utthapana, complete in the pranakosha, is unable as yet to possess wholly the annakosha except in its pranic parts; hence, failure of Mahima & a strong sense of weakness & incapacity in the karmadeha affecting the body. Again from 12.10 .. 1.5 & from 3.5 to 4.10 in the afternoon.
The afternoon has passed under Vritra, the power slow to act, the trikaldrishti & jnana uncertain, the physical brain dull and overcast. The Maheshwari-Mahasaraswati shanti is giving place under such circumstances to the Mahasaraswati-Mahakali quietude based on a concealed Maheshwari pratistha. Nirukta is now acting under the rule of the vijnana normally & bhasha begins to follow suit; the intellect in the environment has recognised the necessity of passivity & the superior results of the vijnanamaya method. The frequency of Ananda (Kama) continues but is interrupted by Vritric periods.

r1912 12 27, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The confused action of the intellect revived in some force and although the siddhis continued, certainty was for a time abrogated. The improvement in the Viceroys health took place in the direction willed, viz elimination of fever & pain. A period must now be fixed for entire recovery & it must be seen whether the element of time can be controlled. The Turkish business is also centring round the point willed, but the upshot is still in doubt. The cough tried to cling throughout the day, but disappeared by the evening, contrary to its action yesterday. Roga in its other symptoms clings, but cannot assert itself. Will acted with great accuracy in the matter of the returns in the evening, but the trikaldrishti was confused in details. Another failure as regards equipment. The failure was seen before it was known, by vyapti, but there was an attempt to mislead by false vyaptis. Sleep over 7 hours. Samadhi at night is absent, but takes place in the daytime,deep, the record confused with intervals of lucidity & coherence. There is a dull attack of defect of anima & Mahima in the primary utthapana.
***

r1913 01 15, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Rupa in the evening did not progress beyond its previous point of attainment, except in shabdadrishti where there was drishti of a tea canister and the clear sound of setting it down. Secondary utthapana was applied to the neck, back and legs and in all positions showed a great force of Mahima, anima and laghima, but the anima fails and with it the Mahima after a space of time varying from two to five minutes. Laghima is sufficient, if not contradicted by the defect of anima. The failure of Mahima is due, essentially, to an element of physical tapas (muscular strain) which still adheres to the action; if this were not present, the insistence of defective anima would not be so powerful. Dream was for the first time entirely discharged of present ego, present associations and present images, except for one attempt to identify present custom in eating with the manners presented in the dream; there was, however, this deficiency that the dream consciousness followed the internal movements of the central figure one not myself and only observed the external movements of others. This defect has to be remedied. Kamananda is persistent in the less intense form, but not always present.
Secondary utthapana and kamananda have entirely fulfilled the programme, also health; samadhi has prevailed, except in bringing about long continuity in the swapna and developed rupa in the antardrishta; rupadrishti has had only a slight success. Aishwarya and trikaldrishti have followed the lines laid down for them, but the movement is not yet complete.

r1913 01 16, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
1) Trikaldrishti has now to replace entirely the action of the intelligence; that is, nothing has to be done by judgment, logical reason, speculative imagination, sanskara born of memory; but even the most trifling and unimportant things have to be known by vijnana agencies. Where vijnana does not give light, there has to be no judgment, conclusion or even speculation. Aishwarya has to be utilised only where there is perception of the Divine Will behind; it has no longer to reflect in any way the movements of the manomaya Purusha or the manomaya Shakti. Lipi has to get rid of the obstacle in the Akasha which prevents it from manifesting with a successful and easy vividness. Rupa & Samadhi have to continue their struggle and progressively prevail. 2) Kamananda has now to move towards continuity of the more intense form and entire continuity of the less intense. Arogya has to expel the symptomatic survivals in the assimilation and kamachakra. Secondary utthapana, established in its generalised activity, has to increase the force of pure Mahima and of anima. Saundarya must still struggle with its obstacle without as yet prevailing and the Aishwarya with the obstacle to the equipment.
Letter from Biren showing an improved mental state and a vague dawning of vyapti & speculative trikaldrishti. An instance of success in subjective-objective in its subtler or more subjective parts. The power of the aishwarya-vyapti in the subjective-objective field is now considerable and daily successful, but its compulsion on the objective action is still meagre. Today, as was foreseen, there is a fresh instance of train collision in England and the perception that the Viceroys health would not be seriously affected, is justified.
--
Kamananda has lasted through the afternoon, with slight intermissions, sometimes slight, sometimes intense, but more in the subtle than in the gross body. Secondary utthapana of the neck confirmed yesterdays fulfilment as to time and force and added a purer Mahima, but one of less duration; applied to one leg only, perfect in laghima & almost perfect in pure Mahima, it lasted for as long as one could count deliberately two thousand. Sthapatyalipi shows a movement of remanifestation. Samadhi was barren of any progress, but did not go backward.
In the evening Rupadrishti developed in the crudest forms a greater variety and completeness. Samadhi at night was barren & the dreams confused in record. Aishwarya showed a considerable increase in force and each exercise of will was successful. Vijnana became active, though not yet well-harmonised, in its various parts and lipi more in possession of the akasha, though still obliged to use an effort in order to manifest; there was a perfect intelligibility and appositeness in most of the lipis and a full play of interpretation of the various objective materials of trikaldrishti. The subjective powers of knowledge have passed their period of effort and difficulty; only the objective material is still unable to deploy itself easily & richly in the material akasha. Power is beginning to accomplish its firm mastery, although still hampered in the matter of equipment and slow in other provinces. There is fresh proof of its efficacy in karma.

