TERMS STARTING WITH
That an initiate could never be married is true of the highest class of adepts, but history shows that both men and women initiates, although very rarely of the highest rank, have been married. It is likewise to be remembered that one of the grandest initiates known to human history, Gautama Buddha, married and had a child.
That a propositional function F is necessary may mean simply (x)F(x), or it may mean that (x)F(x) is necessary in one of the preceding senses. -- A.C.
That day and nyght he dooth al that he kan
That each might have his ration of thought-food,
That gives a meaning to our will and action. Our will and action can often annul or modify even the past karma, it is only cer- tain strong effects, called tiikata karma, that arc non-modifiable.
That he may stand master of life and fate,
That is itot the transformation I envisage.
That is the nature of the action of these gunav in the unattached liberated yogi.
That it was at one time part of patristic thinking can be deduced from Theodotus ( Excerpts ) to the effect that “those
That live for ever in the Eternal’s gaze.
That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre. This, if it brings about the silence of the surface mind, opens up an inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge
That paradoxes of this kind could be relevant to mathematics first became clear in connection with the paradox of the greatest ordinal number, published by Burali-Forti in 1897, and the paradox of the greatest cardinal number, published by Russell in 1903. The first of these had been discovered by Cantor in 1895, and communicated to Hilbert in 1896, and both are mentioned in Cantor's correspondence with Dedekind of 1899, but were never published by Cantor.
That part of us which we can strictly call subconscient because it is below the level of mind and conscious life, inferior and obscure, covers the purely physical and vital elements of our constitution of bodily being, unmentalised, unobserved by the mind, uncontrolled by it in their action. It can be held to include the dumb occult consciousness, dynamic but not sensed by us,which operates in the cells and nerves and all the corporeal stuff and adjusts their life process and automatic responses. It covers also those lowest functionings of submerged sense-mind which are more operative in the animal and in plant life.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 762
That's not a bug, that's a feature! ::: The canonical first parry in a debate about a purported bug. The complainant, if unconvinced, is likely to retort that the bug is then at best a misfeature.See also feature.[Jargon File] (1995-02-02)
That's not a bug, that's a feature! The {canonical} first parry in a debate about a purported {bug}. The complainant, if unconvinced, is likely to retort that the bug is then at best a {misfeature}. See also {feature}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-02-02)
That the child carries on or transmits many features from his parents cannot be denied, but it is of no greater significance than the fact that he also derives features from a variety of other sources, all which contribute materials and subordinate agents by which the karma of the individual is fulfilled. That karma is the innate character of the individual, as imbodied in the various spiritual, manasic, psychological, or astral vehicles which contribute to the composite human being. Without taking into account these acquired characteristics on the inner planes, what determines the extent or manner in which the character of the offspring will be modified by the modicum of new physical influence derived from the parents cannot be explained. For, “it is . . . unquestionable that in the case of human incarnations the law of Karma, racial or individual, overrides the subordinate tendencies of ‘Heredity,’ its servant” (SD 2:178).
That the initiate was compelled to kill the initiator was allegorical and exoteric.
That the priests of Atlantis addressed their gods in the language of those gods, is a mystical statement: they addressed the regents of the elements in the sound-language appropriate to the particular element. Vach is the mystic speech by which occult knowledge is communicated to man. See also LOGOS; MANTRA; SOUND
That the Tammuz festival was solstitial, began with the new moon in July, and lasted for a week more or less, and that the whole ceremony comprised a dying and resurrection from the dead — all these facts point directly to one of the mysteries of the four great initiatory cycles of the year, one of which is referred to in the mystical story of Jesus in the New Testament. All the great ancient initiations comprised a purification or preparation (katharsis), a trance followed by a dying, and a later resurrection of the initiant or neophyte as a fully born initiate, adept, or new man.
That the Torah was originally conceived and set down in Hebrew is a widely postulated
That the work is a compilation is true enough, but not in the sense meant by skeptical scholars; for its is a compilation of teachings of the archaic secret doctrine under the exoteric form of Chaldean symbols, for the purpose of at once cloaking and handing down the teachings.
That Translating the Sanskrit tat or tad, the nameless or ineffable. Beyond the utmost that can be defined must necessarily be postulated that which cannot be defined; beyond the utmost confines of the comprehensible must be placed that which cannot be comprehended: the All, symbolized by the circle without a central point. It is abstract space, and the point in the center is Aditi or potential space. It is the One, which is Brahman and pums (spirit) and pradhana (primordial matter), immutable because being abstract infinite space without attributes, preceding all manifestations, remaining after all manifestations have vanished in pralaya. Therefore it is nonbeing to us in the sense that it is Be-ness, abstract space and frontierless duration as one. The Qabbalistic equivalent, ’eyn soph (without bounds), is before all numbers, and is that from which all numbers proceed.
That was back in 1927. His Satanic Majesty may have moved since then.
that Abraham was too old at the time to be the
that Adam was whisked to Heaven by Michael
that, after God had revealed Himself to the Law¬
that Apollyon was known in Heaven, before he joined Satan, as the hierarch “of the snowy
that are ascribed to (the planet) Jupiter.” To do
that are behind it. Sleep is a going inward in which the surface self and the outside world are put away from our sense and rision. But in ordinary sleep we do not become aware of the worlds within; the being seems submerged in a deep sub- conscience On the surface of the subconscience Soau an obscure layer in which dreams take place, as it seems to us but, mote correctly it may be said, are recorded.
that assemble to judge human beings when the
that Astaroth was an ancient god of Syria.
that cannot be escaped.
that cannot be moved, agitated or disturbed.
that cannot be reached; beyond reach.
that cannot be slain.
thatch ::: 1. A material as straw, rushes, leaves, or the like, used to cover roofs, etc. 2. A house roof made with a plant material (as straw). thatched.
thatched ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Thatch
thatcher ::: n. --> One who thatches.
that “cherubim is [sic] derived from knowledge,
thatching ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Thatch ::: n. --> The act or art of covering buildings with thatch; so as to keep out rain, snow, etc.
The materials used for this purpose; thatch.
thatch ::: n. --> Straw, rushes, or the like, used for making or covering the roofs of buildings, or of stacks of hay or grain.
A name in the West Indies for several kinds of palm, the leaves of which are used for thatching.
To cover with, or with a roof of, straw, reeds, or some similar substance; as, to thatch a roof, a stable, or a stack of grain.
that “Christ is to proclaim himself the angel of the
that constitute the Hebdomad, rulers of the 7
that Cosmocrator is not wholly evil. [Rf. Pistis
that does not die; immortal; deathless; unending.
that does not grow or become weary; unremitting, untiring.
that does not remember; unmindful (of a thing).
that does not see; lacking sight.
that does not sleep or slumber.
that Elijah was an angel from the very beginning:
that enjoy a rank superior to that of Metatron
that “every man has close by him 2 angels, one
that feels, shows, or expresses no pity; uncompassionate.
that fell/from heav’n, e’en in heav’n his looks and
that flow and issue from the light of His holy garment.”
that “God sent a spirit of discord between Abime-
that had reshaped the world’s thinking and emancipated it (to a degree, at any rate) from the
that he has indeed been so identified in apocalyptic
that he is evil. Many good and great angels are so
that he must have been regarded as a power to
that. In Thai, "a relic" (S. DHĀTU), typically of the Buddha; in Thailand there are numerous monasteries known as "Wat Phra That" or WAT MAHATHAT, which are said to house authentic relics of the Buddha. These monasteries are popular pilgrimage sites and have legends concerning their founding filled with descriptions of miraculous events and sometimes recounting the Buddha's visit to that site. See also sARĪRA.
that is, acting as the angel of the Lord. In Judges II,
THAT is no country for old men. The young
that is not or cannot be tracked or traced.
that is not seen beforehand; also, not known beforehand. (Sri Aurobindo also employs the word as a n.)
that is, the post-Eden days). For the sigil of Sennoi
that is, who were deemed worthy. A late Hebrew
that Joshua invoked in order to gain victory over
that “loosed the 4 angels which were bound in the
that man was created to replace the fallen legions
that Mastema appealed to God to spare some of
that men have wrought.” As Phaniel, our angel is
that of an angel.”
that of the cherubim.
that, on the contrary, the Bible was the last place to look for them. True, angels are mentioned
that plunges from Heaven on a peaceful and
that ::: pron., a., conj., & --> As a demonstrative pronoun (pl. Those), that usually points out, or refers to, a person or thing previously mentioned, or supposed to be understood. That, as a demonstrative, may precede the noun to which it refers; as, that which he has said is true; those in the basket are good apples.
As an adjective, that has the same demonstrative force as the pronoun, but is followed by a noun.
As a relative pronoun, that is
that remained loyal 266,613,336. As opposed to
that remained unknown, even to Moses himself.”
that Simeon ben Yohai, alleged author of The
that
that supplied by Levi, and runs as follows:
that “the angel of Greece mounted 180 rounds of
that the angel sent by God to separate body from
that the angels fell,” and cites the Apocalypse of
that the angels of destruction are not by nature
that the fallen angels (Marut and Harut) “were
that the Lawgiver visited Heaven. Moses routed
that the name Oreus derives from the art of
that “the prototype of the 7 archangels were the
that these sons of God later had sexual relations.
that the sun rose every day at the right time and
that they ate daily 1,000 camels, 1,000 horses, and
that they begin to lose all sense of the true disiinrn'T "Kriencet cation between different fields of reality All th *mar in these experiences must not be taken as true Place"
that they may give me a true answer of all my
that thou appear before me in a mild, beautiful,
that “to lead the Shekinah back to God and to
that unites or joins.
that visited Abraham under the oak of Mamre.
that way, it becomes ready for the moment when the psychic has only (o give a slight pusli for it to fa!! away in each field of its activity from its loosened roots.
that we may see and remark, and say Whose?
that went alive into Paradise. [Cf sun birds in
that when Moses visited Hell, he beheld in a region
that when Spinoza was “execrated, cursed, and cast out” from his community in Amsterdam
that which builds up with the result of establishing, increasing, enlarging or fortifying.
that which cannot be appeased or placated.
TERMS ANYWHERE
1. Activity or motion that is often unduly hurried; haste, often due to agitation, pressure or eagerness to accomplish something. 2. Commotion or agitation; disturbance, tumult; bustle. hurries, hurried, hurrying.
1. A curved or angular piece of metal or other hard substance for catching, pulling, holding, or suspending something. 2.* Fig.* That by which any one is attracted or ensnared and caught; a snare; a catch.
1. A dog. 2. A domestic dog of any of various breeds commonly used for hunting, characteristically having drooping ears, a short coat, and a deep resonant voice. 3. In literary use the image of the hound is of something that pursues or chases relentlessly.
1. An image; a representation. 2. A sign or representation that stands for its object by virtue of a resemblance or analogy to it. icons.
1. An intense, painful feeling of repugnance, fear and shock. 2. Something or someone that inspires dislike; dread; fright; something horrible.
1. That which is untrue; error, falsehood. 2. Untruthfulness, treachery. falsity"s.
1. The condition of being deceived by a false perception, belief or appearance. 2. Something, such as a fantastic plan or desire that causes an erroneous belief or perception; as a deceptive apparition etc. Illusion, illusion"s, Illusion"s, illusions, illusion-makers.
1. Touchstone; a very smooth, fine-grained, black or dark-coloured variety of quartz or jasper (also called basanite), used for testing the quality of gold and silver alloys by the colour of the streak produced by rubbing them upon it; a piece of such stone used for this purpose. 2. *fig.* That which serves to test or try the genuineness or value of anything; a test, criterion.
"A basis can be created for a subjective illusion-consciousness which is yet part of Being, if we accept in the sense of an illusory subjective world-awareness the account of sleep and dream creation given to us in the Upanishads. For the affirmation there is that Brahman as Self is fourfold; the Self is Brahman and all that is is the Brahman, but all that is is the Self seen by the Self in four states of its being. In the pure self-status neither consciousness nor unconsciousness as we conceive it can be affirmed about Brahman; it is a state of superconscience absorbed in its self-existence, in a self-silence or a self-ecstasy, or else it is the status of a free Superconscient containing or basing everything but involved in nothing. But there is also a luminous status of sleep-self, a massed consciousness which is the origin of cosmic existence; this state of deep sleep in which yet there is the presence of an omnipotent Intelligence is the seed state or causal condition from which emerges the cosmos; — this and the dream-self which is the continent of all subtle, subjective or supraphysical experience, and the self of waking which is the support of all physical experience, can be taken as the whole field of Maya.” The Life Divine
A being of the lower vital planes who has assumed the discarded vital sheath of a departed human being or a fragment of his vital personality and appears and acts in the form and perhaps with the surface thoughts and memories of that person.
absolute ::: adj. 1. Free from all imperfection or deficiency; complete, finished; perfect, consummate. 2. Of degree: Complete, entire; in the fullest sense. 3. Having ultimate power, governing totally; unlimited by a constitution or the concurrent authority of a parliament; arbitrary, despotic. 4. Existing without relation to any other being; self-existent; self-sufficing. 5. Capable of being thought or conceived by itself alone; unconditioned. 6. Considered independently of its being subjective or objective. n. 7. Something that is not dependent upon external conditions for existence or for its specific nature, size, etc. (opposed to relative). Absolute, Absolute"s, absolutes, absoluteness.
absolute reality ::: Sri Aurobindo: "I would myself say that bliss and oneness are the essential condition of the absolute reality, and love as the most characteristic dynamic power of bliss and oneness must support fundamentally and colour their activities; . . . .” Letters on Yoga
abstract ::: adj. 1. Withdrawn or separated from matter, from material embodiment, from practice, or from particular examples; theoretical. 2. In the fine arts, characterized by lack of or freedom from representational qualities. n. 3. Something that concentrates in itself the essential qualities of anything more extensive or more general, or of several things; essence.
accident ::: 1. Any event that happens unexpectedly, without a deliberate plan or cause. 2. A fortuitous circumstance, quality, or characteristic. 3. An unfortunate event, a disaster, a mishap. accidents.
"A cosmos or universe is always a harmony, otherwise it could not exist, it would fly to pieces. But as there are musical harmonies which are built out of discords partly or even predominantly, so this universe (the material) is disharmonious in its separate elements — the individual elements are at discord with each other to a large extent; it is only owing to the sustaining Divine Will behind that the whole is still a harmony to those who look at it with the cosmic vision. But it is a harmony in evolution in progress — that is, all is combined to strive towards a goal which is not yet reached, and the object of our yoga is to hasten the arrival to this goal. When it is reached, there will be a harmony of harmonies substituted for the present harmony built up on discords. This is the explanation of the present appearance of things.” Letters on Yoga
"A divine Force is at work and will choose at each moment what has to be done or has not to be done, what has to be momentarily or permanently taken up, momentarily or permanently abandoned. For provided we do not substitute for that our desire or our ego, and to that end the soul must be always awake, always on guard, alive to the divine guidance, resistant to the undivine misleading from within or without us, that Force is sufficient and alone competent and she will lead us to the fulfilment along ways and by means too large, too inward, too complex for the mind to follow, much less to dictate. It is an arduous and difficult and dangerous way, but there is none other.” The Synthesis of Yoga
adj. 1. Beautiful. 2. Fine, bright, sunny. 3. Free from blemish, imperfection, or anything that impairs the appearance, quality, or character. 4. Of pleasing form or appearance. 5. Neither excellent nor poor; moderately or tolerably good. fairer.* *n. 6.* That which is fair (in senses of the adj.*).
adj. 1. Not imprisoned or enslaved; being at liberty. 2. Unconstrained; unconfined. 3. Unobstructed; clear. 4. Ready or generous in using or giving; liberal; lavish. 5. Exempt from external authority, interference, restriction, etc., as a person or one"s will, thought, choice, action, etc.; independent; unrestricted. 6. Exempt or released from something specified that controls, restrains, burdens, etc. (usually followed by from or of). 7. Given readily or in profusion. freer, thought-free, world-free. *adv. *8. In a free manner; without constraints; unimpeded. v. 9. To make free; set at liberty; release from bondage, imprisonment, or restraint. 10. To disengage or clear something from an entanglement. 11. To relieve or rid of a burden, an inconvenience or an obligation. freed. set free. Released; liberated; freed.
adopted ::: taken voluntarily or admitted into any new relationship; esp. that of a child.
adoration ::: 1. The act of paying honour, as to a divine being; worship. 2. Reverent homage. 3. Fervent and devoted love. **adoration"s.*Sri Aurobindo: "Especially in love for the Divine or for one whom one feels to be divine, the Bhakta feels an intense reverence for the Loved, a sense of something of immense greatness, beauty or value and for himself a strong impression of his own comparative unworthiness and a passionate desire to grow into likeness with that which one adores.” Letters on Yoga*
adversary ::: a person, group or force that opposes or attacks, or acts in a hostile manner; an opponent, antagonist; an enemy, foe. adversary"s.
"Aesthesis therefore is of the very essence of poetry, as it is of all art. But it is not the sole element and aesthesis too is not confined to a reception of poetry and art; it extends to everything in the world: there is nothing we can sense, think or in any way experience to which there cannot be an aesthetic reaction of our conscious being. Ordinarily, we suppose that aesthesis is concerned with beauty, and that indeed is its most prominent concern: but it is concerned with many other things also. It is the universal Ananda that is the parent of aesthesis and the universal Ananda takes three major and original forms, beauty, love and delight, the delight of all existence, the delight in things, in all things.” Letters on Savitri
affair ::: a thing that concerns any one; a concern, a matter.
afflatus ::: the miraculous communication of supernatural knowledge; hence also, the imparting of an over-mastering impulse, poetic or otherwise; inspiration. A creative inspiration, as that of a poet; a divine imparting of knowledge, thus it is often called divine afflatus.
agent ::: n. **1. One who does the actual work of anything, as distinguished from the instigator or employer; hence, one who acts for another, a deputy, steward, factor, substitute, representative, or emissary. adj. 2. That which acts or exerts power. agents.**
Agni first, for without him the sacrificial flame cannot burn on the altar of the soul. That flame of Agni is the seven-tongued power of the Will, a Force of God instinct with knowledge. This conscious and forceful will is the immortal guest in our mortality, a pure priest and a divine worker, the mediator between earth and heaven. It carries what we offer to the higher Powers and brings back in return their force and light and joy into our humanity.” *The Secret of the Veda
*[Agni]. Sri Aurobindo: "Agni is the leader of the sacrifice and protects it in the great journey against the powers of darkness. The knowledge and purpose of this divine Puissance can be entirely trusted; he is the friend and lover of the soul and will not betray it to evil gods. Even for the man sitting far off in the night, enveloped by the darkness of the human ignorance, this flame[Agni] is a light which, when it is perfectly kindled and in proportion as it mounts higher and higher, enlarges itself into the vast light of the Truth. Flaming upward to heaven to meet the divine Dawn, it rises through the vital or nervous mid-world and through our mental skies and enters at last the Paradise of Light, its own supreme home above where joyous for ever in the eternal Truth that is the foundation of the sempiternal Bliss the shining Immortals sit in their celestial sessions and drink the wine of the infinite beatitude.” *The Secret of the Veda
agreement ::: a contract or other document delineating an arrangement that is accepted by all parties to a transaction. (Sri Aurobindo capitalizes the word.)
algebra ::: the branch of mathematics that deals with general statements of relations, utilizing letters and other symbols to represent specific sets of numbers, values, vectors, etc., in the description of such relations. 2. Any special system of notation adapted to the study of a special system of relationship.
". . . a limited consciousness growing out of nescience is the source of error, a personal attachment to the limitation and the error born of it the source of falsity, a wrong consciousness governed by the life-ego the source of evil. But it is evident that their relative existence is only a phenomenon thrown up by the cosmic Force in its drive towards evolutionary self-expression.” The Life Divine
"All birds of that region are relatives. But this is the bird of eternal Ananda, while the Hippogriff is the divinised Thought and the Bird of Fire is the Agni-bird, psychic and tapas. All that however is to mentalise too much and mentalising always takes most of the life out of spiritual things. That is why I say it can be seen but nothing said about it.” ::: "The question was: ‘In the mystical region, is the dragon bird any relation of your Bird of Fire with ‘gold-white wings" or your Hippogriff with ‘face lustred, pale-blue-lined"? And why do you write: ‘What to say about him? One can only see"?” Letters on Savitri
"All change must come from within with the felt or the secret support of the Divine Power; it is only by one"s own inner opening to that that one can receive help, not by mental, vital or physical contact with others.” Letters on Yoga
::: "All energies put into activity — thought, speech, feeling, act — go to constitute Karma. These things help to develop the nature in one direction or another, and the nature and its actions and reactions produce their consequences inward and outward: they also act on others and create movements in the general sum of forces which can return upon oneself sooner or later. Thoughts unexpressed can also go out as forces and produce their effects. It is a mistake to think that a thought or will can have effect only when it is expressed in speech or act: the unspoken thought, the unexpressed will are also active energies and can produce their own vibrations, effects or reactions.” Letters on Yoga*
"All evolution is in essence a heightening of the force of consciousness in the manifest being so that it may be raised into the greater intensity of what is still unmanifest, from matter into life, from life into mind, from the mind into the spirit.” The Life Divine
alley ::: a passage between buildings; hence, a narrow street, a lane; usually only wide enough for foot-passengers. blind alley*: one that is closed at the end, so as to be no thoroughfare; a cul de sac*.
"All force is power or means of a secret spirit; the Force that sustains the world is a conscious Will and Nature is its machinery of executive power.” The Renaissance in India
alloy ::: 1. A substance composed of two or more metals, or of a metal or metals with a nonmetal, intimately mixed, as by fusion or electrodeposition; a less costly metal mixed with a more valuable one, such as that which is added to gold and silver coinage. 2. Admixture, as with good with evil.
"All phenomenal existence resolves itself into Force, into a movement of energy that assumes more or less material, more or less gross or subtle forms for self-presentation to its own experience.” The Life Divine
already ::: 1. Core Meaning: an adverb indicating that something has happened before now. 2. Happened in the past before a particular time, or will have happened by or before a particular time in the future. 3. Unexpectedly early.
"Always keep in touch with the Divine Force. The best thing for you is to do that simply and allow it to do its own work; wherever necessary, it will take hold of the inferior energies and purify them; at other times it will empty you of them and fill you with itself. But if you let your mind take the lead and discuss and decide what is to be done, you will lose touch with the Divine Force and the lower energies will begin to act for themselves and all go into confusion and a wrong movement.” Letters on Yoga
ambience ::: 1. The mood, character, quality, tone, atmosphere, etc., particularly of an environment or milieu. 2. That which surrounds or encompasses.
A mental formation stamped by the thoughts and feelings of a departed human being on the atmosphere of a place or locality, wandering about there or repeating itself, till that formation either exhausts itself or is dissolved by one means or another. This is the explanation of such phenomena as the haunted house in which the scenes attending or surrounding or preceding a murder are repeated over and over again and many other similar phenomena.
amethyst ::: a purple or violet quartz; having the clear colour as of the precious stone. Sri Aurobindo uses the word as an adj."for Amethyst (the Mother)she has revealed that it has a power of protection” Huta
anchor ::: 1. Any of various devices dropped by a chain, cable, or rope to the bottom of a body of water for preventing or restricting the motion of a vessel or other floating object, typically having broad, hooklike arms that bury themselves in the bottom to provide a firm hold. 2. A person or thing that can be relied on for support, stability, or security; mainstay.
::: "An executive cosmic force shapes us and dictates through our temperament and environment and mentality so shaped, through our individualised formulation of the cosmic energies, our actions and their results. Truly, we do not think, will or act but thought occurs in us, will occurs in us, impulse and act occur in us; our ego-sense gathers around itself, refers to itself all this flow of natural activities. It is cosmic Force, it is Nature that forms the thought, imposes the will, imparts the impulse. Our body, mind and ego are a wave of that sea of force in action and do not govern it, but by it are governed and directed.” The Synthesis of Yoga —**cosmic forces.**
antechambers ::: 1. Chambers or rooms that serve as waiting rooms and entrances to larger rooms or apartments; anterooms. 2. Any areas that are entrances to other areas.
a person who is practised in or who studies geometry, the branch of mathematics that deals with the deduction of the properties, measurement, and relationships of points, lines, angles, and figures in space from their defining conditions by means of certain assumed properties of space. World-Geometer"s.
a person who professes beliefs and opinions that he or she does not hold in order to conceal his or her real feelings or motives; one who pretends to be what he is not. (Sri Aurobindo also uses the term as an adjective.) hypocrite"s.
"A philosophy of change?(1) But what is change? In ordinary parlance change means passage from one condition to another and that would seem to imply passage from one status to another status. The shoot changes into a tree, passes from the status of shoot to the status of tree and there it stops; man passes from the status of young man to the status of old man and the only farther change possible to him is death or dissolution of his status. So it would seem that change is not something isolated which is the sole original and eternal reality, but it is something dependent on status, and if status were non-existent, change also could not exist. For we have to ask, when you speak of change as alone real, change of what, from what, to what? Without this ‘what" change could not be. ::: —Change is evidently the change of some form or state of existence from one condition to another condition.” Essays Divine and Human
apsaras ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Apsaras are the most beautiful and romantic conception on the lesser plane of Hindu mythology. From the moment that they arose out of the waters of the milky Ocean, robed in ethereal raiment and heavenly adornment, waking melody from a million lyres, the beauty and light of them has transformed the world. They crowd in the sunbeams, they flash and gleam over heaven in the lightnings, they make the azure beauty of the sky; they are the light of sunrise and sunset and the haunting voices of forest and field. They dwell too in the life of the soul; for they are the ideal pursued by the poet through his lines, by the artist shaping his soul on his canvas, by the sculptor seeking a form in the marble; for the joy of their embrace the hero flings his life into the rushing torrent of battle; the sage, musing upon God, sees the shining of their limbs and falls from his white ideal. The delight of life, the beauty of things, the attraction of sensuous beauty, this is what the mystic and romantic side of the Hindu temperament strove to express in the Apsara. The original meaning is everywhere felt as a shining background, but most in the older allegories, especially the strange and romantic legend of Pururavas as we first have it in the Brahmanas and the Vishnoupurana.
arch ::: 1. An upwardly curved construction, for spanning an opening, consisting of a number of wedgelike stones, bricks, or the like, set with the narrower side toward the opening in such a way that forces on the arch are transmitted as vertical or oblique stresses on either side of the opening, either capable of bearing weight or merely ornamental; 2. Something bowed or curved; any bowlike part: the arch of the foot. 3. An arched roof, door; gateway; vault; fig. the heavens. arches.
arch- ::: a combining form that represents the outcome of archi- in words borrowed through Latin from Greek in the Old English period; it subsequently became a productive form added to nouns of any origin, which thus denote individuals or institutions directing or having authority over others of their class (archbishop; archdiocese; archpriest): principal. More recently, arch-1 has developed the senses "principal” (archenemy; archrival) or "prototypical” and thus exemplary or extreme (archconservative); nouns so formed are almost always pejorative. Arch-intelligence.
a religious official among the Romans, whose duty it was to predict future events and advise upon the course of public business, in accordance with omens derived from the flight, singing, and feeding of birds. Hence extended to: A soothsayer, diviner, or prophet, generally; one that foresees and foretells the future. (Sri Aurobindo employs the word as an adjective.) augured.
armour ::: 1. Any covering worn as a defense against weapons, especially a metallic sheathing, suit of armour, mail. 2. Any quality, characteristic, situation, or thing that serves as protection. armours, armoured.* n. 1. Weapons. v. 2. Provides with weapons or whatever will add strength, force or security; supports; fortifies. *armed, arming.
"Art is a living harmony and beauty that must be expressed in all the movements of existence. This manifestation of beauty and harmony is part of the Divine realisation upon earth, perhaps even its greatest part.” Questions and Answers, MCW Vol. 3.
as it would be if; as though. (Introducing a supposition, or way of conceiving some entity or situation, that is not to be taken literally, but yields some insight or convenience in metaphysics.)
a small, flat, thin piece, esp. one that has been or become detached from a larger piece or mass.
". . . as Mind is only a final operation of Supermind, so Life is only a final operation of the Consciousness-Force of which Real-Idea is the determinative form and creative agent. Consciousness that is Force is the nature of Being and this conscious Being manifested as a creative Knowledge-Will is the Real-Idea or Supermind.” The Life Divine
"Aspiration, call, prayer are forms of one and the same thing and are all effective; you can take the form that comes to you or is easiest to you.” Letters on Yoga
"A SPIRITUAL evolution, an evolution of consciousness in Matter in a constant developing self-formation till the form can reveal the indwelling Spirit, is then the keynote, the central significant motive of the terrestrial existence. This significance is concealed at the outset by the involution of the Spirit, the Divine Reality, in a dense material Inconscience; a veil of Inconscience, a veil of insensibility of Matter hides the universal Consciousness-Force which works within it, so that the Energy, which is the first form the Force of creation assumes in the physical universe, appears to be itself inconscient and yet does the works of a vast occult Intelligence.” The Life Divine
"A spiritual knowledge, moved to arrive at the true Self in us, must reject, as the traditional way of knowledge rejects, all misleading appearances. It must discover that the body is not our self, our foundation of existence; it is a sensible form of the Infinite.” The Synthesis of Yoga
a star so distant from Earth that its position in relation to other stars appears not to change.
"As there is a cosmic Self and Spirit pervading and upholding the universe and its beings, so too there is a cosmic Force that moves all things, and on this original cosmic Force depend and act many cosmic Forces that are its powers or arise as forms of its universal action.” The Life Divine
aswapati ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Aswapati, the Lord of the Horse, her [Savitri"s] human father, is the Lord of Tapasya, the concentrated energy of spiritual endeavour that helps us to rise from the mortal to the immortal planes; . . . .” (From a letter written by Sri Aurobindo) Aswapati"s.
atavism ::: 1. The reappearance in an individual of characteristics of some remote ancestor that have been absent in intervening generations. 2. Reversion to an earlier type.
"At every turn it is the divine Reality which we can discover behind that which we are yet compelled by the nature of the superficial consciousness in which we dwell to call undivine and in a sense are right in using that apellation; for these appearances are a veil over the Divine Perfection, a veil necessary for the present, but not at all the true and complete figure.” The Life Divine
"A third step is to find out that there is something in him other than his instrumental mind, life and body, not only an immortal ever-developing individual soul that supports his nature but an eternal immutable self and spirit, and to learn what are the categories of his spiritual being, until he discovers that all in him is an expression of the spirit and distinguishes the link between his lower and his higher existence; thus he sets out to remove his constitutional self-ignorance. Discovering self and spirit he discovers God; he finds out that there is a Self beyond the temporal: he comes to the vision of that Self in the cosmic consciousness as the divine Reality behind Nature and this world of beings; his mind opens to the thought or the sense of the Absolute of whom self and the individual and the cosmos are so many faces; the cosmic, the egoistic, the original ignorance begin to lose the rigidness of their hold upon him.” The Life Divine
atom ::: 1. A unit of matter, the smallest unit of an element, having all the characteristics of that element and consisting of a dense, central, positively charged nucleus surrounded by a system of electrons. 2. The smallest component of an element having the chemical properties of the element. 3. An extremely small part, quantity, or amount. The smallest conceivable unit of an element or of anything. atom"s, atoms, atomic.
awe ::: an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc., produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful, or the like.
babel ::: "The reference is to the mythological story of the construction of the Tower of Babel, which appears to be an attempt to explain the diversity of human languages. According to Genesis, the Babylonians wanted to make a name for themselves by building a mighty city and tower ‘with its top in the heavens". God disrupted the work by so confusing the language of the workers that they could no longer understand one another. The tower was never completed and the people were dispersed over the face of the earth.” (Encyclopaedia Britannica) Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works Sri Aurobindo: "The legend of the Tower of Babel speaks of the diversity of tongues as a curse laid on the race; but whatever its disadvantages, and they tend more and more to be minimised by the growth of civilisation and increasing intercourse, it has been rather a blessing than a curse, a gift to mankind rather than a disability laid upon it. The purposeless exaggeration of anything is always an evil, and an excessive pullulation of varying tongues that serve no purpose in the expression of a real diversity of spirit and culture is certainly a stumbling-block rather than a help: but this excess, though it existed in the past, is hardly a possibility of the future. The tendency is rather in the opposite direction. In former times diversity of language helped to create a barrier to knowledge and sympathy, was often made the pretext even of an actual antipathy and tended to a too rigid division. The lack of sufficient interpenetration kept up both a passive want of understanding and a fruitful crop of active misunderstandings. But this was an inevitable evil of a particular stage of growth, an exaggeration of the necessity that then existed for the vigorous development of strongly individualised group-souls in the human race. These disadvantages have not yet been abolished, but with closer intercourse and the growing desire of men and nations for the knowledge of each other"s thought and spirit and personality, they have diminished and tend to diminish more and more and there is no reason why in the end they should not become inoperative.” The Human Cycle
background ::: n.** 1. The general scene or surface against which designs, patterns, or figures are represented or viewed. 2. Fig. The complex of physical, cultural, and psychological factors that serves as the environment of an event or experience; the set of conditions against which an occurrence is perceived. backgrounds. adj. 3.** Of, pertaining to, or serving as a background.
balcony ::: a platform that projects from the wall of a building and is surrounded by a railing, balustrade, or parapet.
balustrade ::: a rail and the row of balusters or posts that support it, as along the front of a gallery.
bargain ::: an agreement between parties fixing obligations, etc. that each promises to carry out.
bar ::: n. **1. Anything that obstructs or prevents; a barrier. v. 2. To obstruct, prevent, hinder, impede. bars, barred, barring.**
barrier ::: 1. Anything built or serving to bar passage. 2. Anything that restrains or obstructs progress, access. 3. A limit or boundary of any kind. barriers, barrier-breakers.
bay ::: the position or stand of an animal or fugitive that is forced to turn and resist pursuers because it is no longer possible to flee. (preceded by at).
beauty ::: the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, colour, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else, (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest). Beauty, beauty"s, Beauty"s, beauty-drenched, earth-beauty"s.
being ::: 1. The state or quality of having existence. 2. The totality of all things that exist. 3. One"s basic or essential nature; self. 4. All the qualities constituting one that exists; the essence. 5. A person; human being. 6. The Divine, the Supreme; God. Being, being"s, Being"s, beings, Beings, beings", earth-being"s, earth-beings, fragment-being, non-being, non-being"s, Non-Being, Non-Being"s, world-being"s.
Sri Aurobindo: "Pure Being is the affirmation by the Unknowable of Itself as the free base of all cosmic existence.” *The Life Divine :::
"The Absolute manifests itself in two terms, a Being and a Becoming. The Being is the fundamental reality; the Becoming is an effectual reality: it is a dynamic power and result, a creative energy and working out of the Being, a constantly persistent yet mutable form, process, outcome of its immutable formless essence.” *The Life Divine
"What is original and eternal for ever in the Divine is the Being, what is developed in consciousness, conditions, forces, forms, etc., by the Divine Power is the Becoming. The eternal Divine is the Being; the universe in Time and all that is apparent in it is a Becoming.” Letters on Yoga
"Being and Becoming, One and Many are both true and are both the same thing: Being is one, Becomings are many; but this simply means that all Becomings are one Being who places Himself variously in the phenomenal movement of His consciousness.” The Upanishads :::
"Our whole apparent life has only a symbolic value & is good & necessary as a becoming; but all becoming has being for its goal & fulfilment & God is the only being.” *Essays Divine and Human
"Our being is a roughly constituted chaos into which we have to introduce the principle of a divine order.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
being, conscious ::: Sri Aurobindo: "We have to conceive one indivisible conscious being behind all our experiences. . . . That is our real self.” *The Life Divine
being, Master of ::: Sri Aurobindo: " Vamadeva goes on to say, "Let us give expression to this secret name of the clarity, — that is to say, let us bring out this Soma wine, this hidden delight of existence; let us hold it in this world-sacrifice by our surrenderings or submissions to Agni, the divine Will or Conscious-Power which is the Master of being.” The Secret of the Veda
beings ::: things or entities that exist, esp. things or entities that cannot be assigned to any category.
being, triune ::: a being that is three in one; a trinity.
belief ::: 1. Confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof. 2. Trust or confidence, faith. 3. Something believed; an opinion or conviction. beliefs.
Question: "Sweet Mother, l don"t understand very clearly the difference between faith, belief and confidence.”
Mother: "But Sri Aurobindo has given the full explanation here. If you don"t understand, then. . . He has written ‘Faith is a feeling in the whole being." The whole being, yes. Faith, that"s the whole being at once. He says that belief is something that occurs in the head, that is purely mental; and confidence is quite different. Confidence, one can have confidence in life, trust in the Divine, trust in others, trust in one"s own destiny, that is, one has the feeling that everything is going to help him, to do what he wants to do. Faith is a certitude without any proof. Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 6.
besetter ::: one who or that which besets.
beyond ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The language of the Upanishad makes it strikingly clear that it is no metaphysical abstraction, no void Silence, no indeterminate Absolute which is offered to the soul that aspires, but rather the absolute of all that is possessed by it here in the relative world of its sojourning. All here in the mental is a growing light, consciousness and life; all there in the supramental is an infinite life, light and consciousness. That which is here shadowed, is there found; the incomplete here is there the fulfilled. The Beyond is not an annullation, but a transfiguration of all that we are here in our world of forms; it is sovran Mind of this mind, secret Life of this life, the absolute Sense which supports and justifies our limited senses.” The Upanishads *
binding posts ::: stakes, stout poles, columns, or the like, that are set upright in or on the ground; (with prefixed word indicating special purpose).
birthright ::: a right, possession, or privilege that is one"s due by birth.
bitter ::: 1. Having or being a taste that is sharp, acrid, and unpleasant. 2. Difficult or distasteful to accept, admit; bear or endure. 3. Proceeding from or exhibiting strong animosity. 4. Causing a sharply unpleasant, painful, or stinging sensation; harsh; severe. bitterness.
blind alley ::: 1. A road, alley, etc. that is open only at one end. 2. A position or situation offering no hope of progress or improvement. 3. A situation in which no further progress can be made.
block ::: n. 1. A solid piece of a hard substance, such as wood, stone, etc. having one or more flat sides. Also fig. 2. Something that obstructs; an obstacle. blocks. *v. 3. To impede, retard, prevent or obstruct the progress or achievement of (someone or something). Also fig.*
blood-glued ::: in reference to the bloody shirt that stuck to the body of the Centaur.
blot ::: n. 1. A dark spot or stain. 2. Something likened to a blot that destroys. v. 3. To make obscure; hide. 4. To destroy utterly; annihilate. blotted.
blur ::: a smudge or smear that partially obscures; indistinctness.
body ::: 1. The entire material or physical structure of an organism, especially of a human or animal as differentiated from the soul. 2. The entire physical structure of a human being. 3. A mass of matter that is distinct from other masses. 4. Substance. 5. An agent or entity. 6. The mass of a thing. 7. A mass of matter that is distinct from other masses. 8. The largest or main part of anything; the foundation; central part. body"s, bodies.
bond ::: 1. Something, such as a fetter, cord, or band, that binds, ties, or fastens things together. Also fig. 2. A duty, promise, or other obligation by which one is bound. 3. Something that binds one to a certain circumstance or line of behaviour. 4. A uniting force or tie; a link. 5. A binding agreement; a covenant. bonds.
border ::: n. 1. A part that forms the outer edge of something. 2. The line or frontier area separating political divisions or geographic regions; a boundary. 3. A strip of ground, as that at the edge of a garden or walk, an edging. borders. v. 4. To form the boundary of; be contiguous to. fig. To confine. 5. To lie adjacent to another. bordered.
boundary ::: something that indicates a border or limit, or the border or limit so indicated. boundary"s, boundaries.
boundless ::: n. 1. That which is without bounds; illimitable. 2. *adj. *Being without bounds or limits; infinite.
breakers ::: 1. Those who break down barriers, etc. 2. Waves that crest and break on the shore or coast. breakers".
bribe ::: something, such as money or a favour, offered or given to a person in a position of trust to influence that person"s views or conduct.
"That there is a divine force asleep or veiled by Inconscience in Matter and that the Higher Force has to descend and awaken it with the Light and Truth is a thing that is well known; it is at the very base of this yoga.” Letters on Yoga
bubble ::: anything that lacks firmness, substance, or permanence.
building ::: 1. The act or action of constructing; erecting. Also fig. **2. **Something that is built, as for human habitation; a structure.
burden ::: n. 1. A weight that is to be borne; a load. 2. Something that is emotionally difficult to bear. v. **3. To load or overload. 4.** To oppress; tax; with responsibility, etc.
bureau ::: 1. A chest of drawers, especially a dresser for holding clothes, often with a desk top. 2. An office, usually of large organization, that is responsible for a specific duty such as administration, public business, etc.
"But always the whole foundation of the gnostic life must be by its very nature inward and not outward. In the life of the Spirit it is the Spirit, the inner Reality, that has built up and uses the mind, vital being and body as its instrumentation; thought, feeling and action do not exist for themselves, they are not an object, but the means; they serve to express the manifested divine Reality within us: otherwise, without this inwardness, this spiritual origination, in a too externalised consciousness or by only external means, no greater or divine life is possible.” The Life Divine
"But great art is not satisfied with representing the intellectual truth of things, which is always their superficial or exterior truth; it seeks for a deeper and original truth which escapes the eye of the mere sense or the mere reason, the soul in them, the unseen reality which is not that of their form and process but of their spirit.” The Human Cycle etc.
"But in a higher than our present mental consciousness we find that this duality is only a phenomenal appearance. The highest and real truth of existence is the one Spirit, the supreme Soul, Purushottama, and it is the power of being of this Spirit which manifests itself in all that we experience as universe. This universal Nature is not a lifeless, inert or unconscious mechanism, but informed in all its movements by the universal Spirit. The mechanism of its process is only an outward appearance and the reality is the Spirit creating or manifesting its own being by its own power of being in all that is in Nature. Soul and Nature in us too are only a dual appearance of the one existence.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
"But in the path of knowledge as it is practised in India concentration is used in a special and more limited sense. It means that removal of the thought from all distracting activities of the mind and that concentration of it on the idea of the One by which the soul rises out of the phenomenal into the one reality.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
butt ::: a person or thing that is the object of wit, ridicule, sarcasm, contempt.
". . . but this divine grace . . . is not simply a mysterious flow or touch coming from above, but the all-pervading act of a divine presence which we come to know within as the power of the highest Self and Master of our being entering into the soul and so possessing it that we not only feel it close to us and pressing upon our mortal nature, but live in its law, know that law, possess it as the whole power of our spiritualised nature.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"By Force I mean not mental or vital energy but the Divine Force from above — as peace comes from above and wideness also, so does this Force (Shakti). Nothing, not even thinking or meditating can be done without some action of Force. The Force I speak of is a Force for illumination, transformation, purification, all that has to be done in the yoga, for removal of hostile forces and the wrong movements — it is also of course for external work, whether great or small in appearance does not matter — if that is part of the Divine Will. I do not mean any personal force egoistic or rajasic.” Letters on Yoga
cabbala ::: 1 A body of mystical Jewish teachings based on an interpretation of hidden meanings in the Hebrew Scriptures. Among its central doctrines are, all creation is an emanation from the Deity and the soul exists from eternity. 2. Any secret or occult doctrine or science. 3. "Esoteric system of interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures based on the assumption that every word, letter, number, and accent in them has an occult meaning. The system, oral at first, claimed great antiquity, but was really the product of the Middle Ages, arising in the 7th century and lasting into the 18th. It was popular chiefly among Jews, but spread to Christians as well. (Col. Enc.)” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
cadence ::: 1. Balanced, rhythmic flow, as of poetry or oratory. 2. Music. A sequence of notes or chords that indicates the momentary or complete end of a composition, section, phrase, etc. 3. The flow or rhythm of events. 4. A recurrent rhythmical series; a flow, esp. the pattern in which something is experienced. 5. A slight falling in pitch of the voice in speaking or reading. cadences.
calamity ::: 1. An event that brings terrible loss, lasting distress, or severe affliction; a disaster. 2. Dire distress resulting from loss or tragedy. calamities.
callings ::: 1. (i.e. an animal or bird) that calls. 2. Things or voices that announce or address in a clear and often authoritative voice.
call ::: Sri Aurobindo: "All Yoga is in its nature a new birth; it is a birth out of the ordinary, the mentalised material life of man into a higher spiritual consciousness and a greater and diviner being. No Yoga can be successfully undertaken and followed unless there is a strong awakening to the necessity of that larger spiritual existence. The soul that is called to this deep and vast inward change, may arrive in different ways to the initial departure. It may come to it by its own natural development which has been leading it unconsciously towards the awakening; it may reach it through the influence of a religion or the attraction of a philosophy; it may approach it by a slow illumination or leap to it by a sudden touch or shock; it may be pushed or led to it by the pressure of outward circumstances or by an inward necessity, by a single word that breaks the seals of the mind or by long reflection, by the distant example of one who has trod the path or by contact and daily influence. According to the nature and the circumstances the call will come.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
calm ::: n. 1. Serenity; tranquillity; peace. 2. Nearly or completely motionless as a condition of no wind. Calm, Calm"s, calms, calmness. adj. 3. Not excited or agitated; composed; tranquil; 4. Without rough motion; still or nearly still. calmer, calm-lipped, stone-calm. *adv. calmly.