r1913 01 17, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Yesterdays programme has to be completed; trikaldrishti has to get rid of the remnants of false stress which constitute now its one remaining positive defect; aishwarya to illumine itself with knowledge of the Divine Will,for up till now it has only got rid of the urgency which impelled it to employ itself blindly and merely for exercise. It has also to confirm the movement excluding ineffectual applications. Lipi has attained to successful vividness; it has still to attain to easy vividness. Rupa & Samadhi must continue their struggle. Kamananda successful in the afternoon was slight and rare in the evening; it must expel the hesitation in the body which prevents it from domiciling itself in the sthula. Arogya, although much stronger, does not yet exclude the return of the symptoms which it has expelled; these affections must now be compelled to disappear. Secondary utthapana, which maintained in the afternoon and at night its efficiency except for a stronger attack of adhogati and defective anima, must increase the force of pure Mahima in order to combat this deficiency.
The matter of the equipment has now been handed over to the passive Ishita; it is the one point of almost complete unsuccess which still prevents faith in the adeshasiddhi from attaining to self-confidence and fullness,although the failure of the saundarya to emerge is a powerful auxiliary obstacle.

r1913 01 25, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Rupa in the Akasha developed in the dense and developed forms, but not yet with perfect freedom and abundance. Secondary utthapana took a considerable step forward, Mahima & laghima immensely increasing except in the back and defect of anima greatly decreasing except in the back & neck. Kamananda continuous throughout the day, was less frequently intense and its ordinary level raised beyond the former limit, but inferior to yesterdays though more regular.
***

r1913 01 27, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Trikaldrishti made a final stride forward to its ultimate perfection by getting rid of the habit of tamasic denial which used to fasten on the least sign of amangala and asiddhi and hasten to accept adverse probability or even possibility as adverse certainty. In the place of this denial there is left a strong uncertainty chiefly with regard to those parts of the siddhi in which the sraddha has not yet been established by events, ie the saundarya and karmasiddhi. Aishwarya attained to perfection of detail and is now beginning to act automatically and without effort in its various fields, but is still resisted firmly in the karma in which there is a general attack on the siddhi which has been developing for some time past, as the opposition shifted more and more from the Yogasiddhi to the karmasiddhi, and is now at its height. The aishwarya has got rid of the remnants of tapasic stress and struggle which marred its perfection of method and has only to get rid of a remnant of tamasic anxiety & asraddha about its results. Vani, script etc are being more & more justified and whenever the trikaldrishti acts, it is justified and false trikaldrishti, ie misinterpretation of material, is being put in its proper place and turned into satyam. Therefore, the asraddha is being forced to its final collapse. Lipi is now free, vivid and spontaneous, but not always legible. Rupa has attained to activity in all kinds, but not yet free activity, & to more frequent stability in all but the developed perfect form; its force is daily increasing, but the progress is marked by the old gradual slowness & has not yet come into line with the new rapidity. Drishti of Samadhi & visvagati developed yesterday in force & stability, but has still an imperfect hold on the akasha. Kamananda has overcome all its difficulties, eg noncontinuity of intense ananda while walking etc, except the mere habit of intermission; this habit grew stronger yesterday, & there was much & frequent intermission. On the other hand the ananda pervades the system more perfectly & has not lost either in intensity or in ease of recurrence. It is growing more powerful in the raudra form. Arogya is increasing; strongly attacked yesterday, it overcame all difficulties except the weakness of the second chakra. There has been no parthiva visrishti, except nominal & infinitesimal relief, for these seven days, and it is now clear that this visrishti is no longer a physical necessity, but a habit kept in survival by the imperfect speed and still faulty method of the assimilation which, instead of drawing the food at once into the akash by the power of the mukhyaprana, recurs partially to the old panchabhauta absorption & therefore leaves a deposit which has to be dematerialised, or else produces symptoms of tejasic & jalamaya irregularity before it completes its process. For this reason, jalavisrishti is still overfrequent and the demand of the Apana still continues. Secondary utthapana is progressing in strength of laghima and Mahima and has begun to expel defect of anima into the outworks of the physical system, but this process is still in its initial stages. Only saundarya is slow to manifest; it does not yet succeed in getting rid of its positive contradictions, the signs of old age etc. The saundarya once in motion and the equipment to hand, the whole siddhi will be in simultaneous successful movement.
***

r1913 01 28, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Today, according to promise, proofs of the action of Aishwarya-ishita-vyapti in the karmasiddhi are beginning to crowd in; incidentally, the trikaldrishti is being justified against the relics of tamasic hesitation at every step. Dream became perfect in type, though still imperfectly organised, on its way to conversion into memorative experience in samadhi. Rupa in swapnasamadhi is now much more stable, although continuous experience in vision and in the sukshmadeha, as distinguished from continuous dream experience & momentary experiences in the sukshmadeha, are still held back from manifestation. Secondary utthapana in the neck increased in Mahima, (maintenance while counting 1000 deliberately is the test), but defect of anima is still strong here and it resists successfully, in the back, the extension of the utthapana. Laghima is in all parts of the body sufficient, Mahima variable, anima weak except in certain positions of the arms and legs. In the arms in the primary position utthapana can easily be maintained for an hour and, if necessary, for much longer. Arogya after a struggle gave proof of increasing force; there was the first real parthiva visrishti at the close of the seventh day, but even here the force of assimilation was proved by the absence of any serious reaction such as would have been inevitable a short while ago. Rupadrishti in the jagrat still progresses slowly & is perfect only in a few types, but its stability increases.
Dasya finally shed the remnants of the tertiary stage, & the quaternary dasyabuddhi is now constant & invariable whenever there is any turning of the mind towards the nature of the action, whatever the action may be. The purnabrahmadrishti is also normalised &, whenever there is smarana, invariable, whatever the object. Along with this development, there is perfect objective vishayananda even in the bibhatsa and jugupsita; the same perfection is establishing itself in the subjective vishaya, bibhatsa, apriya, amangala, & there are only a few defects. Kamananda fell to a minimum, but now persists under all circumstances and is not suspended at night, but is always there subject to the anusmarana. It is growing again in intensity, with the intention of maintaining intensity in the constancy. It still tends to diminish, though not disappear, while walking, and to become involved or implicit by distraction of attention.