Sri Aurobindo: "Calm is a still unmoved condition which no disturbance can affect — it is a less negative condition than quiet.” Letters on Yoga*
"Calm is a positive tranquillity which can exist in spite of superficial disturbances.” *Letters on Yoga
"Calm is a strong and positive quietude, firm and solid — ordinary quietude is mere negation, simply the absence of disturbance.” *Letters on Yoga
"But more powerful still is the giving up of the fruit of one"s works, because that immediately destroys all causes of disturbance and brings and preserves automatically an inner calm and peace, and calm and peace are the foundation on which all else becomes perfect and secure in possession by the tranquil spirit.” Essays on the Gita
The Mother: "Calm is self-possessed strength, quiet and conscious energy, mastery of the impulses, control over the unconscious reflexes.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 14*.
camouflage ::: concealment by some means that alters or obscures the appearance.
canticle ::: a song, poem, or hymn, esp. one that is religious and praiseful in character.
capital ::: 1. A town or city that is the official seat of government in a political entity, such as a state or nation. 2. Wealth in the form of money or property.
capitol ::: 1. A building occupied by a state legislature. 2. A building that is the seat of government. Also fig.
care ::: n. **1. A burdened state of mind, as that arising from heavy responsibilities; worry. 2. An object of or cause for concern. 3. Watchful oversight; charge or supervision. 4. An object or source of worry, attention, or solicitude. care, cares. v. 5. To be concerned or interested, have concern for. cares, cared.**
carrier ::: something or someone that transports or conveys.
carven ::: that has been wrought or decorated by carving.
casements ::: window sashes that open outward by means of hinges.
catch ::: n. 1. A concealed, unexpected, or unforeseen drawback or handicap. 2. Anything that is caught, esp. something worth catching. v. **3. To take, seize, or capture, esp. after pursuit. 4. To become cognizant or aware of suddenly. 5. To receive. 6. catches, caught, catching.**
cause ::: 1. A person or thing that acts, happens, or exists in such a way that some specific thing happens as a result; the producer of an effect. 2. A basis for an action or response; a reason. 3. Grounds for action; motive; justification. 4. Good or sufficient reason. 5. The principle, ideal, goal, or movement to which a person or group is dedicated. Cause.
cell ::: biology: The smallest structural unit of an organism that is capable of independent functioning, consisting of one or more nuclei, cytoplasm, and various organelles, all surrounded by a semipermeable cell membrane. cells.
"Certainly, ideals are not the ultimate Reality, for that is too high and vast for any ideal to envisage; they are aspects of it thrown out in the world-consciousness as a basis for the workings of the world-power. But they are primary, the actual workings secondary. They are nearer to the Reality and therefore always more real, forcible and complete than the facts which are their partial reflection.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
Certainly, ideals are not the ultimate Reality, for that is too high and vast for any ideal to envisage; they are aspects of it thrown out in the world-consciousness as a basis for the workings of the world-power. But they are primary, the actual workings secondary. They are nearer to the Reality and therefore always more real, forcible and complete than the facts which are their partial reflection. Reflections themselves of the Real, they again are reflected in the more concrete workings of our existence. The Supramental Manifestation
chain ::: n. 1. A series of things connected or following in succession. 2. Something that binds or restrains. chains. v. 3. Fig. To restrain or confine with or as with a chain.
chance ::: n. 1. The absence of any cause of events that can be predicted, understood, or controlled: often personified or treated as a positive agency. 2. The happening of events; the way in which things happen; fortune. 3. An opportune or favourable time; opportunity. 4. Fortune; luck; fate. Chance, chances. *adj.* 5. Not planned or expected; accidental. v. 6. To happen by chance; be the case by chance.** chanced.
chant ::: n. **1. A short, simple series of syllables or words that are sung on or intoned to the same note or a limited range of notes. 2. A song or melody. v. 3. To sing, especially in the manner of a chant. chants, chanted, chanting, chantings.**
chapel ::: a place of worship that is smaller than and subordinate to a church.
characters ::: 1. The combination of qualities, features and traits that distinguishes one person, group, or thing from another. 2. The marks or symbols used in writing systems such as the letters of the alphabet.
charge ::: 1. An assigned duty or task; a responsibility given to one. 2. Care; custody. 3. An order, an impetuous onset or attack, command, or injunction. 4. The quantity of anything that a receptacle is intended to hold. v. 5. *Fig. To load to capacity; fill. *charged.
charm ::: 1. An action or formula thought to have magical power. 2. A particular quality that attracts; a delight. charms.
check ::: v. 1. To investigate, examine or verify as to correctness; examine carefully or in detail; to ascertain the truth about. 2. To inspect so as to determine accuracy, authenticity, quality, or other condition; test. checked.* n. *3. A person or thing that stops, limits, slows, or restrains.
chess-play ::: the game of chess; a board game for two players, each beginning with 16 pieces of six kinds that are moved according to individual rules, with the objective of checkmating the opposing king. chess-player.
choice ::: 1. The act of choosing; selection. 2. The power, right, or liberty to choose; option. 3. A person or thing chosen or that may be chosen.
cinema ::: a motion picture or a theatre that shows motion pictures.
circuit ::: 1. The act of following a curved or circular route or one that lies around an object. 2. A complete route or course, esp. one that is curved or circular and begins and ends at the point of departure. 3. The boundary line encompassing an area or object. 4. A regular or accustomed course from place to place. circuits.
citadel ::: **A fortress that commands a city and is used in the control of the inhabitants and in defence during attack or siege. citadels.**
clash ::: n. 1. A loud, harsh noise, such as that made by two metal objects in collision. 2. An encounter between hostile forces; a battle or skirmish. 3. A conflict, as between opposing or irreconcilable ideas. v. 4. To engage in a physical conflict or contest, as in a game or a battle (often followed by with). 5. To come into conflict; be in opposition. clashes, clashed, clashing.
clay ::: 1. A natural earthy material that is plastic when wet, consisting essentially of hydrated silicates of aluminium: used for making bricks, pottery, etc. 2. The material which is said to form the human body. 3. The human body, esp. as opposed to the spirit. clay-kin.
clearing ::: a tract of land, as in a forest, that contains no trees or bushes.
cloak ::: 1. A loose outer garment, such as a cape. 2. Anything that covers or conceals. 3. Something that covers or conceals; a disguise. world-cloak.
clod ::: a lump or mass that adheres together; esp. of earth or clay.
cloisters ::: 1. Covered walks with an open colonnade on one side, running along the walls of buildings that face a quadrangle. 2. Secluded, quiet places. cloister"s, cloisters.
cloud ::: 1. A visible collection of particles of water or ice suspended in the air, usually at an elevation above the earth"s surface. 2. Any similar mass, esp. of smoke or dust. 3. Something fleeting or unsubstantial. 4. Anything that obscures or darkens something, or causes gloom, trouble, suspicion, disgrace, etc. clouds, clouds", cloud-veils.
clue ::: anything that serves to guide or direct in the solution of a problem, mystery, search, etc.; a key. clues, master-clue.
comet ::: a celestial body that travels around the sun, usually in a highly elliptical orbit: thought to consist of a solid frozen nucleus part of which vaporizes on approaching the sun to form a gaseous luminous coma and a long luminous tail.
companion ::: 1. A person who accompanies or associates with another; a comrade. 2. Astronomy. The fainter of the two stars that constitute a double star. companions, companionless.
compass ::: an instrument for determining directions, as by means of a freely rotating magnetized needle that indicates magnetic north.
complements ::: 1. Things that complete, make up a whole, or bring to perfection. 2. Things that complete each other when combined and complete the whole.
compound debt ::: a debt that has increased with the addition of interest compounded through the years.
conceit ::: 1. An excessively favourable opinion of one"s own ability, importance, wit, etc. 2. Something that is conceived in the mind; a thought; idea. 3. Imagination; fancy. 4. A fanciful thought or idea. conceits.
conclaves ::: 1. Secret or confidential meetings. 2. Assemblies or gatherings, esp. those that have special authority, power, or influence.
conditions ::: circumstances that are indispensable to the appearance or occurrence of another; prerequisites.
cone ::: 1. A solid whose surface is generated by a straight line, the generator, passing through a fixed point, the vertex, and moving along a fixed curve, the directrix. 2. Anything that tapers from a circular section to a point.
conscience ::: that part of one"s mind which holds one"s knowledge or sense of right and wrong; inner knowledge. half-conscience.
conscious force ::: Sri Aurobindo: "For the Force that builds the worlds is a conscious Force, . . .” *The Life Divine
::: "Consciousness is usually identified with mind, but mental consciousness is only the human range which no more exhausts all the possible ranges of consciousness than human sight exhausts all the gradations of colour or human hearing all the gradations of sound — for there is much above or below that is to man invisible and inaudible. So there are ranges of consciousness above and below the human range, with which the normal human has no contact and they seem to it unconscious, — supramental or overmental and submental ranges.” *Letters on Yoga
::: ‘Consecration" generally has a more mystical sense but this is not absolute. A total consecration signifies a total giving of one"s self; hence it is the equivalent of the word ``surrender"", not of the word (soumission} which always gives the impression that one accepts'' passively. You feel a flame in the wordconsecration"", a flame even greater than in the word offering''. To consecrate oneself isto give oneself to an action""; hence, in the yogic sense, it is to give oneself to some divine work with the idea of accomplishing the divine work.” Questions and Answers, MCW Vol. 4*.
consequence ::: 1. Something that logically or naturally follows from an action or condition. 2. Significance; importance.
context ::: 1. The part of a text or statement that surrounds a particular word or passage and determines its meaning. 2. The set of circumstances or facts that surround a particular event, situation, etc.
contours ::: outlines of figures or bodies, edges or lines that define or bound shapes, objects or forms.
contract ::: an agreement between two or more parties, especially one that is written and enforceable by law.
contrary ::: something that is opposite in nature or character; diametrically or mutually opposed. contraries.
convicting ::: that which points out or impresses upon something its error.
cord ::: 1. An influence, feeling, or force that binds or restrains; a bond or tie. 2. Fig. Like a thin rope made of several strands woven together to hold the parts of anything. cords, heart-cords.
cosmic mind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Nevertheless, the fact of this intervention from above, the fact that behind all our original thinking or authentic perception of things there is a veiled, a half-veiled or a swift unveiled intuitive element is enough to establish a connection between mind and what is above it; it opens a passage of communication and of entry into the superior spirit-ranges. There is also the reaching out of mind to exceed the personal ego limitation, to see things in a certain impersonality and universality. Impersonality is the first character of cosmic self; universality, non-limitation by the single or limiting point of view, is the character of cosmic perception and knowledge: this tendency is therefore a widening, however rudimentary, of these restricted mind areas towards cosmicity, towards a quality which is the very character of the higher mental planes, — towards that superconscient cosmic Mind which, we have suggested, must in the nature of things be the original mind-action of which ours is only a derivative and inferior process.” *The Life Divine
"If we accept the Vedic image of the Sun of Truth, . . . we may compare the action of the Higher Mind to a composed and steady sunshine, the energy of the Illumined Mind beyond it to an outpouring of massive lightnings of flaming sun-stuff. Still beyond can be met a yet greater power of the Truth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought, Truth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truth-action, to which we can give in a special sense the name of Intuition; . . . At the source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies, — not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality.” The Life Divine
"There is one cosmic Mind, one cosmic Life, one cosmic Body. All the attempt of man to arrive at universal sympathy, universal love and the understanding and knowledge of the inner soul of other existences is an attempt to beat thin, breach and eventually break down by the power of the enlarging mind and heart the walls of the ego and arrive nearer to a cosmic oneness.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"[The results of the opening to the cosmic Mind:] One is aware of the cosmic Mind and the mental forces that move there and how they work on one"s mind and that of others and one is able to deal with one"s own mind with a greater knowledge and effective power. There are many other results, but this is the fundamental one.” Letters on Yoga
"The cosmic consciousness has many levels — the cosmic physical, the cosmic vital, the cosmic Mind, and above the higher planes of cosmic Mind there is the Intuition and above that the overmind and still above that the supermind where the Transcendental begins. In order to live in the Intuition plane (not merely to receive intuitions), one has to live in the cosmic consciousness because there the cosmic and individual run into each other as it were, and the mental separation between them is already broken down, so nobody can reach there who is still in the separative ego.” Letters on Yoga*
cosmic Self ::: Sri Aurobindo: "When one has the cosmic consciousness, one can feel the cosmic Self as one"s own self, one can feel one with other beings in the cosmos, one can feel all the forces of Nature as moving in oneself, all selves as one"s own self. There is no why except that it is so, since all is the One.” Letters on Yoga (See also Cosmic Spirit)
"Impersonality is the first character of cosmic self; . . . .” *The Life Divine
"An eternal infinite self-existence is the supreme reality, but the supreme transcendent eternal Being, Self and Spirit, — an infinite Person, we may say, because his being is the essence and source of all personality, — is the reality and meaning of self-existence: so too the cosmic Self, Spirit, Being, Person is the reality and meaning of cosmic existence; the same Self, Spirit, Being or Person manifesting its multiplicity is the reality and meaning of individual existence.” The Life Divine
"But this cosmic self is spiritual in essence and in experience; it must not be confused with the collective existence, with any group soul or the life and body of a human society or even of all mankind.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"It is the Cosmic Self and Spirit that is in and behind all things and beings, from which and in which all is manifested in the universe — although it is now a manifestation in the Ignorance.” Letters on Yoga*
cosmic Spirit ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Cosmic Spirit or Self contains everything in the cosmos — it upholds cosmic Mind, universal Life, universal Matter as well as the overmind. The Self is more than all these things which are its formulations in Nature.” *Letters on Yoga
"[The Divine in one of its three aspects] . . . is the Cosmic Self and Spirit that is in and behind all things and beings, from which and in which all is manifested in the universe - although it is now a manifestation in the Ignorance.” Letters on Yoga
". . . the cosmic spirit, the one self inhabiting the universe, . . . .” *The Life Divine
"For the cosmic Spirit inhabits each and all, but is more than all; . . . .”The Life Divine
counterpart ::: one of two parts that fit and complete each another. counterparts.
courage ::: the state or quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger, fear, or vicissitudes with self-possession, confidence, and resolution; bravery.
covering ::: n. **1. Anything that veils, screens, disguises or shuts from sight. 2. Something that covers or is laid, placed, or spread over or upon something else. v. 3. Protecting or shielding from harm, loss, or danger. coverings.**
cover ::: n. 1. Fig. Something, such as darkness, that screens, conceals, or disguises. v. 2. To spread over a surface to protect or conceal or warm something. 3. To hide from view or knowledge; conceal. covers, covered, covering.
create ::: 1. To cause to come into being, as something unique that would not naturally evolve or that is not made by ordinary processes. 2. To evolve from one"s own thought or imagination, as a work of art or an invention. 3. To cause to happen; to bring about; arrange, as by intention or design. creates, created, creating, all-creating, self-creating, world-creating, new-create.
creation ::: 1. The act or process of creating, esp. the universe as thus brought into being by God. 2. Something that has been brought into existence or created, esp. a product of human intelligence or imagination, as a work of art, music, etc. creation"s, creations, half-creations, **self-creation.
creator ::: 1. The Divine Being, creator of all things. 2. A person, force or thing that creates. Creator, creator"s, Creator"s, creators, world-creators. (Sri Aurobindo also employs creator as an adjective.)
creepers ::: plants that spread by means of stems that creep or climb; vines.
cross ::: 1. A structure consisting essentially of an upright and a transverse piece, upon which persons were formerly put to a cruel and ignominious death by being nailed or otherwise fastened to it by their extremities. 2. A representation or delineation of a cross on any surface, varying in elaborateness from two lines crossing each other to an ornamental design painted, embroidered, carved, etc.; used as a sacred mark, symbol, badge, or the like. 3. A trouble, vexation, annoyance; misfortune, adversity; sometimes anything that thwarts or crosses. v. 4. To go or extend across; pass from one side of to the other: pass over. 5. To extend or pass through or over; intersect. 6. To encounter in passing. crosses, crossed, crossing.
crown ::: n. **1. An ornament worn on the head by kings and those having sovereign power, often made of precious metal and ornamented with gems. 2. A wreath or garland for the head, awarded as a sign of victory, success, honour, etc. 3. The distinction that comes from a great achievement; reward, honour. 4. The top or summit of something, esp. of a rounded object. etc. 5. The highest or more nearly perfect state of anything. 6. An exalting or chief attribute. 7. The acme or supreme source of honour, excellence, beauty, etc. v. 8. To put a crown on the head of, symbolically vesting with royal title, powers, etc. 9. To place something on or over the head or top of. crowns, crowned.**
crypt ::: 1. An underground vault or chamber, especially one beneath a church that is used as a burial place. 2. A cellar, vault or tunnel. 3. A location for secret meetings, etc. crypts.
culture ("s) ::: the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc.
cup ::: 1. A small open container, usually with a flat bottom and a handle, used for drinking, or something resembling it. cup"s 2. *Fig.* Something that one must endure; one"s lot to be experienced or endured with pain or happiness, as these lines in Savitri:
cure ::: n. 1. A means of correcting or relieving anything that is troublesome or detrimental. v. 2. To remove or remedy (something harmful or disturbing). curing.
currency ::: money in any form when in actual use as a medium of exchange; also anything that has value.
curse ::: n. 1. The expression of a wish that misfortune, evil, doom, etc., befall a person, group, etc. 2. A formula or charm intended to cause such misfortune to another. 3. An evil brought or inflicted upon one. 4. The cause of evil, misfortune, or trouble. 5. A profane or obscene expression or oath. curses. v. 6. To wish harm upon; invoke evil upon. 7. To invoke supernatural powers to bring harm to (someone or something). cursed.
curtain ::: 1. A hanging piece of fabric used to shut out the light from a window, adorn a room, increase privacy, etc. 2. Something that functions as or resembles a screen, cover, or barrier. curtains.
custom ::: 1. A habitual practice of a person or a group. 2. A common tradition or usage so long established that it has the force or validity of law. custom"s.
daemon ::: 1. A guardian spirit. 2. *Mythology: A mythological being that is part-god and part-human. *3. A demigod.
dark ::: adj. 1. Lacking or having very little light. 2. Concealed or secret; mysterious. 3. Difficult to understand; obscure. 4. Characterized by gloom; dismal. 5. Fig. Sinister; evil; absent moral or spiritual values. 6. (used of color) Having a dark hue; almost black. 7. Showing a brooding ill humor. 8. Having a complexion that is not fair; swarthy. darker, darkest, dark-browed, dark-robed.* n. 9. Absence of light; dark state or condition; darkness, esp. that of night. 10. A dark place: a place of darkness. 11. The condition of being hidden from view, obscure, or unknown; obscurity. *in the dark: in concealment or secrecy.
dart ::: n. 1. A small, slender missile that is pointed at one end and usually feathered at the other and is propelled by hand, as in the game of darts, or by a blowgun when used as a weapon. 2. Something similar in function to such a missile, as the stinging member of an insect. *v. 2. To thrust or move suddenly or rapidly.* darts.
::: "Death is the question Nature puts continually to Life and her reminder to it that it has not yet found itself. If there were no siege of death, the creature would be bound for ever in the form of an imperfect living. Pursued by death he awakes to the idea of perfect life and seeks out its means and its possibility.” *Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
debt ::: 1. Something that is owed, such as money, goods, or services. 2. An obligation or liability to pay or render something to someone else.
deception ::: something that deceives or is intended to deceive; fraud; artifice.
deciding ::: that settles a question or dispute or leads to a final decision; determining; decisive.
decoration ::: an addition that renders something more attractive or ornate; adornment.
deduction ::: logic. A process of reasoning in which a conclusion follows necessarily from the premises presented, so that the conclusion cannot be false if the premises are true.
deed ::: 1. Something that is done, performed, or accomplished; an act. 2. An exploit or achievement; feat. 3. Often plural as an act or gesture, esp. as illustrative of intentions, one"s character, or the like. deeds.
defeatist ::: marked by the attitude of one who admits, expects, or no longer resists defeat, as because of a conviction that further struggle or effort is futile.
defect ::: an imperfection that causes inadequacy or failure; a shortcoming.
defence ::: 1. Something that defends, as a fortification, something built to resist an enemy. 3. The act of defending against attack, danger, or injury.
deity ::: 1. A god or goddess. 2. Divine character or nature, esp. that of the Supreme Being; divinity. deities. ::: the Deity. God, Supreme Being. **Deity"s.
delight ::: 1. A high degree of pleasure or enjoyment; joy; rapture. 2. Something that gives great pleasure. **delights, world-delight, World-Delight.
dependencies ::: subject territories that are not an integral part of the ruling country.
desert ::: 1. A region so arid because of little rainfall that it supports only sparse and widely spaced vegetation or no vegetation at all. 2. Any area in which few forms of life can exist because of lack of water, permanent frost, or absence of soil. 3. Any place lacking in something; desolate, barren. deserts.
desire ::: n. **1. A longing or craving, as for something that brings satisfaction or enjoyment. 2.** Sexual appetite or a sexual urge.
desperate ::: actuated by a feeling of hopelessness; that leaves little or no room for hope; such as to be despaired of; extremely dangerous or serious.
destiny ::: 1. Something that is to happen or has happened to a particular person or thing; lot or fortune. 2. The predetermined, usually inevitable or irresistible, course of events. 3. The power or agency that determines the course of events. 4. *(Cap.) This power personified or represented as a goddess. *Destiny, destinies, world-destiny.
destroyer ::: a person or thing that destroys.
"Destruction is always a simultaneous or alternate element which keeps pace with creation and it is by destroying and renewing that the Master of Life does his long work of preservation. More, destruction is the first condition of progress. Inwardly, the man who does not destroy his lower self-formations, cannot rise to a greater existence. Outwardly also, the nation or community or race which shrinks too long from destroying and replacing its past forms of life, is itself destroyed, rots and perishes and out of its debris other nations, communities and races are formed. By destruction of the old giant occupants man made himself a place upon earth. By destruction of the Titans the gods maintain the continuity of the divine Law in the cosmos. Whoever prematurely attempts to get rid of this law of battle and destruction, strives vainly against the greater will of the World-Spirit.” Essays on the Gita
detached ::: 1. Impartial or objective; disinterested; unbiased. 2. Not involved or concerned; aloof. ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Detachment means that one stands back from [imperfections and weakness of the nature, etc.] , does not identify oneself with them or get upset or troubled because they are there, but rather looks on them as something foreign to one"s true consciousness and true self, rejects them and calls in the Mother"s Force into these movements to eliminate them and bring the true consciousness and its movements there.” Letters on Yoga
dialect ::: 1. The manner or style of expressing oneself in language. 2. A form of a language that is considered inferior.
difficulty ::: 1. The condition or quality of being difficult; 2. Something that is hard to do, understand or surmount; an impediment or obstacle.
direction ::: 1. A line of thought or action or a tendency or inclination. 2. A purpose or orientation toward a goal that serves to guide or motivate; focus. directions.
disaster ::: an occurrence that causes great distress or destruction. disasters".
disciplined ::: 1. Trained mentally or physically by instruction or exercise. 2. Having or exhibiting discipline, i.e. activity, exercise or a regimen that develops or improves a skill; training.
discovery ::: the fact of revealing or making known something that was hidden or unknown previously. flame-discovery, self-discovery, self-discovery"s, discoveries, form-discoveries.
disengage ::: 1. To release from something that holds fast, connects, or entangles. 2. To free or detach oneself; withdraw. disengaging.
disgrace ::: a person, act, or thing that causes shame, reproach, or dishonour, or is dishonourable or shameful.
disguised ::: 1. Hid the identity of by altering the appearance etc. 2. An outward semblance that misrepresents the true nature of something.
disguise ::: n. 1. A mask, costume, or manner that conceals the identity of. 2. Something that serves or is intended for concealment of identity, character, or quality; a deceptive covering, condition, manner, etc. 3. The state of being disguised; masquerade. disguises, self-disguise. v. 4. To hide under a false appearance. disguised.
disk ::: any surface that appears to the eye as flat and round.
dissident ::: that which disagrees, differs.
disturbance ::: an interruption or intrusion that breaks up tranquillity or peace.
divine Force ::: Sri Aurobindo: "That there is a divine force asleep or veiled by Inconscience in Matter and that the Higher Force has to descend and awaken it with the Light and Truth is a thing that is well known; it is at the very base of this yoga.” *Letters on Yoga.
"Divine Love is of two kinds — the divine Love for the creation and the souls that are part of itself, and the love of the seeker and love for the Divine Beloved; it has both a personal and impersonal element, but the personal is free here from all lower elements or bondage to the vital and physical instincts.” Letters on Yoga
".. . Divine Love which is at the heart of all creation and the most powerful of all redeeming and creative forces has yet been the least frontally present in earthly life, the least successfully redemptive, the least creative. Human nature has been unable to bear it in its purity for the very reason that it is the most powerful, pure, rare and intense of all the divine energies; . . . . ” The Synthesis of Yoga
divine Mother ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates.” *The Mother
divine Reality ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Divine Reality is infinite in its being; in this infinite being, we find limited being everywhere, — that is the apparent fact from which our existence here seems to start and to which our own narrow ego and its ego-centric activities bear constant witness. But, in reality, when we come to an integral self-knowledge, we find that we are not limited, for we also are infinite.” *The Life Divine
::: "Divinisation itself does not mean the destruction of the human elements; it means taking them up, showing them the way to their own perfection, raising them by purification and perfection to their full power and Ananda and that means the raising of the whole of earthly life to its full power and Ananda.” Letters on Yoga
document ::: something, such as a recording or a photograph, that can be used to furnish evidence or information. documents.
dome ::: anything having a rounded vault such as that forming the roof of a building with a circular, elliptical, or polygonal base, as the concave vault of the sky, a vaulted canopy, a canopy of trees, etc. domed.
dragonflies ::: any of various large insects of the order Odonata or suborder Anisoptera, having a long slender body and two pairs of narrow, net-veined wings that are usually held outstretched while the insect is at rest.
drawers ::: sliding, lidless horizontal compartments as in a piece of furniture, that may be drawn out horizontally in order to get access to them.
dream ::: 1. A series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. 2. A vision occurring to a person while awake. 3. A person or thing that is as pleasant, or seemingly unreal, as a dream 4. An ideal or aspiration; goal; aim. 5. A wild or vain fancy. Dream, dream"s, Dream"s, dreams, dream-brood, dream-brush, dream-built, dream-caught, dream-fact, dream-fate, dream-god"s, dream-happiness, dream-hued, dream-life, dream-light, dream-made, dream-mind, dream-notes, dream-print, dream-sculptured, dream-shores, dream-smiles, dream-splendour, dream-truth, dream-vasts, dream-white, dream-world, half-dream, self-dream, sun-dream, world-dream. *adj. 6. Of a colour: misty, dim, or cloudy. v. 7. To have an image (of) or fantasy (about) in or as if in a dream. dreams, dreamed, *dreaming.
driver ::: that which pushes, propels, or presses onward forcibly; urges forward.
drive ::: v. 1. To impel; constrain; urge; compel. 2. To manoeuvre, guide or steer the progress of. 3. To impel (matter) by physical force; to cause (something) to move along by direct application of physical force; to propel, carry along. 4. To send, expel, or otherwise cause to move away or out by force or compulsion. 5. To strive vigorously and with determination toward a goal or objective. 6. To cause and guide the movement of (a vehicle, an animal, etc.). n. 7. A strong organized effort to accomplish a purpose, with energy, push or aggressiveness. 8. Impulse; impulsive force. adj. 9. Urged onward, impelled. 10. Pertaining to an inner urge that stimulates activity or inhibition. drives, drove, drov"st, driving, driven.
drop ::: n. 1. A small quantity of liquid that forms or falls in a spherical or pear-shaped mass; globule. Also fig. of things immaterial. 2. The action or an act of dropping; fall, descent. drops. v. 3. To let or cause to fall (like a drop or drops). Also fig. **drops, dropped, dropping.**
drowning ::: something that is overwhelming or overpowering.
due ::: that which is owed (legally or morally); debt; obligation.
dynamic ::: 1. Pertaining to or characterized by energy or effective action; vigorously active; forceful; energetic. 2. Of or concerned with energy or forces that produce motion, as opposed to static.
dyumatsena ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Dyumatsena, Lord of the Shining Hosts, father of Satyavan, is the Divine Mind here fallen blind, losing its celestial kingdom of vision, and through that loss its kingdom of glory.” Author"s note at beginning of Savitri.
"Each inner experience is perfectly real in its own way, although the values of different experiences differ greatly, but it is real with the reality of the inner self and the inner planes. It is a mistake to think that we live physically only, with the outer mind and life. We are all the time living and acting on other planes of consciousness, meeting others there and acting upon them, and what we do and feel and think there, the forces we gather, the results we prepare have an incalculable importance and effect, unknown to us, upon our outer life.” Letters on Yoga
"Each person follows in the world his own line of destiny which is determined by his own nature and actions — the meaning and necessity of what happens in a particular life cannot be understood except in the light of the whole course of many lives. But this can be seen by those who can get beyond the ordinary mind and feelings and see things as a whole, that even errors, misfortunes, calamities are steps in the journey, — the soul gathering experience as it passes through and beyond them until it is ripe for the transition which will carry it beyond these things to a higher consciousness and higher life.” Letters on Yoga*
ecstasy ::: 1. Intense joy or delight. 2. A state of exalted emotion so intense that one is carried beyond thought. 3. Used by mystical writers as the technical name for the state of rapture in which the body was supposed to become incapable of sensation, while the soul was engaged in the contemplation of divine things. 4. The trance, frenzy, or rapture associated with mystic or prophetic exaltation. Ecstasy, ecstasy"s, ecstasies, ecstasied, self-ecstasy, strange-ecstasied.
effect and cause ::: cause and effect. Noting a relationship between actions or events such that one or more are the result of the other or others.
effects ::: things that are produced by an agency or cause; results; consequences.
emblem ::: a sign, design, or figure that identifies or represents someone or something.
empress ::: a female sovereign having the rank equivalent to that of an emperor.
enchanter ::: something that delights, often as with sorcery or a spell.
enclosed ::: 1. That is surrounded (with walls, fences, or other barriers) so as to prevent free ingress or egress. 2. That is shut up or hemmed in; secluded, imprisoned.
entry ::: 1. The act or an instance of entering. 2.* Something that provides access to get in or get out. Also fig. *3. Permission or right to enter; access. entry"s, entries.
envelope ::: something that covers or surrounds.
epitome ::: a person or thing that is typical of or possesses to a high degree the features of a whole class; embodiment, quintessence.
::: Equality means a quiet and unmoved mind and vital, it means not to be touched or disturbed by things that happen or things said or done to you, but to look at them with a straight look, free from the distortions created by personal feeling, and to try to understand what is behind them, why they happen, what is to be learnt from them, what is it in oneself which they are cast against and what inner profit or progress one can make out of them; it means self-mastery over the vital movements, — anger and sensitiveness and pride as well as desire and the rest, — not to let them get hold of the emotional being and disturb the inner peace, not to speak and act in the rush and impulsion of these things, always to act and speak out of a calm inner poise of the spirit.” *Letters on Yoga
Eternal"s. Sri Aurobindo: ". . . that which is, cannot perish; it can only lose itself. All is eternal in the eternal spirit.” *Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
eternal ::: that which is eternal is, by its nature, without beginning or end. eternal"s, eternally. ::: the Eternal. God.
". . . ethics must eventually perceive that the law of good which it seeks is the law of God.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
eudaemonised ::: made happy. In ethics, the view that the ultimate justification of virtuous activity is happiness. Virtuous activity may be conceived as a means to happiness, or well-being, or as partly constitutive of it.
::: "Even Science believes that one day death may be conquered by physical means and its reasonings are perfectly sound. There is no reason why the supramental Force should not do it. Forms on earth do not last (they do in other planes) because these forms are too rigid to grow expressing the progress of the spirit. If they become plastic enough to do that there is no reason why they should not last.” Letters on Yoga
event ::: 1. Something that happens, or is regarded as happening; an occurrence, esp. one of some importance. 2. Something that occurs in a certain place during a particular interval of time. Event, event"s, events, shape-events. ::: Event, divine
evidence ::: something that makes plain or clear; an indication or sign. self-evidence.
excitement ::: something that excites; stimulation or thrill.
exclusive ::: 1. Not admitting of something else. 2. Noting that in which no others have a share.
executor ::: 1. A person who carries out or performs something. 2. A person named in a will to carry out the provisions of that will. executors.
expanding ::: adj. 1. That opens up or out; unfolds. 2. That unfolds or develops; spreads out. 3. That increases in bulk, extent, volume, etc.
experience ::: 1. Knowledge or practical wisdom gained from what one has observed, encountered, or undergone. 2. Philos. The totality of the cognitions given by perception; all that is perceived, understood, and remembered. **world-experience.
::: "Experiences are of all kinds and take all forms in the consciousness. When the consciousness undergoes, sees or feels anything spiritual or psychic or even occult, that is an experience — in the technical yogic sense, for there are of course all sorts of experiences that are not of that character.” Letters on Yoga
extinct ::: no longer in existence; that has ended or died out.
::: **"Faith is a certitude in the soul which does not depend on reasoning, on this or that mental idea, on circumstances, on this or that passing condition of the mind or the vital or the body. It may be hidden, eclipsed, may even seem to be quenched, but it reappears again after the storm or the eclipse; it is seen burning still in the soul when one has thought that it was extinguished for ever. The mind may be a shifting sea of doubts and yet that faith may be there within and, if so, it will keep even the doubt-racked mind in the way so that it goes on in spite of itself towards its destined goal. Faith is a spiritual certitude of the spiritual, the divine, the soul"s ideal, something that clings to that even when it is not fulfilled in life, even when the immediate facts or the persistent circumstances seem to deny it.” Letters on Yoga
fate ::: 1. That which is inevitably predetermined or preordained; destiny. 2. Something that unavoidably befalls a person; fortune; lot. **fate"s, fates, fated, fate-bound, fate-driven, fate-hedged, fate-led, fate-turned, world-fate.
::: "Fate is God"s foreknowledge outside Space & Time of all that in Space & Time shall yet happen; what He has foreseen, Power & Necessity work out by the conflict of forces.” *Essays Divine and Human
::: **"Fear and anxiety are perverse forms of will. What thou fearest & ponderest over, striking that note repeatedly in thy mind, thou helpest to bring about; for, if thy will above the surface of waking repels it, it is yet what thy mind underneath is all along willing, & the subconscious mind is mightier, wider, better equipped to fulfil than thy waking force & intellect. But the spirit is stronger than both together; from fear and hope take refuge in the grandiose calm and careless mastery of the spirit.” Essays Divine and Human
::: **"Fear is always a feeling to be rejected, because what you fear is just the thing that is likely to come to you: fear attracts the object of fear.” Letters on Yoga*
fibre ::: 1. A filamentous substance; a web of thread-like tissue such as composes living tissue generally. 2. That which fundamentally constitutes the strength of a thing; sinew; stuff; character. fibres, fibred.
fiction ::: an imaginative creation or a pretence that does not represent actuality but has been invented; made-up. fictions.
"Find the Guide secret within you or housed in an earthly body, hearken to his voice and follow always the way that he points. At the end is the Light that fails not, the Truth that deceives not, the Power that neither strays nor stumbles, the wide freedom, the ineffable Beatitude.” Essays Divine and Human
fireflies ::: nocturnal insects with a soft body and an organ at the rear of the abdomen that emits phosphorescent light.
flame ::: n. 1. Burning gas or vapor, as from wood or coal, that is undergoing combustion; a portion of ignited gas or vapor. 2. Fig. A brilliant light; fiery glow. 3. Fig. Intense ardour, zeal, passion, vitality. 4. Spiritual fire. 5. Inner fire. 6. Bright colouring; a streak or patch of color. Flame, flames, flame-ascensions, flame-born, flame-bright, flame-child, flame-discovery, flame-edge, flame-eyed, flame-foot, flame-hills, flame-pure, flame-signs, flame-stabs, flame-throw, flame-white, flame-wrapped, moon-flame. v. 8. To burn with a flame or flames; burst into flames; blaze. 7. To burn or glow as if with fire; become red or fiery 8. To burn or burst forth with strong emotion. flames, flamed. ::: flames out. Bursts out in or as if in flames.
flaw ::: a feature that mars the perfection of something; an imperfection, defect, or blemish.
-flocks ::: groups of animals or birds that live, travel, or feed together. moon-flocks.
flower-symbol ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Flowers are the moment"s representations of things that are in themselves eternal.” On Himself
flow ::: n. 1. To move or progress freely as if in a stream. 2. Fig. Something that resembles a flowing stream in moving continuously. v. 3. To circulate. 4. To move or progress freely as if in a stream. 5. To stream or well forth. 6. To proceed or be produced continuously and effortlessly from or out of a source. flows, flowed.
flux ::: 1. Constant or frequent change; fluctuation; movement. 2. A flowing or flow: Also used with reference to other forms of matter and energy that can be regarded as flowing, such as radiant energy, particles, etc.
forced marches ::: marches that are longer than troops are accustomed to and maintained at a faster pace than usual, generally undertaken for a particular objective under emergency conditions.
force, universal ::: Sri Aurobindo: "This force that we feel is the universal Force of the Divine, which, veiled or unveiled, acting directly or permitting the use of its powers by beings in the cosmos, is the one Energy that alone exists and alone makes universal or individual action possible. For this force is the Divine itself in the body of its power; all is that, power of act, power of thought and knowledge, power of mastery and enjoyment, power of love. Conscious always and in everything, in ourselves and in others, of the Master of Works possessing, inhabiting, enjoying through this Force that is himself, becoming through it all existences and all happenings, we shall have arrived at the divine union through works and achieved by that fulfilment in works all that others have gained through absolute devotion or through pure knowledge.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
"For existence itself is and must always be the stuff of its own becoming; it must be shaped into the substance with which Force has to deal. Force again must be the power which works out that substance and works with it to whatever ends; Force is that which we ordinarily call Nature.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"For good is all that helps the individual and the world towards their divine fullness, and evil is all that retards or breaks up that increasing perfection.” The Synthesis of Yoga ::: *goodness.
"For if evolution is the progressive manifestation by Nature of that which slept or worked in her, involved, it is also the overt realisation of that which she secretly is. We cannot, then, bid her the right to condemn with the religionist as perverse and presumptuous or with the rationalist as a disease or hallucination any intention she may evince or effort she may make to go beyond. If it be true that Spirit is involved in Matter and apparent Nature is secret God, then the manifestation of the divine in himself and the realisation of God within and without are the highest and most legitimate aim possible to man upon earth.” The Life Divine
"For it is only the few who can make the past Teacher and his teaching, the past Incarnation and his example and influence a living force in their lives. For this need also the Hindu discipline provides in the relation of the Guru and the disciple. The Guru may sometimes be the Incarnation or World-Teacher; but it is sufficient that he should represent to the disciple the divine wisdom, convey to him something of the divine ideal or make him feel the realised relation of the human soul with the Eternal.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
"Forms on earth do not last (they do in other planes) because these forms are too rigid to grow expressing the progress of the spirit. If they become plastic enough to do that there is no reason why they should not last.” Letters on Yoga
"For we have seen that universal force and universal consciousness are one, — cosmic force is the operation of cosmic consciousness.” The Life Divine*
foundation ::: 1. The natural or prepared ground or base on which some structure is erected or rests. 2. Fig. That on which something is founded; basis. **foundations.
frieze ::: the upper part of the wall of a room, below the cornice, esp. one that is decorated. friezes.
front ::: n. 1. That part or side that is forward, prominent, or most often seen or used. 2. Outward aspect or bearing as when dealing with a situation. 3. Demeanour or bearing, especially in the presence of danger or difficulty. 4. At a position before, in advance of, facing, or confronting; at the head of. 5. The most forward line of a combat force. 6. A position of leadership in a particular endeavour or field. front"s, fronts. v. 7. To look out on; face. 8. To meet face to face; in opposition; confront. fronts, fronted, fronting.
fruit ::: 1. The part of a plant that produces the seed, especially when eaten as food. 2. The result or consequence of an action or effort. 3. Result; outcome. fruits.
fuel ::: 1. A substance that can be consumed to produce energy. 2. Fig. Something that maintains or stimulates a passionate activity or an emotion. fuel"s.
gang ::: a group that has banded together for mutual protection and profit. Also fig.
gem ::: 1. A pearl or mineral that has been cut and polished for use as an ornament. 2. Something that is valued for its beauty or perfection. gems.
genii ::: 1. A rendering of Arab., jinn, the collective name of a class of spirits (some good, some evil) supposed to interfere powerfully in human affairs. 2. Spirits, often appearing in human form, that when summoned carry out the wishes of the summoner.
"Genius is Nature"s first attempt to liberate the imprisoned god out of her human mould; the mould has to suffer in the process. It is astonishing that the cracks are so few and unimportant.” Essays Divine and Human
girdle ::: n. **1. A belt or sash worn around the waist. 2. Something that encircles like a belt. v. 3. To surround as with a girdle. girdling.**
goblet ::: a drinking vessel, such as a glass, that has a stem and base.
goblin ::: a grotesque sprite or elf that is mischievous or malicious toward people. goblins, goblin-wizened.
godhead ::: Sri Aurobindo: ". . . the Godhead is all that is universe and all that is in the universe and all that is more than the universe. The Gita lays stress first on his supracosmic existence. For otherwise the mind would miss its highest goal and remain turned towards the cosmic only or else attached to some partial experience of the Divine in the cosmos. It lays stress next on his universal existence in which all moves and acts. For that is the justification of the cosmic effort and that is the vast spiritual self-awareness in which the Godhead self-seen as the Time-Spirit does his universal works. Next it insists with a certain austere emphasis on the acceptance of the Godhead as the divine inhabitant in the human body. For he is the Immanent in all existences, and if the indwelling divinity is not recognised, not only will the divine meaning of individual existence be missed, the urge to our supreme spiritual possibilities deprived of its greatest force, but the relations of soul with soul in humanity will be left petty, limited and egoistic. Finally, it insists at great length on the divine manifestation in all things in the universe and affirms the derivation of all that is from the nature, power and light of the one Godhead.” *Essays on the Gita
"God is the All and that which exceeds, transcends the All; there is nothing in existence which is not God but God is not anything in that existence, except symbolically, in image to His own consciousness.” The Life Divine
"God is the one stable and eternal Reality. He is One because there is nothing else, since all existence and non-existence are He. He is stable or unmoving, because motion implies change in Space and change in Time, and He, being beyond Time and Space, is immutable. He possesses eternally in Himself all that is, has been or ever can be, and He therefore does not increase or diminish. He is beyond causality and relativity and therefore there is no change of relations in His being.” The Upanishads
gong ::: a large bronze disk of Asian origin, having an upturned rim that produces a vibrant, hollow tone when struck, usually with a soft mallet.
good ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Below [the ethical] hides that secret of good in all things which the human being approaches and tries to deliver partially through ethical instinct and ethical idea; above is hidden the eternal Good which exceeds our partial and fragmentary ethical conceptions.” *Social and Political Thought
grace ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Grace is something spontaneous which wells out from the Divine Consciousness as a free flow of its being. ::: It is a power that is superior to any rule, even to the Cosmic Law — for all spiritual seers have distinguished between the Law and Grace. Yet it is not indiscriminate — only it has a discrimination of its own which sees things and persons and the right times and seasons with another vision than that of the Mind or any other normal Power. A state of Grace is prepared in the individual often behind thick veils by means not calculable by the mind and when the state of Grace comes, then the Grace itself acts. ” *Letters on Yoga
graph ::: a diagram that exhibits a relationship, often functional, between two sets of numbers as a set of points having coordinates determined by the relationship. graphs.
graphic characters or figures that indicate the meaning of a thing without indicating the sounds used to express it.
grave ::: 1. An excavation made in the earth in which to bury a dead body. 2. Any place that becomes the receptacle of what is dead, lost, or past.
grey ::: 1. A neutral tone, intermediate between black and white, that has no hue and reflects and transmits only a little light. 2.* Fig. Dismal or dark, esp. from lack of light; gloomy. 3. Dull, dreary or monotonous. 4. Used often in reference to twilight or a gloomy or an overcast day. greyer, grey-eyed, grey-hued, silver-grey. n. *greyness.
grief ::: 1. Deep or intense sorrow or distress, esp. at the death of someone. 2. Something that causes great unhappiness. grief"s, griefs, griefless.
groping ::: showing or reflecting a desire to understand, especially something that proves puzzling.
gross ::: 1. Used in reference to material things that the senses can perceive in contrast to those that are spiritual or ethereal. 2. Thick; dense; heavy. grosser, grossly.
growth ::: 1. The process of growing in all senses of the word. 2. Something that has grown or developed by or as if by a natural process. growths.
guarantee ::: something that assures a particular outcome or condition.
guardian ::: n. 1. One that guards, watches over, or protects. guardians, Guardians. *adj. *2. Guarding; protecting.
guard ::: n. 1. Something that gives protection; a safeguard. 2. A body of people, esp. soldiers, charged with guarding a place from disturbance, theft, etc. guards. v. 3. To keep safe from harm or danger; to take care of, watch over, protect, defend. 4. To protect from harm by or as if by watching over. guards, guarded, guarding, deep-guarded, self-guarded. ::: on guard. Vigilant; watchful.
habit ::: 1. A recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behaviour that is acquired through frequent repetition. 2. A dominant or regular disposition or tendency; prevailing character or quality. habit"s, habits, earth-habit"s, Nature-habit"s.
hallucination ::: 1. A sensory experience of something that does not exist outside the mind, caused by various physical and mental disorders. 2. A false notion, belief, or impression; illusion; delusion.
handle ::: n. 1. A part that is designed to be held or operated with the hand. v. 2. To deal with or have responsibility for; conduct.
harping ::: making a musical sound like that of a harp.
haze ::: 1. An aggregation in the atmosphere of very fine, widely dispersed, solid or liquid particles, or both, giving the air an opalescent appearance that subdues colours. 2. Reduced visibility in the air as a result of condensed water vapour, dust, etc., in the atmosphere. 3. Vagueness of obscurity, as of the mind or perception; confused or vague thoughts, feelings, etc.
heart ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The heart in Vedic psychology is not restricted to the seat of the emotions; it includes all that large tract of spontaneous mentality, nearest to the subconscient in us, out of which rise the sensations, emotions, instincts, impulses and all those intuitions and inspirations that travel through these agencies before they arrive at form in the intelligence.” *The Secret of the Veda
hem ::: an edge or border as that of a cloth. Also fig. hems.
"Here we live in an organisation of mortal consciousness which takes the form of a transient world; there we are liberated into the harmonies of an infinite self-seeing which knows all world in the light of the eternal and immortal. The Beyond is our reality; that is our plenitude; that is the absolute satisfaction of our self-existence. It is immortality and it is ‘That Delight".” The Upanishads *beyond
hieroglyph ::: designating or pertaining to a pictographic script, particularly that of the ancient Egyptians, in which many of the symbols are conventionalized, recognizable pictures of the things represented. hieroglyphs.
"High beyond the Intelligence is the Great Self, beyond the Great Self is the Unmanifest, beyond the Unmanifest is the Conscious Being. There is nothing beyond the Being, — that is the extreme ultimate, that the supreme goal.” — Katha Upanishad. (4) (Sri Aurobindo"s translation) The Life Divine
high-pitched ::: 1. Acoustically, a pitch that is perceived as above other pitches. 2. Marked by or indicating lofty character or intense emotion.
hinge ::: a jointed or flexible device that allows the turning or pivoting of a part, such as a door or lid, on a stationary frame that allows the turning or pivoting of a part, such as a door or lid, on a stationary frame.
**"I certainly won"t have ‘attracted" [in place of ‘allured"] — there is an enormous difference between the force of the two words and merely ‘attracted by the Ecstasy" would take away all my ecstasy in the line — nothing so tepid can be admitted. Neither do I want ‘thrill" [in place of ‘joy"] which gives a false colour — precisely it would mean that the ecstasy was already touching him with its intensity which is far from my intention.Your statement that ‘joy" is just another word for ‘ecstasy" is surprising. ‘Comfort", ‘pleasure", ‘joy", ‘bliss", ‘rapture", ‘ecstasy" would then be all equal and exactly synonymous terms and all distinction of shades and colours of words would disappear from literature. As well say that ‘flashlight" is just another word for ‘lightning" — or that glow, gleam, glitter, sheen, blaze are all equivalents which can be employed indifferently in the same place. One can feel allured to the supreme omniscient Ecstasy and feel a nameless joy touching one without that Joy becoming itself the supreme Ecstasy. I see no loss of expressiveness by the joy coming in as a vague nameless hint of the immeasurable superior Ecstasy.” Letters on Savitri*
"Ideals are truths that have not yet effected themselves for man, the realities of a higher plane of existence which have yet to fulfil themselves on this lower plane of life and matter, our present field of operation.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
"Ideals are truths that have not yet effected themselves for man, the realities of a higher plane of existence which have yet to fulfil themselves on this lower plane of life and matter, our present field of operation. To the pragmatical intellect which takes its stand upon the ever-changing present, ideals are not truths, not realities, they are at most potentialities of future truth and only become real when they are visible in the external fact as work of force accomplished. But to the mind which is able to draw back from the flux of force in the material universe, to the consciousness which is not imprisoned in its own workings or carried along in their flood but is able to envelop, hold and comprehend them, to the soul that is not merely the subject and instrument of the world-force but can reflect something of that Master-Consciousness which controls and uses it, the ideal present to its inner vision is a greater reality than the changing fact obvious to its outer senses. The Supramental Manifestation*
"If discipline of all the members of our being by purification and concentration may be described as the right arm of the body of Yoga, renunciation is its left arm. By discipline or positive practice we confirm in ourselves the truth of things, truth of being, truth of knowledge, truth of love, truth of works and replace with these the falsehoods that have overgrown and perverted our nature; by renunciation we seize upon the falsehoods, pluck up their roots and cast them out of our way so that they shall no longer hamper by their persistence, their resistance or their recurrence the happy and harmonious growth of our divine living.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
"If you go deep enough, into a sufficiently complete silence from all outer things, you will find within you that flame about which I often speak, and in this flame you will see your destiny.} You will see the aspiration of centuries which has been concentrated gradually, to lead you through countless births to the great day of realisation — that preparation which has been made through thousands of years, and is reaching its culmination.” Questions and Answers MCW Vol. 6*.
ignorance ::: the state or fact of being ignorant; lack of knowledge, learning, information. Ignorance, ignorance"s, Ignorance"s, ignorance", world-ignorance, World-Ignorance.
Sri Aurobindo: "Ignorance is the absence of the divine eye of perception which gives us the sight of the supramental Truth; it is the non-perceiving principle in our consciousness as opposed to the truth-perceiving conscious vision and knowledge.” *The Life Divine
"Ignorance is the consciousness of being in the successions of Time, divided in its knowledge by dwelling in the moment, divided in its conception of self-being by dwelling in the divisions of Space and the relations of circumstance, self-prisoned in the multiple working of the unity. It is called the Ignorance because it has put behind it the knowledge of unity and by that very fact is unable to know truly or completely either itself or the world, either the transcendent or the universal reality.” The Life Divine
"Ignorance means Avidya, the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life that flow from it and all that is natural to the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life. This Ignorance is the result of a movement by which the cosmic Intelligence separated itself from the light of the Supermind (the divine Gnosis) and lost the Truth, — truth of being, truth of divine consciousness, truth of force and action, truth of Ananda. As a result, instead of a world of integral truth and divine harmony created in the light of the divine Gnosis, we have a world founded on the part truths of an inferior cosmic Intelligence in which all is half-truth, half-error. . . . All in the consciousness of this creation is either limited or else perverted by separation from the integral Light; even the Truth it perceives is only a half-knowledge. Therefore it is called the Ignorance.” The Mother
". . . all ignorance is a penumbra which environs an orb of knowledge . . . .”The Life Divine
"This world is not really created by a blind force of Nature: even in the Inconscient the presence of the supreme Truth is at work; there is a seeing Power behind it which acts infallibly and the steps of the Ignorance itself are guided even when they seem to stumble; for what we call the Ignorance is a cloaked Knowledge, a Knowledge at work in a body not its own but moving towards its own supreme self-discovery.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
"Knowledge is no doubt the knowledge of the One, the realisation of the Being; Ignorance is a self-oblivion of Being, the experience of separateness in the multiplicity and a dwelling or circling in the ill-understood maze of becomings: . . . .” The Life Divine*
"I have said that the Avatar is one who comes to open the Way for humanity to a higher consciousness —. . . .” Letters on Yoga
"I have started writing about doubt, but even in doing so I am afflicted by the ‘doubt" whether any amount of writing or of anything else can ever persuade the eternal doubt in man which is the penalty of his native ignorance. In the first place, to write adequately would mean anything from 60 to 600 pages, but not even 6000 convincing pages would convince doubt. For doubt exists for its own sake; its very function is to doubt always and, even when convinced, to go on doubting still; it is only to persuade its entertainer to give it board and lodging that it pretends to be an honest truth-seeker. This is a lesson I have learnt from the experience both of my own mind and of the minds of others; the only way to get rid of doubt is to take discrimination as one"s detector of truth and falsehood and under its guard to open the door freely and courageously to experience.” Letters on Yoga
illumined mind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "This greater Force is that of the Illumined Mind, a Mind no longer of higher Thought, but of spiritual light. Here the clarity of the spiritual intelligence, its tranquil daylight, gives place or subordinates itself to an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the Spirit: a play of lightnings of spiritual truth and power breaks from above into the consciousness and adds to the calm and wide enlightenment and the vast descent of peace which characterise or accompany the action of the larger conceptual-spiritual principle, a fiery ardour of realisation and a rapturous ecstasy of knowledge.” *The Life Divine
"The Illumined Mind does not work primarily by thought, but by vision; . . . .” The Life Divine
"As the Higher Mind brings a greater consciousness into the being through the spiritual idea and its power of truth, so the Illumined Mind brings in a still greater consciousness through a Truth-sight and Truth-light and its seeing and seizing power.” The Life Divine*
"I may say that the opening upwards, the ascent into the Light and the subsequent descent into the ordinary consciousness and normal human life is very common as the first decisive experience in the practice of yoga and may very well happen even without the practice of yoga in those who are destined for the spiritual change, especially if there is a dissatisfaction somewhere with the ordinary life and a seeking for something more, greater or better.” Letters on Yoga*
" . . . insincerity is always an open door for the adversary. That means there is some secret sympathy with what is perverse. And that is what is serious.” Questions and Answers 1957-58, MCW Vol. 9.
::: "I regard the spiritual history of mankind and especially of India as a constant development of a divine purpose, not a book that is closed, the lines of which have to be constantly repeated.” Letters on Yoga
"It [death] has no separate existence by itself, it is only a result of the principle of decay in the body and that principle is there already — it is part of the physical nature. At the same time it is not inevitable; if one could have the necessary consciousness and force, decay and death is not inevitable. But to bring that consciousness and force into the whole of the material nature is the most difficult thing of all — at any rate, in such a way as to annul the decay principle.” Letters on Yoga
"It is a call of the being for higher things — for the Divine, for all that belongs to the higher or Divine Consciousness.” Guidance
"It is because of our experience won at a tremendous price that we can urge upon you and others, ``Take the psychic attitude; follow the straight sunlit path, with the Divine openly or secretly upbearing you — if secretly, he will yet show himself in good time, — do not insist on the hard, hampered, roundabout and difficult journey."" Letters on Yoga
"It is not possible for the individual mind, so long as it remains shut up in its personality, to understand the workings of the Cosmic Will, for the standards made by the personal consciousness are not applicable to them. A cell in the body, if conscious, might also think that the human being and its actions are only the resultant of the relations and workings of a number of cells like itself and not the action of a unified self. It is only if one enters into the Cosmic Consciousness that one begins to see the forces at work and the lines on which they work and get a glimpse of the Cosmic Self and the Cosmic Mind and Will.” Letters on Yoga
"It is only divine Love which can bear the burden I have to bear, that all have to bear who have sacrificed everything else to the one aim of uplifting earth out of its darkness towards the Divine.” On Himself
::: **"It is therefore necessary from the beginning to understand and accept the arduous difficulty of the path and to feel the need of a faith which to the intellect may seem blind, but yet is wiser than our reasoning intelligence. For this faith is a support from above; it is the brilliant shadow thrown by a secret light that exceeds the intellect and its data; it is the heart of a hidden knowledge that is not at the mercy of immediate appearances.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"Man, born into the world, revolves between world and world in the action of Prakriti and Karma. Purusha in Prakriti is his formula: what the soul in him thinks, contemplates and acts, that always he becomes. All that he had been, determined his present birth; and all that he is, thinks, does in this life up to the moment of his death, determines what he will become in the worlds beyond and in lives yet to be. If birth is a becoming, death also is a becoming, not by any means a cessation.” Essays on the Gita
". . . [man"s] nature calls for a human intermediary so that he may feel the Divine in something entirely close to his own humanity and sensible in a human influence and example. This call is satisfied by the Divine manifest in a human appearance, the Incarnation, the Avatar. . . .” The Synthesis of Yoga
"Moreover we see that this cosmic action or any cosmic action is impossible without the play of an infinite Force of Existence which produces and regulates all these forms and movements; and that Force equally presupposes or is the action of an infinite Consciousness, because it is in its nature a cosmic Will determining all relations and apprehending them by its own mode of awareness, and it could not so determine and apprehend them if there were no comprehensive Consciousness behind that mode of cosmic awareness to originate as well as to hold, fix and reflect through it the relations of Being in the developing formation or becoming of itself which we call a universe.” The Life Divine
n. 1. A conception of something in its absolute perfection. adj. **2. One that is regarded as a standard or model of perfection or excellence. Ideal, ideal"s, Ideal"s, ideals.
n. 1. The feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best. 2. Something that is hoped for or desired. 3. A person or thing that gives cause for hope. hopes, hoping. v. 4. To feel that something desired may happen; to have trust or confidence (in). hopes, hoped, hoping, hopest.
n. 1. The point, axis, or pivot about which a body rotates. 2. A point, area, or part that is approximately in the middle of a larger area or volume. 3. A person or thing that is a focus of interest or attention. 4. A point of origin. centre"s, centres. v. 5. To focus or bring together. 6. To move towards, mark, put, or be concentrated at or as at a centre. 7. centred. Brought together to a centre, concentrated.
"Nor can the human confusion of values which obliterates the distinction between spiritual and moral and even claims that the moral is the only true spiritual element in our nature be of any use to us; for ethics is a mental control, and the limited erring mind is not and cannot be the free and ever-luminous spirit.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"Nothing can happen without the presence and support of the Divine, for Nature or Prakriti is the Divine Force and it is this that works out things, but it works them out according to the nature and through or with the will of each man which is full of ignorance — that goes on until men turn to the Divine and become conscious of Him and united with Him. Then only can it be said that all begins to be done in him by the direct Will of the Divine.” Letters on Yoga
"Of course, that is the real fact — death is only a shedding of the body, not a cessation of the personal existence. A man is not dead because he goes into another country and changes his clothes to suit that climate.” Letters on Yoga
"Of course, the gods exist — that is to say, there are Powers that stand above the world and transmit the divine workings. It is the physical mind which believes only what is physical that denies them. There are also beings of other worlds — gods and Asuras, etc.” Letters on Yoga
of or pertaining to geometry, the branch of mathematics that deals with the deduction of the properties, measurement, and relationships of points, lines, angles, and figures in space.
"Ordinarily we mean by it [consciousness] our first obvious idea of a mental waking consciousness such as is possessed by the human being during the major part of his bodily existence, when he is not asleep, stunned or otherwise deprived of his physical and superficial methods of sensation. In this sense it is plain enough that consciousness is the exception and not the rule in the order of the material universe. We ourselves do not always possess it. But this vulgar and shallow idea of the nature of consciousness, though it still colours our ordinary thought and associations, must now definitely disappear out of philosophical thinking. For we know that there is something in us which is conscious when we sleep, when we are stunned or drugged or in a swoon, in all apparently unconscious states of our physical being. Not only so, but we may now be sure that the old thinkers were right when they declared that even in our waking state what we call then our consciousness is only a small selection from our entire conscious being. It is a superficies, it is not even the whole of our mentality. Behind it, much vaster than it, there is a subliminal or subconscient mind which is the greater part of ourselves and contains heights and profundities which no man has yet measured or fathomed.” Letters on Yoga
"Our ego is only a face of the universal being and has no separate existence; our apparent separative individuality is only a surface movement and behind it our real individuality stretches out to unity with all things and upward to oneness with the transcendent Divine Infinity. Thus our ego, which seems to be a limitation of existence, is really a power of infinity; the boundless multiplicity of beings in the world is a result and signal evidence, not of limitation or finiteness, but of that illimitable Infinity.” The Life Divine
::: "Our incapacity does not matter — there is no human being who is not in his parts of nature incapable — but the Divine Force also is there. If one puts one"s trust in that, incapacity will be changed into capacity. Difficulty and struggle themselves then become a means towards the achievement.” Letters on Yoga
::: "Perhaps one could say that it [spiritual humility] is to be aware of the relativity of what has been done compared with what is still to be done — and also to be conscious of one"s being nothing without the Divine Grace.” *Letters on Yoga
"Remind yourself always that the Divine Force is there, that you have felt it and that, even if you seem to lose consciousness of it for a time or it seems something distant, still it is there and is sure to prevail. For those whom the Force has touched and taken up, belong thenceforth to the Divine.” Letters on Yoga
rings or bands that encircle, bind or confine. Also fig.
::: **"See God everywhere and be not frightened by masks. Believe that all falsehood is truth in the making or truth in the breaking, all failure an effectuality concealed, all weakness strength hiding itself from its own vision, all pain a secret & violent ecstasy.” Essays Divine and Human
something, such as a thought or conception, that potentially or actually exists in the mind as a product of mental activity. Idea, idea"s, Idea"s, ideas, Ideas, world-idea.
something that actually exists; reality; truth. facts, dream-fact, earth-fact, world-fact.
*Sri Aurobindo: "Action is the first power of life. Nature begins with force and its works which, once conscious in man, become will and its achievements; therefore it is that by turning his action Godwards the life of man best and most surely begins to become divine.” The Synthesis of Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "As there are Powers of Knowledge or Forces of the Light, so there are Powers of Ignorance and tenebrous Forces of the Darkness whose work is to prolong the reign of Ignorance and Inconscience. As there are Forces of Truth, so there are Forces that live by the Falsehood and support it and work for its victory; as there are powers whose life is intimately bound up with the existence, the idea and the impulse of Good, so there are Forces whose life is bound up with the existence and the idea and the impulse of Evil. It is this truth of the cosmic Invisible that was symbolised in the ancient belief of a struggle between the powers of Light and Darkness, Good and Evil for the possession of the world and the government of the life of man; — this was the significance of the contest between the Vedic Gods and their opponents, sons of Darkness and Division, figured in a later tradition as Titan and Giant and Demon, Asura, Rakshasa, Pisacha; the same tradition is found in the Zoroastrian Double Principle and the later Semitic opposition of God and his Angels on the one side and Satan and his hosts on the other, — invisible Personalities and Powers that draw man to the divine Light and Truth and Good or lure him into subjection to the undivine principle of Darkness and Falsehood and Evil.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "Brahma is the Power of the Divine that stands behind formation and the creation.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "That (‘to blend and blur shades owing to technical exigencies"] might be all right for mental poetry — it won"t do for what I am trying to create — in that, one word won"t do for the other. Even in mental poetry I consider it an inferior method. ‘Gleam" and ‘glow" are two quite different things and the poet who uses them indifferently has constantly got his eye upon words rather than upon the object.” Letters on Savitri *
Sri Aurobindo: "But when I speak of the Divine Will, I mean something different, — something that has descended here into an evolutionary world of Ignorance, standing at the back of things, pressing on the Darkness with its Light, leading things presently towards the best possible in the conditions of a world of Ignorance and leading it eventually towards a descent of a greater power of the Divine, which will be not an omnipotence held back and conditioned by the law of the world as it is, but in full action and therefore bringing the reign of light, peace, harmony, joy, love, beauty and Ananda, for these are the Divine Nature.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "By aesthesis is meant a reaction of the consciousness, mental and vital and even bodily, which receives a certain element in things, something that can be called their taste, Rasa, which, passing through the mind or sense or both, awakes a vital enjoyment of the taste, Bhoga, and this can again awaken us, awaken even the soul in us to something yet deeper and more fundamental than mere pleasure and enjoyment, to some form of the spirit"s delight of existence, Ananda.” *Letters on Savitri
Sri Aurobindo: "Chance is not *in this universe; the idea of illusion is itself an illusion. There was never illusion yet in the human mind that was not the concealing [?shape] and disfigurement of a truth.” Essays Divine and Human
Sri Aurobindo: "Confidence — the sense of security that goes with trust.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Consciousness is a fundamental thing, the fundamental thing in existence — it is the energy, the motion, the movement of consciousness that creates the universe and all that is in it — not only the macrocosm but the microcosm is nothing but consciousness arranging itself.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Cruelty transfigured becomes Love that is intolerable ecstasy; . . . .”
*Sri Aurobindo: "Dawn always means an opening of some kind — the coming of something that is not yet fully there.” Letters on Yoga ::: "As the Sun is image and godhead of the golden Light of the divine Truth, so Dawn is image and godhead of the opening out of the supreme illumination on the night of our human ignorance. Dawn daughter of Heaven and Night her sister are obverse and reverse sides of the same eternal Infinite.” The Secret of the Veda
Sri Aurobindo: "Day and Night, – the latter the state of Ignorance that belongs to our material Nature, the former the state of illumined Knowledge that belongs to the divine Mind of which our mentality is a pale and dulled reflection.” The Secret of the Veda
*Sri Aurobindo: ". . . desires come from outside, enter the subconscious vital and rise to the surface. It is only when they rise to the surface and the mind becomes aware of them, that we become conscious of the desire. It seems to us to be our own because we feel it thus rising from the vital into the mind and do not know that it came from outside.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Destruction in itself is neither good nor evil. It is a fact of Nature, a necessity in the play of forces, as things are in this world. The Light destroys the Darkness and the Powers of Darkness, and that is not a movement of Ignorance!” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: " . . . Divine Love which is at the heart of all creation and the most powerful of all redeeming and creative forces has yet been the least frontally present in earthly life, the least successfully redemptive, the least creative. Human nature has been unable to bear it in its purity for the very reason that it is the most powerful, pure, rare and intense of all the divine energies; what little could be seized has been corrupted at once into a vital pietistic ardour, a defenceless religious or ethical sentimentalism, a sensuous or even sensual erotic mysticism of the roseate coloured mind or passionately turbid life-impulse and with these simulations compensated its inability to house the Mystic Flame that could rebuild the world with its tongues of sacrifice. The Synthesis of Yoga
*Sri Aurobindo: "Ego is only a faculty put forward by the discriminative mind to centralise round itself the experiences of the sense-mind and to serve as a sort of lynch-pin in the wheel which keeps together the movement. It is no more than an instrument, although it is true that so long as we are limited by our normal mentality, we are compelled by the nature of that mentality and the purpose of the instrument to mistake our ego-function for our very self.” The Upanishads
*Sri Aurobindo: "Experience is a word that covers almost all the happenings in yoga; only when something gets settled, then it is no longer an experience but part of the siddhi; e.g. peace when it comes and goes is an experience — when it is settled and goes no more it is a siddhi.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Faith is a necessary means for arriving at realisation, because we are ignorant and do not yet know that which we are seeking to realise; faith is indeed knowledge giving the ignorance an intimation of itself previous to its own manifestation, it is the gleam sent before by the yet unrisen Sun. When the Sun shall rise, there will be no longer any need of the gleam.” *Letters on Yoga
*Sri Aurobindo: "Fear is a creation of the vital plane, an instinct of the ignorance, a sense of danger with a violent vital reaction that replaces and usually prevents or distorts the intelligence of things. It might almost be considered as an invention of the hostile forces.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Finally, we have the goddess Dakshina who may well be a female form of Daksha, himself a god and afterwards in the Purana one of the Prajapatis, the original progenitors, — we have Dakshina associated with the manifestation of knowledge and sometimes almost identified with Usha, the divine Dawn, who is the bringer of illumination. I shall suggest that Dakshina like the more famous Ila, Saraswati and Sarama, is one of four goddesses representing the four faculties of the Ritam or Truth-consciousness, — Ila representing truth-vision or revelation, Saraswati truth-audition, inspiration, the divine word, Sarama intuition, Dakshina the separative intuitional discrimination.” *The Secret of the Veda
*Sri Aurobindo: "For from the divine Bliss, the original Delight of existence, the Lord of Immortality comes pouring the wine of that Bliss, the mystic Soma, into these jars of mentalised living matter; eternal and beautiful, he enters into these sheaths of substance for the integral transformation of the being and nature.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "Form is the basic means of manifestation and without it it may be said that the manifestation of anything is not complete. Even if the Formless logically precedes Form, yet it is not illogical to assume that in the Formless, Form is inherent and already existent in a mystic latency, otherwise how could it be manifested?” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Genius is one attempt of the universal Energy to so quicken and intensify our intellectual powers that they shall be prepared for those more puissant, direct and rapid faculties which constitute the play of the supra-intellectual or divine mind. It is not, then, a freak, an inexplicable phenomenon, but a perfectly natural next step in the right line of her [Nature"s] evolution.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Hatred is the sign of a secret attraction that is eager to flee from itself and furious to deny its own existence. That too is God"s play in His creature.” *Essays Divine and Human
Sri Aurobindo: "History teaches us nothing; it is a confused torrent of events and personalities or a kaleidoscope of changing institutions. We do not seize the real sense of all this change and this continual streaming forward of human life in the channels of Time. What we do seize are current or recurrent phenomena, facile generalisations, partial ideas. We talk of democracy, aristocracy and autocracy, collectivism and individualism, imperialism and nationalism, the State and the commune, capitalism and labour; we advance hasty generalisations and make absolute systems which are positively announced today only to be abandoned perforce tomorrow; we espouse causes and ardent enthusiasms whose triumph turns to an early disillusionment and then forsake them for others, perhaps for those that we have taken so much trouble to destroy. For a whole century mankind thirsts and battles after liberty and earns it with a bitter expense of toil, tears and blood; the century that enjoys without having fought for it turns away as from a puerile illusion and is ready to renounce the depreciated gain as the price of some new good. And all this happens because our whole thought and action with regard to our collective life is shallow and empirical; it does not seek for, it does not base itself on a firm, profound and complete knowledge. The moral is not the vanity of human life, of its ardours and enthusiasms and of the ideals it pursues, but the necessity of a wiser, larger, more patient search after its true law and aim.” *The Human Cycle etc.
*Sri Aurobindo: "In other words, ethics is a stage in evolution. That which is common to all stages is the urge of Sachchidananda towards self-expression. This urge is at first non-ethical, then infra-ethical in the animal, then in the intelligent animal even anti-ethical for it permits us to approve hurt done to others which we disapprove when done to ourselves. In this respect man even now is only half-ethical. And just as all below us is infra-ethical, so there may be that above us whither we shall eventually arrive, which is supra-ethical, has no need of ethics. The ethical impulse and attitude, so all-important to humanity, is a means by which it struggles out of the lower harmony and universality based upon inconscience and broken up by Life into individual discords towards a higher harmony and universality based upon conscient oneness with all existences. Arriving at that goal, this means will no longer be necessary or even possible, since the qualities and oppositions on which it depends will naturally dissolve and disappear in the final reconciliation.” The Life Divine
*Sri Aurobindo: "In our world error is continually the handmaid and pathfinder of Truth; for error is really a half-truth that stumbles because of its limitations; often it is Truth that wears a disguise in order to arrive unobserved near to its goal.” The Life Divine
*Sri Aurobindo: "It [falsehood] is created by an Asuric (hostile) power which intervenes in this creation and is not only separated from the Truth and therefore limited in knowledge and open to error, but in revolt against the Truth or in the habit of seizing the Truth only to pervert it. This Power, the dark Asuric Shakti or Rakshasic Maya, puts forward its own perverted consciousness as true knowledge and its wilful distortions or reversals of the Truth as the verity of things. It is the powers and personalities of this perverted and perverting consciousness that we call hostile beings, hostile forces. Whenever these perversions created by them out of the stuff of the Ignorance are put forward as the Truth of things, that is the Falsehood, in the yogic sense, . . . .” Letters on Yoga
"Sri Aurobindo: "It has been held that ecstasy is a lower and transient passage, the peace of the Supreme is the supreme realisation, the consummate abiding experience. This may be true on the spiritual-mind plane: there the first ecstasy felt is indeed a spiritual rapture, but it can be and is very usually mingled with a supreme happiness of the vital parts taken up by the Spirit; there is an exaltation, exultation, excitement, a highest intensity of the joy of the heart and the pure inner soul-sensation that can be a splendid passage or an uplifting force but is not the ultimate permanent foundation. But in the highest ascents of the spiritual bliss there is not this vehement exaltation and excitement; there is instead an illimitable intensity of participation in an eternal ecstasy which is founded on the eternal Existence and therefore on a beatific tranquillity of eternal peace. Peace and ecstasy cease to be different and become one. The Supermind, reconciling and fusing all differences as well as all contradictions, brings out this unity; a wide calm and a deep delight of all-existence are among its first steps of self-realisation, but this calm and this delight rise together, as one state, into an increasing intensity and culminate in the eternal ecstasy, the bliss that is the Infinite.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "It is an achievement to have got rid so rapidly and decisively of the shimmering mists and fogs which modern intellectualism takes for Light of Truth. The modern mind has so long and persistently wandered – and we with it – in the Valley of the False Glimmer that it is not easy for anyone to disperse its mists with the sunlight of clear vision.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: ". . . it is this emptiness inward and outward that often in yoga becomes the first step towards a new consciousness.” *Letters on Yoga
*Sri Aurobindo: "It is true that when Matter first emerges it becomes the dominant principle; it seems to be and is within its own field the basis of all things, the constituent of all things, the end of all things: but Matter itself is found to be a result of something that is not Matter, of Energy, and this Energy cannot be something self-existent and acting in the Void, but can turn out and, when deeply scrutinised, seems likely to turn out to be the action of a secret Consciousness and Being: when the spiritual knowledge and experience emerge, this becomes a certitude, — it is seen that the creative Energy in Matter is a movement of the power of the Spirit.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "It might be said again that, even so, in Sachchidananda itself at least, above all worlds of manifestation, there could be nothing but the self-awareness of pure existence and consciousness and a pure delight of existence. Or, indeed, this triune being itself might well be only a trinity of original spiritual self-determinations of the Infinite; these too, like all determinations, would cease to exist in the ineffable Absolute. But our position is that these must be inherent truths of the supreme being; their utmost reality must be pre-existent in the Absolute even if they are ineffably other there than what they are in the spiritual mind"s highest possible experience. The Absolute is not a mystery of infinite blankness nor a supreme sum of negations; nothing can manifest that is not justified by some self-power of the original and omnipresent Reality.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: ” See God everywhere and be not frightened by masks. Believe that all falsehood is truth in the making or truth in the breaking, all failure an effectuality concealed, all weakness strength hiding itself from its own vision, all pain a secret & violent ecstasy. If thou believest firmly & unweariedly, in the end thou wilt see & experience the All-true, Almighty & All-blissful.” Essays Divine and Human*
::: Sri Aurobindo: "Spiritual force has its own concreteness; it can take a form (like a stream, for instance) of which one is aware and can send it quite concretely on whatever object one chooses. This is a statement of fact about the power inherent in spiritual consciousness. But there is also such a thing as a willed use of any subtle force — it may be spiritual, mental or vital — to secure a particular result at some point in the world. Just as there are waves of unseen physical forces (cosmic waves etc.) or currents of electricity, so there are mind-waves, thought-currents, waves of emotion, — for example, anger, sorrow, etc., — which go out and affect others without their knowing whence they come or that they come at all, they only feel the result. One who has the occult or inner senses awake can feel them coming and invading him.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "The cosmic consciousness is that of the universe, of the cosmic spirit and cosmic Nature with all the beings and forces within it. All that is as much conscious as a whole as the individual separately is, though in a different way. The consciousness of the individual is part of this, but a part feeling itself as a separate being. Yet all the time most of what he is comes into him from the cosmic consciousness. But there is a wall of separative ignorance between. Once it breaks down he becomes aware of the cosmic Self, of the consciousness of the cosmic Nature, of the forces playing in it, etc. He feels all that as he now feels physical things and impacts. He finds it all to be one with his larger or universal self.” *Letters on Yoga
*Sri Aurobindo: ". . . the divine Ananda, the principle of Bliss [is that] from which, in the Vedic conception, the existence of Man, this mental being, is drawn. A secret Delight is the base of existence, its sustaining atmosphere and almost its substance. This Ananda is spoken of in the Taittiriya Upanishad as the ethereal atmosphere of bliss without which nothing could remain in being. In the Aitareya Upanishad Soma, as the lunar deity, is born from the sense-mind in the universal Purusha and, when man is produced, expresses himself again as sense-mentality in the human being. For delight is the raison d"être of sensation, or, we may say, sensation is an attempt to translate the secret delight of existence into the terms of physical consciousness.” The Secret of the Veda
Sri Aurobindo: "The faith in the divine Shakti must be always at the back of our strength and when she becomes manifest, it must be or grow implicit and complete. There is nothing that is impossible to her who is the conscious Power and universal Goddess all-creative from eternity and armed with the Spirit"s omnipotence.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "The first is the discovery of the soul, not the outer soul of thought and emotion and desire, but the secret psychic entity, the divine element within us. When that becomes dominant over the nature, when we are consciously the soul and when mind, life and body take their true place as its instruments, we are aware of a guide within that knows the truth, the good, the true delight and beauty of existence, controls heart and intellect by its luminous law and leads our life and being towards spiritual completeness.” *The Life Divine
*Sri Aurobindo: "The highest aim of the aesthetic being is to find the Divine through beauty; the highest Art is that which by an inspired use of significant and interpretative form unseals the doors of the spirit.” The Human Cycle etc.*
*Sri Aurobindo: "The Indian explanation of fate is Karma. We ourselves are our own fate through our actions, but the fate created by us binds us; for what we have sown, we must reap in this life or another. Still we are creating our fate for the future even while undergoing old fate from the past in the present. That gives a meaning to our will and action and does not, as European critics wrongly believe, constitute a rigid and sterilising fatalism. But again, our will and action can often annul or modify even the past Karma, it is only certain strong effects, called utkata karma, that are non-modifiable. Here too the achievement of the spiritual consciousness and life is supposed to annul or give the power to annul Karma. For we enter into union with the Will Divine, cosmic or transcendent, which can annul what it had sanctioned for certain conditions, new-create what it had created, the narrow fixed lines disappear, there is a more plastic freedom and wideness. Neither Karma nor Astrology therefore points to a rigid and for ever immutable fate.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "The Mother not only governs all from above but she descends into this lesser triple universe. Impersonally, all things here, even the movements of the Ignorance, are herself in veiled power and her creations in diminished substance, her Nature-body and Nature-force, and they exist because, moved by the mysterious fiat of the Supreme to work out something that was there in the possibilities of the Infinite, she has consented to the great sacrifice and has put on like a mask the soul and forms of the Ignorance. But personally too she has stooped to descend here into the Darkness that she may lead it to the Light, into the Falsehood and Error that she may convert it to the Truth, into this Death that she may turn it to godlike Life, into this world-pain and its obstinate sorrow and suffering that she may end it in the transforming ecstasy of her sublime Ananda. In her deep and great love for her children she has consented to put on herself the cloak of this obscurity, condescended to bear the attacks and torturing influences of the powers of the Darkness and the Falsehood, borne to pass though the portals of the birth that is a death, taken upon herself the pangs and sorrows and sufferings of the creation, since it seemed that thus alone could it be lifted to the Light and Joy and Truth and eternal Life. This is the great sacrifice called sometimes the sacrifice of the Purusha, but much more deeply the holocaust of Prakriti, the sacrifice of the Divine Mother.” The Mother
*Sri Aurobindo: "There are some who often or almost invariably have the contact whenever they worship, the Deity may become living to them in the picture or other image they worship, may move and act through it; others may feel him always present, outwardly, subtle-physically, abiding with them where they live or in the very room, but sometimes this is only for a period. Or they may feel the Presence with them, see it frequently in a body (but not materially except sometimes), feel its touch or embrace, converse with it constantly — that is also a kind of milana. The greatest milana is one in which one is constantly aware of the Deity abiding in oneself, in everything in the world, holding all the world in him, identical with existence and yet supremely beyond the world — but in the world too one sees, hears, feels nothing but him, so that the very senses bear witness to him alone — . . . .” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "There is no difference between the terms ‘universal" and ‘cosmic" except that ‘universal" can be used in a freer way than ‘cosmic". Universal may mean ‘of the universe", cosmic in that general sense. But it may also mean ‘common to all", e.g., ‘This is a universal weakness" — but you cannot say ‘This is a cosmic weakness".” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "There is no ignorance that is not part of the Cosmic Ignorance, only in the individual it becomes a limited formation and movement, while the Cosmic Ignorance is the whole movement of world consciousness separated from the supreme Truth and acting in an inferior motion in which the Truth is perverted, diminished, mixed and clouded with falsehood and error.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "There is no necessity in the essential nature of mind, sense, life that they should be so limited: for the physical sense-organs are not the creators of sense-perceptions, but themselves the creation, the instruments and here a necessary convenience of the cosmic sense; the nervous system and vital organs are not the creators of life"s action and reaction, but themselves the creation, the instruments and here a necessary convenience of the cosmic Life-force; the brain is not the creator of thought, but itself the creation, the instrument and here a necessary convenience of the cosmic Mind. The necessity then is not absolute, but teleological; it is the result of a divine cosmic Will in the material universe which intends to posit here a physical relation between sense and its object, establishes here a material formula and law of Conscious-Force and creates by it physical images of Conscious-Being to serve as the initial, dominating and determining fact of the world in which we live. It is not a fundamental law of being, but a constructive principle necessitated by the intention of the Spirit to evolve in a world of Matter.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: ". . . the Self that creates all these forms is Hiranyagarbha, the luminous or creatively perceptive Soul; . . . . ” *The Synthesis of Yoga
*Sri Aurobindo: "The superconscient, not the subconscient, is the true foundation of things. The significance of the lotus is not to be found by analysing the secrets of the mud from which it grows here; its secret is to be found in the heavenly archetype of the lotus that blooms for ever in the Light above.” Letters on Yoga*
Sri Aurobindo: "The true soul secret in us, — subliminal, we have said, but the word is misleading, for this presence is not situated below the threshold of waking mind, but rather burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant mind, life and body, not subliminal but behind the veil, — this veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the Knowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine.” *The Life Divine
*Sri Aurobindo: "The typal worlds do not change. In his own world a god is always a god, the Asura always an Asura, the demon always a demon. To change they must either migrate into an evolutionary body or else die entirely to themselves that they may be new born into other Nature.” Essays Divine and Human*
Sri Aurobindo: "This truth of Karma has been always recognised in the East in one form or else in another; but to the Buddhists belongs the credit of having given to it the clearest and fullest universal enunciation and the most insistent importance. In the West too the idea has constantly recurred, but in external, in fragmentary glimpses, as the recognition of a pragmatic truth of experience, and mostly as an ordered ethical law or fatality set over against the self-will and strength of man: but it was clouded over by other ideas inconsistent with any reign of law, vague ideas of some superior caprice or of some divine jealousy, — that was a notion of the Greeks, — a blind Fate or inscrutable Necessity, Ananke, or, later, the mysterious ways of an arbitrary, though no doubt an all-wise Providence.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga *Ananke"s.
Sri Aurobindo: "We mean by the Absolute something greater than ourselves, greater than the cosmos which we live in, the supreme reality of that transcendent Being which we call God, something without which all that we see or are conscious of as existing, could not have been, could not for a moment remain in existence. Indian thought calls it Brahman, European thought the Absolute because it is a self-existent which is absolved of all bondage to relativities . . . The Absolute is for us the Ineffable.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "What the "void" feels as a clutch is felt by the Mother only as a reminding finger laid on her cheek. It is one advantage of the expression ‘as if" that it leaves the field open for such variation. It is intended to suggest without saying it that behind the sombre void is the face of a mother. The two other ‘as if"s have the same motive and I do not find them jarring upon me. The second is at a sufficient distance from the first and it is not obtrusive enough to prejudice the third which more nearly follows. . . .” Letters on Savitri
Sri Aurobindo: "When all is in agreement with the one Truth or an expression of it that is harmony.” Letters on Yoga
*Sri Aurobindo: "When there is some lowering or diminution of the consciousness or some impairing of it at one place or another, the Adversary — or the Censor — who is always on the watch presses with all his might wherever there is a weak point lying covered from your own view, and suddenly a wrong movement leaps up with unexpected force. Become conscious and cast out the possibility of its renewal, that is all that is to be done.” Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Yet all the time the universal forces are pouring into him without his knowing it. He is aware only of thoughts, feelings, etc., that rise to the surface and these he takes for his own. Really they come from outside in mind waves, vital waves, waves of feeling and sensation, etc., which take particular form in him and rise to the surface after they have got inside. But they do not get into his body at once. He carries about with him an environmental consciousness (called by the Theosophists the Aura) into which they first enter. If you can become conscious of this environmental self of yours, then you can catch the thought, passion, suggestion or force of illness and prevent it from entering into you. If things in you are thrown out, they often do not go altogether but take refuge in this environmental atmosphere and from there they try to get in again. Or they go to a distance outside but linger on the outskirts or even perhaps far off, waiting till they get an opportunity to attempt entrance.” *Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Your ‘barely enough", instead of the finer and more suggestive ‘hardly", falls flat upon my ear; one cannot substitute one word for another in this kind of poetry merely because it means intellectually the same thing; ‘hardly" is the mot juste in this context and, repetition or not, it must remain unless a word not only juste but inevitable comes to replace it… . On this point I may add that in certain contexts ‘barely" would be the right word, as for instance, ‘There is barely enough food left for two or three meals", where ‘hardly" would be adequate but much less forceful. It is the other way about in this line. Letters on Savitri
::: *"Stevenson has a striking passage in "Kidnapped” where the hero notes that his fear is felt primarily not in the heart but the stomach.” Letters on Yoga
". . . the Absolute is not a void or negation. It is all that is here in Time and beyond Time.” The Upanishads*
"The Adversary will disappear only when he is no longer necessary in the world. And we know very well that he is necessary, as the touch-stone for gold: to know if it is pure. But if one is really sincere, the Adversary can"t even approach him any longer; and he doesn"t try it, because that would be courting his own destruction.” Questions and Answers 1955, MCW Vol. 7.