r1913 01 31, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
(7) Vijnana is complete in jnana, established & effective in trikalsiddhi but still imperfectly organised, established in power but still imperfect in effectiveness and organisation, established in lipi but still weak in the richer varieties and not completely organised, established in rupa, but still poor and manifested with difficulty, except in chitra & sthapatya, established in samadhi but still hampered in continuity, poor in antardrishta jagrat, ill-organised and in jagrat shabdadrishti etc elementary & infrequent, established & effective in prakamya vyapti, but imperfectly organised, established in pranic Mahima & laghima, but still resisted, deficient in anima.
(8) Ananda of the body is established, but not yet sovran. Arogya imperfect in assimilation and kamachakra, doubtful in phlegm centres & skin, otherwise established. Utthapana is established in the pranic basis, active in primary & secondary, but everywhere hampered by defect of anima; of tertiary there is as yet no sign. Saundarya is manifest only in the slow alteration of certain lines in the feet & the trunk and in its subjective basis of youthful feeling.

r1913 06 17b, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
9) Utthapana in the legs (both simultaneously, lying) for an hour, with but slight defect of anima; it might have been continued considerably longer. Laghima very strong; Mahima strong, but affected by subjective weakness in the prana. Utthapana of arms, horizontal position, only 20 minutes & much afflicted by ananima. Power in wrist yet weak, but improving.
10) Saundarya; no decisive proof of advance.

r1913 06 17, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
9) Utthapana in the legs (both simultaneously, lying) for an hour, with but slight defect of anima; it might have been continued considerably longer. Laghima very strong; Mahima strong, but affected by subjective weakness in the prana. Utthapana of arms, horizontal position, only 20 minutes & much afflicted by ananima. Power in wrist yet weak, but improving.
10) Saundarya; no decisive proof of advance.

r1913 11 26, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Today utthapana has been firmly resumed, after some futile beginnings in the past month, with the horizontal position of the arms; the force of laghima and Mahima has greatly increased in the interval of non-practice, the defect of anima diminished. At the first attempt (6 am) either arm maintained itself easily for 17 minutes or 15 with only a slight defect of anima, more in the left arm than the right, and a pressure of adhogati that only became pronounced at the end. Kamananda is again increasing on the body. The Will has resumed its pressure on the body for saundarya.
Utthapana of the left arm (horizontal position) resumed & continued from 10-49 to 11-49, one hour, the adhogati asserting itself with some force, but much less than formerly, during the last ten minutes. Strong pain given to the system (burning in the eyelids by the flaming tip of a match, and muscular pain of indigestion in the breast & back) showed that the sparshas habitual[ly] causing pain can no longer entirely shut out ananda, even when they are very powerful, but can temporarily overpower them. In all cases there is rasagrahana, but not pritih or ananda. Pritih is only beginning. Kamananda is resuming its former maithuna intensity.
--
Utthapana of the neck, raised position, maintained for a quarter of an hour; not yet at ease; laghima & Mahima partially manifest, anima defective.
Swapnasamadhi in the afternoon; fragmentary conversations (dialogue, lipi predicted before sleep) of two persons accompanied with images but no complete group (eg Kedar Das Gupta, long forgotten), combination of image, shabda & action, etc, attempt also at continued action; but all in chhayamayi.

r1913 11 28, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Utthapana of the neck for half an hour; Mahima & laghima were strong though not yet entirely perfect, but Anima very defective; strong & troublesome pressure on the nerves & veins of the neck and back of the head, but not an overpowering pressure. Utthapana of the right leg for 7 minutes only in the middle position, Anima & Mahima very weak, laghima satisfactory; of either leg successfully in the horizontal position for 5 and 6 minutes, Mahima insufficient, Anima very weak. The morning chiefly spent in Veda & Life Divine. Subjective siddhis dull owing to flagging of the Vijnanabuddhi. In this reactionary state Ananda is dull in the purely physico-vital parts of the indriyas though strong in the mental and intelligent parts, the other siddhis sink to a low intensity and show whatever imperfections are still defectively purged out of them. Mahasaraswati tapas with the Maheshwari basis sometimes covered, sometimes visible through a thin veil of Mahasaraswati bhava.
Recurrence on a small scale of the crisis of asiddhi in the first two chatusthayas centred in asraddha. After repeating the stereotyped movements, it gradually disappeared, leaving however a diminished faith and tapas.

r1913 11 29, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Utthapana of the neck in middle position for 15 minutes with great difficulty owing to violent An-anima; laghima at first weak afterwards strong enough to fill the place of a deficient Mahima. Utthapana of both legs, middle position, for 5 minutes only, very defective. Utthapana of back, higher position, for 3 minutes; laghima & Mahima a little stronger than formerly. The subjective siddhis not yet advanced. Kamananda sometimes intense, sometimes suppressed or subdued; general atmosphere of violent suppression. The assimilation has been resumed & is more in the control of the tapas; tendency to constipation diminished; free evacuation after 4 days, slight evacuations on the second and third. Health has been greatly streng thened
Discomfort of cold and heat is being extruded from the body, but recurs, especially when it is of the nature of a surprise, eg the sudden touch of cold water in a chilly atmosphere, and the Shakti in the physical nerve system has not time to send a sufficient force of Chittapas to meet & assimilate the sparsha.