The Apsaras then are the divine Hetairae of Paradise, beautiful singers and actresses whose beauty and art relieve the arduous and world-long struggle of the Gods against the forces that tend towards disruption by the Titans who would restore Matter to its original atomic condition or of dissolution by the sages and hermits who would make phenomena dissolve prematurely into the One who is above phenomena. They rose from the Ocean, says Valmiki, seeking who should choose them as brides, but neither the Gods nor the Titans accepted them, therefore are they said to be common or universal. The Harmony of Virtue
"The Avatar comes as the manifestation of the divine nature in the human nature, the apocalypse of its Christhood, Krishnahood, Buddhahood, in order that the human nature may by moulding its principle, thought, feeling, action, being on the lines of that Christhood, Krishnahood, Buddhahood transfigure itself into the divine. The law, the Dharma which the Avatar establishes is given for that purpose chiefly; the Christ, Krishna, Buddha stands in its centre as the gate, he makes through himself the way men shall follow.” Essays on the Gita
"The Avatar does not come as a thaumaturgic magician, but as the divine leader of humanity and the exemplar of a divine humanity. Even human sorrow and physical suffering he must assume and use so as to show, first, how that suffering may be a means of redemption, — as did Christ, — secondly, to show how, having been assumed by the divine soul in the human nature, it can also be overcome in the same nature, — as did Buddha. The rationalist who would have cried to Christ, ‘If thou art the Son of God, come down from the cross," or points out sagely that the Avatar was not divine because he died and died too by disease, — as a dog dieth, — knows not what he is saying: for he has missed the root of the whole matter. Even, the Avatar of sorrow and suffering must come before there can be the Avatar of divine joy; the human limitation must be assumed in order to show how it can be overcome; and the way and the extent of the overcoming, whether internal only or external also, depends upon the stage of the human advance; it must not be done by a non-human miracle.” Essays on the Gita
"The call, once decisive, stands; the thing that has been born cannot eventually be stifled. Even if the force of circumstances prevents a regular pursuit or a full practical self-consecration from the first, still the mind has taken its bent and persists and returns with an ever-increasing effect upon its leading preoccupation. There is an ineluctable persistence of the inner being, and against it circumstances are in the end powerless, and no weakness in the nature can for long be an obstacle.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"The child usually signifies the psychic being — new-born in the sense that it at last comes to the surface.” Letters on Yoga
"The cosmic consciousness is that in which the limits of ego, personal mind and body disappear and one becomes aware of a cosmic vastness which is or filled by a cosmic spirit and aware also of the direct play of cosmic forces, universal mind forces, universal life forces, universal energies of Matter, universal overmind forces. But one does not become aware of all these together; the opening of the cosmic consciousness is usually progressive. It is not that the ego, the body, the personal mind disappear, but one feels them as only a small part of oneself. One begins to feel others too as part of oneself or varied repetitions of oneself, the same self modified by Nature in other bodies. Or, at the least, as living in the larger universal self which is henceforth one"s own greater reality. All things in fact begin to change their nature and appearance; one"s whole experience of the world is radically different from that of those who are shut up in their personal selves. One begins to know things by a different kind of experience, more direct, not depending on the external mind and the senses. It is not that the possibility of error disappears, for that cannot be so long as mind of any kind is one"s instrument for transcribing knowledge, but there is a new, vast and deep way of experiencing, seeing, knowing, contacting things; and the confines of knowledge can be rolled back to an almost unmeasurable degree. The thing one has to be on guard against in the cosmic consciousness is the play of a magnified ego, the vaster attacks of the hostile forces — for they too are part of the cosmic consciousness — and the attempt of the cosmic Illusion (Ignorance, Avidya) to prevent the growth of the soul into the cosmic Truth. These are things that one has to learn from experience; mental teaching or explanation is quite insufficient. To enter safely into the cosmic consciousness and to pass safely through it, it is necessary to have a strong central unegoistic sincerity and to have the psychic being, with its divination of truth and unfaltering orientation towards the Divine, already in front in ::: —the nature.” Letters on Yoga*
". . . the cosmic Force, masked as a material Energy, hides from our view by its insistent materiality of process the occult fact that the working of the Inconscient is really the expression of a vast universal Life, a veiled universal Mind, a hooded Gnosis, and without these origins of itself it could have no power of action, no organising coherence.” The Life Divine
"The Cosmic Will is not, to our ordinary consciousness, something that acts as an independent power doing whatever it chooses; it works through all these beings, through the forces at play in the world and the law of these forces and their results — it is only when we open ourselves and get out of the ordinary consciousness that we can feel it intervening as an independent power and overriding the ordinary play of the forces." Letters on Yoga
the cosmological theory holding that the universe is expanding, based on the interpretation of the color shift in the spectra of all the galaxies as being the result of the Doppler effect and indicating that all galaxies are moving away from one another.
::: "The Divine and no other is the flame of life that sustains the physical body of living creatures and turns its food into sustenance of their vital force.” Essays on the Gita
"The Divine Force concealed in the subconscient is that which has originated and built up the worlds. At the other end in the superconscient it reveals itself as the Divine Being, Lord and Knower who has manifested Himself out of the Brahman.” The Upanishads ::: See also divine Force for additional definitions.
"The Divine Grace is something not calculable, not bound by anything the intellect can fix as a condition, — though ordinarily some call, aspiration, intensity of the psychic being can awaken it, yet it acts sometimes without any apparent cause even of that kind.” Letters on Yoga*
"The Divine Grace is there ready to act at every moment, but it manifests as one grows out of the Law of Ignorance into the Law of Light, and it is meant, not as an arbitrary caprice, however miraculous often its intervention, but as a help in that growth and a Light that leads and eventually delivers.” Letters on Yoga
". . . the Divine is formless and nameless, but by that very reason capable of manifesting all possible names and shapes of being.” The Life Divine
"The Divine is that from which all comes, in which all lives, and to return to the truth of the Divine now clouded over by Ignorance is the soul"s aim in life. In its supreme Truth, the Divine is absolute and infinite peace, consciousness, existence, power and Ananda.” Letters on Yoga
"The Divine is transcendent Being and Spirit, all bliss and light and divine knowledge and power, and towards that highest divine existence and its Light we have to rise and bring down the reality of it more and more into our consciousness and life.” Letters on Yoga ::: *Divine"s.
". . . the ego is the lynch-pin invented to hold together the motion of our wheel of nature. The necessity of centralisation around the ego continues until there is no longer need of any such device or contrivance because there has emerged the true self, the spiritual being, which is at once wheel and motion and that which holds all together, the centre and the circumference.” The Life Divine
"The elementary state of material Force is, in the view of the old Indian physicists, a condition of pure material extension in Space of which the peculiar property is vibration typified to us by the phenomenon of sound. But vibration in this state of ether is not sufficient to create forms. There must first be some obstruction in the flow of the Force ocean, some contraction and expansion, some interplay of vibrations, some impinging of force upon force so as to create a beginning of fixed relations and mutual effects. Material Force modifying its first ethereal status assumes a second, called in the old language the aerial, of which the special property is contact between force and force, contact that is the basis of all material relations. Still we have not as yet real forms but only varying forces. A sustaining principle is needed. This is provided by a third self-modification of the primitive Force of which the principle of light, electricity, fire and heat is for us the characteristic manifestation. Even then, we can have forms of force preserving their own character and peculiar action, but not stable forms of Matter. A fourth state characterised by diffusion and a first medium of permanent attractions and repulsions, termed picturesquely water or the liquid state, and a fifth of cohesion, termed earth or the solid state, complete the necessary elements.” The Life Divine*
the food and drink that are regularly served or consumed.
"The form of that which is in Time is or appears to be evanescent, but the self, the substance, the being that takes shape in that form is eternal and is one self, one substance, one being with all that is, all that was, all that shall be. But even the form is in itself eternal and not temporal, but it exists for ever in possibility, in power, in consciousness in the Eternal.” Essays Divine and Human
"The freedom of the Gita is that of the freeman, the true freedom of the birth into the higher nature, self-existent in its divinity. Whatever he does and however he lives, the free soul lives in the Divine; he is the privileged child of the mansion, bâlavat, who cannot err or fall because all he is and does is full of the Perfect, the All-blissful, the All-loving, the All-beautiful. The kingdom which he enjoys, râjyam samrddham, is a sweet and happy dominion of which it may be said, in the pregnant phrase of the Greek thinker, ``The kingdom is of the child."" Essays on the Gita
"The heart is the centre of the being and commands the rest, as the psychic being or caitya purusa is there. It is only in that sense that all flows from it, for it is the psychic being who each time creates a new mind, vital and body for himself.” *Letters on Yoga
"The ideation of the gnosis is radiating light-stuff of the consciousness of the eternal Existence; each ray is a truth. The will in the gnosis is a conscious force of eternal knowledge; it throws the consciousness and substance of being into infallible forms of truth-power, forms that embody the idea and make it faultlessly effective, and it works out each truth-power and each truth-form spontaneously and rightly according to its nature. Because it carries this creative force of the divine Idea, the Sun, the lord and symbol of the gnosis, is described in the Veda as the Light which is the father of all things, Surya Savitri, the Wisdom-Luminous who is the bringer-out into manifest existence.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
the linguistic usage that is grammatical and natural to native speakers of a language.
::: "The lower nature is ignorant and undivine, not in itself hostile but shut to the Light and Truth. The hostile forces are anti-divine, not merely undivine; they make use of the lower nature, pervert it, fill it with distorted movements and by that means influence man and even try to enter and possess or at least entirely control him.” *Letters on Yoga
The Mother: "And this Vibration (which I feel and see) gives the feeling of a fire. That"s probably what the Vedic Rishis translated as the "Flame” – in the human consciousness, in man, in Matter. They always spoke of a "Flame.” It is indeed a vibration with the intensity of a higher fire. Mother"s Agenda 25 March 1964.
The Mother: "In the physical world, of all things it is beauty that expresses best the Divine. the physical world is the world of form and the perfection of form is beauty. Beauty interprets, expresses, manifests the Eternal. Its role is to put all manifested nature in contact with the Eternal through the perfection of form, through harmony and a sense of the ideal which uplifts and leads towards something higher. On Education, MCW Vol. 12.
The Mother (to a young person): "It is very simple, as you will see. 1) The Infinite is the inexhaustible storehouse of forces. The individual is a battery, a storage cell which runs down after use. Consecration is the wire that connects the individual battery to the infinite reserve of forces. Or 2) The Infinite is the river that flows without cease; the individual is the little pond that dries up slowly in the sun. Consecration is the canal that connects the river to the pond and prevents the pond from drying up.” Some Answers from the Mother, MCW *Vol. 16.
The Mother: "To be humble means for the mind, the vital and the body never to forget that without the Divine they know nothing, are noting and can do nothing; with the Divine they are nothing but ignorance, chaos and impotence. The Divine alone is Truth, Life, Power, Love, Felicity.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 14.
::: The Mother: "True art means the expression of beauty in the material world. In a world wholly converted, that is to say, expressing integrally the divine reality, art must serve as the revealer and teacher of this divine beauty in life.” On Education, MCW Vol. 12.
The Mother: "True humility consists in knowing that the Supreme Consciousness, the Supreme Will alone exists and that the I is not.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 14.
::: The Mother: "With the Divine"s Love is the power of Transformation. It has this power because it is for the sake of Transformation that it has given itself to the world and manifested everywhere. Not only into man but into all the atoms of Matter it has infused itself in order to bring the world back to the original Truth. The moment you open to it, you also receive its power of Transformation.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.
::: "Then too we can see that even in the play of the forces and in spite of their distortions the Cosmic Will is working towards the eventual realisation of the Will of the Transcendent Divine.” *Letters on Yoga
"The one original transcendent Shakti, the Mother stands above all the worlds and bears in her eternal consciousness the Supreme Divine. Alone, she harbours the absolute Power and the ineffable Presence; containing or calling the Truths that have to be manifested, she brings them down from the Mystery in which they were hidden into the light of her infinite consciousness and gives them a form of force in her omnipotent power and her boundless life and a body in the universe.” The Mother
"The other parts of our natural composition are not only mutable but perishable; but the psychic entity in us persists and is fundamentally the same always: it contains all essential possibilities of our manifestation but is not constituted by them; it is not limited by what it manifests, not contained by the incomplete forms of the manifestation, not tarnished by the imperfections and impurities, the defects and depravations of the surface being. It is an ever-pure flame of the divinity in things and nothing that comes to it, nothing that enters into our experience can pollute its purity or extinguish the flame.” *The Life Divine
"There is a sunlit path as well as a gloomy one and it is the better of the two — a path in which one goes forward in absolute reliance on the Mother, fearing nothing, sorrowing over nothing. Aspiration is needed but there can be a sunlit aspiration full of light and faith and confidence and joy. If difficulty comes, even that can be faced with a smile.” Letters on Yoga
::: **"There is no fear in the higher Nature. Fear is a creation of the vital plane, an instinct of the ignorance, a sense of danger with a violent vital reaction that replaces and usually prevents or distorts the intelligence of things.” Letters on Yoga
"There is no such thing as death, for it is the body that dies and the body is not the man. That which really is, cannot go out of existence, though it may change the forms through which it appears, just as that which is non-existent cannot come into being. The soul is and cannot cease to be. This opposition of is and is not, this balance of being and becoming which is the mind"s view of existence, finds its end in the realisation of the soul as the one imperishable self by whom all this universe has been extended. Finite bodies have an end, but that which possesses and uses the body, is infinite, illimitable, eternal, indestructible. It casts away old and takes up new bodies as a man changes worn-out raiment for new; and what is there in this to grieve at and recoil and shrink? This is not born, nor does it die, nor is it a thing that comes into being once and passing away will never come into being again. It is unborn, ancient, sempiternal; it is not slain with the slaying of the body. Who can slay the immortal spirit? Weapons cannot cleave it, nor the fire burn, nor do the waters drench it, nor the wind dry. Eternally stable, immobile, all-pervading, it is for ever and for ever. Not manifested like the body, but greater than all manifestation, not to be analysed by the thought, but greater than all mind, not capable of change and modification like the life and its organs and their objects, but beyond the changes of mind and life and body, it is yet the Reality which all these strive to figure.” Essays on the Gita
"The spiritual change is the established descent of the peace, light, knowledge, power, bliss from above, the awareness of the Self and the Divine and of a higher cosmic consciousness and the change of the whole consciousness to that.” Letters on Yoga
"The sunlit path can only be followed if the psychic is constantly or usually in front or if one has a natural spirit of faith and surrender or a face turned habitually towards the sun or psychic predisposition (e.g. a faith in one"s spiritual destiny) or, if one has acquired the psychic turn. That does not mean that the sunlit man has no difficulties; he may have many, but he regards them cheerfully as all in the day's work''. If he gets a bad beating, he is capable of saying,Well, that was a queer go but the Divine is evidently in a queer mood and if that is his way of doing things, it must be the right one; I am surely a still queerer fellow myself and that, I suppose, was the only means of putting me right."" Letters on Yoga
"The view I am presenting goes farther in idealism; it sees the creative Idea as Real-Idea, that is to say, a power of Conscious Force expressive of real being, born out of real being and partaking of its nature and neither a child of the Void nor a weaver of fictions. It is conscious Reality throwing itself into mutable forms of its own imperishable and immutable substance. The world is therefore not a figment of conception in the universal Mind, but a conscious birth of that which is beyond Mind into forms of itself.” The Life Divine
"This Godhead is one in all things that are, the self who lives in all and the self in whom all live and move; therefore man has to discover his spiritual unity with all creatures, to see all in the self and the self in all beings, even to see all things and creatures as himself, âtmaupamyena sarvatra, and accordingly think, feel and act in all his mind, will and living. This Godhead is the origin of all that is here or elsewhere and by his Nature he has become all these innumerable existences, abhût sarvâni bhûtâni; therefore man has to see and adore the One in all things animate and inanimate, to worship the manifestation in sun and star and flower, in man and every living creature, in the forms and forces, qualities and powers of Nature, vâsudevah sarvam iti.” Essays on the Gita ::: *godhead, godheads, godhead"s.
"This is the great truth now dawning on the world, that Will is the thing which moves the world and that Fate is merely a process by which Will fulfils itself.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
"This Self is fourfold, — the Self of Waking who has the outer intelligence and enjoys external things, is its first part; the Self of Dream who has the inner intelligence and enjoys things subtle, is its second part; the Self of Sleep, unified, a massed intelligence, blissful and enjoying bliss, is the third part… the lord of all, the omniscient, the inner Control. That which is unseen, indefinable, self-evident in its one selfhood, is the fourth part: this is the Self, this is that which has to be known.” Mandukya Upanishad. (5) The Life Divine*
"This universal aesthesis of beauty and delight does not ignore or fail to understand the differences and oppositions, the gradations, the harmony and disharmony obvious to the ordinary consciousness; but, first of all, it draws a Rasa from them and with that comes the enjoyment, Bhoga. and the touch or the mass of the Ananda. It sees that all things have their meaning, their value, their deeper or total significance which the mind does not see, for the mind is only concerned with a surface vision, surface contacts and its own surface reactions. When something expresses perfectly what it was meant to express, the completeness brings with it a sense of harmony, a sense of artistic perfection; it gives even to what is discordant a place in a system of cosmic concordances and the discords become part of a vast harmony, and wherever there is harmony, there is a sense of beauty. ” Letters on Savitri*
Thought-images of themselves projected, often by people at the moment of death, which appear at that time or a few hours afterwards to their friends or relatives.
::: "To be free from all preference and receive joyfully whatever comes from the Divine Will is not possible at first for any human being. What one should have at first is the constant idea that what the Divine wills is always for the best even when the mind does not see how it is so, . . . .” Letters on Yoga*
"To me, for instance, consciousness is the very stuff of existence and I can feel it everywhere enveloping and penetrating the stone as much as man or the animal. A movement, a flow of consciousness is not to me an image but a fact. If I wrote "His anger climbed against me in a stream", it would be to the general reader a mere image, not something that was felt by me in a sensible experience; yet I would only be describing in exact terms what actually happened once, a stream of anger, a sensible and violent current of it rising up from downstairs and rushing upon me as I sat in the veranda of the Guest-House, the truth of it being confirmed afterwards by the confession of the person who had the movement. This is only one instance, but all that is spiritual or psychological in Savitri is of that character. What is to be done under these circumstances? The mystical poet can only describe what he has felt, seen in himself or others or in the world just as he has felt or seen it or experienced through exact vision, close contact or identity and leave it to the general reader to understand or not understand or misunderstand according to his capacity. A new kind of poetry demands a new mentality in the recipient as well as in the writer.” Letters on Savitri
::: "Universal forces means all forces good or bad, favourable or hostile, of light and darkness that move in the cosmos.” *Letters on Yoga
"Usha is the divine illumination and Dakshina is the discerning knowledge that comes with the dawn and enables the Power in the mind, Indra, to know aright and separate the light from the darkness, the truth from the falsehood, the straight from the crooked, vrinîta vijânan.” The Secret of the Veda*
"We arrive then necessarily at this conclusion that human birth is a term at which the soul must arrive in a long succession of rebirths and that it has had for its previous and preparatory terms in the succession the lower forms of life upon earth; it has passed through the whole chain that life has strung in the physical universe on the basis of the body, the physical principle.” The Life Divine
"We. . . become conscious, in our physical movements, in our nervous and vital reactions, in our mental workings, of a Force greater than body, mind and life which takes hold of our limited instruments and drives all their motion. There is no longer the sense of ourselves moving, thinking or feeling but of that moving, feeling and thinking in us. This force that we feel is the universal Force of the Divine, which, veiled or unveiled, acting directly or permitting the use of its powers by beings in the cosmos, is the one Energy that alone exists and alone makes universal or individual action possible. For this force is the Divine itself in the body of its power; all is that, power of act, power of thought and knowledge, power of mastery and enjoyment, power of love.” The Synthesis of Yoga
::: "We have to face the future"s offer of death as well as its offer of life, and it need not alarm us, for it is by constant death to our old names and forms that we shall live most vitally in greater and newer forms and names.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
"We imagine that the soul is in the body, almost a result and derivation from the body; even we so feel it: but it is the body that is in the soul and a result and derivation from the soul.” Essays on the Gita
"We know the Divine and become the Divine, because we are That already in our secret nature.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"We now begin to have reason for concluding that the Flame, which is only another aspect of Light, is the Vedic symbol for the Force of the divine consciousness, of the supramental Truth.” The Secret of the Veda
"We speak of the evolution of Life in Matter, the evolution of Mind in Matter; but evolution is a word which merely states the phenomenon without explaining it. For there seems to be no reason why Life should evolve out of material elements or Mind out of living form, unless we accept the Vedantic solution that Life is already involved in Matter and Mind in Life because in essence Matter is a form of veiled Life, Life a form of veiled Consciousness.” The Life Divine
". . . what is this strongly separative self-experience that we call ego? It is nothing fundamentally real in itself but only a practical constitution of our consciousness devised to centralise the activities of Nature in us. We perceive a formation of mental, physical, vital experience which distinguishes itself from the rest of being, and that is what we think of as ourselves in nature — this individualisation of being in becoming. We then proceed to conceive of ourselves as something which has thus individualised itself and only exists so long as it is individualised, — a temporary or at least a temporal becoming; or else we conceive of ourselves as someone who supports or causes the individualisation, an immortal being perhaps but limited by its individuality. This perception and this conception constitute our ego-sense.” The Life Divine
"When the Peace is established, this higher or Divine Force from above can descend and work in us. It descends usually first into the head and liberates the inner mind centres, then into the heart centre and liberates fully the psychic and emotional being, then into the navel and other vital centres and liberates the inner vital, then into the Muladhara and below and liberates the inner physical being. It works at the same time for perfection as well as liberation; it takes up the whole nature part by part and deals with it, rejecting what has to be rejected, sublimating what has to be sublimated, creating what has to be created. It integrates, harmonises, establishes a new rhythm in the nature. It can bring down too a higher and yet higher force and range of the higher nature until, if that be the aim of the sadhana, it becomes possible to bring down the supramental force and existence. All this is prepared, assisted, farthered by the work of the psychic being in the heart centre; the more it is open, in front, active, the quicker, safer, easier the working of the Force can be. The more love and bhakti and surrender grow in the heart, the more rapid and perfect becomes the evolution of the sadhana. For the descent and transformation imply at the same time an increasing contact and union with the Divine.” Letters on Yoga
" Yes. A third eye does open there [in the centre of the forehead] — it represents the occult vision and the occult power which goes with that vision — it is connected with the ajnacakra.” Letters on Yoga
"Yet there is still the unknown underlying Oneness which compels us to strive slowly towards some form of harmony, of interdependence, of concording of discords, of a difficult unity. But it is only by the evolution in us of the concealed superconscient powers of cosmic Truth and of the Reality in which they are one that the harmony and unity we strive for can be dynamically realised in the very fibre of our being and all its self-expression and not merely in imperfect attempts, incomplete constructions, ever-changing approximations.” The Life Divine*
You will see that in only one of these cases, the first, can a soul be posited and there no difficulty arises.” Letters on Yoga
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1 Saint Gregory of Nazianzus
1 Saint Ephrem of Syria
1 Saint Elizabeth
1 Saint Cajetan
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1 Saint Athanasius
1 Saint Alphonsus Liguori
1 Saint Albert the Great
1 Saiko
1 Sadi
1 Saadi
1 Ruysbro-eok
1 Ruysbroeck
1 Ro-wans XIII. 8
1 Roshi So
1 Rosa Parks
1 Ron Smothermon "Winning Through Enlightenment
1 Romans VI. 12
1 Rom. 1:20).
1 Roger Phillip Kaplan
1 Rodney Collin
1 Robert M. Pirsig
1 Robert Louis Stevenson
1 Robert Heinlei @aax9
1 Robert Greene
1 Robert Graves
1 Robert Anton Wilson
1 Roald Dahl
1 Rilke Rainer Maria
1 Revelation XXI. 7
1 Revelations III. 1
1 Revelations III
1 Revelation 5:12
1 Revelation 3:3
1 Revelation 3:20
1 Revelation 16:3
1 Rene Descartes
1 Red Hawk
1 Rajneesh
1 Rainer Maria Rilke
1 Quetzalcoatl
1 Pythagoras
1 Publilius Syrus
1 ProverbsXXXIV
1 Proverbs XXV. 28
1 Proverbs XXII
1 Proverbs XXI. 16
1 Proverbs XVI
1 Proverbs XV 24
1 Proverbs XIV. 22
1 Proverbs XIV. 12
1 Proverbs XIII 20
1 Proverbs XI.19
1 Proverbs
1 Proverb
1 preverbs XXI. 21
1 Preethi Kasireddy
1 Philo of Alexandria
1 Philo
1 Phillip Yancey
1 Phaedrus
1 Petalbae
1 Pearl S Buck
1 P.D. Ouspensky
1 P D Ouspensky
1 Paul Levy
1 Patrick Henry
1 Pascal
1 Paramahansa Yogananda
1 Owen Barfield
1 Our Lady to Fr. Stefano Gobbi
1 Our Lady to Father Stefano Gobbi
1 Our Lady how this thread
1 Osho
1 Orson Welles
1 Omar Khayyam
1 ol IV.8
1 Norbert Wiener
1 Nicholas of Cusa
1 Niccolo Machiavelli
1 Neville Goddard
1 Nelson Mandela
1 Neil Gaiman
1 Napoleon Hill
1 Najwa Zebian
1 Muso Soseki
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1 Mozart
1 Mortimer J Adler
1 Milan Kundera
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1 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
1 Miguel Angel Ruiz
1 Metta Sutta
1 Merrit Malloy
1 Meng Tse. VII. II. III. 1
1 Mencius
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1 Meister Eckhart
1 Meher Baba
1 Mawlay Al Arabi Al Darqawi
1 Matthew XX IV. 13
1 Matthew VII. 12
1 Matthew VI. 1
1 Mary Tyler Moore
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1 Martin Scorsese
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1 Martin Cruz Smith
1 Marshall McLuhan
1 Mark IX. 23
1 Mark 11:24
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1 Marcus Tullius Cicero
1 Mandy Hale
1 Maimonides Guide
1 Maggie Stiefvater
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1 Machig Labdron
1 Luke XIV. 11
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1 Longchenpa
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1 Lil Wayne
1 Lewis Mumford
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1 Leonard Nimoy
1 Laws of Manu VI. 72
1 Lauren Klarfeld
1 Lao-Tse: Tao-Te-King" XVI
1 Lao-Tse: Tao-te-King
1 Lao-tse
1 Lao- Tse
1 Lalita-Vistara
1 Lalita Vistara
1 Kurt Vonnegut
1 Kobo Daishi
1 Kobe Bryant
1 Kamal Ravikant
1 Kahlil Gibran
1 J.R.R. Tolkien
1 John. XV. 17
1 John VI. 27
1 John Stuart Mill
1 John Maxwell
1 John Lubbock
1 John Lennon
1 John III. 14
1 John III. 13
1 Job XV. 17.18
1 Joan Rivers
1 Jean-Paul Sartre
1 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
1 JB
1 Jane Austen
1 Jami
1 James Joyce
1 James.IV. 14
1 James I. 4
1 James I 12
1 Jack Kornfield
1 Jack Gardner
1 Iyanla Vanzant
1 I. Timothy. IV. 14
1 it flows with resistless force and brings beauty with it.
1 Ishikawa Takuboku
1 Isaiah. LII. 11
1 Irenaeus
1 Imitation of Christ
1 Imam Al Ghazali
1 id. VI. I.XI
1 id
1 Ibn Ata'illah al-Sakandari
1 Hua Hu Ching: The Unknown Teachings of Lao Tzu
1 Hindu Saying
1 Hermes: "On the Rebirth"
1 Hermes: On Rebirth
1 Henry Ford
1 Henri Poincare
1 Henri Bergson
1 Helen Keller
1 Hegel
1 Hazrat Umar ibn Khattab
1 Hazrat Inayat K
1 Han-Shan
1 Hans Georg Gadamer
1 Hafiz
1 Hafez
1 Guru Rinpoche
1 Guru Nanak
1 Gregory the Great
1 Graham Hancock
1 Gottfried Leibniz
1 Goldie Hawn
1 G.K. Chesterton
1 G K Chesterton
1 G. J. Gurdjieff
1 Gita Bellin
1 Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola
1 Giordano Bruno
1 GG
1 Geshe Kelsang Gyatso
1 Gertrude Stein
1 George S. Patton
1 George Sand
1 George R R Martin
1 George Moore
1 George MacDonald
1 George Gurdjieff
1 George Foreman
1 George Eliot
1 George Eliot
1 George Carlin
1 George Bernard Shaw
1 George Alexiou
1 G.B. Shaw
1 Gary Gygax
1 Gabriel García Marquez
1 Gabor Mate
1 Gabby Bernstein
1 Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1 Fumoto Oka 1877-1951
1 From Ron Smothermon
1 Fred Rogers
1 Frank Herbert in Dune
1 François de La Rochefoucauld
1 Francis Bacon
1 Fo-shu-hing-tsan-king
1 Firdausi; "Shah-Namah."
1 Firdausi
1 Fenelon
1 Federico Garcia Lorca
1 Ernest Holmes
1 Ernest Hemingway
1 Erasmus
1 Epistle to Diognetus
1 Epicurus
1 Ephrem the Syrian
1 English Proverb
1 Emily Dickinson
1 Emerson
1 Emerald Tablets of Thoth
1 Ella Fitzgerald
1 Elizabeth Taylor
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1 Edward Vernon Rickenbacker
1 Dylan Thomas
1 Dorothy Day
1 Dion Fortune
1 Dhul-Nun Al-Misri
1 Dhul-Nun
1 Deuteronomy
1 Den Sutejo 1633-1698
1 Denis Diderot
1 Demosthenes
1 Demi Lovato
1 David G. Allen
1 David Bowie
1 Danny Kaye
1 Daniel Goleman
1 Dalai Lama XIV
1 Dalai Lama
1 C. S. Lewis
1 Corinthians I
1 Corinthians
1 Confucius
1 C K Chesterton
1 City of God 12.6).
1 Cheng Yen
1 Charlotte Brontë
1 Charles Dickens
1 Chandogya Upanishad
1 Carlos Castaneda
1 Buson
1 Buddhist Text
1 Buchholz and Roth
1 Brihadaranyaka Upanishad I.4
1 Brecht
1 Booker T. Washington
1 Bob Ross
1 Bl. Maria Droste zu Vischering
1 Bill Purkey
1 Bhagavad Gita. II. 16
1 be to other souls
1 Basil the Great
1 Baruch Spinoza
1 Baron de Montesquieu
1 Barbara De Angelis
1 Baha-ullah: The Seven Valleys
1 Bahaullah
1 Bahauddin
1 Baba Tahir
1 Avesta: Vendidad
1 Ashtavakra Gita
1 Ashley Montagu
1 Asclepius
1 Arthur Koestler
1 Aristotle?
1 Archibald Thomas Robertson
1 Anonymous English Monk
1 Anon. From Exodus 2:22
1 Annie Proulx
1 Anna Gavalda
1 Andrew Kanegi
1 Anaximander
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1 Allen Klein
1 Ali ibn Abi Talib
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1 Ahmed Halif
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1 Ada Lovelace
1 Abraham Maslow
1 Abraham Lincoln
1 A B Purani
1 A.A. Milne
1 1 John 2:28-29
1 1 John 2:18
1 17th Karmapa
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
37 Anonymous
22 William Shakespeare
22 George Herbert
18 Margaret Thatcher
12 Ovid
11 Rumi
9 Suzanne Collins
9 Stephen King
9 Socrates
8 Bob Dylan
7 John Green
6 Walt Whitman
6 Unknown
6 Toba Beta
6 Rick Riordan
6 Neil Gaiman
6 Horace
6 Benjamin Franklin
5 Plato
5 Cassandra Clare
1:Like That. ~ Hafiz, #KEYS
2:altered into that empty too-much. ~ Rilke, #KEYS
3:To live - is that not enough?" ~ D.T. Suzuki, #KEYS
4:is not always that of the soul. ~ George Sand, #KEYS
5:I ain't got time for that now. ~ Talking Heads, #KEYS
6:That was mother of Heaven's King. ~ J R R Tolkien, #KEYS
7:It is that which is and that which is not. ~ Hermes, #KEYS
8:that inbound urge and urge of waves.... ~ Walt Whitman, #KEYS
9:The good is that at which all things aim. ~ Aristotle?, #KEYS
10:All this is full of that Being. ~ Swetaswatara Upanishad, #KEYS
11:Do all that you do with love. ~ Saint Therese of Lisieux, #KEYS
12:Its a long road that has no turning.
~ English Proverb,#KEYS
13:The light of that greater invisible sun... ~ Jean Gebser, #KEYS
14:But nothing promised that is not performed. ~ Robert Graves, #KEYS
15:Evil is that which makes for separateness." ~ Aldous Huxley, #KEYS
16:I gave in, and admitted that God was God. ~ C S Lewis, [T5], #KEYS
17:I'm smart enough to know that I'm dumb. ~ Richard P Feynman, #KEYS
18:Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom." ~ Francis Bacon, #KEYS
19:For the Departed Creature's sake That hovered there awhile ~ ?, #KEYS
20:Our problem with desire is that we want too little. ~ C S Lewis, #KEYS
21:The Being that is one, sages speak of in many terms. ~ Rig Veda, #KEYS
22:Never memorize something that you can look up. ~ Albert Einstein, #KEYS
23:Thinking is difficult, that's why most people judge. ~ Carl Jung, #KEYS
24:Do you know that you're strong on the inside, too?" ~ Fred Rogers, #KEYS
25:I live in the other world one that lies beyond the human. ~ Li Po, #KEYS
26:That is why it is falling apart. ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
27:To be honest to oneself, and that is very hard to do. ~ Bruce Lee, #KEYS
28:but that which is contrary to His nature. ~ Saint Ambrose of Milan, #KEYS
29:Illusion is perceived by that which is not illusory. ~ Shantideva-, #KEYS
30:Let him that would move the world first move himself.
~ Socrates,#KEYS
31:When all that's left of me is love, Give me away." ~ Merrit Malloy, #KEYS
32:Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today." ~ Mark Twain, #KEYS
33:Everything that is possible demands to exist.
~ Gottfried Leibniz,#KEYS
34:The only thing that could [be] would be thine own will
~ Petalbae,#KEYS
35:A prosperous man is never sure that he is loved for himself. ~ Lucan, #KEYS
36:God created war so that Americans would learn geography. ~ Mark Twain, #KEYS
37:It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.
~ Voltaire,#KEYS
38:Magic is just science that we don't understand yet. ~ Arthur C Clarke, #KEYS
39:It is conscious life that constitutes a man's whole being. ~ Asclepius, #KEYS
40:Take me from everything that takes me away from You. ~ Rabia al-Adawiyya, #KEYS
41:That is all the doing you have to worry about. ~ Saint Jeanne de Chantal, #KEYS
42:Fight for your dreams, even if that means fighting alone." ~ Paulo Coelho, #KEYS
43:Allow a fool to be a fool, that he may become wise.
~ Mike Higginbotham?,#KEYS
44:Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, #KEYS
45:I don't necessarily agree with everything that I say.
~ Marshall McLuhan,#KEYS
46:It is in pain that love becomes stronger. ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
47:May Allah steal from you All that steals you from Him. ~ Rabia al-Adawiyya, #KEYS
48:The bird of paradise lands only on the hand that does not grasp ~ Roshi So, #KEYS
49:To see things in the seed, that is genius. ~ Lao Tzu, #KEYS
50:Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see. ~ Edgar Allan Poe, #KEYS
51:God is a comedian playing to an audience that is afraid to laugh. ~ Voltaire #KEYS
52:look inside, and seek That. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
53:Not how the world is, but that it is, is the mystery. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein, #KEYS
54:The one great art is that of making a complete human being of oneself. ~ GG, #KEYS
55:Even if it seems certain that you will lose, retaliate. ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo, #KEYS
56:I want you to know that you deserve the best. You're beautiful." ~ Lil Wayne, #KEYS
57:Things that mattered To me before, Suddenly ceased To matter." ~ Suzy Kassem, #KEYS
58:What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. ~ C S Lewis, #KEYS
59:I AM THAT
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj,#KEYS
60:It is in changing that we find purpose. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
61:It is less what one is that should matter, than what one is not. ~ Wei Wu Wei, #KEYS
62:Let it be that our happiness depends only on ourselves. ~ Michel de Montaigne, #KEYS
63:The image of God throws a shadow that is just as great as itself. ~ Carl Jung, #KEYS
64:We just let it happen… and that's the beauty of this technique." ~ Bob Ross, #KEYS
65:A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.
~ William Shedd,#KEYS
66:Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.
~ Buddha,#KEYS
67:But he who knows, and knows that he knows, is a wise man-follow him." ~ Sufism, #KEYS
68:Grant me the sight Lord that I may see Thee who hast been with me always. ~ JB, #KEYS
69:If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich. ~ Tao Te Ching, ch.33, #KEYS
70:Prepare your mind to receive the best that life has to offer." ~ Ernest Holmes, #KEYS
71:That is all the doing you have to worry about. ~ Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, #KEYS
72:The older I get, the surer I am that I'm not running the show. ~ Leonard Cohen, #KEYS
73:There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in." ~ Leonard Cohen, #KEYS
74:Any God that I can understand is too small a God for me to believe in." ~ Anon., #KEYS
75:If the universe is meaningless, so is the statement that it is so. ~ Alan Watts, #KEYS
76:It is through victories in small things that we win great battles. ~ Philokalia, #KEYS
77:Silence is the answer, that is, silent presence is the answer." ~ Robert Burton, #KEYS
78:There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.
~ Leonard Cohen,#KEYS
79:The unfolding of the bare human soul … that is what interests me. ~ Bruce Lee, #KEYS
80:Truth in philosophy means that concept and external reality correspond. ~ Hegel, #KEYS
81:What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #KEYS
82:For us who strive to follow. May I reach That purest heaven, ~ be to other souls, #KEYS
83:How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard. ~ A.A. Milne, #KEYS
84:It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #KEYS
85:Give up your thirst for books, so that you do not die a grouch. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #KEYS
86:He bids fair to grow wise who has discovered that he is not so. ~ Publilius Syrus, #KEYS
87:He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough. ~ Tao Te Ching, ch.46, #KEYS
88:I dream. Sometimes I think that's the only right thing to do.
~ Haruki Murakami,#KEYS
89:That which is, always is. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
90:The process that goes on inside you is not apparent to you. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
91:The unfolding of the bare human soul ... that is what interests me.
~ Bruce Lee,#KEYS
92:Things that are holy are revealed only to men who are holy. ~ Hippocrates, Law, V, #KEYS
93:I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library. ~ Jorge Luis Borge, #KEYS
94:The one great art is that of making a complete human being of oneself. ~ Gurdjieff, #KEYS
95:Truth is that of the Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
96:If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough. ~ Meister Eckhart , #KEYS
97:The light of Christ is an endless day that knows no night. ~ Saint Maximus of Turin, #KEYS
98:To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god. ~ Jorge Luis Borge, #KEYS
99:All, everything that I understand, I only understand because I love.
~ Leo Tolstoy,#KEYS
100:And then forget that you are there. ~ Hua Hu Ching: The Unknown Teachings of Lao Tzu, #KEYS
101:Being that can be understood is language. ~ Hans Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method 474, #KEYS
102:Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
~ Khalil Gibran,#KEYS
103:Individuals should be enabled to achieve the best that is in them.
~ Howard Gardner,#KEYS
104:It isn't where you came from; it's where you're going that counts." ~ Ella Fitzgerald, #KEYS
105:Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that's beautiful. ~ Milan Kundera, #KEYS
106:A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say. ~ Italo Calvino, #KEYS
107:I don't mind what happens. That is the essence of inner freedom." ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #KEYS
108:It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the truth.
~ Blaise Pascal,#KEYS
109:No praise for me in this or that,
all praise to You in both. ~ Rabia al-Adawiyya,#KEYS
110:Play is the most natural method of self-healing that childhood affords. ~ Erik Erikson, #KEYS
111:Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee. ~ Michel de Montaigne, #KEYS
112:You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with great telescopes." ~ Alan Watts, #KEYS
113:An integral approach acknowledges that all views have a degree of truth.
~ Ken Wilber,#KEYS
114:Be as a tower firmly set Shakes not its top for any blast that blows. ~ Dante Alighieri, #KEYS
115:Creation is only the projection into form of that which already exists. ~ Bhagavad Gita, #KEYS
116:Everything that is happening to me is a challenge to have insight into it ~ Jean Gebser, #KEYS
117:I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things. ~ Vincent van Gogh, #KEYS
118:I can love only what I can place so high above me that I cannot reach it. ~ Franz Kafka, #KEYS
119:It is in the nature of things that joy arises in a person free from remorse.
~ Buddha,#KEYS
120:Stay close to anything that makes you glad you are alive.
~ Hafiz,#KEYS
121:These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb." ~ Najwa Zebian, #KEYS
122:The words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels.
~ Hazrat Inayat Khan,#KEYS
123:A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #KEYS
124:Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely. ~ William Faulkner, #KEYS
125:I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people. ~ Vincent van Gogh, #KEYS
126:It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer ~ Albert Einstein, #KEYS
127:One of the goals of education should be to teach that life is precious. ~ Abraham Maslow, #KEYS
128:Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.
~ Michel de Montaigne,#KEYS
129:The word 'innocence' means a mind that is incapable of being hurt." ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #KEYS
130:Ultimate understanding is that there is no one to understand anything. ~ Ramesh Balsekar, #KEYS
131:Where there's a will there's a way
To him that will, ways are not wanting
~ Proverb,#KEYS
132:Consider that nirvana is itself no other than our life. ~ Dogen Zenji, #KEYS
133:Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.
~ Voltaire,#KEYS
134:The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long." ~ Lao Tzu, #KEYS
135:There is no road to Heaven but that of Innocence or Penance. ~ Saint Cajetan, (1480-1547), #KEYS
136:When you work, you are a flute that turns the whisper of hours into music ~ Khalil Gibran, #KEYS
137:Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.' ~ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, #KEYS
138:And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #KEYS
139:Be ever engaged, so that whenever the devil calls he may find you occupied. ~ Saint Jerome, #KEYS
140:How can I study from below, that which is above? ~ Aristophanes, #KEYS
141:I desire that they confess the union of Jesus with the Father. ~ Saint Ignatius of Antioch, #KEYS
142:It is Itself that which was and that which is yet to be, the Eternal. ~ Kaivaiya Upanishad, #KEYS
143:It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor." ~ Seneca, #KEYS
144:Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light. ~ John Milton, Paradise Lost, #KEYS
145:Peace of mind is that mental condition in which you have accepted the worst." ~ Lin Yutang, #KEYS
146:The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
~ Albert Einstein,#KEYS
147:The sun's light when he unfolds it
Depends on the organ that beholds it ~ William Blake,#KEYS
148:Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory." ~ George S. Patton, #KEYS
149:At the core of all well-founded belief lies belief that is unfounded. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein, #KEYS
150:Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.
~ C S Lewis,#KEYS
151:God is the source of love, the clear fountain of love that never runs dry. ~ Sunday Adelaja, #KEYS
152:Grow out of that." ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
153:If you wish to be good, first believe that you are bad. ~ Epictetus, #KEYS
154:In a very real sense we have two minds, one that thinks and one that feels ~ Daniel Goleman, #KEYS
155:It is the illusion of free will that creates the illusion of the ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
156:No amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen. ~ Alan Watts, #KEYS
157:Nowhere at all - that's the nature of mind! ~ Tanatric Buddhist Woman Song, (8th - 11th c.), #KEYS
158:Strive for the truth so that out from your soul a sun may rise. ~ Hafiz, #KEYS
159:The goal of life is not the drama being played, but the lesson that it offers. ~ SWAMI RAMA, #KEYS
160:The most important knowledge is that which guides the way you lead your life. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #KEYS
161:When one realises one is asleep, at that moment one is already half-awake. ~ P.D. Ouspensky, #KEYS
162:Wish that everything should come about just as it does. ~ Epictetus, #KEYS
163:All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful. ~ Wilfred Owen, #KEYS
164:Everyone's life is a warfare, and that long and various. ~ Epictetus, #KEYS
165:Follow my tracks in the sand that lead Beyond thought and space. ~ Hafiz, #KEYS
166:I came to this earth so that I could find my way back to my Beloved (God). ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
167:It is enough to pay attention to what is before one's eyes, that is, to the present. ~ Dante, #KEYS
168:It is for love of him that I do not spare myself in preaching him. ~ Saint Gregory the Great, #KEYS
169:The greater the power that deigns to serve you, the more honor it demands of you. ~ Socrates, #KEYS
170:The greatest gift that you can give your teacher is doing your practice. ~ Chamtrul Rinpoche, #KEYS
171:The path that leads to truth is littered with the bodies of the ignorant. ~ Miyamoto Musashi, #KEYS
172:Those who love her discover her easily and those that seek her do find her. ~ Book of Wisdom, #KEYS
173:To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
~ Henry David Thoreau, [T5],#KEYS
174:To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.~ Lewis B Smedes, #KEYS
175:Check your passions that you may not be punished by them. ~ Epictetus, #KEYS
176:Difficulties are things that show a person what they are. ~ Epictetus, #KEYS
177:Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me. ~ Whitman, #KEYS
178:I wanted a library like this...[] A cave of words that I'd made myself.
~ Maggie Stiefvater,#KEYS
179:Let no man think that he is loved by any who loveth none. ~ Epictetus, #KEYS
180:Making sure we know that autumn is here, a leaf from the empress tree. ~ Den Sutejo 1633-1698, #KEYS
181:Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. ~ Albert Camus, #KEYS
182:Raise your heart to a happier state, towards that great good that never cheats us. ~ Petrarch, #KEYS
183:Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. ~ Dalai Lama, #KEYS
184:Successful people do the things that unsuccessful people are unwilling to do." ~ John Maxwell, #KEYS
185:That which is Bliss is also the Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
186:The super-ego is that part of the personality which is soluble in alcohol
~ Arthur Koestler,#KEYS
187:Everything that happens to you is a form of instruction if you pay attention." ~ Robert Greene, #KEYS
188:Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature! ~ G.B. Shaw, #KEYS
189:He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 John, 4:8, [T5], #KEYS
190:I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.
~ Oscar Wilde,#KEYS
191:Love moves without an agenda. It just moves because that is its nature - to move. ~ Adyashanti, #KEYS
192:No permanence is ours. We are a wave that flows to fit whatever form it finds. ~ Hermann Hesse, #KEYS
193:No permanence is ours; we are a wave that flows to fit whatever form it finds. ~ Hermann Hesse, #KEYS
194:Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.
~ Franz Kafka,#KEYS
195:Realization is a matter of becoming conscious of that which is already realized." ~ Wei Wu Wei, #KEYS
196:See this morning for the first time as a new-born child that has no name ~ Rabindranath Tagore, #KEYS
197:The flower which is single need not envy the thorns that are numerous.
~ Rabindranath Tagore,#KEYS
198:The sole difference between myself and a madman is the fact that I am not mad. ~ Salvador Dali, #KEYS
199:What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, #KEYS
200:A glimpse into the world proves that horror is nothing other than reality.
~ Alfred Hitchcock,#KEYS
201:A lily or a rose never pretends, and its beauty is that it is what it is." ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #KEYS
202:Faith that is allergic to questioning is just fundamentalist blind dogma. ~ Taigen Dan Leighton, #KEYS
203:I never found the companion that was (is) so companionable as solitude.
~ Henry David Thoreau,#KEYS
204:I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know. ~ Pablo Neruda,#KEYS
205:It is in the darkness that one finds the light. ~ Meister Eckhart, #KEYS
206:It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover.
~ Henri Poincare,#KEYS
207:Let this consciousness be in you which was in Christ Jesus that we all may be one. ~ Saint Paul, #KEYS
208:What is the use of a realization that fails to reduce your disturbing emotions? ~ Guru Rinpoche, #KEYS
209:You see this and that. Why not see God? ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
210:But when I know that the glass is already broken, every minute with it is precious. ~ Ajahn Chah, #KEYS
211:Everything that irritates us about others can lead to an understanding of ourselves. ~ Carl Jung, #KEYS
212:It is the mind that veils our happiness. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
213:Know then that the body is merely a garment. Go seek the wearer, not the cloak. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi #KEYS
214:O Sun, I am a particle that moves in your light. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
215:The ultimate truth of who you are is not 'I am this' or 'I am that', but 'I am'. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #KEYS
216:You can never awaken using the same system that put you to sleep in the first place. ~ Gurdjieff, #KEYS
217:You know, one of the tragedies of real life is that there is no background music. ~ Annie Proulx, #KEYS
218:All that is one and one that is all. ~ Hermes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
219:At times the truth shines so brilliantly that we perceive it as clear as day." ~ Maimonides Guide, #KEYS
220:Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.
~ Rabindranath Tagore, [T5],#KEYS
221:Fixity in the Self is your real nature. Remain as you are. That is the aim. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
222:God's invisible nature . . . is clearly perceived in the things that have been made ~ Rom. 1:20)., #KEYS
223:In looking out upon the world, we forget that the world is looking at itself. ~ Alan Wilson, [T5], #KEYS
224:It is enough that one surrenders oneself. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
225:Talented people almost always know full well the excellence that is in them." ~ Charlotte Brontë, #KEYS
226:That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons death may die.
~ H P Lovecraft,#KEYS
227:There is only one Jnani and you are THAT. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
228:The "secret" to "luck" is sheer persistence. Don't make it harder than that." ~ Preethi Kasireddy, #KEYS
229:Truth is above mind, it is in silence that one can enter into communication with it. ~ The Mother, #KEYS
230:Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #KEYS
231:Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born.
~ Nikola Tesla,#KEYS
232:Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.
~ Rabindranath Tagore,#KEYS
233:Everything that deceives may be said to enchant. ~ Plato, Republic, III, 413-C, #KEYS
234:If someone looks perfect, then that is because you don't know the person very well. ~ Haemin Sunim, #KEYS
235:It is not the outer objects that entangle us. It is the inner clinging that entangles us. ~ Tilopa, #KEYS
236:Once in our world, a stable had something in it that was bigger than our whole world. ~ C.S. Lewis, #KEYS
237:On my tombstone, I really hope that someday they will write: He was true but partial. ~ Ken Wilber, #KEYS
238:o not wish to be anything but what you are, and try to be that perfectly. ~ Saint Francis de Sales, #KEYS
239:Remember that the devil has only one door by which to enter the soul: the will." ~ Saint Padre Pio, #KEYS
240:That which shrinks must first expand. That which fails must first be strong. ~ Tao Te Ching, ch.36, #KEYS
241:We have forgotten the age-old fact that God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions. ~ Carl Jung, #KEYS
242:Detachment is not that you should own nothing, but that nothing should own you. ~ Ali ibn Abi Talib, #KEYS
243:It was Heraclitus' ideas that seized Nietzsche so totally that he became completely mad. ~ Rajneesh, #KEYS
244:Liberation is our very nature. We are that. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
245:she weighs so little that I start crying and can't walk three steps. ~ Ishikawa Takuboku, 1885-1912, #KEYS
246:Teaching without words, performing without actions; that is the master's way. ~ Tao Te Ching, ch.43, #KEYS
247:That God, too, desired us? ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
248:The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.
~ Oscar Wilde,#KEYS
249:The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules. ~ Gary Gygax, #KEYS
250:Wisdom is a thing vast and grand. She demands all the time that one can consecrate to her. ~ Seneca, #KEYS
251:But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? (Luke 1:43) ~ Saint Elizabeth, #KEYS
252:Ecclesiastes shows that man without God is in total ignorance and inevitable misery. ~ Blaise Pascal, #KEYS
253:No one is free that has not obtained the empire of their self. ~ Pythagoras, #KEYS
254:Only the hand that erases can write the true thing." ~ Meister Eckhart, #KEYS
255:Real practice has no purpose or direction, so it can include everything that comes. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
256:Sometimes thinking is like talking to another person, but that person is also you. ~ Terry Pratchett, #KEYS
257:That which is called happiness alone exists. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
258:The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. ~ Albert Einstein, #KEYS
259:Your true nature is that of infinite spirit. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
260:And so the Apostle says that this mystical wisdom is revealed by the Holy Spirit. ~ Saint Bonaventure, #KEYS
261:In fact, it is more correct to say that Truth is God, than to say that God is Truth. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #KEYS
262:Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?" ~ Lucy Maud Montgomery, #KEYS
263:It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God - but to create him.
~ Arthur C Clarke,#KEYS
264:Just for today, be a little child. Know the world is safe. Know that you are loved." ~ Iyanla Vanzant, #KEYS
265:Purity is something that cannot be attained except by piling effort upon effort. ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo, #KEYS
266:Self is here and now and you are that always. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
267:A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing. ~ Alan Perlis, #KEYS
268:Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson, #KEYS
269:He's not your prince charming if he doesn't make sure you know that you're his princess. ~ Demi Lovato, #KEYS
270:In order to be effective truth must penetrate like an arrow - and that is likely to hurt. ~ Wei Wu Wei, #KEYS
271:In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer. ~ Albert Camus, #KEYS
272:is the smoke of that incense. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
273:It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #KEYS
274:Let us make up for lost time. Let us give to God the time that remains to us. ~ Saint Alphonsus Liguori #KEYS
275:Purity is something that cannot be attained except by piling effort upon effort." ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo, #KEYS
276:He prays well who is so absorbed with God that he does not know he is praying. ~ Saint Francis de Sales, #KEYS
277:In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. ~ Albert Camus, #KEYS
278:It is that which is and that which is not. ~ Hermes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
279:I've often lost myself, in order to find the burn that keeps everything awake
~ Federico Garcia Lorca,#KEYS
280:The great thing about being a writer is that you are always re-creating yourself.
~ Martin Cruz Smith,#KEYS
281:There is a gentle thought that often springs to life in me, because it speaks of you. ~ Dante Alighieri, #KEYS
282:There is only one Master, and that is the Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
283:Your duty is to Be, and not to be this or that. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
284:All wisdom is one: to understand the spirit that rules all by all. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
285:Bear in mind that you should conduct yourself in life as at a feast. ~ Epictetus, #KEYS
286:Before you heal someone, ask him if he's willing to give up the things that made him sick. ~ Hippocrates, #KEYS
287:Everything that is not the divine essence is a creature. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I.18.2, #KEYS
288:I'll be with you to meet all difficulties-you can be sure of that. ~ The Mother, #KEYS
289:Know that the greatest service that man can offer to God is to help convert souls." ~ Saint Rose of Lima, #KEYS
290:Lift me up out of this illusion, Lord. Heal my perception, so that I may know only reality. ~ Bill Hicks, #KEYS
291:Nothing ever comes to one that is worth having, except as a result of hard work." ~ Booker T. Washington, #KEYS
292:There is no fire that can equal desire. ~ Dhammapada, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
293:The things that we love tell us what we are.
~ Saint Thomas Aquinas,#KEYS
294:Words are a pretext. It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
295:If all are God, are you not included in that all? ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
296:Is doomed like a rose that blooms out of season" ~ Red Hawk, (Robert Moore), b. 1943), American poet. See, #KEYS
297:It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.
~ Epictetus,#KEYS
298:It's wonderful to know you're aging, because that means you're still on the planet, right?" ~ Goldie Hawn, #KEYS
299:Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out,
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Acts, 3:19,#KEYS
300:Sing such a song with all of your heart that you'll never have to sing again. ~ Kabir, #KEYS
301:.... that they did not see ...." ~ Shams of Tabriz, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
302:The heart is a thousand-stringed instrument that can only be tuned with Love. ~ Hafiz, #KEYS
303:The Self is here and now and you are that always. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
304:The unnatural, that too is natural. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #KEYS
305:What is it that exists now and troubles you? It is 'I'. Get rid of it and be happy. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
306:Wisdom is the oneness of mind that guides and permeates all things. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
307:Happy is the soul that reaches the level of perfection that God desires!" ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
308:I find that the more I relinquish my old habits of thought, the happier I am. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #KEYS
309:If you know that the arising thought is itself unreal delusion, you are already free. ~ Zen Master So Sahn, #KEYS
310:I have suggested that behind almost all myth lies the mono-plot of the game of hide-and-seek. ~ Alan Watts, #KEYS
311:I never give answers. I lead on from one question to another. That is my leadership. ~ Rabindranath Tagore, #KEYS
312:In that God who illumines the reason, desiring liberation I seek my refuge. ~ Swetaswatara Upanishad VI.18, #KEYS
313:It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light." ~ Aristotle, #KEYS
314:It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.
~ Voltaire,#KEYS
315:There is only one thing in life that never changes, and it is change." ~ Confucius, #KEYS
316:The truly great books are the few books that are over everybody's head all of the time. ~ Mortimer J Adler, #KEYS
317:The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits. ~ Albert Camus, The Plague, #KEYS
318:Weep like the waterwheel, that green herbs may spring up in the courtyard of your soul. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi , #KEYS
319:Who is there that would refuse anything to others? ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
320:Deliver them that are drawn unto death. ~ ProverbsXXXIV, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
321:Everything that rises must converge. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #KEYS
322:[Heraclitus] concluded that coming-to-be itself could not be anything evil or unjust. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #KEYS
323:It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.
~ Napoleon Hill,#KEYS
324:It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #KEYS
325:It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting. ~ Paulo Coelho, The Alchmeist, #KEYS
326:Learn to see, and then you'll know that there is no end to the new worlds of our vision. ~ Carlos Castaneda, #KEYS
327:Men that love wisdom must be acquainted with very many things indeed. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
328:Prayer is the best weapon we possess, the key that opens the heart of God. ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
329:Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." ~ Winston Churchill, #KEYS
330:That which is was always and always will be. ~ Melessus, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
331:The dream is for the one who says that he is awake. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
332:You are always that Self and nothing but that Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
333:All this is full of that Being. ~ Swetaswatara Upanishad, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
334:All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.
~ Ernest Hemingway,#KEYS
335:A soul that is bound, takes a path that leads away from God. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
336:Awake, eyes closed I listen........that faintness- must be winter rain begun to fall. ~ Fumoto Oka 1877-1951, #KEYS
337:I desire and love nothing that is not of the light. ~ id, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
338:It is by loving and not by being loved that one can come nearest to the soul of another." ~ George MacDonald, #KEYS
339:It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
~ Albert Einstein,#KEYS
340:Man is in the process of changing to forms of light that are not of this world.
~ Emerald Tablets of Thoth,#KEYS
341:That way a thorn expands to a rose. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
342:There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true Self.
~ William James,#KEYS
343:You are not human. You are far more than that. You are more than God or Consciousness itself. ~ Robert Adams, #KEYS
344:All that is born, is corrupted to be born again. ~ Hermes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
345:Any effort that has self-glorification as its final endpoint is bound to end in disaster." ~ Robert M. Pirsig, #KEYS
346:Blessed is the man that endureth temptation. ~ James I 12, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
347:Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group. ~ Carl Sagan, #KEYS
348:I am not absentminded. It is the presence of mind that makes me unaware of everything else. ~ G.K. Chesterton #KEYS
349:I know from experience that you should never give up on yourself or others, no matter what." ~ George Foreman, #KEYS
350:It is only when we realize that life is taking us nowhere that it begins to have meaning. ~ Mr. Ouspensky🕊, #KEYS
351:Let us never forget that if we wish to die like the saints we must live like them." ~ Saint Théodore Guérin, #KEYS
352:Not that which is difficult to His power, but that which is contrary to His nature." ~ Saint Ambrose of Milan, #KEYS
353:See and realize that this world is not permanent. Neither late nor early flowers will remain." ~ Taigu Ryokan, #KEYS
354:The literal meaning of life is whatever you're doing that prevents you from killing yourself
~ Albert Camus,#KEYS
355:The universe and I are of the same root. The myriad things and I are one body. That is zazen.
~ Kodo Sawaki,#KEYS
356:You have a treasure within you that is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer." ~ Eckhart Tolle, #KEYS
357:A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say. ~ Italo Calvino, The Uses of Literature, #KEYS
358:Awakening begins when a man realizes that he is going nowhere and does not know where to go. ~ G. J. Gurdjieff, #KEYS
359:I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.
~ Albert Einstein,#KEYS
360:it is like that of a raindrop upon the ocean... ~ Hafiz, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
361:Know that, by nature, every creature seeks to become like God. ~ Meister Eckhart, #KEYS
362:Neglect not the gift that is in thee. ~ I. Timothy. IV. 14, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
363:Render unto all men that which is their due. ~ Corinthians, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
364:That which results in peace is the highest perfection. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
365:The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases. ~ Carl Jung, #KEYS
366:Disgust appears to be triggered by objects or people who possess attributes that signify disease.
~ Wikipedia,#KEYS
367:He that soweth iniquity, shall reap vanity. ~ Proverbs XXII, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
368:I'm a wanderer
so, let that be my name -
the first winter rain. ~ Matsuo Basho,#KEYS
369:It's distance that makes mountains mountains. Looked at closely, they start to resemble me. ~ Shuntaro Tanikawa, #KEYS
370:I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned. ~ Richard P Feynman, #KEYS
371:Let us think that we are born for the common good. ~ Seneca, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
372:Only remove ignorance. That is all there is to be done. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
373:That is most difficult, which seems easiest—to be present to what is before you. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #KEYS
374:There is nothing mind can do that cannot be better done in the minds immobility and thought-free stillness. ~ ?, #KEYS
375:The You that sees cannot be shown. The You that dreams is not a dream. It is YOU - The Self—Supreme." ~ Anon., #KEYS
376:We know that there is another stage beyond the stage of logical perception. ~ Ibn Arabi, #KEYS
377:Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, today is God's gift, that why we call it the present." ~ Joan Rivers, #KEYS
378:All things are possible to him that believeth. ~ Mark IX. 23, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
379:Blessed be the key that turned in my heart and let loose my soul and freed it from so heavy a chain." ~ Petrarch, #KEYS
380:Everything that has a beginning has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well." ~ Jack Kornfield, #KEYS
381:If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. ~ Toni Morrison, #KEYS
382:If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.
~ Edgar Allan Poe,#KEYS
383:I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 119:11, #KEYS
384:I’m always amazed that people take what I say seriously. I don’t even take what I am seriously. ~ David Bowie #KEYS
385:In the interior of each atom that thou shalt cleave thou shalt find imprisoned a sun. ~ Ahmed Halif, Mystic Odes, #KEYS
386:It is by God's Grace that you think of God. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, [T0], #KEYS
387:It takes a lot of courage to be the same person on the outside that you are on the inside." ~ Barbara De Angelis, #KEYS
388:Life is like a play: it's not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters. ~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca, #KEYS
389:Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own." ~ Robert Heinlei @aax9 #KEYS
390:Sacrifice that causes pain is no sacrifice at all. True sacrifice is joy-giving and uplifting." ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #KEYS
391:Study, that is the best way to understand.
~ The Mother, More Answers From The Mother,#KEYS
392:The feeling remains that God is on the journey, too. ~ Saint Teresa of Avila, #KEYS
393:What thou seest, man, That too become thou must- God, if thou seest God, Dust, if thou seest Dust.
~ Anonymous,#KEYS
394:You know that you know nothing. Find out that knowledge. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
395:And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense?
~ Edgar Allan Poe,#KEYS
396:Don't think that some tomorrow you'll see God's Light. You see it now or err in darkest night. ~ Angelus Silesius, #KEYS
397:Humility is the virtue that requires the greatest amount of effort. ~ Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne, (1769-1852), #KEYS
398:It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it. ~ Oscar Wilde, #KEYS
399:Love all; trust a few, Do wrong to none." ~ William Shakespeare, quote from "All's Well That Ends Well,", (1605)., #KEYS
400:Man alone suffers so excruciatingly in the world that we were compelled to invent laughter. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #KEYS
401:Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence." ~ Helen Keller, #KEYS
402:Run my dear,
From anything
That may not strengthen
Your precious budding wings. ~ Hafiz,#KEYS
403:Sunsets are so beautiful that they almost seem as if we were looking through the gates of Heaven." ~ John Lubbock, #KEYS
404:that cares not about whom it falls upon. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
405:You should realize that everything you see is like a dream or illusion.
~ Bodhidharma,#KEYS
406:Even as men come to Me, so I accept them. It is my path that men follow from all sides,
~ Bhagavad Gita, (IV.11),#KEYS
407:I climb the road that never ends. Who can break from the snares of the world and join me in the clouds? ~ Han-Shan, #KEYS
408:I do not believe that any name, however complex, is sufficient to designate the principle of all Majesty. ~ Hermes, #KEYS
409:If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.
~ Meister Eckhart,#KEYS
410:Mystical explanations are thought to be deep; the truth is that they are not even shallow.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche,#KEYS
411:That which appears anew must also disappear in due course. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
412:The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool. ~ Richard P Feynman, #KEYS
413:Then Solomon said, "The Lord has said that he would dwell in thick darkness. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Kings, 8:12, #KEYS
414:There is only one thing to be feared and that is sin. Everything else is beside the point. ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #KEYS
415:You are the solitary witness of all that is, forever free. Your only bondage is not seeing this. ~ Ashtavakra Gita, #KEYS
416:Absence is a house so vast that inside you will pass through its walls and hang pictures on the air. ~ Pablo Neruda, #KEYS
417:A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.
~ ?, Gall's Law,#KEYS
418:e that overcometh shall inherit all things. ~ Revelation XXI. 7, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
419:Examine all things and hold fast that which is good. ~ St. Paul, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
420:He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. ~ John III. 14, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
421:I believe it all. If I seem not to, it is only that my joy is too great to let my belief settle itself. ~ C S Lewis, #KEYS
422:I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world. ~ Charles Dickens, #KEYS
423:Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. ~ Maya Angelou, #KEYS
424:that Soul shines not forth; yet He is seen by subtle seers with superior, subtle intellect. ~ Katha Upanishad, 3:12, #KEYS
425:The Being that is one, sages speak of in many terms. ~ Rig Veda, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
426:Adolescents need freedom to choose, but not so much freedom that they cannot, in fact, make a choice. ~ Erik Erikson, #KEYS
427:He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. ~ Ro-wans XIII. 8, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
428:He that walketh with the wise, shall be wise. ~ Proverbs XIII 20, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
429:how can you localize that which formed you? ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
430:I'm a wanderer so, let that be my name - the first winter rain. ~ Matsuo Basho, 1644-1694, #KEYS
431:It is only with total humility, and in absolute stillness of mind that we can know what indeed we are." ~ Wei Wu Wei, #KEYS
432:the cloud
that never moved
is gone
~ Buson, @BashoSociety#KEYS
433:Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treads thy grain ~ Deuteronomy, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
434:Would you call Him Destiny? You will not be wrong. Providence? You will say well. Nature? That too you may. ~ Seneca, #KEYS
435:You will have to subjugate your passions and hold fast to the faith that God exists everywhere. ~ Swami Vijnanananda, #KEYS
436:A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest. ~ C.S. Lewis #KEYS
437:Cruelty was the vice of the ancient. Vanity is that of the modern world; Vanity is the last disease.
~ George Moore,#KEYS
438:He that tells a lie to save his credit, wipes his mouth with his sleeves to spare his napkin.
~ Sir Thomas Overbury,#KEYS
439:Human existence is so fragile a thing and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling. ~ Simone Weil, #KEYS
440:It is only when a man tames his own demons that he becomes the king of himself if not of the world. ~ Joseph Campbell, #KEYS
441:Let us cherish that Self, which is the Reality, in the Heart. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
442:My Divine Mother has declared that She is the Brahman of the Vedanta. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
443:Our way is not to sit to acquire something; it is to express our true nature. That is our practice." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
444:So... all of time and space, everything that ever happened or ever will ~ where do you want to start? ~ Steven Moffat, #KEYS
445:The greatest denial of Truth is the belief that being vulnerable is dangerous." ~ Gita Bellin, "Reflections,", (2010), #KEYS
446:The veils that hide the light shall be rent asunder. ~ Baha-ullah, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
447:We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want. ~ Lao Tzu, #KEYS
448:Wisdom is a well-spring of life unto him that hath it. ~ Proverbs, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
449:You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! ~ Anonymous, The Bible, James, 2:19, #KEYS
450:All that exists is but the manifestation of the Supreme Being. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
451:A mind that worries about the past is distracted, and a mind that worries about the future is delusional." ~ Cheng Yen, #KEYS
452:Aviation is proof that given, the will, we have the capacity to achieve the impossible.
~ Edward Vernon Rickenbacker,#KEYS
453:Eventually, all that one has learnt will have to be forgotten. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
454:I guess the moral of today's story is that you ask for what you want. And ask and you shall receive.
~ Andrew Kanegi,#KEYS
455:I have been born anew. I have become a self-made man in battle, that is how I came to be my own father. ~ Quetzalcoatl, #KEYS
456:Lift the veil that obscures the heart, and there you will find what you are looking for.
~ Kabir,#KEYS
457:Never say, I cannot. Look more closely, you will find that it means in reality, I want not. ~ Nolini Kanta Gupta, [T5], #KEYS
458:The difference between passion and addiction is that between a divine spark and a flame that incinerates. ~ Gabor Mate, #KEYS
459:The dog knows, but does not know that he knows. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #KEYS
460:The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
~ Bertrand Russell,#KEYS
461:The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
~ Bertrand Russell,#KEYS
462:The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man. ~ T S Eliot, #KEYS
463:This thing I comm and you that ye love one another. ~ John. XV. 17, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
464:We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want." ~ Lao Tzu, #KEYS
465:What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." ~ Mark 11:24, (KJV), #KEYS
466:e ye clean, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord. ~ Isaiah. LII. 11, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
467:Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #KEYS
468:I cannot rightly tell how I entered that forest, I was so full of sleep at the moment when I left the true way. ~ Dante, #KEYS
469:Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again: for forgiveness has risen from the grave!" ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #KEYS
470:Our Lord promises comfort to those that mourn ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1-2.69.4)., #KEYS
471:The painful secret of gods and kings is that men are free... You know it and they do not. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre, The Flies, #KEYS
472:The Vedanta says, there is nothing that is not God. ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. II. 321), #KEYS
473:Think before you desire a thing. There is every possibility that it will be fulfilled, and then you will suffer. ~ Osho, #KEYS
474:Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew, 11:28,#KEYS
475:Do not complain, that shows discontent with the will of GOD in the present moment. ~ Saint Martin de Porres, (1579-1639), #KEYS
476:Have good trust in yourself, not in the One that you think you should be, but in the One that you are." ~ Taizan Maezumi, #KEYS
477:Let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
478:myself without expecting any reward, but the knowledge that I am doing your holy will. Amen." ~ Saint Ignatius of Loyola, #KEYS
479:Save the world that is within us, O Life. ~ Hermes: "On the Rebirth", the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
480:Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing that we see too late the one that is open." ~ Alexander Graham Bell, #KEYS
481:The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart." ~ Elizabeth Fole, #KEYS
482:There are many parts of us that do not wish to work, so the moment you begin to work, friction starts.
~ P D Ouspensky,#KEYS
483:Thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead. ~ Revelations III. 1, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
484:We have somehow conned ourselves into the notion that this moment is ordinary. This now moment is eternity. ~ Alan Watts, #KEYS
485:What is it to know something of God? Burn inside that presence. Burn up. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
486:You must feel that Sri Aurobindo is looking at you.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I, [T5],#KEYS
487:All I can guarantee you is that as long as you are searching for happiness, you will remain unhappy." ~ U.G. Krishnamurti, #KEYS
488:Approach what you find repulsive, help the ones you think you cannot help, and go places that scare you. ~ Machig Labdron, #KEYS
489:But as long as you think you are practicing zazen for the sake of something, that is not true practice." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
490:It is only those who persevere to the end that succeed. ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. V. 31), #KEYS
491:It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life. ~ Terry Pratchett, #KEYS
492:We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter. ~ Denis Diderot, #KEYS
493:All that exists in the world, has always existed. ~ Antoine the Healer, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
494:Be not astonished that man can become like God. ~ Epistle to Diognetus, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
495:Can anything new appear without that which is eternal and perfect? ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
496:Do not doubt that mountains walk simply because they may not appear to walk like humans. ~ Dogen Zenji, #KEYS
497:Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, 3:16, #KEYS
498:hen the spirit has comm and over the soul, that is strength. ~ Lao-tse, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
499:He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding. ~ Proverbs XIV. 22, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
500:I regret many follies which sprang from my obstinacy; but without that trait I would not have reached my goal. ~ Carl Jung, #KEYS
501:It is only through the enquiry 'Who am I?' that the mind subsides. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
502:I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself. ~ Aldous Huxley, #KEYS
503:Life is given that we may learn to die well, and we never think of it! To die well we must live well. ~ Saint John Vianney, #KEYS
504:Love is the answer and you know that for sure. Love is a flower, you got to let it ~ you got to let it grow. ~ John Lennon, #KEYS
505:Scrape the surface of language, and you will behold interstellar space and the skin that encloses it. ~ Velimir Khlebnikov, #KEYS
506:The heart that is not in love will fail the test. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
507:The heavenly Father is always willing to content you in everything that is for your good. ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
508:The Linux philosophy is 'Laugh in the face of danger'. Oops. Wrong One. 'Do it yourself'. Yes, that's it. ~ Linus Torvalds, #KEYS
509:They that plough iniquity and sow wickedness, reap the same. ~ ol IV.8, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
510:They wander in darkness seeking light, failing to realize that the light is in the heart of the darkness.
~ Manly P Hall,#KEYS
511:To see the Heart, it is enough that the mind is turned towards it. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
512:You are Rama Sastri. Make that name significant. Be one with Rama. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
513:All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop. ~ Kabir, #KEYS
514:Any law that is rightly established leads to virtue ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ScG 3.121)., #KEYS
515:... a single word that breaks the seals of the mind...
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
516:But it is not that way with God ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Commentary on John 1, lect. 1)., #KEYS
517:Is it really so that the one I Love is everywhere? ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
518:It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself and no one else has made it. ~ Sophocles, Ajax, #KEYS
519:It is enough that you turn your eyes towards the self-luminous sun. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
520:Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else. ~ Leonardo da Vinci, #KEYS
521:Stand for something or you will fall for anything. Today's mighty oak is yesterday's nut that held its ground. ~ Rosa Parks, #KEYS
522:Take away everything that takes me away from You." ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
523:The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do." ~ Kobe Bryant, #KEYS
524:To wear out the veil that occludes the vision of reality is all that man can do, and that he has got to do. ~ Anandamayi Ma, #KEYS
525:Where God may place you at any time and under whatever circumstances, remember that it is all for the best. ~ Anandamayi Ma, #KEYS
526:All have eyes, but some have eyes that are shrouded in darkness, unable to see the light of the sun. ~ Theophilus of Antioch, #KEYS
527:Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a beginning. ~ Saint John Henry Newman, #KEYS
528:Have a care that ye sow not among men the seeds of discord. ~ Baha-ullah, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
529:If that desire did not arise, how could the quest of the Self arise? ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
530:It is by God's grace that you think of God! ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talks, 29, [T5], #KEYS
531:Jesus, help me to simplify my life by learning what you want me to be, and becoming that person." ~ Saint Therese of Lisieux, #KEYS
532:Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #KEYS
533:Nothing so much wins love as the knowledge that one's lover desires most of all to be himself loved. ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #KEYS
534:Once we admit our existence, how is it that we do not know our Self? ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
535:Our first mistake is the belief that the circumstance gives the joy which we give to the circumstance. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #KEYS
536:Patience is the calm acceptance that things can happen in a different order than the one you have in mind." ~ David G. Allen, #KEYS
537:People do not seem to realise that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #KEYS
538:Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift. ~ Mary Oliver, #KEYS
539:That which is produced with intention has passed over from non-existence to existence. ~ Maimonides, #KEYS
540:There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it. ~ Bertrand Russell, #KEYS
541:When we discover that the truth is already in us, we are all at once our original selves." ~ Dogen Zenji, #KEYS
542:Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 31:24,#KEYS
543:Descending to the earth, That strange intoxicating beauty of the Unseen world Lurks in the elements of Nature." ~ Shabistari, #KEYS
544:God and his devotee are to be regarded as one, that is one in the same light. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
545:He [she] who abandons all that is not Real directly realizes Reality. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
546:I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved. ~ Soren Kierkegaard, #KEYS
547:I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?
~ Friedrich Nietzsche,#KEYS
548:It is the East that must conquer in India's uprising. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Karmayogin, In Either Case, #KEYS
549:Keep the mind quiet. That is enough. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Surpassing Love and Grace, Ch 9, #KEYS
550:Let him in whom there is understanding know that he is immortal. ~ Hermes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
551:Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. ~ Corinthians I, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
552:Missing its aim is all that it can speak ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 1:4, 360, #KEYS
553:That which comes from satan begins with calmness and ends in storm, indifference and apathy. ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
554:The body will eventually drop anyway one day. Let all experiences teach you that you are not the body. ~ Roger Phillip Kaplan, #KEYS
555:The Self is here and now and you are that always. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Day by Day, 3-7-46, #KEYS
556:The true repose is that of a perfect surrender to the Divine.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
557:When I think of the happiness that is in store for me, every sorrow, every pain becomes dear to me. ~ Saint Francis of Assisi, #KEYS
558:You have to learn how to sit without fighting. If you know how to sit like that, sitting is very pleasant." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #KEYS
559:At some time, one will have to forget everything that has been learnt. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
560:Complete self-surrender means that you have no further thought of 'I'. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
561:If the form is transcended one will know that the one Self is eternal. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
562:I have always imagined that Paradise as a kind of library.
~ Jorge Luis Borges, Seven Nights,#KEYS
563:Imagine the world so greatly magnified that particles of light look like twenty-four-pound cannon balls. ~ Georg C Lichtenberg, #KEYS
564:It is a thin ego that Avatars possess. Through this ego God is always visible. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
565:It is only when God Himself by His grace draws the mind inwards that complete surrender can be achieved. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
566:The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be true and untrue at the same time. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #KEYS
567:The way of truth is like a great road. It is not difficult to know it. The evil is only that men will not seek it.
~ Mencius,#KEYS
568:Attack the evil that is within yourself, rather than attacking the evil that is in others." ~ Confucius, #KEYS
569:But at the same time God is great and unspeakably glorious, so that no man shall see God and live. ~ Irenaeus, Against Heresies, #KEYS
570:Death fosters life that life may suckle death. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Plays and Stories, Act II, #KEYS
571:I realize that all women are so many forms, in which the Divine Mother appears. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
572:It is a thin ego that Avatars possess. Through this ego, God is always visible. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
573:It is God's grace alone that enables an aspirant to stop the waves of the mind and dissolve the intellect. ~ Swami Adbhutananda, #KEYS
574:Our names are the light that glows on the sea waves at night and then dies without leaving its signature. ~ Rabindranath Tagore, #KEYS
575:Realise that whatever you have understood so far, is invalid. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, #KEYS
576:The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them - but that they seize us." ~ Ashley Montagu, #KEYS
577:You have to give up everything to know that you need nothing. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, #KEYS
578:11:The destiny of [Google's search engine] is to become that Star Trek computer, and that's what we are building. ~ Amit Singhal, #KEYS
579:All is in God's hands; whatever He makes us do, that we shall do.
~ The Mother, Agenda Vol 3, Satprem,#KEYS
580:Beloved, all that is harsh and difficult I want for myself, and all that is gentle and sweet for thee. ~ Saint John of the Cross, #KEYS
581:Christ's mind is the controlling influence that inspires us to moderation and goodness in our behavior. ~ Saint Gregory of Nyssa, #KEYS
582:Disillusionment in living is finding that no one can really ever be agreeing with you completely in anything.
~ Gertrude Stein,#KEYS
583:Do not forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of God's kingdom. ~ Leo the Great, #KEYS
584:etter is he that rulethhis spirit than he that taketh a city. ~ Proverbs XVI, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
585:If you consider that he is righteous, you also know that everyone who acts in righteousness is begotten by him. ~ 1 John 2:28-29, #KEYS
586:If you pray, trust that he hears. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism, #KEYS
587:In due course, we will know that our glory lies where we cease to exist. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
588:It was clear through unlearned men that the cross was persuasive, in fact, it persuaded the whole world. ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #KEYS
589:Men have made kings that folly might have food. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Plays and Stories, Act II, #KEYS
590:When celestial nobility is cultivated to perfection, human nobility follows. What can compare to that good fortune? ~ Liu Yiming, #KEYS
591:When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.
~ Voltaire,#KEYS
592:Grace is ever present. All that is necessary is that you surrender to It. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
593:It is only when you touch the higher that you realize how low we may be among the possibilities of creation. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, #KEYS
594:It's not what happens to you that determines how far you will go in life; it is how you handle what happens to you." ~ Zig Ziglar, #KEYS
595:Know the true definition of yourself. That is essential. Then, when you know your own definition, flee from it. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
596:One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.
~ Bertrand Russell,#KEYS
597:Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
~ Dalai Lama XIV,#KEYS
598:Stop and look around you. Allow yourself to reorient so that you are no longer pulled along by the stream of events. ~ Zen Master, #KEYS
599:There is only one state, that of consciousness or awareness or existence. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
600:Thinking that happiness comes from some object or other, you go after it. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
601:To know that you do not know is the best. To pretend to know when you do not know is a disease.
~ Lao Tzu,#KEYS
602:When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.
~ Henry Ford,#KEYS
603:Worthy is the Lamb that was sacrificed to receive power, riches, wisdom, strength, honour, glory and blessing." ~ Revelation 5:12, #KEYS
604:You are 27 or 28 right? It is very tough to live at that age. When nothing is sure. I have sympathy with you.
~ Haruki Murakami,#KEYS
605:All that is necessary is to get rid of the false notion that we are bound. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
606:Although we say mountains belong to the country, actually, they belong to those that love them." ~ Dogen Zenji, #KEYS
607:An education that seeks competition rather than collaboration is the reflection of a society that is deeply ill. ~ Claudio Naranjo, #KEYS
608:Do not believe all that men say. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, XIX. 10, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
609:For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, 1:18,#KEYS
610:For primitive egoism, however, the standing rule is that it is never 'I' who must change, but always the other fellow. ~ Carl Jung, #KEYS
611:God has His own plans and all these go on according to that. No one need worry as to what happens. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk 552, #KEYS
612:He who has My words and despises them has that which shall condemn him on the last day. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
613:It is from unsatisfied desire that all suffering arises. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Desire, #KEYS
614:Mind is born from that which is beyond mind. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Vijnana or Gnosis, #KEYS
615:O God! Can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
~ Edgar Allan Poe,#KEYS
616:Simply look at whatever happens and know that you are beyond it. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, #KEYS
617:Take heed that ye do not alms before, men, to be seen of them. ~ Matthew VI. 1, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
618:The highest teachers are those who say that God is with form, as well as formless. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
619:The sage increases his wisdom by all that he can gather from others. ~ Fenelon, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
620:This snowy morning That black crow I hate so much.... But he is so beautiful! ~ Matsuo Basho, 1644-1694, #KEYS
621:To escape from the world means that one's mind is not concerned with the opinions of the world." ~ Dogen Zenji, #KEYS
622:We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty. ~ Maya Angelou, #KEYS
623:You will know in due course that your glory lies where you cease to exist. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
624:All that is necessary, is to realize the falsehood of the ego and by inference, the falseness of all its demands. ~ Ramesh Balsekar, #KEYS
625:All wisdom is one: to understand the spirit that rules all by all. ~ Heraclitus, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
626:Break what must be broken, once for all, that's all, and take the suffering on oneself.
~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment,#KEYS
627:He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. ~ Matthew XX IV. 13, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
628:How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world. ~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice , #KEYS
629:I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.
~ Pearl S Buck,#KEYS
630:It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. ~ Jane Austen, #KEYS
631:It is by the path of love, which is charity, that God draws near to man, and man to God. ~ Saint Albert the Great, (c. 1200 - 1280), #KEYS
632:Know for certain that He will not leave you. He will never fail you when you cry His name with a longing heart. ~ Swami Saradananda, #KEYS
633:Pressed her body to his body, Laughed; and plunging down Forgot in cruel happiness That even lovers drown." ~ William Butler Yeats, #KEYS
634:That man to me seems equal to the gods,
the man who sits opposite you
and close by listens
to your sweet voice ~ Sappho,#KEYS
635:That which exists, exists for ever; that which newly appears is later lost. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
636:To be enlightened is to know that which is eternal. ~ Lao-Tse: Tao-Te-King" XVI, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
637:we do not have knowledge of a thing until we have grasped its why, that is to say, its cause.
~ Aristotle,#KEYS
638:We should not be upset that others hide the truth from us, when we hide it so often from ourselves. ~ François de La Rochefoucauld, #KEYS
639:All existence here is a universal Life that takes form of Matter. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Life, #KEYS
640:All that you can say of the heart is that it is the very core of your being. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
641:Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be. ~ Thomas A Kempis, #KEYS
642:Discovering your "nobodyness" opens the door to awakening as beingness, and beyond that to the source of all beingness. ~ Adyashanti, #KEYS
643:Faith is like pure eyes that enable us to see a pure and perfect world beyond the suffering world of samsara. ~ Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, #KEYS
644:God or the Good, what is it but the existence of that which yet is not? ~ Hermes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
645:If you reject everything, what remains is the Self alone. That is real love. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
646:It is the essentials alone that matter. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Call and the Capacity, #KEYS
647:It is through the search after Truth that man can elevate himself. This he should regard in the light of a duty. ~ SRI ANANDAMAYI MA, #KEYS
648:It's not that I disagreed with Bush's economic policy... I believed he was a child of Satan here to destroy the planet. ~ Bill Hicks, #KEYS
649:Moksha is to know that you were not born. "Be still and know that I am God." ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
650:Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange. ~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest,#KEYS
651:The most damning revelation you can make about yourself is that you do not know what is interesting and what is not. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #KEYS
652:To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #KEYS
653:Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it. ~ Blaise Pascal, #KEYS
654:Accept right now that you are magnificent. Being your real, true, authentic self is what's most awesome about you." ~ Gabby Bernstein, #KEYS
655:Amazing, isn't it, that most people find the same religion that their parents have. And naturally this is the true religion." ~ Anon., #KEYS
656:A mind of moderate capacity which closely pursues one study must infallibly arrive at great proficiency in that study. ~ Mary Shelley, #KEYS
657:Dost thou not know that thou hast become God and art the son of the One? ~ Hermes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
658:God is both inside and outside you. When you realize that He is within you, your passions will be under control. ~ Swami Vijnanananda, #KEYS
659:Hold on to one thought so that others are expelled. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talks, 453, [T5], #KEYS
660:Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. ~ Revelations III, 11, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
661:How is it, Lord, that we are cowards in everything save in opposing thee? ~ Saint Teresa of Avila, #KEYS
662:If a person has ten habits out of which nine are good and one bad, that bad one will destroy the good ones. ~ Hazrat Umar ibn Khattab, #KEYS
663:It is in an unshakable peace that can be found the true power.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, Peace,#KEYS
664:It is strange that the years teach us patience; that the shorter our time - the greater our capacity for waiting." ~ Elizabeth Taylor, #KEYS
665:It is unhappiness that teaches us more than happiness; it is misery that cleanses our hearts more than enjoyment. ~ Swami Saradananda, #KEYS
666:Learn the lesson that, if you are to do the work of a prophet, what you need is not a sceptre but a hoe. ~ Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, #KEYS
667:Nothing moves a man to anger except a hurt that grieves him ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1-2.47.3)., #KEYS
668:Peace is your natural state. It is the mind that obstructs the natural state. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
669:Teachers must be encouraged - I almost said 'freed', to pursue an education that strives for depth of understanding. ~ Howard Gardner, #KEYS
670:That's what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.
~ Simone de Beauvoir,#KEYS
671:The pure Consciousness that alone finally remains is God. This is Liberation. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
672:There will come a time when one will have to forget all that one has learned. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
673:Thou must be emptied of that wherewith thou art full, that thou mayest be filled with that whereof thou art empty." ~ Saint Augustine, #KEYS
674:Words fail us when we seek, not to express Him who Is, but merely to attain to the expression of the powers that environ Him. ~ Philo, #KEYS
675:Yet some there be that by due steps aspire To lay their just hands on that golden key That opes the Palace of Eternity. ~ John Milton, #KEYS
676:You are the Self. Was there ever a time when you were not aware of that Self? ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
677:By endeavor, diligence, discipline, and self-mastery, let the wise man make of himself an island that no flood can overwhelm. ~ Buddha, #KEYS
678:From God's effects it can be demonstrated that there is a God ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1.2.2ad3), #KEYS
679:Get rid of your ignorance which makes you think that you are other than Bliss. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
680:If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don't have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.