r1913 11 30, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Utthapana of the left leg, horizontal position lying on the side, half an hour. Laghima strong, Mahima sufficient, violent an-anima in the sinew or nerve; of the right leg, horizontal position, lying on the back, ten minutes; urdhwagati deficient; of the neck, middle position, 20 minutes, difficulty of an-anima much reduced. In the afternoon utthapana of the right leg, lying on the side, 10 minutes, violent an-anima in the sinew compelled cessation, although laghima and Mahima were sufficient.
Kamananda established itself in standing & walking.

r1913 12 02a, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Utthapana of the legs, horizontal position, successively, a failure due to entire defect of anima and for the most part of Mahima. Like the Brahmabuddhi yesterday, the Brahmaprema today was universalised and raised to a high intensity, bringing with it entire premananda on men, animals, objects & events. The movement now is to confirm all the anandas, except the physical, & the subjective siddhi generally, prema, kama, shama in the Ekam Brahma, so assuring it on the bahu, & no longer perfected by application through the Avidya to each object separately. So far as that movement was necessary, it has been accomplished, but it can only be finally safeguarded from interruption & relapse by being secured in the ekatwadrishti of buddhi, heart, indriyas & sanjna generally. The vani & script yesterday were confirmed in their proper nature as proceeding from the ananda & involving the vijnana. Faith also has been established in the truth of the instruments of knowledge; the satyam brihat is entirely confirmed & the truth of misapplied satyam is habitually perceived either before, with or after the event. The ritam however is yet defective, although its hold on the active consciousness increases & there is still uncertainty about the Adeshasiddhi & consequently about the entire rapidity of the physical siddhi & karmasiddhi. The rest is felt to be assured, since all the members are rapidly growing [in] force. There is constant pressure of the will on the asaundarya, but its compact resistance is yet far from being broken.
In the afternoon the resistance to the Will had entirely the upper hand and a period of Asiddhi began, with its usual circumstances. This movement has continued since and such siddhi as manifests, appears with difficulty and as from behind a veil. The successful contradiction in all the Chatusthayas continues, although hitherto it has not been so acute as in the more successful invasions.

r1913 12 09, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Utthapana of both arms from 1.34 to 4.34first hour and a half medial or half-medial position, second hour & half vertical position; some spasmodic efforts at active ananima ineffective, they only gave trouble for a few minutes during the third half hour, then disappeared. Reflex strain in the back, but gave no trouble. The whole, except for two quarter hours of sitting, done while walking. Primary utthapana perfected. For the arms only the horizontal position has now to be fully tested. Therefore utthapana of the left arm in the horizontal position was continued from 4.34 to 5.4. Violent ananima applied from above as an actual downward pressure of pain on the muscle, but the Mahima & laghima defied the strain, which finally began to lose its acuteness while increasing in a dull & heavy pressure. This is the first time the utthapana has been so prolonged; the longest previous period even for the vertical position, lying down, which has long been entirely conquered, was 3 hours.
Ananda has been persistent, except for discontinuance at night & early this morning, but it has been more in the suppressed & subdued forms than in the intensity.
Utthapana of the left leg, medial position, for half an hour. Mahima insufficient; no pronounced ananima.
***

r1913 12 10, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Utthapana of the neck for 20 minutes. Laghima & Mahima deficient except at the end; the an-anima was strong at first but afterwards diminished. Its effects remained in the muscles of the neck
Utthapana of the right leg failed in Mahima; first for 5 minutes, then fifteen; in the back also it failed. There was a general lassitude in the body as the result of yesterdays tapasya.
Rupa more perfect in one or two occasional forms or flashes, but no more decisively advanced than yesterday.

r1913 12 11, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Utthapana of the right leg, medial position, for half an hour; some difficulty owing to artificial pressure from above taking advantage of insufficient laghima & Mahima; of the left, horizontal, for ten minutes, with great difficulty. Mahima very insufficient; ananima strong. Utthapana of the left, medial position, reclining in arm-chair, for hour and quarter; laghima very strong, Mahima involved in laghima, ananima expelled, but sometimes recurrent
Strong attack on the first three chatusthayas, successful in disturbing samata & clouding sraddha, but resultant in confirmation of the Mahakali-Mahasaraswati form of the personality & the growth of the ugrata. Vijnana very full & active in jnana in the morning, disturbed for the rest of the day.

r1913 12 13, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Utthapana of the left arm, horizontal position, commenced while recumbent on the right side, was visited at once with a violent pain of ananima; after some minutes changed to the sitting position & walking, the ananima diminished, & the utthapana was maintained with increasing force for an hour & a half, but the ananima finally returned & terminated it. The right arm continued for an hour; then ananima grew suddenly upon it. It is noticeable that when held out rigidly, the ananima takes the form of strong muscular pain in the shoulder muscle; when held easily & slightly crooked, the ananima comes after a long time & takes the form rather of uneasiness. In both cases there is no pull of gravitation from below, the laghima of the arms being perfect, but a pressure of gravity from above, oppressing the Mahima through ananima. Utthapana of the back persisted for nearly 5 minutes with intervals of varying pressure & growing urdhwagati. Other utthapanas were unsuccessful.
In the afternoon & evening the vijnana was again successfully clouded. It is noticeable that the trikaldrishti of exact time is growing in frequency, eg the return of B. [Bijoy] the other day at 7.55, the return of N [Nolini] & Br. [Biren] today by 7.