~ Steve Jobs,#KEYS
681:Know and believe that you are of immense power and the power will come to you at last. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
682:Or do ye think that ye shall enter the Garden of Bliss without such trials as came to those who passed away before you? ~ Koran, 2:214, #KEYS
683:That which is in all reality cannot begin to be nor be annihilated. ~ Schopenhauer, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
684:The pathless path is the path always under our feet. And since that path is always beneath us, if we miss it, how stupid! ~ Longchenpa, #KEYS
685:There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice." ~ Baron de Montesquieu, #KEYS
686:Truth that is naked is the most beautiful, and the simpler its expression the deeper is the impression it makes. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #KEYS
687:We are free here and now. It is only the mind that imagines bondage. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, #KEYS
688:Why go on pruning the ego? That is just what it wants — to be the center of attraction. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Conscious Immortality, #KEYS
689:All that is contains Thee; I could not exist if Thou wert not in me. ~ St Augustine, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
690:All things are ordered to one good as their end, and that is God ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ScG 3.17)., #KEYS
691:Ego is like that caterpillar which leaves its hold only after catching another. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
692:He that killeth an ox is as if lie slew a man. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Isaiah, LXVT, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
693:I am the wheat of God. Let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ. ~ Saint Ignatius, #KEYS
694:I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy. ~ Rabindranath Tagore, #KEYS
695:It is our lack of faith that creates our limitations. With my blessings,
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother,#KEYS
696:Listen to Nature: she cries out to us that we are all members of one family. ~ Sadi, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
697:Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true. ~ Demosthenes, Third Olynthiac, sec. 19, #KEYS
698:Realization consists of getting rid of the false idea that one is not realized. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
699:That is worlds, gods, beings, the All,-the supreme Soul. ~ Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
700:The true cause of the blessedness of the good angels is found to be this, that they cleave to Him who supremely is ~ City of God 12.6)., #KEYS
701:Things that happen during the wakeful, dream and sleep states do not affect you at all; you remain your own Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
702:Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 16:24, #KEYS
703:When the mind and speech unite in earnest, asking for a thing, that prayer is answered. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
704:When you know yourself, your 'I'ness vanishes and you know that you and Allah are one and the same. ~ Ibn Arabi, #KEYS
705:Yoke yourself under the law, so that you may truly be free. Do not work the desire of your soul apart from God. ~ Saint Ephrem of Syria, #KEYS
706:And I would tell myself that the realm beyond the wall was not more lasting merely, but more lovely and radiant as well. ~ H P Lovecraft, #KEYS
707:Be not afraid, like some foolish people, that you may run to excess in your love of God. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
708:Be then on your guard against everything that suppresses your liberty. ~ Vivekananda, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
709:Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr., #KEYS
710:I am That I Am" sums up the whole truth; the method is summarized in "Be Still." ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
711:If you are really not aware that God is constantly hunting for you, then pay close attention to every breath you take. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
712:I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done; I ponder the work of your hands. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 143:5, #KEYS
713:I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 14:16, [T0],#KEYS
714:Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew, 4:4, NIV,#KEYS
715:Nourish in your heart a benevolence without limits for all that lives. ~ Metta Sutta, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
716:Of all the thoughts that rise in the mind, the thought 'I' is the first thought. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
717:Seek the wisdom that will untie your knot. Seek the path that demands your whole being
~ Jalaluddin Rumi,#KEYS
718:Struggle to pierce that darkness above you with the dart of longing love, and do not give up, whatever happens. ~ Anonymous English Monk, #KEYS
719:That which rises and sets is the ego; that which remains changeless is the Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
720:The game of doubting itself presupposes certainty…. A doubt that doubtEd everything would not be a doubt. ~ Wittgenstein, On Certainty, #KEYS
721:There is an innocence in admiration: it occurs in one who has not yet realized that they might one day be admired. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #KEYS
722:The Self is the one Reality that always exists, and it is by the light of the Self that all other things are seen. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
723:The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools. ~ Thucydides, #KEYS
724:The supreme faith is that which sees God in all. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Way and the Bhakta, #KEYS
725:To it with good heart, O pilgrim, on to that other shore ! ~ Book of Golden Precepts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
726:What is God?
God is the perfection that we must aspire to realise.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
727:While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.
~ Leonardo da Vinci,#KEYS
728:You must remember that you are His children. But do not let this make you proud. Pride must be given up once for all. ~ SWAMI PREMANANDA, #KEYS
729:Zen teaches that if we can open up to the inevitability of our demise, we can begin to transform and lighten up about it." ~ Allen Klein, #KEYS
730:Devote yourself here and now to the search for the Truth that is ever within you. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
731:Happiness is letting go of what you think your life is supposed to look like, and celebrating it for everything that it is." ~ Mandy Hale, #KEYS
732:If you thus reject everything, what remains is the Self alone. That is real love. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
733:It is in the absolute surrender of all conditions and requirements that liberation is discovered to be who and what you are. ~ Adyashanti, #KEYS
734:It was Aomame's firm belief that the human body was a temple, to be kept as strong and beautiful and clean as possible. ~ Haruki Murakami, #KEYS
735:Let your standpoint become that of wisdom then the world will be found to be God. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
736:Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool that repeats his folly. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (26:11), #KEYS
737:Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. ~ Marie Curie, #KEYS
738:Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.
~ Lord Byron, [T5],#KEYS
739:So should He be adored...for it is in That all become one. ~ Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
740:That which is continuous is permanent. That which is discontinuous is transitory. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
741:That which provokes anger is always something considered unjust ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1-2.47.2)., #KEYS
742:That which satisfies the soul is the wisdom which governs the world. ~ Lalita Vistara, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
743:The inner silence is self-surrender. And that is living without the sense of ego. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
744:The voice which tells us that we are immortal is the voice of God within us. ~ Pascal, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
745:What is that, knowing which we will know everything?
- Vedas? ~ Swami Vivekananda, Rajayoga, 36,#KEYS
746:All that we meet is a symbol and gateway ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ahana, #KEYS
747:Buddha means awareness, the awareness of body and mind that prevents evil from arising in either." ~ Bodhidharma, #KEYS
748:But deluded people don't realize that their own mind is the Buddha. They keep searching outside.
~ Bodhidharma,#KEYS
749:Every man is not only himself, he is that which he represents. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Karmayogin, Facts and Opinions, #KEYS
750:God is in all people, but all people are not in God -- that is the reason why they suffer. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
751:Hegel's philosophy is so odd that one would not have expected him to be able to get some men to accept it, but he did." ~ Bertrand Russell, #KEYS
752:It is vision that sees Truth, not logic. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Poetry and Art, Russell, Eddington, Jeans, #KEYS
753:Just as there are polysyllabic words that say very little, so there are also monosyllabic words of infinite meaning. ~ Georg C Lichtenberg, #KEYS
754:Library terror - that feeling of being hopelessly overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of available books... ~ Owen Barfield, Night Operation, #KEYS
755:love, so that a new, profound and universal reconciliation may be thus achieved between God and humanity." ~ Our Lady to Fr. Stefano Gobbi, #KEYS
756:Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less." ~ Marie Curie, #KEYS
757:One is truly free, even in this life, who knows that God does all and yet he does nothing. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
758:One of the functions of intelligence is to take account of the dangers that come from trusting solely to the intelligence. ~ Lewis Mumford, #KEYS
759:There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one. ~ C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength #KEYS
760:To give a person an opinion one must first judge well whether that person is of the disposition to receive it or not. ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo, #KEYS
761:When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals, adjust the action steps." ~ Confucius, #KEYS
762:A dreamer is man who can find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world. ~ Oscar Wilde, #KEYS
763:Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
~ John Stuart Mill,#KEYS
764:Behind the mask of ice that people wear, there beats a heart of fire. ~ Paulo Coelho, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
765:Buddha means awareness, the awareness of body and mind that prevents evil from arising in either.
~ Bodhidharma,#KEYS
766:Can it be that change terrifies thee? But nothing is done without it. ~ Marcus Aurelius, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
767:Drunkenness is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness. ~ Bertrand Russell, #KEYS
768:God is the only existence that is real, all other existences are unreality behind which God exists as the reality. ~ Swami Ramakrishnananda, #KEYS
769:He created Hell only that He might be called 'Merciful'." ~ Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
770:He who has a true idea simultaneously knows that he has a true idea, and cannot doubt of the truth of the thing perceived. ~ Baruch Spinoza, #KEYS
771:If, instead of preaching to others, one worships god all the time that is preaching enough. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
772:It is the destiny of things real to destroy those that are artifice. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #KEYS
773:Know that you are a God and consequently the Lord of the senses. Why should you allow the senses to lord over you? ~ Swami Ramakrishnananda, #KEYS
774:Make my heart, o heart of the universe, a divine bird that nests only on the throne of god. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
775:The Bliss that is creation's splendid grain ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, In the Self of Mind, #KEYS
776:The more we know the more we can see that we do not know. With my Blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother,#KEYS
777:When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.
~ Confucius,#KEYS
778:A faith she craves that can survive defeat, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Secret Knowledge, #KEYS
779:All the media and the politicians ever talk about is things that separate us, things that make us different from one another ~ George Carlin, #KEYS
780:Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Jeremiah, 33:3, #KEYS
781:Divine law leaves nothing unpunished that is contrary to virtue ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 2-2.77.1ad1)., #KEYS
782:For whatever we do, it is on account of one of these that we do it ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1-2.73.9)., #KEYS
783:Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing. ~ William Butler Yeats, #KEYS
784:Has there not been a time when each and everyone of us has felt that we are a 'stranger in a strange land.'" ~ Anon. From Exodus 2:22, (KJV), #KEYS
785:He [She] who gives himself up to the Self that is God is the most excellent devotee. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
786:I am He that is" (Ex 3,14), which is equivalent to "My nature is to be, not to be spoken." ~ Philo of Alexandria, De Mutatione Nominum 11-12, #KEYS
787:If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.
~ Hermann Hesse,#KEYS
788:I have remarked very clearly that I am often of one opinion when I am lying down and of another when I am standing up. ~ Georg C Lichtenberg, #KEYS
789:It must be realized that the true sign of spiritual endeavor and the price of success in it is suffering. ~ Philokalia, Theophan the Recluse, #KEYS
790:Karma in its effect on character is the most tremendous power that man has to deal with. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
791:One who knows the secret of that love finds the world itself full of universal love. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
792:On this earth everyone has his cross. But we must act in such a way that we be not the bad, but good thief. ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
793:Purity is, next to birth, the greatest good that can be given to man. ~ Avesta: Vendidad, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
794:That which is must also persist for ever. That which appears anew will also be lost. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
795:There are times when I am so unlike myself that I might be taken for someone else of an entirely opposite character. ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, #KEYS
796:There is no requirement to transcend the past. All that must be done is to stop carrying it, like a block of stone, on one's back. ~ Wu Hsin, #KEYS
797:The Self is that where there is absolutely no "I" thought. That is called "Silence". ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
798:The speech that labels more than it lights; ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Secret Knowledge, #KEYS
799:The truth is, indeed, that love is the threshold of another universe. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #KEYS
800:What is greatest in our existence, what makes it precious beyond words, is the modesty to use sorrow so that it penetrates our soul. ~ Rilke, #KEYS
801:What is really your own? The use you make of the ideas, resources, and opportunities that come your way. ~ Epictetus, #KEYS
802: You are that blessed soul who belongs to the garden of Paradise. " ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
803:A dream of favours, a favourable dream. They know how they believe that they believe that they know. Wherefore they wail. ~ James Joyce, [T5], #KEYS
804:All those people that you are concerned about, did they create you?" ~ Imam Al Ghazali, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
805:But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most? ~ Mark Twain, #KEYS
806:Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.
~ Socrates,#KEYS
807:I began to understand that the love of the sacred heart without a spirit of sacrifice is but empty illusion. ~ Bl. Maria Droste zu Vischering, #KEYS
808:If we are calm and persevering, we shall find not only ourselves, but our souls, and with that, God Himself. ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
809:It is faith in the name of the Lord that works wonders, for faith is life and doubt is death. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
810:I was asked to memorise what I did not understand; and, my memory being so good, it refused to be insulted in that manner. ~ Aleister Crowley, #KEYS
811:Lovers are patient and know that the moon needs time to become full. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
812:Make japa and meditate daily and remain pure in body, mind, and speech - by that alone you will achieve your life's goal. ~ Swami Saradananda, #KEYS
813:nonexistence: know that nonexistence is also afraid that God might bring it into existence." ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
814:No one has ever made the mistake of not perceiving that he was alive ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (DV 10.8ad2)., #KEYS
815:No one I am, I who am all that is. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Liberation - I, #KEYS
816:One who thinks that his spiritual guide is merely a man, can draw no profit from his contact. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
817:The essential is to think that anything you are doing has to become the occasion for slashing. You must examine this well. ~ Miyamoto Musashi, #KEYS
818:There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living." ~ Nelson Mandela, #KEYS
819:the river that
flows in you
flows in me
~ Kabir, @BashoSociety#KEYS
820:The true teacher knocks down the idol that the student makes of him" ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
821:What human voice is capable of telling me, "This is good and that is bad ?" ~ Kobo Daishi, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
822:Always cultivate pure thoughts. Purity is strength, and purity is God. Live such a life that no one may be an enemy to you. ~ SWAMI PREMANANDA, #KEYS
823:Awake thou that steepest and arise from the dead. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ephesians, V. 14, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
824:f one ponders well, one finds that all that passes has never truly existed. ~ Schopenhauer, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
825:I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. ~ C S Lewis, #KEYS
826:It is Itself that which was and that which is yet to be, the Eternal. ~ Kaivaiya Upanishad, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
827:It is only by grounding our awareness in the living sensation of our bodies that the 'I Am,' our real presence, can awaken. ~ George Gurdjieff, #KEYS
828:It might be true that it is "quality time" that counts, but after a certain point quantity has a bearing on quality. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #KEYS
829:Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination... go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.
~ Mozart,#KEYS
830:Our intellect never understands so much that it cannot understand more ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1.86.2)., #KEYS
831:Sometimes it is through fear of punishment that one obeys the law ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1-2.92.1ad2)., #KEYS
832:Supermind is the vast self-extension of the Brahman that contains and develops.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
833:The Divine alone is the support that never fails.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, The Divine Is with You [14],#KEYS
834:The intellect itself realises after continuous practice that it is enabled by some Higher Power to function. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talks, 502, #KEYS
835:The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, XV, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
836:The mind does not exist apart from the Self, that is, it has no independent existence. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
837:The mind is a thing that dwells in diffusion, in succession. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Concentration, #KEYS
838:The Word expresses that which is self-hidden in the Silence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Reality Omnipresent, #KEYS
839:Within the Supreme Brahma, the worlds are being told like beads:
Look upon that rosary with the eyes of wisdom. ~ Kabir,#KEYS
840:You must never cease from calling on the Lord, and know this for certain that the Lord's name cuts through all obstacles. ~ SWAMI SUBODHANANDA, #KEYS
841:Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten. ~ Neil Gaiman, #KEYS
842:Grace is ever present. All that is necessary is that you surrender to it.
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talks, 472,#KEYS
843:He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 John, IV. 8, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
844:If you set goals and go after them with all the determination you can muster, your gifts will take you places that will amaze you." ~ Les Brown, #KEYS
845:It is only those who are mature that can understand the matter in its naked simplicity. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
846:Lost in intense God-consciousness I could not know that I was nude the greater part of the day. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
847:Mosquitoes are teaching you that you are not the body. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Living by the Words of Bhagavan, #KEYS
848:Telling someone something he does not understand is pointless, even if you add that he will not be able to understand it. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein, #KEYS
849:That which then remains separate and alone by itself, that pure Awareness is what I am. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
850:The chief purpose of the avatar is to give to man concrete proof that the Divine can manifest upon earth. ~ The Mother, #KEYS
851:The demon that you can swallow gives you its power, and the greater life's pain, the greater life's reply. ~ Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, #KEYS
852:The love of God, unutterable and perfect, flows into a pure soul the way that light rushes into a transparent object.
~ Dante Alighieri, [T5],#KEYS
853:The nice thing about citing god as an authority is that you can prove anything you set out to prove.
~ Robert Heinlein, from If This Goes On.,#KEYS
854:The only religion that ought to be taught is the religion of fearlessness. ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. III. 160), #KEYS
855:There is no difference in work. Do not think that this work will lead to God and that will not. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
856:Things are not always what they seem; outward form deceives many; rare is the mind that discerns what is carefully concealed within. ~ Phaedrus, #KEYS
857:Though it has no thought of keeping watch, it's not for naught that the scarecrow stands in the grain field. ~ Dogen Zenji, #KEYS
858:When there is no place that you have decided to call your own,
then no matter where you go,
you are always heading home. ~ Muso Soseki,#KEYS
859:You should study not only that you become a mother when your child is born, but also that you become a child. ~ Dogen Zenji, #KEYS
860:Anxiety is the greatest evil that can befall a soul except sin. God commands you to pray, but He forbids you to worry." ~ Saint Francis de Sales, #KEYS
861:Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
~ Dylan Thomas,#KEYS
862:Each separate movement is produced by the same energy that moves the sum of things. ~ Hermes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
863:Earnestly pray to God that you may receive the love of His name and He will fulfill your desire. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
864:I am convinced that most people do not grow up … our real selves, the children inside, are still innocent and shy as magnolias. ~ Maya Angelou, #KEYS
865:I don't believe that consciousness is generated by the brain. I believe that the brain is more of a receiver of consciousness." ~ Graham Hancock, #KEYS
866:If the unripe mind does not feel His Grace, it does not mean that God's Grace is absent. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
867:It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche,#KEYS
868:It is only through life that one can reach to immortality. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Karmayoga, #KEYS
869:It is on the bosom of dead divinity (Shiva) that the blissful Mother dances her celestial dance. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
870:Not everyone who is enlightened by an angel knows that he is enlightened by him. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, [T5], #KEYS
871:Pure Consciousness, which is the Heart, includes all, and nothing is outside or apart from it. That is the ultimate Truth. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
872:That is the divine Brahman and not this which men here adore.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, [T0],#KEYS
873:That which is, is peace. All that we need do is to keep quiet. Peace is our real nature. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
874:The final demand of the Bhakta is simply that his bhakti may never cease or diminish. ~ Sri Aurobindo, cwsa, 24, 569, #KEYS
875:The frog lives by the side of the fragrant lotus, but it is the bee that gets the honey. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
876:There are no whole truths, all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #KEYS
877:Those who love her discover her easily and those that seek her do find her. ~ Book of Wisdom, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
878:United we stand, divided we fall. Let us not split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs.
~ Patrick Henry,#KEYS
879:When you see the Seer, you merge in the Self, you become one with it; that is the heart. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
880:With devotion within your heart, it is not absolutely necessary that you must visit holy places. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
881:You get what you seek. If you seek God, you get Him. If you seek wealth and power, you get that. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
882:All this is true and false; and it is true and false to say that it is true and false. ~ Aleister Crowley, #KEYS
883:Do you believe there is some place that will make the soul less thirsty? In that great absence you will find nothing. ~ Kabir, #KEYS
884:Forgiveness is the remission of sins. For it is by this that what has been lost, and was found, is saved from being lost again. ~ Saint Augustine, #KEYS
885:Grace is the Self. That also is not to be acquired; you only need to know that it exists. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
886:How is it that when there is so little time to enjoy your presence, you hide from me? ~ Saint Teresa of Avila, #KEYS
887:In the Bhagavata it is said that the Incarnations of Vishnu or the Supreme Being are innumerable. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
888:It is consoling that he who must judge us dwell in us to save us always from all of our miseries, and to pardon us." ~ Saint Thérèse de Lisieux, #KEYS
889:It is true that God's power triumphs over everything, but humble and suffering prayer prevails over God Himself. ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
890:It seems to me that any sensible person must see that violence does not change the world and if it does, then only temporarily. ~ Martin Scorsese, #KEYS
891:Lest we remind you that, "He who does not thank the people, does not thank Allah. ~ Hadith, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
892:Repeat your mantra several thousand times a day. That will give you strength. If evil thoughts appear be indifferent to them. ~ Swami Saradananda, #KEYS
893:The movement that stores up and concentrates is no less needed than the movement that spreads and diffuses. ~ The Mother, #KEYS
894:There was once a community of scoundrels, that is to say, they were not scoundrels, but ordinary people. ~ Franz Kafka, The Blue Octavo Notebooks, #KEYS
895:The sight of You amazes me. ~ For the Pearl does this... and the Ocean does that." ~ Hafiz, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
896:True nature of the gods is that of magical images shaped out of the astral plane by mankind's thought and influenced by the mind
~ Dion Fortune,#KEYS
897:Understanding more, seeing things more objectively, comes first; when that sinks in, one begins to be different, act differently. ~ Rodney Collin, #KEYS
898:We grasp nothing except through that which is better known to us ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (In I Phys. lect. 1)., #KEYS
899:We know that we have passed from death into life because we love our brothers. ~ John III. 13, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
900:When he knows that he is That, the Eternal, he is delivered from all limitations. ~ Upanishad, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
901:Where you're standing, dig, dig out: Down below's the Well: Let them that walk in darkness shout Down below there's Hell!
~ Friedrich Nietzsche,#KEYS
902:You ignore what is real and hold on to that which is unreal, then try to find what it is. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
903:All that is is the manifestation of a Divine Infinite. The universe has no other reason for existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #KEYS
904:Awakening doesn't mean that you awaken. It means that there is only awakening. There is no you who is awake, there is only awakeness. ~ Adyashanti, #KEYS
905:...before Thee we bow down and implore that we may never forget all we owe to Thee.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I,#KEYS
906:Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, "You owe me". Look what happens with a love like that; it lights the whole sky. ~ Hafez, #KEYS
907:Faith has to do with things that are not seen and hope with things that are not at hand. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #KEYS
908:I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine. ~ Emily Dickinson #KEYS
909:In the Bhagavata, it is said that the Incarnations of Vishnu or the Supreme Being are innumerable. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
910:It is true that God's power triumphs over everything, but humble and suffering prayer prevails over God Himself." ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
911:Let us help each other as friends that we may put a term to suffering. ~ Fo-shu-hing-tsan-king, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
912:Live as though only God and yourself were in this world, so that your heart may not be detained by anything human. ~ Saint John of the Cross, [T5], #KEYS
913:One must realize that he is not the doer, but that he is only a tool of some Higher Power. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
914:Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Thessalonians, V. 21, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
915:The end of our study consists merely in recovering our heart that we have lost. ~ id. VI. I.XI, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
916:The Master used to say that attainment of perfection means becoming gentle. Maintain your equanimity under all circumstances. ~ Swami Akhandananda, #KEYS
917:The Paramahamsa accepts only what is real, rejecting that which is unreal -- the phenomenal world. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
918:There is no realization of something. There is only the unrealization of you are not That. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
919:To excuse oneself for sin is a circumstance that aggravates every sin ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 2-2.13.3ad3)., #KEYS
920:Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness.
~ Kahlil Gibran,#KEYS
921:You are always in the Heart. You are never away from it in order that you should reach it. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
922:Among the thousands one can hardly find more than a hundred of them who are being saved, and even about that I am doubtful. ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #KEYS
923:By imagining that you are born as so-and-so, you become a slave to the so-and-so. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, #KEYS
924:Give me, divine mother, love that knows no incontinence and faith adamantine that cannot be shaken. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
925:It is the going inward that most helps to deliver the nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Anger and Violence, #KEYS
926:No language exists that cannot be misused... Every Interpretation is hypothetical, for it is a mere attempt to read an unfamiliar text. ~ Carl Jung, #KEYS
927:the hometown
that I abandoned
in late autumn
~ Ogawa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
928:The mind forms or accepts the theories that support the turn of the being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Faith, #KEYS
929:Thence you can see that it is in a clear knowledge that is found our eternal life. ~ Ruysbroeck, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
930:This is our special duty, that if anyone specially needs our help, we should give him such help to the utmost of our power. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, #KEYS
931:This is what the things can teach us: to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness. Even a bird has to do that before he can fly. ~ Rilke Rainer Maria, #KEYS
932:When everything goes wrong, one must know how to remember that God is all-powerful.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
933:All was a limitless sea that heaved to the moon. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Vision and the Boon, #KEYS
934:Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 46:10, [T5],#KEYS
935:Dive within. You are now aware that the mind rises up from within. So, sink within and seek. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
936:Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again. ~ Brecht, #KEYS
937:It is no use being in a rage against things, that makes no difference to them. ~ Marcus Aurelius, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
938:It is your own being which is permanent. Be the Self and that is bliss. You are always that. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
939:Know that you have already achieved liberation in this very birth. Why do you fear? In time the Master will do everything for you. ~ Sri Sarada Devi, #KEYS
940:Learn to forget that passionate music. It will end. True singing is a different breath. A breath of nothing. A gust within the god, a wind." ~ Rilke, #KEYS
941:My God, if my tongue cannot say in every moment that I love You, I want my heart to repeat it to You as often as I draw breath. ~ Saint John Vianney, #KEYS
942:One finds everywhere that the poor outnumber the rich ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Commentary on Politics, lesson 6)., #KEYS
943:One should maintain the vigour of the body in order to preserve that of the mind. ~ Vanvenargues, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
944:Self is the one reality that always exists and it is by its light all other things are seen. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
945:That which is perfect is called Perfection. Never forget the Truth underlying all phenomena. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
946:The divine law was given chiefly for this reason: that man might embrace God ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ScG 3.121)., #KEYS
947:The noblest deed is that a person should be benevolent towards his father's friends. ~ Hadith, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
948:There are people less qualified than you, doing the things that you want to do, simply because they decided to believe in themselves." ~ Bill Purkey, #KEYS
949:There is nothing however small, however vile it be, that does not contain mind. ~ Giordano Bruno, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
950:The relationship you take for granted is the one that needs the greatest work." ~ George Alexiou, author of "At the Edge of Infinity." 2008, et. al., #KEYS
951:The song that nerves the nation's heart is in itself a deed. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Bande Mataram - I, The Writing on the Wall, #KEYS
952: Thou shalt not kill " relates not solely to the murder of man, but of all that lives. ~ Tolstoi, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
953:To enquire 'Who am I that am in bondage?' and to know one's real nature is alone Liberation. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
954:Unity is sweet substance of the heart
And not a chain that binds. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Plays and Stories, Act I,#KEYS
955:Unto the pure all things are pure, but unto them that are defiled nothing is pure. ~ Titus I. 15, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
956:We find in others what is in us. If we always find mud around us, it proves that there is mud somewhere in us. ~ The Mother, #KEYS
957:When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say. ~ George R R Martin, #KEYS
958:A lonely day is God's way of saying that He wants to spend some quality time with you." ~ Jami, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
959:Gratitude: A humble recognition of all that the Divine has done and is doing for you.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
960:However much fighting there is in the world, however much darkness there is, we must be able to serve as small lamps in that darkness. ~ 17th Karmapa, #KEYS
961:If I can just open up to that and really feel that, what if no one else would ever have to feel this negative state if I fully feel it?
~ Paul Levy,#KEYS
962:It is by the thought that we dissipate ourselves in the phenomenal. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Concentration, #KEYS
963:It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.
~ Gabriel García Marquez,#KEYS
964:It is only when a man tames his own demons that he becomes the king of himself if not of the world. ~ Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, #KEYS
965:It is the seeing mind that is the master of poetic utterance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, The Word and the Spirit, #KEYS
966:It is when one mixes up sex and spirituality that there is the greatest havoc. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Sex, #KEYS
967:Nothing is hated except by being contrary to a suitable thing that is loved ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1-2.29.2)., #KEYS
968:One must have the inner conviction that whatever happens in this world happens by His will. Success and failure come by His will. ~ Swami Turiyananda, #KEYS
969:Read a lot. Expect something big, something exalting or deepening from a book. No book is worth reading that isn't worth re-reading.
~ Susan Sontag,#KEYS
970:The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution that has to start with each one of us. ~ Dorothy Day, #KEYS
971:The most advanced technology and the most valuable asset that you will ever own is your mind. You will not find anything greater. ~ Chamtrul Rinpoche, #KEYS
972:The true State is that which shines all over, as space includes and extends beyond the flame. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
973:Whatever being shows wide powers, or majesty or vigour, be sure that in every case that is sprung from a fraction of my glory. ~ Bhagavad Gita, 10, 41 #KEYS
974:When you have eliminated all that is impossible, whatever remains must be the truth, no matter how improbably. - Sherlock Holmes ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, #KEYS
975:Yet some there be that by due steps aspire
To lay their just hands on that golden key
That opes the palace of eternity. ~ John Milton, Comus,#KEYS
976:All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. ~ Matthew VII. 12, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
977:Although the whole of Scripture breathes God's grace upon us, this is especially true of that delightful book, the book of the psalms. ~ Saint Ambrose, #KEYS
978:A mind that is fast is sick. A mind that is slow is sound. A mind that is still is divine. ~ Meher Baba, quoted by Eknath Easwaran in Words to Live By, #KEYS
979:Human feeling is like the mighty rivers that bless the earth: it does not wait for beauty ~ it flows with resistless force and brings beauty with it. , #KEYS
980:If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. ~ Rene Descartes, #KEYS
981:I have said that the modern man, and especially the modern American, however much 'know-how' he may have, has very little 'know-what' ~ Norbert Wiener, #KEYS
982:Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #KEYS
983:In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 14:2, #KEYS
984:It is in the moments when the mind is most active and the fewest things are forgotten that the most intense joys are experienced.
~ Bertrand Russell,#KEYS
985:Know that all this is so, but habituate thyself to surmount and conquer thy passions. ~ Pythagoras, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
986:Love is the only flower that grows and blossoms without the aid of the seasons. ~ Khalil Gibran, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
987:Maya makes people so utterly blind that they cannot get out of her meshes even when the way lies open. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
988:Pain is the key that opens the gates of strength; it is the high-road that leads to the city of beatitude. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #KEYS
989:Passion requires focused direction, and that direction must come from three other areas: your purpose, your talents, and your needs.
~ Steve Pavlina,#KEYS
990:Take chances - make mistakes. That's how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave." ~ Mary Tyler Moore, #KEYS
991:The one thing that man sees above the intellect is the spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, The Power of the Spirit, #KEYS
992:The Self alone is the world, the I and God. All that exists is a manifestation of the Supreme. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
993:The world is a great book, of which they that never stir from home read only a page. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
994:We are all closer to the abyss than we would wish to admit. But is fortunate that we have an insight into the fact that we are the abyss ~ Jean Gebser, #KEYS
995:A billion stars go spinning through the night, glittering above your head, but in you is the presence that will be when all the stars are dead. ~ Rilke, #KEYS
996:A mortal sin is one that is contrary to charity, which gives life to the soul ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 2-2.59.4)., #KEYS
997:An atom of love is to be preferred to all that exists between the two horizons. ~ Attar of Nishapur, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
998:At the foundation of every life is one central desire: to make a difference that you lived." ~ Ron Smothermon "Winning Through Enlightenment,", (1980)., #KEYS
999:But how can that be manifested to thy eyes if what is within thee is to thyself invisible? ~ Hermes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1000:By acquiring the conviction that all is done by the will of God, one becomes only a tool in God's hand. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1001:Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for." ~ Epicurus, #KEYS
1002:Dreams that are hints of unborn Reality, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Entry into the Inner Countries, #KEYS
1003:Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another 'What! You too? I thought that no one but myself' . . .
~ C S Lewis, The Four Loves,#KEYS
1004:God is identical with His attributes, so that it may be said that He is the knowledge, the knower, and the known. ~ Maimonides, #KEYS
1005:How difficult it is to find a good name for a function is a good indication of how clear a concept it is that
~ Marijn Haverbeke, Eloquent Javascript,#KEYS
1006:If you have a faith in something that cannot be proved, you must believe in everyone's else's faiths." ~ Jack Gardner, "Words are not things,", (2005)., #KEYS
1007:In the heart-lotus which is of the nature of all the light of that self in the form 'I' shines. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1008:Meditation must be so intense that it does not give room even to the thought 'I am meditating'. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1009:Perfect bliss is Brahman. Perfect peace is of the Self. That alone exists and is consciousness. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1010:Technical knowledge is not enough. One must transcend techniques so that the art becomes an artless art, growing out of the unconscious." ~ D.T. Suzuki, #KEYS
1011:Teishin :::
"When, when?" I sighed.
The one I longed for
Has finally come;
With her now,
I have all that I need. ~ Taigu Ryokan, [T5],#KEYS
1012:That Godhead's seed might flower in mindless Space.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Secret Knowledge,#KEYS
1013:The conception that there is a goal and a path to it is wrong. We are the goal or peace always. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1014:The destruction of things is their return to the cause that has produced them. ~ Sankhya Pravachana, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1015:The proof of spiritual maturity is not how pure you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace.
~ Phillip Yancey,#KEYS
1016:Wisdom is a thing vast and grand. She demands all the time that one can consecrate to her. ~ Seneca, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1017:Your business is to find the real nature of the mind. Then you will know that there is no mind. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1018:Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. ~ Anaïs Nin, #KEYS
1019:holy
tears that stain
fallen leaves
~ Matsuo Basho, @BashoSociety#KEYS
1020:Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out ~ Vaclav Havel, #KEYS
1021:If one learns all by oneself, the chances are that one will learn all wrong. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Guru, #KEYS
1022:Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 John, II. 15, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1023:Realize that you must lead a dying life; the more a man dies to himself, the more he begins to live unto God. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
1024:That which is not cannot come to being and that which is cannot cease to be. ~ Bhagavad Gita. II. 16, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1025:There is no greater bliss than that of being like a new born child in front of the Divine.
With my blessings ~ The Mother,#KEYS
1026:There is no greater courage than that of recognising ones own mistakes With my blessings
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
1027:The way of life is above to the wise that he may depart from hell which is beneath. ~ Proverbs XV 24, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1028:To work only in the material sense is to increase the load that is crushing us. ~ Antoine the Healer, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1029:We imagine that we will realize that Self some time, whereas we are never anything but the Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1030:What you are must always displease you, if you would attain to that which you are not. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
1031:You are looking for God with his eyes. This truth is so simple, shocking and radical that it is easy to miss among one's flurry of seeking. ~ Adyashanti, #KEYS
1032:After visiting a holy spot or place, you must take hold of the holy thoughts that rise in the mind there. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1033:Continue to plant a kiss of concern on the cheek of the sick and the aged and infirm and count that actions as natural and to be expected. ~ Maya Angelou, #KEYS
1034:Cultivate the intelligence so that you may drink of the torrent of certitude. ~ Baha-ullah, "Tablets", the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1035:Everything that befalls us, even illness and death, should seem as familiar to you as the sight of roses in spring or fruits in autumn. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #KEYS
1036:Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. ~ Vaclav Havel, #KEYS
1037:I am not the body. I am one with the universal soul. I am that being which is absolute and unconditioned. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1038:Remember to keep in mind that all the past is nothing and that every day we should say with David, "Now I begin to love my God." ~ Saint Francis de Sales, #KEYS
1039:The only power is in realization, and that lies in ourselves and comes from thinking. ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. II. 336), #KEYS
1040:Thousands of years before the Christian era, the Tibetans knew that an atom was a solar system [...] ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics, #KEYS
1041:To lament that we shall not be alive a hundred years hence, is the same folly as to be sorry we were not alive a hundred years ago. ~ Michel de Montaigne, #KEYS
1042:When the spark of truth is discovered in the spirit, all is taught to it that it needs. ~ Ruysbro-eok, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1043:Wherever I live, I see that I am in Ayodhya, the kingdom of Rama. Yes, this world is the Ayodhya of Rama! ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1044:Aid each other in practising that which is good, but aid not each other in evil and injustice. ~ Koran, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1045:A red rose absorbs all colors but red; red is therefore the one color that it is not." ~ Aleister Crowley, The Book of Lies, #KEYS
1046:Imagination is the Discovering Faculty, pre-eminently. It is that which penetrates into the unseen worlds around us, the worlds of Science. ~ Ada Lovelace, #KEYS
1047:It is never in vain that an ardent and sincere prayer is addressed to the Divine's Grace.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III,#KEYS
1048:It is only through consciousness that we can approach Being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Knowledge and the Ignorance, #KEYS
1049:Joy that throbs behind
The marvel and the mystery of pain. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Word of Fate,#KEYS
1050:Labour not for the food which perishes but for that which endures into everlasting life. ~ John VI. 27, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1051:Likewise whoever is appointed watchman to a people should live a life on the heights so that he can help them by taking a wide survey. ~ Gregory the Great, #KEYS
1052:Prayer is not verbal. It is from the heart. To merge into the Heart is prayer. That is also Grace. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1053:Recoil from the sun into the shadow that there may be more place for others. ~ Book of Golden Precepts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1054:Remember that people are only guests in your story - the same way you are only a guest in theirs - so make the chapters worth reading.
~ Lauren Klarfeld,#KEYS
1055:The Lord is there, not only in that self, but in Nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Fullness of Spiritual Action, #KEYS
1056:The only calibration that count is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated." ~ Ted Hughes, #KEYS
1057:The things I carry are my thoughts. That's it. They are the only weight. My thoughts determine whether I am free and light, or burdened." ~ Kamal Ravikant, #KEYS
1058:The true and earnest aspirant travels from place to place in search of that watchword from a perfect Guru. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1059:To perceive means to immobilize. To say this is to say that we seize, in the act of perception, something which outruns perception itself. ~ Henri Bergson, #KEYS
1060:When we give up regarding the unreal as real, then Reality alone will remain and we shall be That. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1061:You can say that the Supermind is harder than diamond and yet more fluid than gas.
~ A B Purani, Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo by A B Purani, p. 478.,#KEYS
1062:You know, when real trouble comes your humanity is awakened. The fundamental human experience is that of compassion. ~ Joseph Campbell, The Hero's Journey, #KEYS
1063:All that is has already existed, but will not remain in the form in which we see it today. ~ Baha-ullah, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1064:And the third is CLARITY so that things with bright colors are said to be beautiful ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1.39.8)., #KEYS
1065:I never knew a sorrow that an hour of reading could not assuage, a great man had once said. Let's put it to the test. ~ Anna Gavalda, Hunting and Gathering, #KEYS
1066:It is by gentleness that one must conquer wrath, it is by good that one must conquer evil. ~ Dhammapada, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1067:It is the ideal that has made us what we are, and will make us what we are going to be. ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. IV. 285), #KEYS
1068:It is true that God dwells even in the most wicked, but it is not meant that we should associate with them. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1069:Know certainly that the world is God's and not yours; you are His servant only, come to carry out His Will. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1070:Lost in these imaginary illusions I forgot my destiny - that of the hunted.~ Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden Of Forking Paths, #KEYS
1071:Necessity fashions
All that the unseen eye has beheld. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion,#KEYS
1072:Observe thyself, not that which is thine, nor that which is around thee, but thyself alone. ~ St. Basil, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1073: #KEYS
1074:Self-conscious existence is the essential nature of the Being; that is Sat or Purusha.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
1075:There is only one Self. That Self is always aware. It is changeless. There is nothing but the Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1076:The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea. The sea turned to blood like that from a corpse; every creature living in the sea died." ~ Revelation 16:3, #KEYS
1077:The Three Thousand Worlds
that step forward
with the light snow,
and the light snow that falls
in those Three Thousand Worlds ~ Taigu Ryokan,#KEYS
1078:This ultimate end of man is called that human good: happiness ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Commentary on Ethics 1, lect. 9)., #KEYS
1079:What happens when you become enlightened is that you 'wake up' in the dream of life." ~ From Ron Smothermon, M.D. "Winning Through Enlightenment,", (1980)., #KEYS
1080:You do not have to struggle to reach God, but you do have to struggle to tear away the self-created veil that hides God from you.
~ Paramahansa Yogananda,#KEYS
1081:Admire the diamond that can bear the hits of a hammer. Many deceptive preachers, when critically examined, turn out to be false. ~ Kabir, #KEYS
1082:Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
~ Edgar Allan Poe,#KEYS
1083:Do not listen if one criticises or blames thy Master, leave his presence that very moment. ~ Ramakrishna, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1084:Even when you cannot aspire actively, keep yourself turned to the Mother for the help to come—that is the one thing to do always. ~ Sri Aurobindo, TMWLOTM, #KEYS
1085:It is on the blindness of ignorance that is founded the working which affirms the ego. ~ Sanyutta Nikaya, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1086:It is wise to listen, not to me but to the Word, and to confess that all things are one. ~ Heraclitus, On the Universe,1 fragment 1, #KEYS
1087:Many who have learned from Hesiod the countless names of gods and monsters never understand that night and day are one ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
1088:One should have faith like that of an innocent child and the longing of a child who wants to see its mother. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1089:realize that He wants to open for you to the door of intimacy with Him." ~ Ibn Ata'illah al-Sakandari, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
1090:That which you give to another will become your own sustenance; if you light a lamp for another, your own way will be lit. ~ Nichiren, #KEYS
1091:The cemetery of the victims of human cruelty in our century is extended to include yet another vast cemetery, that of the unborn." ~ Saint Pope John Paul II, #KEYS
1092:The entire spiritual life consists in this: that we gradually turn from those things whose appearance is deceptive, to those things that are real. ~ Erasmus, #KEYS
1093:The real individuality is that which never changes and will never change; and that is the God within us. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
1094:There is no beast on the earth, no bird flying on its wings that do not form a community like us ~ Koran, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1095:This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 1 1:5, #KEYS
1096:To be FALSE, to say of what is not, that it is, or of what is, that it is not ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (In I PH lect. 11)., #KEYS
1097:Wilt thou that thy heart should be free from sorrow ? Forget not the hearts that sorrow devours. ~ Saadi, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1098:A witch ought never be frightened in the darkest forest, because she should be sure that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.
~ Terry Pratchett,#KEYS
1099:Enquiring within "Who is the seer?" I saw the seer disappearing and That alone which stands for ever. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1100:God is pouring out his wrath upon the nations that acknowledge him not, upon the kingdoms that call not upon his name. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Psalms, 78:3-4, #KEYS
1101:He alone is clever who sees that God is real and all else is illusory. What need have I of other information? ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1102:If you look into the subatomic realm, you discover that our world consists of spiritual structures of incredible beauty. ~ Werner Karl Heisenberg (1901-1976), #KEYS
1103:In all action there is an imperative of existence that seeks to be fulfilled. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Gnostic Being, #KEYS
1104:irises
is where
that rainbow began
~ Kobayashi Issa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
1105:It is when one feels like a blind man that one begins to be ready for the illumination.