r1913 12 14, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Utthapana of the right leg, medial position, for half an hour with but slight ananima,discontinued owing to deficiency of established laghima and Mahima. Subsequently utthapana of the back attempted without success, owing partly to commencement with the medial position, attempted again and successful[ly] maintained for 15 minutes; increasing laghima & Mahima made the utthapana easier & easier, instead of its becoming more difficult by long continuance, and at the end only a slight dull pain of ananima in the hips and vepathu survived out of the first strong asiddhi. The back was then lowered to the medial position & could have been maintained owing to strong laghima, but there was violent vepathu; the utthapana was discontinued owing to an external occurrence, otherwise it might have been maintained for an indefinitely longer period. This is the first time utthapana of the back has been established.
Confusion of the first & second chatusthaya, due to confusion of the third, again occurred. The difficulty in distinguishing the Personality of the Master of the Yoga, owing to the interference of inferior personalities, is now a main cause of unfaith & discontent.

r1913 12 16, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Utthapana of the neck for half an hour in raised & medial positions. After twenty minutes the inferior position, without support for the back, was attempted, but brought on strong pain of ananima. The utthapana of the leg was abandoned after ten minutes owing to unsatisfactory nature of the laghima and Mahima, although it could have been continued longer.
The full force of the Mahakali tapas & personality was allowed to take possession of the adhara in the evening, but as usual brought on activity of the lower tapas and reaction.

r1913 12 31, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Yesterday utthapana was resumedutthapana of the neck for half an hour without effort or difficulty and with only an ineffective & moderate an-anima. Today there came utthapana of both legs in the medial position for quarter of an hour, with difficulty because of defect of Mahima which finally induced abandonment, although there were signs that the asiddhi would diminish if the attempt were prolonged. Afterwards the left leg was supported in the horizontal position (reclining on the side) for an hour by a perfectly sufficient laghima & Mahima & at the end could have been maintained for an indefinitely longer period. The pain of the sinews peculiar to this position was recurrent, but had no longer its old force; nevertheless it prevented the maintenance in a single position straight or crooked, change of position giving relief. Except when the Mahima is withheld, the utthapana now can always be maintained owing to the great accomplished force of laghima in the body. An-anima is now the only substantial opponent. It is noticeable that physical tapasya has been greatly diminished & seems on the point of abandonment in favour of pure Tapas of willpower. The utthapana of the back & loins has, however, still to be tried; hitherto it has only once succeeded. The time for the horizontal position of the legs has not before been equalled, but the alteration of the method & the disappearance of true opposition is now the real siddhi, time only a test of its completeness or a circumstance. Vepathu remains, but it is now seen as the sign of a helpful agent which increases Mahima & diminishes both muscular stress & muscular pain and strain; it is the sign of the pranashakti at work improving an unfit adhara.
In the afternoon there was a strong effort to reidealise the whole consciousness as well as the activity which succeeded with the thought but only partially with the trikaldrishti. In the evening there was, after a short struggle in which the trikaldrishti was almost unerring but the tapas only partially & defensively effective, an unprecedented sequent faultlessness of the effective will and, with one or two slight deflections, of the perceptive knowledge, but all this was in the manasa ketu and not in the daivya. So far it was a success for the manasa element which seeks to use the vijnana for its own development while refusing to the vijnana the possession & enjoyment of the system. The results however failed to give satisfaction to the Jiva or to the system which now demands vijnana and rejects the manasa perceptions whether true or false. This virati is the security that the attempt of the lower to use & dominate the higher cannot eventually succeed.
--
Utthapana of the right leg, horizontal position, recumbent on the back, could be maintained only for 9 or 10 minutes; the ananima was strong & the Mahima, though present, defective.
The principal work of the [year] 1913 has been the reduction of asiddhi to a survival in the external environmental swabhava, the purification of that swabhava from the contradictions of the first & second chatusthayas, the sure foundation of the siddhi in the third, fourth & sixth & its preparation in the fifth. The finality of the first chatusthaya is perfect in itself, though not yet entirely absolute, touches still surviving as an occasional insistence from the outer nature. Fierce trouble & distress is obsolete, distress itself & even impatience only an occasional & momentary memorial return, but temporary discouragement & distrust with a tendency to indifference & weariness are still able to make a superficial impression. This insecurity of the sraddha & tejas & their incomplete hold in regard to the karmasiddhi & the necessary rapidity of Yogasiddhi prevents a complete & forcible finality of the shakti, retains the excess of the Mahasaraswati-Maheswari combination in the Mahakali Mahasaraswati temperament and hampers the expression & activity of the Mahakali tapas. The third chatusthaya is founded in all its parts, but insecure in the jnana, unfinished in the trikaldrishti, wide & secure but still uncertain & variable in vyaptiprakamya, both imperfect & uncertain in the parts of Tapas and ill-developed in samadhi; nevertheless it is now powerfully & inevitably progressive. The fourth chatusthaya is somewhat advanced but insecure in physical ananda, growing persistently in arogya but obstinately haunted by the old mechanical recurrence of fragmentary defects, growing in secondary utthapana, merely initial & without force of progression in saundarya. The fifth is still in a state of preparation, seed-sowing & crude initial consistencies. The sixth is well advanced, but unable to hold its own without smarana except in the sarvam Brahma. The seventh is well advanced except in certain parts of the siddhi, especially in ritam.