~ The Mother, Some Answers From The Mother,#KEYS
1106:Ravenous waves that march
With blue fierce nostrils quivering for prey, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Plays and Stories, Prologue,#KEYS
1107:Self Realization is not however a state which has to be reached by you. You are always in that state. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1108:That Intelligence is God within us; by that men are gods and their humanity neighbours divinity. ~ Hermes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1109:That is why I have summoned you all to enter into the intimacy of my Heart in order to work this veritable transformation in you." ~ Our Lady how this thread, #KEYS
1110:The gift of mental power comes from God, Divine Being, and if we concentrate our minds on that truth, we become in tune with this great power. ~ Nikola Tesla, #KEYS
1111:[What is the main reason that humans are not making more spiritual progress?] "The sense of beauty is being sacrificed to commercialism…" ~ Hazrat Inayat K, #KEYS
1112:Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. ~ Luke XIV. 11, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1113:You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children. ~ Madeleine L'Engle, #KEYS
1114:A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. This every sister of the Bene Gesserit knows. ~ Frank Herbert in Dune, #KEYS
1115:A Calm that cradles Fate upon its knees. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Universal Incarnation, #KEYS
1116:All that man has to do is to take care of three things; good thought, good word, good deed. ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. I. 492), #KEYS
1117:All that we internally are is not ego, but consciousness, soul or spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, #KEYS
1118:As righteousness tendeth to life, so he that pursueth evil, pursueth it to his own death. ~ Proverbs XI.19, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1119:Contraries harmonise with each other; the finest harmony springs from things that are unlike. ~ Heraclitus, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1120:Don't think you can frighten me by telling me that I am alone. France is alone. God is alone. And the loneliness of God is His strength. ~ George Bernard Shaw, #KEYS
1121:For it is in giving that we receive, It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
~ Saint Francis of Assisi,#KEYS
1122:He that followeth after righteousness and mercy, findeth life, righteousness and honour ~ preverbs XXI. 21, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1123:If one reads Sri Aurobindo carefully one finds the answers to all that one wants to know.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I, [T5],#KEYS
1124:In that God who illumines the reason, desiring liberation I seek my refuge. ~ Swetaswatara Upanishad VI.18, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1125:Men die that man may live and God be born. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain, #KEYS
1126:Mental knowledge is not true knowledge; true knowledge is that which is based on the true sight, the sight of the Seer, of Surya, of the Kavi. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #KEYS
1127:On the other hand, the virtue that God asks of us is the use of the same powers based on a good conscience in accordance with God's command. ~ Basil the Great, #KEYS
1128:Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, V. 7, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1129:That is the bright Light of all lights which they know who know themselves. ~ Brihadaranyaka Upanishad I.4, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1130:The fact that the captain of the ship can clearly see the port is of no use if the crew continues to paddle in different directions.
~ Townsend and Gebhardt,#KEYS
1131:The free choice of an angel occupies a middle ground between that of God and that of man ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (DV 24.3)., #KEYS
1132:The malady of the world is that the individual cannot find his real soul. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Double Soul in Man, #KEYS
1133:We must not only see God and embrace Him, but become that Reality. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge, #KEYS
1134:All depends upon the choice of the force that you allow to make use of you as its instrument. And the choice has to be made at every moment of your life.
~ ?,#KEYS
1135:But let perseverance have her perfect work that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. ~ James I. 4, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1136:For knowing That which Is, there is no other knower. Hence Being is Awareness and we are all Awareness. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1137:from my hand
she took a piece of fruit
knowing that our time was not forever
~ Saiko, @BashoSociety#KEYS
1138:Inquiring into the nature of one's self that is in bondage, and realizing one's true nature is release. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1139:It is in the transparency of faith and knowledge, and not with their aid, that the sphere of Being becomes perceptible in its entire diaphaneity. ~ Jean Gebser, #KEYS
1140:It is not what happens to us, but how we interpret what happens to us, that becomes the basis of our convictions. ~ Manly P Hall, Horizon Fall-Winter 1944 p.66, #KEYS
1141:It would be better not to have books than to believe all that is found in them. ~ Meng Tse. VII. II. III. 1, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1142:Melt thy soul in the fire of love and thou wilt know that love is the alchemist of the soul. ~ Ahm-ed Halif, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1143:One who thinks that his spiritual guide is merely a man, can draw no profit from his contact. ~ Ramakrishna, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1144:The Grace, the Grace alone can act. That alone can open the way, that alone can do the miracle.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
1145:The prayer of faith is the only kind that is real prayer, and it is trust in God with full acknowledgment of God's power and love. ~ Archibald Thomas Robertson, #KEYS
1146:There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. ~ Proverbs XIV. 12, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1147:The Word that ushers divine experience ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The House of the Spirit and the New Creation, #KEYS
1148:To make hardship less severe is to face it with strength. That is man's life. Man wants to conquer and God has given the power for it. ~ SWAMI TRIGUNATITANANDA, #KEYS
1149:Whenever you are alone, remind yourself that God has sent everyone else away so that there is only you and Him. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
1150:With Bhakti in your heart, it is not necessary that you must visit the holy places. You are well where you are. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1151:Alone. Yes, that's the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym.
~ Stephen King,#KEYS
1152:Are we then so insensate as to forget that we are members one of the other? ~ St. Clement to the Corinthians, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1153:Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living.
~ Albert Einstein, Einstein and the Poet,#KEYS
1154:Do no harm to an ant that is carrying its grain of corn, for has a life and sweet life is a good. ~ Firdausi, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1155:Don't spend your energies on things that generate worry, anxiety and anguish. Only one thing is necessary: Lift up your spirit, and love God." ~ Saint Padre Pio, #KEYS
1156:It is the mind that turns concrete realities into abstractions. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III, Experiences and Realisations, #KEYS
1157:Partial surrender is certainly possible for all. In course of time that will lead to complete surrender. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1158:Remember God so much that you are forgotten. Let the caller and the called disappear; be lost in the Call. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, [T5], #KEYS
1159:Seek out swiftly the way of righteousness; turn without delay from that which defiles thee. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1160:The only saint is that soul that never weakens, faces everything, and determines to die game. ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. I. 479), #KEYS
1161:There is no such thing as a bad mind. There is only a mind that is untrained, or trained. Every being has the same potential, including you. ~ Chamtrul Rinpoche, #KEYS
1162:There is no such thing as enlightenment. The realization of that fact is itself enlightenment. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, #KEYS
1163:The sole timeless Word
That carries eternity in its lonely sound, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The World-Stair,#KEYS
1164:We are the goal or peace always. To get rid of the notion that we are not peace is all that is required. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1165:We search for everything we believe we don't have, not knowing that everything we're looking for is already inside us. We are born with it." ~ Miguel Angel Ruiz, #KEYS
1166:When I think of the lotus feet of the Lord, I forget myself so completely that unconsciously my cloth falls off. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1167:Who is the 'I' that is to help others? First clear up that point and then everything will settle itself. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1168:Blessed indeed are the ears that listen, not to the voice which sounds without, but to the truth which teaches within. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
1169:By knowing for an absolute fact that he does not live but is being lived, the man of wisdom is aware of the perfect futility of all intentions. ~ Ramesh Balsekar, #KEYS
1170:Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic. ~ Frank Herbert, #KEYS
1171:Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong. ~ Terry Pratchett, #KEYS
1172:Good is our nature, perfection is our nature, not imperfection, not impurity — and we should remember that. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
1173:Have faith, and realize that everything is He, and He is everything. There is nothing without Him. He has created everything out of Himself. ~ Swami Akhandananda, #KEYS
1174:He bids us follow his example: Seek the things that are above, he says, which is only another way of saying: "Keep your eyes on Christ." ~ Saint Gregory of Nyssa, #KEYS
1175:If one ponders over the word "I", trying to track it down, one sees that it is only a word which demotes egotism. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1176:It is only the Grace that can bring the real supramental change. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, The Supramental Transformation, #KEYS
1177:It is the tears, the blood
Prodigally spent that build a nation's greatness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Plays and Stories, Act III,#KEYS
1178:It was by love that beings were created and it is commanded to them to live in love and harmony. ~ Baha-ullah, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1179:Knowest thou not that thy life, whether long or brief, consists only of a few breathings? ~ Attar of Nishapur, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1180:Let him destroy by deep meditation the qualities that are opposed to the divine nature. ~ Laws of Manu VI. 72, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1181:Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that ye should obey it in the lusts there of. ~ Romans VI. 12, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1182:Man is all Imagination. God is Man and exists in us and we in Him... The Eternal Body of Man is the Imagination, that is, God, Himself
~ William Blake, Laocoon,#KEYS
1183:O friend, I hope this road we are traveling goes by the wine house, for we're thirsty and needing a drink that lies behind that door. ~ Hafiz, #KEYS
1184:The most common sort of lie is that by which a man deceives himself: the deception of others is a relatively rare offense. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, #KEYS
1185:The Mother showed me that all this is verily maya. She alone is, real, and all else is the splendour of Her maya. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1186:Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there.
~ Robert Heinlein, JOB: A Comedy of Justice, (1984).,#KEYS
1187:There is no body without soul, no body that is not itself a form of soul. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Philosophy of Rebirth, #KEYS
1188:There is no quality higher than forbearance. With a firm determination, endure all that is said or done by others ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1189:There is nothing in the world that man's intelligence cannot attain, annihilate or accomplish. ~ Hindu Saying, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1190:The saint does not seek to do great things; that is why he is able to accomplish them. ~ Lao-Tse: Tao-te-King, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1191:The world is but a dream that passes and neither happiness nor sorrow are enduring. ~ Firdausi; "Shah-Namah.", the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1192:Thou whom all respect, impoverish thyself that thou mayst enter the abode of the supreme riches. ~ Baha-ullah, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1193:When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity. ~ Albert Einstein, #KEYS
1194:Yes, my child, it is quite true that the Divine is the sole refuge - with Him is absolute safety.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
1195:Yoga means 'yoke', 'to join', that is, to join the soul of man with the supreme Soul or God. ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. VIII. 36), #KEYS
1196:'AHAM' is the first name of God. The word ['Aham'] means that which exists, Self-shining and Self-evident. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1197:All that denies must be torn out and slain
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Adoration of the Divine Mother, [T5],#KEYS
1198:Amateurs believe that the world should work the way they want it to. Professionals realize that they have to work with the world as they find it." ~ Shane Parrish, #KEYS
1199:And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence
~ Bertrand Russell,#KEYS
1200:And she was his messiah like that stranger may be yours. Who holds a subtle knife that carves through worlds like magic doors
~ Saul Williams, Talk to Strangers,#KEYS
1201:a path
that no one travels
an autumn departure
~ Matsuo Basho, @BashoSociety#KEYS
1202:As He Himself says: "I have come that they may have life and may have it more abundantly" ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (John 10:10)., #KEYS
1203:Bhakti can arise only when there is a wholehearted devotion to God, such as that of a chaste wife for her husband. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1204:But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Genesis, 2:17, #KEYS
1205:Concern yourself with that which kills your ego and brings life to your heart. ~ Mawlay Al Arabi Al Darqawi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
1206:Cosmos cannot be governed by a Power that does not transcend cosmos. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Supreme Word of the Gita, #KEYS
1207:Does the world say that it exists? It is you who say that there is a world. Find out the Self who says it. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1208:Do what nature requires at this moment. Start straight away, if that is in your power: don't look over your shoulder to see if people will know. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #KEYS
1209:Man demands miracles that he may have faith; he wishes to be dazzled in order that he may see
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
1210:Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Luke, 10:20, #KEYS
1211:Self-enquiry is the one infallible means to realize the unconditioned, absolute being that you really are. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1212:so that my feeling of devotion overflowed, and the tears ran from eyes, and I was happy in them. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
1213:To retire from the world, that is to retire into oneself, is to aid in the dispersion of all doubts. ~ Tolstoi, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1214:We always find that those who walked closest to Christ were those who had to bear the greatest trials. ~ Saint Teresa of Avila, #KEYS
1215:We humans appear on the cosmic calendar so recently that our recorded history occupies only the last few seconds of the last minute of December 31st. ~ Carl Sagan, #KEYS
1216:We should know that remembrance of Him when we inhale the air purifies our inner being and remembrance during exhalation sanctifies our body. ~ Swami Vijnanananda, #KEYS
1217:Whatever work you do, do it as perfectly as you can. That is the best service to the Divine in man
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
1218:When you see the Seer himself [herself], you merge in the Self, you become one with it; that is the heart. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1219:Yes, this is the true love, which is a force; it is the union that enables new possibilities to be realised... ~ The Mother, On Education, #KEYS
1220:a path
that no one travels
an autumn departure
~ Matsuo Basho, @BashoSociety#KEYS
1221:Consciousness can never be understood in relative terms. Therefore, there is nothing to be 'done' about it. All is Consciousness and we are That. ~ Ramesh Balsekar, #KEYS
1222:For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Romans, 8:18,#KEYS
1223:He who has the spirit of devotion in him receives an awakening in holy places, and that spirit becomes intensified. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1224:He who thinks that he is a Jiva is a Jiva; he who considers himself God becomes God. As one thinks, so one becomes. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1225:I have preferred wisdom to kingdoms and thrones and I have believed that riches are nothing before wisdom, for she is an endless treasure for men. ~ Book of Wisdom, #KEYS
1226:It is not today nor tomorrow; who knoweth That which is Supreme? When It is approached, It vanishes. ~ Rig Veda, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1227:I will show thee, hear me; and that which I have seen I will declare, which wise men have told: ~ Job XV. 17.18, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1228:Let us love the cross very much, for it is there that we discover our life, our true love, and our strength in our greatest difficulties." ~ Saint Maria de Mattias, #KEYS
1229:Nations that conquer widest, perish first, Sapped by the hate of an uneasy world. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Plays and Stories, Act III, #KEYS
1230:One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life and dedicate ourselves to that. ~ Joseph Campbell, #KEYS
1231:so too is the grace of MIRACLES necessary that people may be confirmed in their faith ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 2-2.178.1ad5)., #KEYS
1232:That first task of the Magician in every ceremony is therefore to render his Circle absolutely impregnable. ~ Aleister Crowley, [T5], #KEYS
1233:That knowledge which purifies the mind and heart alone is true Knowledge, all else is only a negation of Knowledge. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1234:The ONE only is the Sat, the existence, that appears as the world, the things that we see and we ourselves. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1235:There is no reaching the Self. If Self were to be reached, it would mean that the Self is not here and now. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1236:The sins that we do against men come because each one does not respect the Divine Spirit in his like. ~ Tolstoy, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1237:Where you stand, where you are, that's what your life is right there, regardless of how painful it is, or how enjoyable it is. That's what it is." ~ Taizan Maezumi, #KEYS
1238:Wouldst thou abstain from action? It is not so that thy soul shall obtain liberation. ~ Book of Golden Precepts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1239:Awake, arise; strive incessantly towards the knowledge so that thou mayst attain unto the peace. ~ Buddhist Text, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1240:Embracing Him, accepting Him, wedding Him, become one with Him, to such a degree and so intensely that there may be left no trace of separation. ~ SWAMI RAMA TIRTHA, #KEYS
1241:He who follows the steep path that climbs the heights can easily slip down into the abyss.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, The Path,#KEYS
1242:Human feeling is like the mighty rivers that bless the earth: it does not wait for beauty ~ it flows with resistless force and brings beauty with it. ~ George Eliot, #KEYS
1243:In the interior of each atom that thou shalt cleave thou shalt find imprisoned a sun. ~ Ahmed Halif: Mystic Odes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1244:It is forces that effect great political changes, not moral sentiments or vague generosities. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Karmayogin, The Elections, #KEYS
1245:Know that the World of Unity lies in the other direction from the senses. If you want Oneness, go in that direction! ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
1246:Long live the feet that are the being-consciousness-bliss of him who does not stir as all else whirls about. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1247:Our tradition tells us that God does not need the material offerings humans can give him, since he himself is the one who provides everything. ~ Saint Justin Martyr, #KEYS
1248:The important thing is not to think much but to love much; and so do that which best stirs you to love." ~ Saint Teresa of Avila, #KEYS
1249:The peak of empathogens can be characterised as earthly paradise in comparison to the heavenly paradise of LSD and hallucinogens of that category. ~ Claudio Naranjo, #KEYS
1250:We stop the one who can't cease from seeking things outside, and practice with our bodies with a posture that seeks absolutely nothing. This is zazen. ~ Kodo Sawaki, #KEYS
1251:When I am blessed, Lord Rama, with Tattva-Jnana, true knowledge -- I see, I realize that "I am Thou and Thou art I." ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1252:A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein, #KEYS
1253:Balance is the perfect state of still water. Let that be our model. It remains quiet within and is not disturbed on the surface." ~ Confucius, #KEYS
1254:Everything that is made beautiful, fair and lovely is made for the eye of the one who sees." ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
1255:God is love, and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God and God in him. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 John, IV. 16, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1256:If by realizing God, a man receives a commission and preaches God for the good of others -- there is no harm in that. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1257:Innocence has a single voice that can only say over and over again, I didn't do it. Guilt has a thousand voices, all of them lies. ~ Leonard Peltier, Prison Writings, #KEYS
1258:It is not what you do but the spirit in which you do it that is important for the integral Yoga.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I, [T5],#KEYS
1259:It is on the Silence behind the cosmos that all the movement of the universe is supported. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Silence, #KEYS
1260:It is the spirit within and not the mind without that is the fount of poetry. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, New Birth or Decadence?, #KEYS
1261:It was right that she who had given her Creator, as a child, a place at her breast should be given a place in the dwelling-place of her God. ~ Saint John of Damascus, #KEYS
1262:One should have faith like that of an innocent child and such longing as a child has when it wants to see its mother. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1263:Remember that it is not feeling of guilt that constitutes sin but the consent to sin. Only the free will is capable of good or evil. ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
1264:Servitude is that you be His slave every instant, just as He is your Lord every instant. " ~ Dhul-Nun Al-Misri, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
1265:That which we call ourselves is only a trembling ray on the surface. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Delight of Existence, The Solution, #KEYS
1266:The essence of vice is that it consists in failing to do what is in accordance with reason ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 2-2.135.1)., #KEYS
1267:The giving up is the final step. But the real giving up is in realizing that there is nothing to give up, for nothing is your own. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj Maharaj, #KEYS
1268:There are a thousand and one things called Atman. The search for Atman is to know that which is really Atman. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1269:Those who think that Aristotle disagrees with Plato disagree with me, who make a concordant philosophy of both. ~ Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola, On Being and the One, #KEYS
1270:All that is required is to cease regarding as real that which is unreal. That is all we need to attain wisdom. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1271:As you turn the direction of the wicked mind, that mind itself will be able to grasp the Chosen Deity. It is the pure mind which shows man the path. ~ Sri Sarada Devi, #KEYS
1272:Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
~ Viktor Frankl,#KEYS
1273:Be what you are. All that is needful is to lose the ego, That what is, is always there. Even now you are That. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1274:Brahman is like an infinite expanse of water. The parts that are frozen are the spirit in personal forms of the deity. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1275:Did something disappoint you?
Did something sadden you?
The school of life wanted to teach you
an important lesson through that experience. ~ Haemin Sunim,#KEYS
1276:For instance, that a white-man happens to be a builder is only an accidental cause of the house ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ScG 3.14)., #KEYS
1277:For what is our life! It is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away. ~ James.IV. 14, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1278:He that hath no rule over his own spirit, is like a city that is broken down and without walls. ~ Proverbs XXV. 28, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1279:I believe deeply that children are more powerful than oil, more beautiful than rivers, more precious than any other natural resource a country can have." ~ Danny Kaye, #KEYS
1280:I do not believe that any name, however complex, is sufficient to designate the principle of all Majesty. ~ Hermes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1281:If it be true that the Self alone exists, it must be also true that all is the Self. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Reality Omnipresent, #KEYS
1282:If one turns inward in search of that One Reality they fall away. Those who see this are those who see wisdom. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1283:If the earnest seeker would cultivate the constant and deep remembrance of the Self, that alone would suffice. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1284:If the longing is there, realization will be forced on you even if you do not want it. Long for it intensely so that the mind melts in devotion. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1285:If you desire only the Divine, there is an absolute certitude that you will reach the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Faith, #KEYS
1286:It is the resurgence of the barbarian in ourselves, in civilised man, that is the peril. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine Life, #KEYS
1287:It matters not that you have been walking along a wrong path. The Lord knows what he wants and in the end fulfills it. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1288:It's time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #KEYS
1289:Look, I am standing at the door, knocking. If one of you hears me calling and opens the door, I will come in to share a meal at that person's side." ~ Revelation 3:20, #KEYS
1290:Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you." ~ Wayne Dyer, #KEYS
1291:Man his passion prefers to the voice that guides from the immortals. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion, #KEYS
1292:Once the seed of faith takes root, it cannot be blown away, even by the strongest wind. Now that's a blessing.
~ Jalaluddin Rumi, [T5],#KEYS
1293:The enemy tried to uproot me (destroy me), unaware of the fact that God is always on my side. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
1294:The genius of Japan lies in imitation and improvement, that of India in origination. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Bande Mataram - II, The Asiatic Role, #KEYS
1295:There are very few pundits that have realized the things they talk about. They are dry and hard, and good for nothing. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1296:There never was a struggle or a battle that required greater valor than that in which a man forgets or denies himself. ~ Meister Eckhart, #KEYS
1297:They say that I am dying but I am not going away.
Where could I go?
I am here ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Path of Self-Knowledge,#KEYS
1298:Being aware of the sound of the bell, does not mean that bell belongs to you.
Likewise, being aware of thoughts, does not mean the thoughts belong to you. ~ Wu Hsin,#KEYS
1299:do not forget
that in the thicket
there are flowers
~ Matsuo Basho, @BashoSociety#KEYS
1300:Go on practicing. Your concentration will be as easy as breathing. That will be the crown of your achievements. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1301:He who denies the existence of God, has some reason for wishing that God did not exist. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, [T8], #KEYS
1302:I am that sea now gathered in a tear. I am that universe now centered here. I am that book of destiny which seems To form a lonely dot of hope and fear." ~ Baba Tahir, #KEYS
1303:In my opinion, there are two things that can absolutely not be carried to the screen: the realistic presentation of the sexual act and praying to God.
~ Orson Welles,#KEYS
1304:It belongs to great pride that persons prefer their own opinion to divinely revealed truth ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (On evil 8.1ad7)., #KEYS
1305:It is the soul within us that decides, that makes our history, that determines Fate. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Bande Mataram - II, The 7th of August, #KEYS
1306:It's the beauty within us that makes it possible for us to recognize the beauty around us. The question is not what you look at but what you see. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #KEYS
1307:Let us act towards others as we would that they should act towards us: let us not cause any suffering. ~ Dhammapada, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1308:Self-control needs to be cultivated and guarded ceaselessly, so as to prevent any of the passions that are outside the garden from stealthily creeping in. ~ Philokalia, #KEYS
1309:So valuable to heaven is the dignity of the human soul that every member of the human race has a guardian angel from the moment the person begins to be. ~ Saint Jerome, #KEYS
1310:That is always the end at which we arrive and we can only escape it by refusing to complete the journey.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
1311:That which others hear or read of, I felt and practised myself; they get their knowledge by books, I mine by melancholizing. ~ Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, #KEYS
1312:That which refuses to give itself, is still the food of the cosmic Powers ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, Agni, the Illumined Will, #KEYS
1313:The origin of things is the Infinite: necessarily they disappear into that which put them into birth. ~ Anaximander, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1314:There is Bhakti Yoga that partakes of the humanity of Sattva, the ostentation of Rajas, and the grosser force of Tamas. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1315:There is nothing outside of yourself, Look within, Everything you want is there. You are That. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
1316:The soul that can live alone with itself meets God; ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain, #KEYS
1317:To be here, all you have to do is let go of who you think you are. That's all! And then you realize: "I'm here". 'Here' is where thoughts aren't believed. ~ Adyashanti, #KEYS
1318:To the extent we have died to sin, to that extent we are alive with grace ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Commentary on Colossians, ch. 3)., #KEYS
1319:Trace the source of the ego. Then the ego is lost and Bliss remains. It is eternal. You are That, here and now. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1320:Try to realise that there is no I, no you, no he, only the one Self which is all. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Conscious Immortality, Ch 15, #KEYS
1321:We cannot imagine events that are connected non-causally and are capable of a non-causal explanation. But that does not mean that such events do not exist. ~ Carl Jung, #KEYS
1322:What you appear to be, is the outer body perceiving the outer world, but what you are, is that Consciousness, in which the body and the world appear. ~ Ramesh Balsekar, #KEYS
1323:When spiritual consolation is given by God, receive it gratefully, but understand that it is His gift and not your meriting. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
1324:Wouldst thou that the world should submit to thee? Be busy then to fortify thy soul without ceasing. ~ Omar Khayyam, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1325:You should pray to God that your worldly duties may be reduced. And you will achieve the goal if you renounce mentally. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1326:252. I have failed, thou sayest. Say rather that God is circling about towards His object.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine And Human, Karma,#KEYS
1327:A divine life in a divine body is the formula of the ideal that we envisage. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, The Divine Body, #KEYS
1328:All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.
~ J R R Tolkien,#KEYS
1329:and assuring him, as he carries out his apostolic duties, of an abundance of the supernatural powers that the strongest workers for Christ must have. ~ Saint John XXIII, #KEYS
1330:And this shall be the true manner of thy fasting that thy life shall be void of all iniquity. ~ The Pastor of Hermas, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1331:By 'heart' I do not mean the piece of flesh situated in the left of our bodies, but that which uses all the other faculties as its instruments and servants. ~ Bahauddin, #KEYS
1332:God to the soul that sees is the path and God is the goal of his journey. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, Works, Devotion and Knowledge, #KEYS
1333:if a mirror ever makes
you sad, remember that
it does not know you
~ Kabir, @BashoSociety#KEYS
1334:It befits the priest especially to adorn the temple of God with fitting splendour, so that the court of the Lord may be made glorious by his endeavours. ~ Saint Ambrose, #KEYS
1335:It is flat-out strange that something-that anything-is happening at all. There was nothing then a Big Bang, then here we all are. This is extremely weird. ~ ken-wilber, #KEYS
1336:It is in the silence of the mind that the strongest and freest action can come. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Thought and Knowledge, #KEYS
1337:It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use, from time to time, of playful deeds and jokes.~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #KEYS
1338:Love the sign
Of one outblaze of godhead that two share. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Life Heavens,#KEYS
1339:Man needs freedom of thought and life and action in order that he may grow. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The End of the Curve of Reason, #KEYS
1340:Only one who knows not that God lives in him can attri bute to certain men more importance than to others. ~ Tolstoy, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1341:Self-Giving
To him who is the source of all that we are, we give all that we are. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Supreme Divine,#KEYS
1342:She must change the rags of the past so that her beauty may be readorned. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Bande Mataram - II, Swaraj and the Coming Anarchy, #KEYS
1343:Slay desire, but when thou hast slain it, take heed that it arise not again from the dead. ~ Book of Golden Precepts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1344:That still mind which is adorned with the attainment of the limitless supreme Self, alone is the reality of God. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1345:That which is most subtle in matter is air, in air the soul, in the soul intelligence, in intelligence God. ~ Hermes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1346:The greater the feeling of inferiority that has been experienced, the more powerful is the urge to conquest and the more violent the emotional agitation. ~ Alfred Adler, #KEYS
1347:The intellect understands that the will wills, and the will wills the intellect to understand ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1.82.4ad1)., #KEYS
1348:There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making men understand that telling you the truth will not offend you. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, #KEYS
1349:We are so engrossed with the objects or appearances revealed by the light that we pay no attention to the light. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1350:We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power.
~ Bertrand Russell,#KEYS
1351:Would you call Him Destiny? You will not be wrong. Providence? You will say well. Nature? That too you may. ~ Seneca, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1352:A jnani has no karma [that is, a jnani performs no actions]. That is his experience. Otherwise he is not a jnani. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1353:An analysis of the ego convinces us that its ultimate substance is God. When egotism vanishes, divinity manifests itself. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1354:Behind each particular idea there is a general idea, an absolute principle. Know that and you know all. ~ Vivekananda, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1355:Believe me…! a metaphysical Solution, that does not instantly tell for something in the Heart, is grievously to be suspected as apocryphal… ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, #KEYS
1356:'Be still and know that I AM God' [Psalm 46:10] means that I should still the mind and know that consciousness is God." ~ Neville Goddard, "The Complete Reader,", (2013), #KEYS
1357:I have found my way, step by step, proceeding from touch points that have emerged, some through conscious choice and some through dream state discovery." ~ Leonard Nimoy, #KEYS
1358:It is in the silence of the mind that it is easiest for knowledge to come from within or above, or from higher consciousness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #KEYS
1359:Let us strive to destroy in ourselves all that is of the animal, that the humanity in us may be manifest. ~ Bahaullah, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1360:O Lord, in the depths of all that is, of all that shall be, is Thy divine and unvarying smile
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III, 240, [T5],#KEYS
1361:Only by falling back on our better thought, by yielding to the spirit of prophecy which is innate in every man, can we know what that wisdom saith. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #KEYS
1362:Sincerity means more than mere honesty. It means that you mean what you say, feel what you profess, are earnest in your will. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #KEYS
1363:Such is Savitri' s mission. This mission has two sessions or periods. The first, that of preparation; the second, that of fulfilment. ~ Nolini Kanta Gupta, On Savitri, 6, #KEYS
1364:The dayspring from on high has visited us, to give light to them that sit in the darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet in the way of peace. ~ Saint Luke, #KEYS
1365:Thence comes it that the saint occupies himself with his inner being and not with the objects of his eyes. ~ Lao- Tse, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1366:There is a light that shines beyond all things on earth, beyond the highest, the very highest heavens. This is the light that shines in your heart. ~ Chandogya Upanishad, #KEYS
1367:The soul can grow against or even by a material destiny that is adverse. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Fate, Free Will and Prediction, #KEYS
1368:The Study of philosophy is not that we may know what men have thought, but what the truth of things is. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #KEYS
1369:The Sufis are those who have preferred God to everything, so that God has preferred them to everything. ~ Dhul-Nun, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
1370:The tradition of this place is that this hill is the form of God and that in its real nature it is full of light. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1371:They have gone out of this world so perfected that instead of being our clients they are our advocates. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
1372:Thinkest thou that thou canst write the name of God on Time? No more is it pronounced in Eternity. ~ Angelus Silesius, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1373:To create a high-performance team, it is important that the work to be performed does rely on teamwork rather than on isolated, individual efforts.
~ Buchholz and Roth,#KEYS
1374:We are always free to make our proposals to the Lord, but after all it is only His will that is realised.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
1375:We have indeed many things to learn from others; yea, that man who refuses to learn is already dead. ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. III. 381), #KEYS
1376:We must never forget that our goal is to manifest the Supramental Reality. With my blessings
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 25 May, [T5],#KEYS
1377:What is beyond all reach cannot be reached except in a manner that does not reach it [Attingitur inattingibile inattingibiliter]. ~ Nicholas of Cusa, Idiota de sapientia, #KEYS
1378:When that is removed, sight replaces mental thought, the all-embracing truth-ideation mahas, veda, dṛṣṭi, replaces the fragmentary mental activity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #KEYS
1379:A city of ancient Ignorance
Founded upon a soil that knew not Light. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Descent into Night,#KEYS
1380:All that can be learned by going through the whole of the Gita, can be as well accomplished by repeating "Gita" ten times. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1381:Be a lamp in brightness, and make the works of darkness cease, so that whenever your doctrine shines, no one may dare to heed the desires of darkness. ~ Ephrem the Syrian, #KEYS
1382:Because of that all this exists, but that does not exist because of all this. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Cosmic Consciousness, #KEYS
1383:Beware that, when Fighting Monsters, You Yourself do not Become a Monster... for when You Gaze long into the Abyss, the Abyss Gazes also into You.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche,#KEYS
1384:Dwell far above the laws that govern men
And are not to be mapped by mortal judgments. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Plays and Stories, Act II,#KEYS
1385:Even now great thoughts are here that walk alone: ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Mind, #KEYS
1386:Follow the great man and you will see what the world has at heart in these ages. There is no omen like that. ~ Emerson, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1387:Hold firmly that our faith is identical with the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church." ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #KEYS
1388:I believe that it is his message; all the rest are the preparations, but Savitri is the message.
~ The Mother, In 1963 to Satprem, (MA 1963:86),#KEYS
1389:I do not like mystical language, and yet I hardly know how to express what I mean without employing phrases that sound poetic rather than scientific.
~ Bertrand Russell,#KEYS
1390:If the seeker would cultivate the true nature of the Self till he [she] has realized it, that alone would suffice. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1391:If the unripe mind does not feel his Grace, it does not mean that God's Grace is absent. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Marharshi's Gospel, [T5], #KEYS
1392:If we continuously contemplate the Self, all distraction would vanish; the pure Consciousness that remains is God. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1393:In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them. ~ Mark Twain #KEYS
1394:In the conviction that I am God's servant or I am His worshiper, there is no harm. On the other hand, it brings us to God. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1395:It is by resisting the passions, not by yielding to them that one finds true peace in the heart. ~ Imitation of Christ, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1396:It is fear that is the cause of our woes, and it is fearlessness that brings heaven even in a moment. ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. III. 321), #KEYS
1397:It is in the Divine that we shall always find all that we need. 17 April 1954
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, The Divine Is with You [10],#KEYS
1398:It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use, from time to time, of playful deeds and jokes." ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #KEYS
1399:I would hate to be taken seriously. Serious people are always so grim and uptight that they make me want to dance naked on the lawn playing a flute. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, #KEYS
1400:Knowing that the train carries all the weight, why should we carry our luggage instead of sitting at perfect ease? ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1401:Lord, Thou hast told us: Do not give way, hold tight. It is when everything seems lost that all is saved.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III,#KEYS
1402:Remain still, with the conviction that the Self shines as everything yet nothing, within, without, and everywhere. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1403:The first use of good literature is that it prevents a man from being merely modern. To be merely modern is to condemn oneself to an ultimate narrowness. ~ C K Chesterton, #KEYS
1404:The present is the most precious moment. Use all the forces of thy spirit not to let that momentescape thee. ~ Tolstoy, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1405:The Self is the one Reality that always exists, and it is by the light of the Self that all other things are seen. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1406:The soul that can live alone with itself meets God;
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain,#KEYS
1407:The Supreme's power is infinite -it is our faith that is small. With my Blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 23 August, [T5],#KEYS
1408:This is the new birth, my son, to turn one's thought from the body that has the three dimensions. ~ Hermes: On Rebirth, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1409:We must cultivate our own garden. When man was put in the garden of Eden he was put there so that he should work, which proves that man was not born to rest.
~ Voltaire,#KEYS
1410:When you discover yourself to be nothing but freedom, you stop setting up conditions and requirements that need to be satisfied in order for you to be happy. ~ Adyashanti, #KEYS
1411:Who is there that serves and obeys Me in all things with as great care as that with which the world and its masters are served? ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
1412:Why do you wonder that globetrotting does not help you, seeing that you always take yourself with you? The reason that set you wandering is ever at your heels. ~ Socrates, #KEYS
1413:You know the value of every merchandise; but you do not know your own value -- that is stupidity. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
1414:Ask: "Who am I?" until well-established in the conviction that a Higher Power guides us. That is firmness of faith. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1415:Chit is an action of Being, not of the Void. What it sees, that becomes. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad: Brahman, Oneness of God and the World, #KEYS
1416:Christ was literally born during the night as a sign that He came to the shadows of our weakness ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 3.83.2ad2)., #KEYS
1417:Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1418:If one inquires as to where in the body the thought 'I' rises first, one would discover that it rises in the Heart. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1419:If we see someone puffed up and aglow bc of temporal prosperity, let us say the same thing to him, to warn him that all this remains in this world. ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #KEYS
1420:I saw that one of its heads seemed to have been mortally wounded, but this mortal wound was healed. Fascinated, the whole world followed after the beast." ~ Revelation 3:3, #KEYS
1421:Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own
~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Corinthians, 6:19 ESV,#KEYS
1422:Our tasks are given, we are but instruments; Nothing is all our own that we create; The Power that acts in us is not our force. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #KEYS
1423:Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen." ~ Leonardo da Vinci, (1452 - 1519), #KEYS
1424:See that the world and your ego are derived from the same Supreme Being. God, Man, and nature are faces of the One Reality. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1425:Take care that the reading of numerous writers and books of all kinds does not confuse and trouble thy reason. ~ Seneca, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1426:The minds of the learned scholars are attached to things of the world; hence it is that they cannot acquire true knowledge. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1427:The power of the human intelligence is without bounds; it increases by concentration: that is the secret. ~ Vivekananda, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1428:There can be no guilt except in that which the soul wills, or, not having willed it, approves it and does not make an effort to remove it. ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
1429:There often beams in our eye that we know not of. Let us therefore ask that our eye may become single, for then we ourselves shall become wholly single. ~ Vincent van Gogh, #KEYS
1430:To believe that you can end decades of tyranny of the ego by reading lots of books is like believing that you can satisfy your appetite by reading lots of menus. ~ Zen Fi , #KEYS
1431:True success is not measured by the amount of money that you have made. It is measured by the amount of wisdom and compassion that you have cultivated. ~ Chamtrul Rinpoche, #KEYS
1432:Whatever kind of seed is sown in a field, prepared in due season, a plant of that same kind, marked with the peculiar qualities of the seed, springs up in it. ~ Guru Nanak, #KEYS
1433:When all the desires that trouble the heart have fallen silent, then this mortal puts on immortality. ~ Katha Upanishad, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1434:When you hear that He was lifted up, understand His hanging on high, that He might sanctify the air who had sanctified the earth by walking upon it. ~ Theophylact of Ohrid, #KEYS
1435:Without Socialism democracy would remain a tendency that never reached its fulfilment. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Bande Mataram - II, Caste and Democracy, #KEYS
1436:Charity is the affection that impels us to sacrifice ourselves to humankind as if it were one being with us. ~ Confucius, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1437:Desires are not eradicated by satisfaction. Trying to root them out that way is like pouring spirits to quench fire. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1438:From the standpoint of Yoga it is not so much what you do but how you do it that matters most.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, Yogic Action,#KEYS
1439:Give all that you have, this is the beginning; give all that you do, this is the way; give all that you are, this is the fulfilment.
~ The Mother,#KEYS
1440:It vexes me greatly that having to earn my living has forced me to interrupt the work and to attend to small matters.
~ Leonardo da Vinci,#KEYS
1441:Liberty, Mukti, is all my religion, and everything that tries to curb it, I will avoid by fight or flight. ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. V. 72), #KEYS
1442:The best expenditure of energy is that which flows easily without effort at all. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Divine Force in Work, #KEYS
1443:The Bible is such a gargantuan collection of conflicting values that anyone can prove anything from it.
~ Robert Heinlein, Dr. Jacob Burroughs in The Number of the Beast.,#KEYS
1444:The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding, shall remain in the congregation of the dead. ~ Proverbs XXI. 16, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1445:The ultimate Truth is so simple. It is nothing more than being in the pristine state. This is all that need be said. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1446:Thinkest thou that thy body is nothing when in thee is contained the most perfect world? ~ Baha-ullah: The Seven Valleys, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1447:Thus thou shalt be in perfect accord with all that lives, thou shalt love men as thy brotheas. ~ Book of Golden Precepts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1448:Trace the source of the ego. Then the ego is lost and Bliss remains over. It is eternal. You are That, here and now. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1449:You are in prison. If you wish to get out of prison, the first thing you must do is realize that you are in prison. If you think you are free, you can't escape. ~ Gurdjieff, #KEYS
1450:34. O Thou that lovest, strike! If Thou strike me not now, I shall know that Thou lovst me not.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine And Human, Jnana,#KEYS
1451:A magic leverage suddenly is caught
That moves the veiled Ineffable's timeless will: ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Issue,#KEYS
1452:And at last I resolved to scale that tower, fall though I might; since it were better to glimpse the sky and perish, than to live without ever beholding day. ~ H P Lovecraft, #KEYS
1453:An integral approach acknowledges that all views have a degree of truth, but some views are more true than others, more developed, more evolved, more adequate. ~ ken-wilber, #KEYS
1454:A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it
~ Roald Dahl,#KEYS
1455:Ask: 'Who am I?' until well-established in the conviction that a Higher Power guides us. That is firmness of faith.
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,#KEYS
1456:By constantly keeping one's attention on the Source, the ego is dissolved in that Source like a salt-doll in the sea. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1457:By continuous investigation, the mind is transformed into That to which the 'I' refers; and that is in fact the Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1458:Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic. ~ Frank Herbert, Dune Books, #KEYS
1459:Don't waste your energies on things that cause worry, disturbance and anxiety. Only one thing is necessary: to lift the spirit and love God. ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
1460:Do what you like, but you will regret every hour that you have not remembered God. ~ Shaykh Moulay Hashim Al Belghiti), @Sufi_Path #KEYS
1461:Everything has been preordained. Everything is happening according to a divine plan. Everything that is supposed to happen to your body will happen by itself. ~ Robert Adams, #KEYS
1462:Everything that is composite is soon destroyed and, like the lightning in heaven, does not last for long ~ Lalita-Vistara, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1463:If nature operates for an end, it is necessary that it be ordered by someone intelligent ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (On Physics 2, lect. 12)., #KEYS
1464:If we would continuously contemplate the Self, the pure Consciousness that alone remains is God. This is Liberation.. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1465:Is it not a wonderful thing, that he that is the Lord and author of all liberty, would thus be bound with ropes and nailed hand and foot unto the Cross?" ~ Saint John Fisher, #KEYS
1466:... It is a chastisement much greater than that of the flood. Fire will fall from heaven and a great part of humanity will be destroyed." ~ Our Lady to Father Stefano Gobbi , #KEYS
1467:It is a spiritual, an inner freedom that can alone create a perfect human order. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The End of the Curve of Reason, #KEYS
1468:Obey them that guide you and submit yourselves; for they watch over your souls. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Hebrews, XIII. 17, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1469:The aim of the Mystic is to stretch his range of Consciousness as widely as possible, so that he may touch the highest pride and the deepest humility.
~ Hazrat Inayat Khan,#KEYS
1470:There is a darkness in terrestrial things
That will not suffer long too glad a note. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Issue,#KEYS
1471:There is no path safer than resigning the self to the will of the almighty, to have no consciousness that anything is "mine". ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1472:The whole Vedanta is contained in the two Biblical statements "I am that I am" and "Be still and know that I am God." ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1473:Time and Space that are the conceptual movement and extension of the Godhead in us. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, God in Power of Becoming, #KEYS
1474:To control the mind! How difficult that is! It has been compared, not without good reason, to a mad monkey. ~ Vivekananda, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1475:What I really wanted was to fall in love with God. It's amazing what obstacles there are within us, or at least in me, that seem to slow this process. ~ Thomas Keating, [T5], #KEYS
1476:When a thing acts contrary to its nature, that which is natural to it is corrupted little by little ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 2-2.34.5)., #KEYS
1477:Young and old and those who are growing to age, shall all die one after the other like fruits that fall. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1478:Zen questioning is a very gentle questioning. It is the kind of questioning that the Colorado River asks the Grand Canyon over centuries and centuries. ~ Taigen Dan Leighton, #KEYS
1479:Because of the Word dwelling in that body, it would remain incorruptible, and all would be freed for ever from corruption by the grace of the resurrection. ~ Saint Athanasius, #KEYS
1480:Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that the antichrist was coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. Thus we know this is the last hour." ~ 1 John 2:18, #KEYS
1481:God is always God, but the views which people and nations may take of him vary. No higher view is known than that of love. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
1482:If a man continues to mix with the world, it is likely that he will be tainted; but he will remain pure if he lives out of it. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1483:If it is permissible to write plays that are not intended to be seen, I should like to see who can prevent me from writing a book no one can read. ~ Georg C Lichtenberg, [T5], #KEYS
1484:If you have faith and confidence, it is not the human form of the guru that you worship, but the Supreme Lord who manifests through him. ~ The Mother, #KEYS
1485:It is more important that we should remember God than that we should breathe: indeed, if one may say so, we should do nothing else besides. ~ Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, [T5], #KEYS
1486:It is to make the yoga the ideal of human life that India rises today. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, The Ideal of the Karmayogin, #KEYS
1487:It is well known to all experienced minds that our firmest convictions are often dependent on subtle impressions for which words are quite too coarse a medium. ~ George Eliot, #KEYS
1488:Like the weak fibers that acquire great strength, when braided into a rope, illusion repeated innumerable times in memory, acquires the strength of reality. ~ Ramesh Balsekar, #KEYS
1489:O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved, as to love.