r1914 03 25, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Utthapana of neck & leg for 15 minutes, not maintained longer, because of the successful intrusion of muscular effort in place of the natural Mahima. Laghima was strong, Mahima defective.
MS taken

r1914 05 18, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Utthapana resumed, but feebly. The three basic siddhis are eclipsed in the body; but laghima easily emerged & Mahima to some extent. Anima is less active than formerly.
The force of continuity of swapnasamadhi very slightly increased after several nights of suspension of progress. Rupa still progresses by the same infinitesimal degrees, as also the other parts of the vijnana.

r1914 06 25, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Asana of right leg, medial, first 6 minutes, then 15 after a long interval (20 minutes); the left, 21 minutes. In the right laghima seemed to draw back & give the place to Mahima which supported the utthapana. In the left laghima was agent & Mahima supplementary. Defect of anima was intermittent in spite of great pressure on the right, until the close of the asana. Asana of left horizontal, first in position of body recumbent on the side (15 minutes) then on the back (5 minutes).
The cause of the relapse & long suspension of utthapana seems to be that the pranic siddhis were never really extended to the outermost shells of the physical prana. Their deficiencies were supplied by an exceptional force of Tapasya which afterwards retired, not being natural to the body.

r1914 06 28, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Medial asana of left leg, 20 minutes. Mahima defective, more than anima.
***

r1914 07 02, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Of the arms, horizontal; for 30 minutes; strong laghima & involved Mahima; anima defective chiefly in the shoulder-muscles. An-anima not effective to contradict or suspend utthapana.
Brahmadrishti

r1914 07 03, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Of the arms, vertical position, 30 minutes; an-anima present, but ineffective. Followed without break by horizontal position, 30 minutes; an-anima stronger than yesterday, but ineffective & not present at the end of the period. Laghima is exceedingly strong & the involved Mahima increases despite fluctuations.
There is still a part of the physical shell which keeps the sense of the asiddhi.

r1914 07 06, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Yesterday utthapana of the left leg, horizontal asana, recumbent on side, could not, because of an-anima endure for more than 15 minutes. Today the attack of an-anima was more violent, but laghima from the first developed great power & afterwards Mahima overcame the pressure. Nevertheless in the first quarter-hour the position recumbent on side had to be changed for some seven minutes to recumbent on back in order to relieve the pain of the nerves. Eventually the asana continued for 45 minutes altogether in spite of frequent lesser repetitions of the attack. Kampana was pronounced.
Arogya

r1914 07 07, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Of the legs attempted, left medial position for five minutes, discontinued for an-anima & lack of Mahima; subsequently (5 minutes afterwards) resumed, Mahima improved, 15 minutes utthapana. Utthapana of both together recommenced.
***

r1914 07 15, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
That again is a question not of Time, but of Tapas,tapaso Mahina.
Half July is over, & the great tide of success is not yet, in appearance, initiated except in the subjectivity. But really it is already beginning in the subjective objectivity.

r1914 08 08, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In the trikaldrishti the ritam continually increases and if not yet brihat in the active knowledge, is brihat in the passive and tends towards Mahim in the active.
The power increases in the mass of its force but is resisted in detail. In the end it more often prevails than fails. And it is now acquiring exactitude of result.

r1914 08 13, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Of arms medial position, standing; strong defect of anima. Laghima & Mahima strong. 16 minutes.
Ananda

r1914 09 06, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Utthapanaof arms medial position 30 minutes. Sufficient laghima & Mahima. Slight actual defect of anima, but considerable reaction afterwards in the superficial muscles.
***

r1914 09 07, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Of arms, vertical position, walking 30 minutes. Laghima strong, but not dominant; Mahima defective, but not insufficient; anima attacked; defect & after reaction pronounced, but with less hold & effectuality than on former occasions.
Samadhi

r1914 09 08, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Of arms, vertical, walking .. 46 minutes. Mahima & laghima stronger, defect of anima only felt for a time in the first half hour & then again in the additional 16 minutes. Immediate reaction strong. Chief defect in the loins.
Commentary completed

r1914 09 17, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The same, 1 hours; pressure small except at the end. Laghima & Mahima increase with the length of the kriya; only anima loses & increases its defect.
Lipi

r1914 09 19, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The same one hour. The pressure of defect of anima again very strong, but could not overpower the Mahima.
***

r1914 09 27, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The same as before, an hour and eighteen minutes, interrupted. It was only at the end that the defect of anima became a little insistent, though never effective. Laghima strong; less need of Mahima.
It appears, therefore, that in this utthapana the principle of the safety of past gains is applying itself. Formerly, after the suspension for some days the vertical utthapana of the arms could not be restored without a painful struggle.

r1914 10 12, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
2 hours. Arms. Defect of anima greater than yesterday in the arms & shoulders. On the other hand the acute strain on the loins has disappeared; such strain as was felt, was intermittent & only at the end. Full laghima is almost accomplished; not yet full Mahima or anima.
***

r1914 10 13, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Utthapana of the arms for one hourdiscontinued to give place to work for the Review. The laghima is now well-established; yesterdays exercise could have easily been continued for another half hour. Mahima defective is only a secondary state, an effect of defective Anima; in itself Mahima is sufficient,weighed upon but not overpowered by defect of Anima. It is only in the defect of Anima, that the Asiddhi has a real point dappui.
In other parts of the body, Mahima is deficient & overpowered by violent pressure of the Asiddhi on the defect of Anima.
This defect of Mahima has to be forced out of the whole body.
***

r1914 10 14, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Legs; medial position, 15 minutes. Strong defect of anima, laghima sufficient; Mahima distressed by defect of anima.
***

r1914 10 23, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Utthapana resumed. Arms 30 minutes. Defect of anima impresses itself strongly on the body, but without overcoming laghima and Mahima.
***

r1914 11 04, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Utthapana of arms. 3 hours. Muscular strain reappeared, more as the result of repeated utthapana than of extension of time. Twice an attempt was made to make it oppressive & victorious over the laghima & Mahima, in the fourth quarter of an hour & once in the third half hour. A later attempt in the last half hour hardly materialised & the utthapana could have been continued, apparently indefinitely. Stress was then laid on the strain of reaction & this now remains as the one effective obstacle to this utthapana.
***

r1914 11 17, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There is a tendency to the establishment of 3 hours utthapana of the arms as perfectly normal; only the reaction in the shoulder resists. Laghima & Mahima are sufficient & could have easily supported the arms for the remaining half hour and beyond.
***
--
Of back & loins 1 minutes; laghima excellent, inefficient Mahima.
Of legs, 10 minutes; good laghima, entire absence of Mahima; therefore the defect of anima prevailed throughout.
***

r1914 11 18, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Legs. 15 minutes. Mahima introduced & laghima stronger than yesterday. Defect of anima, after the first ten minutes, tried to overpower but failed. A great force of physical tapas is present in the body, but failed entirely for a time in the evening. Afterwards it recovered itself.
Long sleep is at present the habit of the body which thinks it necessary to recuperate itself from the strain which the pranic parts of the body feel less & less but the physical still consciously or subconsciously undergoes.
--
Right leg, horizontal, lying on side; 15 minutes; Mahima & laghima although increased in strength overpowered eventually by acute defect of anima.
***

r1914 11 19, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Legs17 minutes. Entire absence of Mahima, replaced by force.
***
--
Legshorizontal: left17 minutes, deficient Mahima & laghima: right, 7 minutes, laghima and Mahima sufficient, but acuter defect of anima manifesting as pain of nerve & muscle compelled desistence.
***

r1914 11 20, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Legs. 10 minutes only. Defect of Mahima; laghima also insufficient.
***

r1914 11 28, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Arms 2 hours with 3 interruptions, of 20 minutes, 2 minutes & 5 minutes, two of them for correcting proofs. Entire absence of pranic enthusiasm, void of Mahima, absence of force in laghima; great defect of anima in the whole back. The physical being is depressed & discouraged in the matter of utthapana.
***

r1914 11 29, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
2 hours. Depression still continues. The reaction & defect of anima & Mahima manifested in the second hour & were very strong.
***

r1914 12 10, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is now clear that laghima & Mahima are sufficiently developed to maintain secondary utthapana of any part of the body, for any time, if allowed by the defect of anima. The latter is stronger in some parts of the body, weaker in others. Hence the variations of the power of utthapana. Mahima & laghima are not yet strong enough for tertiary utthapana, ie utth. of the whole body raised from the earth.
***

r1914 12 13, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Utthapana of legs, medial position, 20 minutes. Laghima improved, defect of Mahima, strong defect of anima.
***

r1914 12 14, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Legs30 minutes. Mahima increased, but still very deficient, laghima not sufficient to take its place, strong positive defect of anima from the beginning owing to reaction of stiffness in the leg muscles. Throughout a violent struggle; but the laghima increased to the end.
***
--
Back & loins, 8 minutes, maintained with immense difficulty owing to defect both of laghima & Mahima; both were withheld except in infinitesimal quantity;just sufficient to prevent the effort from collapsing.
***

r1914 12 16, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
2 hours. The old system of laghima supported by a pranic Mahima working partially through the muscles, with reaction, strain & defect of anima, still persists. It must be replaced by a laghima containing pure Mahima in itself and producing no strain on the body which in its turn must get rid of the purely habitual reaction of defect of anima.
***

r1914 12 18, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Arms, one hour. Depression of energy at its height. Laghima, Mahima, anima all inefficient hardly offering any opposition to the Asiddhi.
***

r1914 12 19, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Legs. 15 minutes. Defect of anima, Mahima insufficient.
Darshana
--
There is no longer an attempt to maintain the utthapana by separate Mahima. The two principles are now to enforce mahatlaghima and to eliminate defect of anima.
The utthapana-shakti in the arms is restored, but not yet sufficient. It failed for a while at the end of the hour & faltered at other times.
--
Left leg horizontal. 20 minutes. defect of anima. strong Mahima-laghima. The utthapana might have been maintained ten minutes longer.
***

r1914 12 20, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Arms. one hour. There is a struggle and alternation between mahat laghima and laghima void of Mahima weighed down by defect of anima, needing to be supported by Mahima.
***

r1915 01 05a, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
2) Left leg, horizontal 27 minutes. Strong laghu Mahima, strong defect of anima with kampana, finally prevailing. Intervals of pure anandamaya anima after the tremblings.
3) Back. One minute and a half. Mahat laghima, defect of anima.

r1915 01 05b, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Strong laghu Mahima; strong defect of anima with tremblings only succeeded in prevailing after 25 minutes. Intervals of pure anandamaya anima after the tremblings.
***

r1918 05 18, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A better distinction of primary and secondary utthapana has now to be made. Primary utthapana properly belongs to the vijnana, it is the full force of laghima, Mahima, anima in the mind stuff and psychic prana so that the mind rejects all exhaustion, weariness, depression of force etc. When this extends to the prana upholding the body, that is primary utthapana in the physical being. Secondary utthapana is elimination of these reactions from the body so that the limbs and the whole body can take and maintain any position or begin and continue any movement for any length of time naturally and in its own right. Tertiary, is when gravitation is conquered.
Hitherto the distinction made was between movement ambulando and positions of the limbs and the body. These are now being unified in the primary siddhi. Fatigue in the positions is still powerful, but it is physical with a reaction on the upholding prana, brought about by violent pressure on the muscular system. This reaction must be eliminated.
--
In a continuity of five hours or so of walking, coming upon the constant abhyasa, more broken, of the past many days, fatigue in the upholding prana was shown to be now merely a shadow, fatigue in the body could only hold if there was relaxation of the utthapana shakti. Even then it was less fatigue than a pressure of the pain of stiffness in the muscles. In relaxation a sort of manomaya laghima without Mahima upholds the body, and this force allows the reaction, although it is noticeable that the force of the reaction is diminishing. When the utthapana shakti of Mahima-laghima takes possession, and it now ordinarily holds the body,all fatigue and reaction disappear and there is only the pain of stiffness which sometimes decreases and is suppressed, sometimes increases, but does not affect the unrelaxed body.
Utthapana of position is still too much afflicted by the pressure on the deficient anima, still too little supported by Mahima in the laghima to be prolonged.
In Samadhi a great and solid advance. Dream reading (narrative and monologue) became perfect, except that it has to be hastily read, the lines disappearing or receding from the direct view as soon as the sense is grasped; but otherwise they are perfectly complete, massed, consecutive, coherent, forming a complete and often a long story or discourse, though occasionally the opening or the close is not read. On the other hand if there is an attempt at stability and deliberate reading, the massed print becomes either instable or incoherent. Dialogue also was perfect, though not so long and complete.

r1918 05 24, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In the afternoon two positions of the legs, B.I & II, lying on the back, crooked position, lower parts horizontal, and lying on each side, alternately, horizontal II.a (straight) & II.b crooked. In B I. defect of anima was strong and prevented long abhyasa, but while recently and for a long time Mahima has entirely failed to support the laghima, this time it came and held. In B II, (a) was found difficult owing to violent attack of ananima, but this was persistently recurrent, not persistent, and there was in the intervals complete utthapana; in (b) the recurrence was less persistent and less violent. On the whole on the left the utthapana was well maintained, either self-existent or satapas, for about 15 minutes; on the right there was after 7 or 8 minutes the overpowering by defect of anima. Therefore this utthapana of B positions can only be regarded as preparatory, as it was declared to be before it began.
In arms AA, (ie lying on back), the old self-existent utthapana force recovered strength and maintained itself, after one or two downward tendencies of lapse, even in sleep.

r1918 06 03, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Secondary utthapana II.a.b. left side for more than half an hour, variation for five minutes to IIb(a), slanting upwards. The opposition to Mahima and laghima was all this time entirely ineffective and in fact rare, though occasionally it recurred only to give up the attempt almost immediately. The opposition to anima, though recurrent, could not persist, was not vehemently recurrent and was often in abeyance. Only after more than half an hour the disinclination of the body indicated a suppressed force of denial of the utthapana shakti
Rupa continues to grow in the swapna with a reflex action in the antardarshi. Stability is greatly increased. Vishaya in swapna is preparing to normalise itself. Only the self existent progress of all the parts in unison without exclusiveness or interruption has to be established. Vishaya and rupa in jagrat held on.

r1918 06 14, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This morning. B II, left, almost entirely b, for upward of an hour; simultaneously, A.A.b, left arm raised half way for an hour, lying on the right side, and neck, C b, in the same position. In all Mahima and laghima triumphant. In B II the sharp defect of anima has lost its power of persistence and also of persistent recurrence; it occurred once or [twice]1 for a moment in the first half hour, once or twice with a more prolonged but with no very intense recurrence in the second. In C b, it came only for a time. The place of the old oppressive defect of anima has been taken by the pressure of garima on the limb, a weighing down, a sort of dull combined defect of the three qualities with the result of a temporary disinclination and declaration of inability in the body; but this could not last. It was stronger in A.A.b than in B II and in C b than in either of the other asanas. But in none could it prevail. All three might have been continued. But the object now is not, as before, to prolong the period of the asana which means only to postpone the return of the nir-utthapana, but to abolish the denial. This is being done by the will bringing in the nature of the vijnana into the body and abhyasa is now rather [ ]2 a test than a means of the siddhi.
In the later morning A III; vertical position of both arms, walking, for between half an hour and an hour. Here too Mahima laghima is in possession, but the defect of utthapana shakti is greater, due to the survival of the defect of anima shown by a reaction in the muscles after cessation, which was absent from the asanas of the early morning. The asana could not have been continued longer without some strain and difficulty. No evident reaction from the walking in this position.
The movement is now to replace finally in trikaldrishti the action through the intellect by the action through the intuitive mind. In trikaldrishti the survival of the inferior action is strong and will take some time to eliminate. It prevents decisive trikaldrishti and perpetuates error of stress and error of interpretation of the will-messages and knowledge-messages from the ideality.

Talks 051-075, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Sage). Here is no mention of siddha for granting boons. The Jnani can do so. The mantras again, swe Mahimni pratishtitah (abiding in his own grandeur), anantam Brahma (Brahman is infinite), will seem confounding when read with the slokas cited above. Sarvam
Khalvidam Brahma (All this is Brahman); Brahmavid Brahmaiva
--
The sastras are meant to suit varying conditions. Their spirit remains the same. In Halasya Mahima there is a chapter on the eightfold
siddhissiddhis. There Siva says that His bhakta never wastes a thought on them. Again Siva says that He never grants boons. The desires of the devotees are fulfilled according to their prarabdha only. When

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