~ Saint Francis of Assisi, [T5],#KEYS
1490:Oh lord, I do not want riches, fame, health, happiness or anything else. Grant that I may have pure Bhakti for thy lotus feet! ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1491:Oh my Lord! How true it is that whoever works for you is paid in troubles! And what a precious price to those who love you if we understand its value. ~ Saint Teresa of Jesus, #KEYS
1492:One enjoys real freedom when one realizes that God is the sole actor in the universe and we are only instruments in His hands. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1493:People do not see that science deals only with conditional knowledge. It brings no message from the land of the unconditioned. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1494:Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision. ~ G K Chesterton, "The Eternal Revolution," Orthodoxy, #KEYS
1495:That it may be easy for thee to live with every man, think of what unites thee to him and not of what separates. ~ Tolstoy, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1496:The knowledge of oneness makes me see that everything is but a manifestation of God, the absolute, on the plane of the senses. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
1497:The nature of a lie is based on formal falsehood, namely, that someone intends to say what is false ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 2-2.110.1)., #KEYS
1498:The one as the real, the Self in selves, in all things, eternal and immutable, in all that is impermanent and mutable. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
1499:The Power that acts in us is not our force. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Nirvana and the Discovery of the All-Negating Absolute, #KEYS
1500:The purpose of worshiping the Impersonal Supreme Being is the incessant remembrance of the truth that you are Brahman. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Ideas that spread win. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 2:Time that devours all things. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 3:I teach that all men are mad. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 4:That low vice, curiosity! ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 5:Stand firm in that which you are. ~ kabir, @wisdomtrove 6:A lover fears all that he believes. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 7:Compassion and love, that's all. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 8:Courage is fear that prays. ~ paulo-coelho, @wisdomtrove 9:Guilt is a rope that wears thin. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove 10:That you may be beloved, be amiable. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 11:All's well that ends better. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 12:Breathe. Let all of that fade. ~ leo-babauta, @wisdomtrove 13:God's desire is that we excel. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 14:It is only doubt that creates. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 15:Science is magic that works. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 16:I do. That is character! ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 17:That tuneful nymph, the babbling Echo. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 18:Two wives? That exceeds the custom. ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 19:Use words that soak up life. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 20:I wish that I was where I am. ~ gertrude-stein, @wisdomtrove 21:Love that is fed by jealousy dies hard. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 22:All that glitters is sold as gold. ~ ogden-nash, @wisdomtrove 23:Anything that happens, happens. ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove 24:Beware the hobby that eats. ~ benjamin-franklin, @wisdomtrove 25:Efficiency is anything that scores. ~ bruce-lee, @wisdomtrove 26:I exist as I am, that is enough. ~ walt-whitman, @wisdomtrove 27:I love who I am and all that I do. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 28:That queen of secrecy, the violet. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 29:We cannot wish for that we know not. ~ voltaire, @wisdomtrove 30:Where thou art, that is home. ~ emily-dickinson, @wisdomtrove 31:Absence - that common cure of love. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 32:Answer: That is bird poop, too." ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 33:It's inevitable that it's coming. ~ esther-hicks, @wisdomtrove 34:It's pain that changes our lives. ~ steve-martin, @wisdomtrove 35:Madness in method, that's genius ~ frank-herbert, @wisdomtrove 36:Spare the soul that feels a deadly wound. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 37:That cardinal virtue, temperance. ~ edmund-burke, @wisdomtrove 38:What's the worst that could happen? ~ tim-ferris, @wisdomtrove 39:A myth is a lie that conveys a truth. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 40:But it is not reason that governs love. ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 41:Have a heart that never hardens ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 42:He that has many friends, has no friends. ~ aesop, @wisdomtrove 43:I am not now That which I have been. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 44:I have a thing for things that last. ~ criss-jami, @wisdomtrove 45:It's the writing that teaches you. ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove 46:Wherever you are, that's the entry point. ~ kabir, @wisdomtrove 47:You cannot be anything that you point to. ~ mooji, @wisdomtrove 48:You must avoid sloth, that wicked siren. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 49:All that I seek is already within me. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 50:All that is gold does not glitter. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 51:All that matters is love and work. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 52:By that sin fell the angels. ~ william-shakespeare, @wisdomtrove 53:Hold only thoughts that thrill you. ~ esther-hicks, @wisdomtrove 54:I am free and that is why I am lost. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 55:I'm single because I was born that way. ~ mae-west, @wisdomtrove 56:It is when we hurt that we learn. ~ steve-maraboli, @wisdomtrove 57:Love is the force that leaves you colorless ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 58:Pay attention to that which sees the mind. ~ mooji, @wisdomtrove 59:Remember that credit is money. ~ benjamin-franklin, @wisdomtrove 60:That best of blessings, a contented mind. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 61:Why assume that to look is to see? ~ pablo-picasso, @wisdomtrove 62:All I can do is be me, whoever that is. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 63:All is one . . . and I am that oneness. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 64:..flowers that fly and all but sing. ~ robert-frost, @wisdomtrove 65:For the weariest road that man may wend ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove 66:He that drinks fast, pays slow. ~ benjamin-franklin, @wisdomtrove 67:I never met a man that I didn't like. ~ will-rogers, @wisdomtrove 68:It is the customer that pays the wages ~ henry-ford, @wisdomtrove 69:Knowest thou not that kings have long hands? ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 70:Lord of himself; that heritage of woe! ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 71:My message is that God is a good God. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 72:One hates an author that's all author. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 73:Pluck with quick hand the fruit that passes. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 74:Spend time doing things that matter. ~ robin-sharma, @wisdomtrove 75:The meaning of life is that it stops. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 76:Those that are little, little things suit. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 77:Thou didst thy best, that is success. ~ john-wooden, @wisdomtrove 78:You are you. Now, isn't that unpleasant? ~ dr-seuss, @wisdomtrove 79:All is not gold that glisters. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 80:All that is not given is lost. ~ rabindranath-tagore, @wisdomtrove 81:And how do you know that you're mad? ~ lewis-carroll, @wisdomtrove 82:A woman is a creature that's always shopping. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 83:Be that self which one truly is. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 84:Don't do anything that isn't play. ~ joseph-campbell, @wisdomtrove 85:Every delay that postpones our joys, is long. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 86:He that is jealous is not in love. ~ saint-augustine, @wisdomtrove 87:Hyt is not al golde that glareth. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 88:I am deeply fulfilled by all that I do. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 89:It is in changing that we find purpose. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 90:To see things in the seed, that is genius. ~ lao-tzu, @wisdomtrove 91:A stock doesn't know that you own it. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 92:Can you absolutely know that it's true? ~ byron-katie, @wisdomtrove 93:Commit no act that is contrary to love. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 94:Everything that is not given is lost. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 95:For what we think upon, that we become. ~ edgar-cayce, @wisdomtrove 96:He that drinks beer, thinks beer. ~ washington-irving, @wisdomtrove 97:I gave in, and admitted that God was God. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 98:I spoke to ears that refused to hear. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 99:I trust that absolutes have gradations. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 100:It's not the critic that counts. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 101:Live the wonderful life that is in you. ~ oscar-wilde, @wisdomtrove 102:That which hurts, also instructs. ~ benjamin-franklin, @wisdomtrove 103:The river that flows in you also flows in me. ~ kabir, @wisdomtrove 104:To die hating them, that was freedom. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 105:We are that which activates the body. ~ peace-pilgrim, @wisdomtrove 106:An awake heart is like a sky that pours light. ~ hafez, @wisdomtrove 107:Anybody can do anything that he imagines. ~ henry-ford, @wisdomtrove 108:Anything that is conceivable is possible. ~ david-hume, @wisdomtrove 109:Avoid a remedy that is worse than the disease. ~ aesop, @wisdomtrove 110:Don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg. ~ aesop, @wisdomtrove 111:Dying bless the hand that gave the blow. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 112:For know that no one is free, except Zeus. ~ aeschylus, @wisdomtrove 113:He preaches well that lives well ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 114:It is hope that maintains most of mankind. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove 115:Optimism is a faith that leads to success. ~ bruce-lee, @wisdomtrove 116:Sing songs that none have sung ~ paramahansa-yogananda, @wisdomtrove 117:Sleep's the only medicine that gives ease. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove 118:That [Exodus] occurred, I have no doubt. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 119:That man made me miss my destiny. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 120:The love that flows through your heart ~ caroline-myss, @wisdomtrove 121:The things that hurt us teach us. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 122:Things only have the value that we give them ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 123:Thoughts without words‚¶ Can that be? ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 124:Today you are you! That is truer than true! ~ dr-seuss, @wisdomtrove 125:A song is anything that can walk by itself. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 126:Be teachable. That is the whole secret. ~ vernon-howard, @wisdomtrove 127: Death is not the worst that can happen to men. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 128:Fear is a spirit that produces a feeling. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 129:Fear is the emotion that makes us blind. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 130:I spent a year in that town, one Sunday. ~ george-burns, @wisdomtrove 131:It is human longing that makes us holy. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 132:It is prudence that first forsakes the wretched. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 133:Love is a thing that is full of cares and fears. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 134:Obedience is the key that opens every door. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 135:One is easily fooled by that which one loves. ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 136:So much alarmed that she is quite alarming ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 137:Tears are words that need to be written. ~ paulo-coelho, @wisdomtrove 138:That's why I love philosophy: no one wins. ~ d-t-suzuki, @wisdomtrove 139:That which is creative must create itself. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 140:The burden becomes light that is shared by love. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 141:The hearts that never lean must fall. ~ emily-dickinson, @wisdomtrove 142:There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen. ~ rumi, @wisdomtrove 143:These are the days that try man's heart. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 144:To be happy - that's all that matters. ~ audrey-hepburn, @wisdomtrove 145:Don't look at me in that tone of voice. ~ dorothy-parker, @wisdomtrove 146:Evil is that which one believes of others. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 147:For every inch that is not fool, is rogue. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 148:Heaven is author of the virtue that is in me ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove 149:He is gentle that doeth gentle deeds. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 150:He that gives quickly gives twice. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 151:He that never thinks can never be wise. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 152:I really believed that fear is contagious. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 153:It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 154:It is in changing that things find purpose. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 155:It is through suffering that learning comes. ~ aeschylus, @wisdomtrove 156:It's just that the grape has me down. ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 157:I want to suffer so that I may love. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 158:Man is an animal that cooks his victuals. ~ edmund-burke, @wisdomtrove 159:Not all that have fallen are vanquished. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 160:Some stories are true that never happened. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 161:The learned man knows that he is ignorant. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 162:There has to be pain. That's the rule. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 163:There's no war that will end all wars. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 164:Ther is no newe gyse that it nas old. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 165:These are the times that try men's souls. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 166:Think! You can think any think that you wish. ~ dr-seuss, @wisdomtrove 167:This also, that I live, I consider a gift of God. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 168:to be in finland/ now that russia's here) ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove 169:What can they suffer that do not fear to die? ~ plutarch, @wisdomtrove 170:Why did we drop that god darn thing? ~ dwight-eisenhower, @wisdomtrove 171:You can't be that good; you work for me. ~ lewis-carroll, @wisdomtrove 172:A man that is afraid is never a man. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 173:Anything that just costs money is cheap. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 174:Art is a lie that makes us realize truth. ~ pablo-picasso, @wisdomtrove 175:Be willing that any feeling can visit your house. ~ mooji, @wisdomtrove 176:Everything's fine today, that is our illusion. ~ voltaire, @wisdomtrove 177:Ful wys is he that kan himselve knowe. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 178:He liked her; it was as simple as that. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 179:He that hath a Trade, hath an Estate. ~ benjamin-franklin, @wisdomtrove 180:He that hath knowledge spareth his words. ~ francis-bacon, @wisdomtrove 181:He that rises late must trot all day. ~ benjamin-franklin, @wisdomtrove 182:I am here and I'm alive. That's enough. ~ don-miguel-ruiz, @wisdomtrove 183:It is said that gifts persuade even the gods. ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove 184:It is the want that creates the body. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 185:It is wise to agree that all things are one. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 186:It matters that you don't just give up. ~ stephen-hawking, @wisdomtrove 187:Jests that give pains are no jests. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 188:Love has reasons that reason knows not. ~ saint-augustine, @wisdomtrove 189:Mordre wol out, that se we day by day. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 190:My belief is that to have no wants is divine. ~ socrates, @wisdomtrove 191:My books are friends that never fail me. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 192:Nothing is achieved by a mind that doubts ~ b-k-s-iyengar, @wisdomtrove 193:Of love, that fairest joys give most unrest. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 194:Short is the joy that guilty pleasure brings. ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove 195:Stay awhile that we may make an end the sooner. ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 196:Teach your heart that this is destiny ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 197:That load becomes light which is cheerfully borne. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 198:The finest woman that ever walked the streets. ~ mae-west, @wisdomtrove 199:The God that can be named is not God. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 200:The key that unlocks energy is desire. ~ earl-nightingale, @wisdomtrove 201:The mighty hopes that make us men. ~ alfred-lord-tennyson, @wisdomtrove 202:There is no instinct like that of the heart. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 203:Whatever you love most, that is your god. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 204:Whatever you think, that you will be. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 205:All, as they say, that glitters is not gold. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 206:Bitterness is the trap that snares the hunter ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 207:don't let it be an excuse to stay that way." ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 208:Embrace the glorious mess that you are ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 209:Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 210:He felt married to her, that was all. ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove 211:He that speaks much, is much mistaken. ~ benjamin-franklin, @wisdomtrove 212:I am a part of all that I have met. ~ alfred-lord-tennyson, @wisdomtrove 213:I'm the nicest goddamn dame that ever lived. ~ bette-davis, @wisdomtrove 214:I say that justice is truth in action. ~ benjamin-disraeli, @wisdomtrove 215:It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds. ~ aesop, @wisdomtrove 216:It's a fair wind that blew men to ale. ~ washington-irving, @wisdomtrove 217:Mordre wol out, that see we day by day. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 218:No man loves life like him that's growing old. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove 219:Silence is the true friend that never betrays. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove 220:Something there is that doesn't love a wall ~ robert-frost, @wisdomtrove 221:That path leads ever down into stagnation. ~ frank-herbert, @wisdomtrove 222:The meaning of life is that it is to be lived. ~ bruce-lee, @wisdomtrove 223:The reality is that I am the Teacher. ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 224:The soul that beholds beauty becomes beautiful. ~ plotinus, @wisdomtrove 225:Time is defined so that motion looks simple ~ john-wheeler, @wisdomtrove 226:Time, that aged nurse, Rocked me to patience. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 227:Truth never damages a cause that is just. ~ mahatma-gandhi, @wisdomtrove 228:All that foreign oil controlling American soil. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 229:As one that neither seeks, nor shuns his foe. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 230:Cherish the music that stirs in your heart. ~ napoleon-hill, @wisdomtrove 231:Do one thing every day that scares you. ~ eleanor-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 232:Even if God exists, does He know that you do? ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 233:God's mark is on everything that obeys Him. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 234:He who feared that he would not succeed sat still. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 235:How sweet to remember the trouble that is past. ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove 236:I cannot say that I do not disagree with you ~ groucho-marx, @wisdomtrove 237:If they stop loving, be grateful for that. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 238:I imagine that yes is the only living thing. ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove 239:It is faith that makes a lion of a man. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 240:It is in virtue of unity that beings are beings. ~ plotinus, @wisdomtrove 241:It is with artillery that war is made. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 242:Keep the faith... that the best is yet to come. ~ les-brown, @wisdomtrove 243:Living well is an art that can be developed. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 244:Products that are remarkable get talked about. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 245:Remember that no one ever kicks a dead dog. ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 246:Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom. ~ francis-bacon, @wisdomtrove 247:That must be fine, for I don't understand a word. ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 248:The Flower that once has blown forever dies. ~ omar-khayyam, @wisdomtrove 249:There is no proverb that is not true. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 250:There is no ship now that can bear me hence ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 251:The rose that once has bloomed forever dies. ~ omar-khayyam, @wisdomtrove 252:Truly even he errs that is wiser than the wise. ~ aeschylus, @wisdomtrove 253:Two people can play at that game. Cheers! ~ richard-branson, @wisdomtrove 254:We have the best Congress that money can buy. ~ will-rogers, @wisdomtrove 255:We must always take risks. That is our destiny. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 256:All I think of ever is that I love you. ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove 257:A long dispute means that both parties are wrong. ~ voltaire, @wisdomtrove 258:A mind that practices love cannot love. ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 259:And, dying, bless the hand that gave the blow. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 260:Belief is the wound that knowledge heals. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 261:But learn that to die is a debt we must all pay. ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove 262:Don't point that beard at me, it might go off ~ groucho-marx, @wisdomtrove 263:Do passing drills that come from your offense. ~ john-wooden, @wisdomtrove 264:Embrace the beautiful mess that you are. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 265:Full wise is he that can him selven knowe ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 266:Full wise is he that can himselven knowe. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 267:Goodbye to the sun that shines for me no longer. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove 268:He that has done nothing has known nothing. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 269:I believe that laughter is our greatest export ~ walt-disney, @wisdomtrove 270:I don't want to eat anything that has a mother ~ fred-rogers, @wisdomtrove 271:I know of only one duty, and that is to love. ~ albert-camus, @wisdomtrove 272:I love the freedom that my phone gives me. ~ richard-branson, @wisdomtrove 273:I must find a truth that is true for me. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 274:I need Christ, not something that resembles Him. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 275:I think pickles are cucumbers that sold out. ~ mitch-hedberg, @wisdomtrove 276:It is not permitted that we should know everything. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 277:It is what you do about what happens that counts. ~ jim-rohn, @wisdomtrove 278:It's a kindness that the mind can go where it wishes. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 279:It's not me but the world that's deranged. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 280:It was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 281:Learn that the present hour alone is man's. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 282:May all that have life be delivered from suffering. ~ buddha, @wisdomtrove 283:Never regret anything that makes you smile. ~ audrey-hepburn, @wisdomtrove 284:Oh, for a pin that would puncture pretension! ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove 285:Oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 286:One does not yearn for that which is easily acquired. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 287:Only time(whatever that may be) will tell. ~ stephen-hawking, @wisdomtrove 288:Seek to know the power that is within you. ~ joseph-campbell, @wisdomtrove 289:see the things that you want as already yours ~ rhonda-byrne, @wisdomtrove 290:[Slavery] is a weed that grows in every soil. ~ edmund-burke, @wisdomtrove 291:So that's the ghost you been running from. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 292:That he is gentil that doth gentil dedis. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 293:The clouds, - the only birds that never sleep. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 294:The sense of wonder, that is our sixth sense. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 295:The things that we love tell us what we are. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 296:They first condemn that first advised the ill. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 297:They that possess the prince possess the laws. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 298:They truly mourn, that mourn without a witness. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 299:Time is an herb that cures all Diseases. ~ benjamin-franklin, @wisdomtrove 300:We have the best government that money can buy. ~ mark-twain, @wisdomtrove 301:What is history? The lie that everyone agrees on. ~ voltaire, @wisdomtrove 302:When the deeds that you do don't add up to zero. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 303:Who knows but life be that which men call death, ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove 304:Worship is the thank you that can't be silenced ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 305:Your problem is that wanna better word for world ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 306:You will attract everything that you require. ~ rhonda-byrne, @wisdomtrove 307:A friend that ain't in need is a friend indeed. ~ kin-hubbard, @wisdomtrove 308:All that is not eternal is eternally out of date. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 309:All the power is with the sex that wears the beard. ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 310:A stomach that is seldom empty despises common food. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 311:Everything that is contradictory creates life ~ salvador-dali, @wisdomtrove 312:How do you react when you believe that thought? ~ byron-katie, @wisdomtrove 313:I AM! YOU ARE! AND LOVE: IS ALL: THAT MATTERS! ~ richard-bach, @wisdomtrove 314:I hope that death contains less than this. ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 315:I know. And that's what took me so long ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 316:I know that Congress will do the right thing. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 317:I'm figuring it out as I go, I'm good at that. ~ esther-hicks, @wisdomtrove 318:It is useless work that darkens the heart. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 319:It's our faith that activates the power of God. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 320:It takes so many years to learn that one is dead. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 321:It was my tongue that swore; my heart is unsworn. ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove 322:I've learned that I still have a lot to learn. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 323:Kindness it is that brings forth kindness always. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove 324:Leave out the parts that readers tend to skip. ~ henry-miller, @wisdomtrove 325:Life is a plant that grows out of death. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 326:No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 327:Prayer moves the arm that moves the world. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 328:Remember that failure is an event, not a person. ~ zig-ziglar, @wisdomtrove 329:Resolve to do one thing every day that you fear. ~ tim-ferris, @wisdomtrove 330:Simplicity is a bliss that makes one comprehend. ~ criss-jami, @wisdomtrove 331:Thank God for the things that I do not own. ~ teresa-of-avila, @wisdomtrove 332:That complete statement which is literature. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 333:That which costs little is less valued. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 334:That which we can't remember, we will repeat. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 335:The brain is a muscle that can move the world. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 336:The loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind. ~ oliver-goldsmith, @wisdomtrove 337:The love that flows through your heart ~ norman-vincent-peale, @wisdomtrove 338:The other day I ... no wait, that wasn't me. ~ steven-wright, @wisdomtrove 339:There are many things that I don't understand. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 340:The things that we love tell us what we are. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 341:The trouble is that you think you have time. ~ jack-kornfield, @wisdomtrove 342:The truth is that love and power go together. ~ susan-jeffers, @wisdomtrove 343:The worst evils are those that never arrive. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 344:What good is it to live a life that brings pains? ~ aeschylus, @wisdomtrove 345:A boy's story is the best that is ever told. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 346:All that matters is what we do for each other. ~ lewis-carroll, @wisdomtrove 347:And bring to pass the thing that you least expect. ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove 348:At least that's what I would choose to believe. ~ barack-obama, @wisdomtrove 349:Awareness is an emptiness that contains the world. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 350:Consciousness: That annoying time between naps ~ steven-wright, @wisdomtrove 351:Death fosters life that life may suckle death. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove 352:Elegance is the only beauty that never fades. ~ audrey-hepburn, @wisdomtrove 353:Eternity is the now that does not pass away. ~ saint-augustine, @wisdomtrove 354:Fear not to be nothing that thou mayst be all. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove 355:He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing. ~ benjamin-franklin, @wisdomtrove 356:He that is hard to please, may get nothing in the end. ~ aesop, @wisdomtrove 357:He that sleeps feels not the tooth-ache. ~ william-shakespeare, @wisdomtrove 358:I engage and after that I see what to do. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 359:I feel that beauty and femininity are ageless ~ marilyn-monroe, @wisdomtrove 360:I guess I'm larger than life. That's my problem. ~ bette-davis, @wisdomtrove 361:I love films that are made with almost no budget. ~ alan-moore, @wisdomtrove 362:I never saw any good that came of telling truth. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 363:Interest makes all seem reason that leads to it. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 364:I prefer an interesting vice to a virtue that bores. ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 365:I think that Bible principles will help anybody. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 366:It isn't by the size that you win or you fail- ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 367:It is plain that we were meant to go together. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 368:It is when we think we lead that we are most led. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 369:I've got an adjective that just fits you. ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove 370:Meditate upon the Om that is in the heart. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 371:Never say that marriage has more of joy than pain. ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove 372:Now that she had nothing to lose, she was free. ~ paulo-coelho, @wisdomtrove 373:Once again there was the desert, and that only. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 374:Please assure me that you are all Republicans. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 375:Remember that thought is speech before God. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 376:Scepticism, that dry caries of the intelligence. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 377:That destructive siren, sloth, is ever to be avoided. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 378:That which never has been, never is, and never will be. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 379:The environment is everything that isn't me. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove 380:There is no knowledge that is not power. ~ ralph-waldo-emerson, @wisdomtrove 381:There will be no proof that I ever was a writer. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 382:The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit. ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 383:The truth is what I cherish and that's my strength ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove 384:They tire of quiet, that have known the storm ~ dorothy-parker, @wisdomtrove 385:Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach. ~ aristotle, @wisdomtrove 386:To know, to think, to dream. That is everything. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 387:To make living itself an art, that is the goal. ~ henry-miller, @wisdomtrove 388:Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. ~ william-shakespeare, @wisdomtrove 389:We may be the generation that sees Armageddon. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 390:We need the books that affect us like a disaster ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 391:Why can't there be love that never gets tired? ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 392:You are only as powerful as that which you stand. ~ gary-zukav, @wisdomtrove 393:You are the only one that creates your reality. ~ rhonda-byrne, @wisdomtrove 394:You become that to which you are most exposed. ~ denis-waitley, @wisdomtrove 395:A nation that knows how to work will never suffer. ~ henry-ford, @wisdomtrove 396:Be sure that you make a difference in the world. ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove 397:Consider that nirvana is itself no other than our life. ~ dogen, @wisdomtrove 398:Die each moment so that you are renewed each moment. ~ rajneesh, @wisdomtrove 399:Die, my dear? Why that's the last thing I'll do! ~ groucho-marx, @wisdomtrove 400:Enthusiasm is the steam that drives the engine. ~ napoleon-hill, @wisdomtrove 401:Everyone wishes that the man whom he fears would perish. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 402:Everything that begins, begins with blood. ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove 403:Faith is the bird that sings while it is yet dark. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 404:Fear may come true that which one is afraid of. ~ viktor-frankl, @wisdomtrove 405:God wiped snot out of his nose and that was you. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 406:Hard is the heart that loveth nought In May. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 407:He had a mind so fine that no idea could violate it ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 408:I believe that every person is born with talent. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 409:I have no time for things that have no soul. ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 410:I think Big Foot is blurry, that's the problem. ~ mitch-hedberg, @wisdomtrove 411:It is not certain that everything is uncertain. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 412:It's easy to get married, but hard to stay that way. ~ mae-west, @wisdomtrove 413:It's so clear that you have to cherish everyone. ~ alice-walker, @wisdomtrove 414:Learning implies a mind that doesn't know. ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 415:Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 416:Man is the greatest being that ever can be. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 417:Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to. ~ mark-twain, @wisdomtrove 418:No is the foundation that we can build our yes on. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 419:Nothing that is can pause or stay. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove 420:Our problem with desire is that we want too little. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 421:Our scars make us know that our past was for real ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 422:Patience is a fruit that only grows under trials. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 423:Suppose, gentleman, that man is not stupid. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 424:That's nothing. My alarm clock is set for eight. ~ groucho-marx, @wisdomtrove 425:That which you are looking for, you’re living with. ~ les-brown, @wisdomtrove 426:The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows. ~ robert-frost, @wisdomtrove 427:The universe is just there, and that is all. ~ bertrand-russell, @wisdomtrove 428:The wall that protects you, also imprisons you. ~ susan-jeffers, @wisdomtrove 429:This grandiose tragedy that we call modern art. ~ salvador-dali, @wisdomtrove 430:Those who think must govern those that toil. ~ oliver-goldsmith, @wisdomtrove 431:Welcome will arrived, the hour that was not hoped for. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 432:We loved with a love that was more than love. ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 433:We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us. ~ edmund-burke, @wisdomtrove 434:You never understand anybody that loves you. ~ ernest-hemingway, @wisdomtrove 435:Content Marketing is all the Marketing that's left. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 436:God! that one might read the book of fate. ~ william-shakespeare, @wisdomtrove 437:Gotta head full of ideas that are driving me insane. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 438:Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times. ~ aeschylus, @wisdomtrove 439:Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 440:He that won't be counselled can't be helped. ~ benjamin-franklin, @wisdomtrove 441:I am a child of God. I always carry that with me. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 442:I am a part of everything that I have read. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 443:I believe that everything happens for a reason. ~ marilyn-monroe, @wisdomtrove 444:I considered calmly that I was born to write. ~ jean-paul-sartre, @wisdomtrove 445:I failed to communicate, that's why I chose to leave ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 446:I know myself," he cried, "But that is all. ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove 447:I shall make that trip. I shall go to Korea. ~ dwight-eisenhower, @wisdomtrove 448:It is a free market that makes monopolies impossible. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove 449:It is failure that is easy. Success is always hard. ~ henry-ford, @wisdomtrove 450:It is often little things that are hardest to stand. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 451:It's all real and it's all illusory: that's Awareness! ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 452:It's unfulfilled dreams that keep you alive. ~ robert-h-schuller, @wisdomtrove 453:It's what a fellow thinks he knows that hurts him. ~ kin-hubbard, @wisdomtrove 454:Man knows that love is, but not what it is. ~ emanuel-swedenborg, @wisdomtrove 455:Man seems the only growth that dwindles here. ~ oliver-goldsmith, @wisdomtrove 456:Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes. ~ e-m-forster, @wisdomtrove 457:My big fear was that my guitar would go out of tune. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 458:Never memorize something that you can look up. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove 459:Nothing is the force that renovates the World. ~ emily-dickinson, @wisdomtrove 460:Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind. ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 461:Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying. ~ ram-das, @wisdomtrove 462:Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound. ~ voltaire, @wisdomtrove 463:Remorse - Regret that one waited so long to do it. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 464:Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 465:That field hath eyen, and the wood hath ears. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 466:That great Cathedral space which was childhood. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 467:That proverbial saying, "Ill news goes quick and far. ~ plutarch, @wisdomtrove 468:The big thing is that you know what you want. ~ earl-nightingale, @wisdomtrove 469:The Dharma is the truth that all natures are pure. ~ bodhidharma, @wisdomtrove 470:The first duty of man is that of subduing fear. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 471:The greatest victory is that which requires no battle. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove 472:Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie. ~ oliver-goldsmith, @wisdomtrove 473:The one who is happy, that's the one who is right. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 474:The only true law is that which leads to freedom. ~ richard-bach, @wisdomtrove 475:There are 9 rejected ideas for every idea that works. ~ jony-ive, @wisdomtrove 476:There is no rampart that will hold out against malice. ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 477:There's no evidence that vulnerabilty is weakness. ~ brene-brown, @wisdomtrove 478:The scum that rises upmost, when the nation boils. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 479:The truth that I am seeking is in your missing file. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 480:To be, or not to be, that is the question. ~ william-shakespeare, @wisdomtrove 481:Trouthe is the hyest thyng that man may kepe. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 482:Truth is the highest thing that man may keep. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 483:We all know that a church is not a building. ~ robert-h-schuller, @wisdomtrove 484:Where God works, He works with men that work. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 485:Your attitude is more important that your aptitude. ~ zig-ziglar, @wisdomtrove 486:You teach best that which you need most to learn. ~ richard-bach, @wisdomtrove 487:And the reason that i laugh and breathe is oh love ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove 488:As a rule it is circumstances that make men. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 489:Blessed are the dead that the rain falls on. ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove 490:Do not do that which others can do as well. ~ booker-t-washington, @wisdomtrove 491:Either you understand or you don't, and that is that. ~ bruce-lee, @wisdomtrove 492:Forbid us something, and that thing we desire. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 493:Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, ~ george-carlin, @wisdomtrove 494:Future is everything that past has forgotten. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 495:He that travels in theory has no inconveniences. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 496:History is a myth that men agree to believe. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 497:I am pushing sixty. That is enough exercise for me. ~ mark-twain, @wisdomtrove 498:I broke that town in half like a wooden match. ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 499:I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 500:I know enough to know that no man is an island. ~ richard-branson, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:All that I am ~ John Quincy Adams, #NFDB
2:Follow that lizard! ~ Holly Black, #NFDB
3:gotta get that. ~ Linwood Barclay, #NFDB
4:in that report. She ~ Ally Condie, #NFDB
5:Nah, that's not true. ~ Rick Ross, #NFDB
6:nothing here that ~ Louis L Amour, #NFDB
7:numbers mean that the ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
8:scares that kid, ~ Patrick Carman, #NFDB
9:Slashdot. I did that. ~ Rob Malda, #NFDB
10:That letter you wrote ~ Jenny Han, #NFDB
11:that proved the ~ Margarita Engle, #NFDB
12:That’s all it was. ~ Steven James, #NFDB
13:That’s a very good thing. ~ Tijan, #NFDB
14:That’s convenient. ~ Rachel Caine, #NFDB
15:That shit stops now. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
16:That's it, come on! ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
17:Yes, I am saying that. ~ T A Grey, #NFDB
18:And that was?’ ‘He ~ Stephen Booth, #NFDB
19:compassion, that ~ Brian D McLaren, #NFDB
20:God tells me that ~ Sri Chinmoy, #NFDB
21:I know that I know nothing ~ Plato, #NFDB
22:Is that a robo-rat? ~ Linda Nagata, #NFDB
23:Love that I bear ~ Hilda Doolittle, #NFDB
24:phantasms that ~ Washington Irving, #NFDB
25:seats in that election ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
26:Sippin' on that brown stuff ~ Slug, #NFDB
27:Terror. That was it. ~ Roddy Doyle, #NFDB
28:That and loneliness. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
29:that one had to put ~ Benedict XVI, #NFDB
30:That’s called girth, ~ Roxy Sloane, #NFDB
31:that typhus had spread ~ Ann Moore, #NFDB
32:The hour is come, that ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
33:Uh I like it like that ~ Juvenile, #NFDB
34:And I hope that you die ~ Bob Dylan, #NFDB
35:And in that hour, ~ William Cowper, #NFDB
36:guessed that ~ Rachel Ren e Russell, #NFDB
37:Hold that for me. ~ Debbie Macomber, #NFDB
38:Ideas that spread win. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
39:I read that it's one of ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
40:Is that pleather? ~ Kathleen Brooks, #NFDB
41:judges of that, ~ Margery Allingham, #NFDB
42:Life's that way --> ~ Jim Beaver, #NFDB
43:Listen, that you may live. ~ Isaiah, #NFDB
44:SHIT THAT PISSES ME OFF ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
45:That was for damn sure. ~ Lee Child, #NFDB
46:That was pants. ~ Stephanie Perkins, #NFDB
47:That woman is my woman ~ Robyn Carr, #NFDB
48:Time, that aged nurse, ~ John Keats, #NFDB
49:UK—that was Britain. ~ Ransom Riggs, #NFDB
50:understanding that ~ Rujuta Diwekar, #NFDB
51:was convinced that he ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
52:After that, we had no ~ Thomas Wolfe, #NFDB
53:All that’s left is ‘we. ~ Kim Holden, #NFDB
54:anything that might be ~ Jeff Shaara, #NFDB
55:Bono? Who the hell is that? ~ Redman, #NFDB
56:Guilt will do that. ~ Steven Erikson, #NFDB
57:How sad, a heart that ~ Omar Khayyam, #NFDB
58:I can live with that. ~ Beth Michele, #NFDB
59:I found out that there ~ Johnny Cash, #NFDB
60:Is my kissing that bad? ~ Kiera Cass, #NFDB
61:Is that cowboy logic? ~ Shelly Crane, #NFDB
62:It do really be like that. ~ Unknown, #NFDB
63:make that ~ Gertrude Chandler Warner, #NFDB
64:murdered, and that a ~ John Sandford, #NFDB
65:Never that is shall die. ~ Euripides, #NFDB
66:Rape? Who enjoys that ~ Meghan March, #NFDB
67:That bastard crazy. ~ Graham Roumieu, #NFDB
68:That dog is a Marine! ~ Robert Crais, #NFDB
69:That dog’ll hunt. ~ Janet W Ferguson, #NFDB
70:That is absurd. Nobody ~ Fred Kofman, #NFDB
71:That’s the city of Oops. ~ L R W Lee, #NFDB
72:That’s useful to know. ~ Erin Hunter, #NFDB
73:That's what she said. ~ Mindy Kaling, #NFDB
74:That thing has a name? ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
75:That was pretty ninja. ~ Evan Wright, #NFDB
76:The past is just that. ~ B J Daniels, #NFDB
77:Those human groups that ~ Max Weber, #NFDB
78:Was that you, Pooky Bear? ~ Susan Ee, #NFDB
79:Will, is that you? ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
80:All ye that pass by! ~ John Masefield, #NFDB
81:Amen to that. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
82:Belay that fuckery. ~ Brian K Vaughan, #NFDB
83:Does that mean you ~ Elizabeth Lowell, #NFDB
84:Don’t talk about that! ~ Nancy Farmer, #NFDB
85:Esperanza, that you, ~ Pam Mu oz Ryan, #NFDB
86:Get back on that bike. ~ Sarah Dessen, #NFDB
87:Gold is Money. That's it ~ J P Morgan, #NFDB
88:I’d have to eat that ~ Cheryl Strayed, #NFDB
89:I wish I were that cat. ~ Dave Franco, #NFDB
90:knowing that, too, was one ~ J D Robb, #NFDB
91:persuasively, that ~ Burton G Malkiel, #NFDB
92:some of that old Sam rose up. ~ Tijan, #NFDB
93:some will say that death ~ C E Morgan, #NFDB
94:succeed. That’s ~ Christina L Rozelle, #NFDB
95:That all you got...Bub? ~ Joss Whedon, #NFDB
96:That damned volcano ~ Ragnar J nasson, #NFDB
97:That isn’t family, Sadie, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
98:"That is the way it is." ~ Ajahn Chah, #NFDB
99:that Roosevelt ~ Doris Kearns Goodwin, #NFDB
100:That’s alright, I bite. ~ Devri Walls, #NFDB
101:That's crudely put, but ~ Gregory Orr, #NFDB
102:that she was course. ~ Anatole France, #NFDB
103:That's one huge puppy. ~ Ksenia Anske, #NFDB
104:That’s up to your daddy now. ~ G Neri, #NFDB
105:that’s what he said. ~ Kathryn Hughes, #NFDB
106:that the event would ~ Peter Robinson, #NFDB
107:That was Mahogany!! ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
108:The thing that surprised ~ Robin Cook, #NFDB
109:Truths that wake ~ William Wordsworth, #NFDB
110:Well, that was unexpected. ~ T L Swan, #NFDB
111:Woss that on your ’ead? ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
112:zacatecas purple. That ~ Joseph Flynn, #NFDB
113:Follow that porcupine! ~ Gail Carriger, #NFDB
114:He that lends, gives. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
115:I'd like to bite that lip. ~ E L James, #NFDB
116:If people tell you that ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
117:I know that I know nothing. ~ Socrates, #NFDB
118:I teach that all men are mad. ~ Horace, #NFDB
119:Nobody would dare do that. ~ Lee Child, #NFDB
120:Oh, my! Well . . . that ~ Joanne Fluke, #NFDB
121:others. Keep in mind that ~ Kyle Mills, #NFDB
122:Thanks for that. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
123:that changes everything. ~ Lee Strobel, #NFDB
124:That is not in question, ~ Alex Segura, #NFDB
125:That low vice, curiosity! ~ Lord Byron, #NFDB
126:that seemed the easiest to ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
127:That’s just how I roll. ~ Blake Pierce, #NFDB
128:That's my kind of girl! ~ Amie Kaufman, #NFDB
129:That’s what he told you. ~ Mary Kubica, #NFDB
130:That was a real fireball. ~ John Glenn, #NFDB
131:That was it, sir. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, #NFDB
132:That we would do ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
133:The fact that I ~ Gustavo Perez Firmat, #NFDB
134:The sea? What's that? ~ Zlata Filipovi, #NFDB
135:The War That Will End War. ~ H G Wells, #NFDB
136:What good would that do? ~ E B Walters, #NFDB
137:what he thought of that. ~ Edie Claire, #NFDB
138:Where's the fun in that? ~ Ally Carter, #NFDB
139:why do you think that? ~ Iris Johansen, #NFDB
140:Would you look at that? ~ Aliyah Burke, #NFDB
141:Yeah, that’s the way. ~ Gena Showalter, #NFDB
142:All that glisters is not gold. ~ Common, #NFDB
143:Art? That's a man's name. ~ Andy Warhol, #NFDB
144:box. I’m sure of that. ~ David Baldacci, #NFDB
145:Diamond walls. “That ~ Victoria Aveyard, #NFDB
146:He that is rich is wise. ~ Daniel Defoe, #NFDB
147:He that runs may read. ~ William Cowper, #NFDB
148:I AM THAT
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj,#NFDB
149:I bookmark that thought. ~ Alice Feeney, #NFDB
150:Ice,” that sword was called ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
151:I conjured that bitch. ~ Sophia Amoruso, #NFDB
152:Most? What does that mean? ~ Celeste Ng, #NFDB
153:Open to me, so that I may open. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
154:Ruthless. That’s my girl. ~ Holly Black, #NFDB
155:Size counts. That's all. ~ Gina Gershon, #NFDB
156:Something like that. And ~ John Grisham, #NFDB
157:Something like that.” “You ~ Gene Wolfe, #NFDB
158:Surviving, that's my plan. ~ Ray Davies, #NFDB
159:That disgusts me. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
160:That mask of Wilder’s ~ Thornton Wilder, #NFDB
161:That’s a fugging shame, ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
162:That's kind of creepy. ~ Amanda Hocking, #NFDB
163:That's not a good idea ~ Colleen Hoover, #NFDB
164:That’s the very thing that ~ Robyn Carr, #NFDB
165:That was liquid football ~ Steve Coogan, #NFDB
166:That we may gain a heart of ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
167:that would be a welcome ~ Josephine Cox, #NFDB
168:That would be our luck. ~ Gillian Flynn, #NFDB
169:Well that was sucktastic ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
170:You call that a kiss? ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
171:You call that poetry? ~ Andrew Peterson, #NFDB
172:All is well that ends well ~ Emily Rodda, #NFDB
173:and Wally that he planned ~ John Grisham, #NFDB
174:But what does that mean? ~ Rakesh Satyal, #NFDB
175:Can we do that again? ~ Penelope Douglas, #NFDB
176:cet enfant terrible,’ that ~ Enid Blyton, #NFDB
177:Conceive you - that ass! ~ Joseph Conrad, #NFDB
178:Do what you want that works. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB
179:Fortune, that favors fools. ~ Ben Jonson, #NFDB
180:Harriet? She had that ~ Elizabeth Strout, #NFDB
181:He loves you that much. ~ C J Darlington, #NFDB
182:home. Not that that bothered ~ H Y Hanna, #NFDB
183:I feel taller. I like that. ~ Bo Burnham, #NFDB
184:If. I hate that word. ~ Victoria Aveyard, #NFDB
185:I get hated a lot. That’s ok. ~ Jay Park, #NFDB
186:I made that test my bitch. ~ Ned Vizzini, #NFDB
187:I'm famous. That's my job. ~ Jerry Rubin, #NFDB
188:I'm glad that I'm female. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
189:I think that I'm perfect. ~ Dolly Parton, #NFDB
190:I thought that was you. ~ Stephanie Bond, #NFDB
191:I was once that little boy ~ Lupe Fiasco, #NFDB
192:Just like that, I'm lost ~ Monica Murphy, #NFDB
193:Love is all that matters. ~ China Forbes, #NFDB
194:Love is messy. I want that. ~ Leah Konen, #NFDB
195:Love that cares, listens. ~ Paul Tillich, #NFDB
196:maenadic soul that ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
197:Make of that what you will. ~ Leif Enger, #NFDB
198:mist that had rolled ~ Victoria Connelly, #NFDB
199:No god is that spiteful. ~ Chris Dietzel, #NFDB
200:Oh, that sounds like too ~ Gillian Flynn, #NFDB
201:Prism! Where is that baby? ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
202:so that the poles are on the ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
203:That all you got, George? ~ Muhammad Ali, #NFDB
204:That boy Mantle is a good one. ~ Ty Cobb, #NFDB
205:That but this blow ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
206:that good yet, but she did ~ Sandra Hill, #NFDB
207:That has to be a mistake— ~ Leddy Harper, #NFDB
208:That is simply stunning. ~ Marc Thiessen, #NFDB
209:That, right now, is enough. ~ Emily Barr, #NFDB
210:That's all there is. ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
211:That’s how we found the ~ Megan McDonald, #NFDB
212:That’s my clever girl. ~ Teresa Medeiros, #NFDB
213:That's not a good idea. ~ Colleen Hoover, #NFDB
214:That's what Tiggers do best! ~ A A Milne, #NFDB
215:that we should walk in them. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
216:The evil that we know is best. ~ Plautus, #NFDB
217:The heart that gives, gathers. ~ Lao Tzu, #NFDB
218:the meal: that he had the ~ Daniel Silva, #NFDB
219:Was that you or the duck? ~ Groucho Marx, #NFDB
220:You know that love ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
221:adroitly that there was ~ Solomon Northup, #NFDB
222:All's well that ends well. ~ John Heywood, #NFDB
223:All that shit starts in E. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
224:And that, said John, is that. ~ A A Milne, #NFDB
225:Attention. That's all girls want. ~ Diplo, #NFDB
226:But that was all. We ~ Marianne Delacourt, #NFDB
227:But who do you say that I am? ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
228:conscious that his right leg ~ C J Sansom, #NFDB
229:Enjoy that special place. ~ Emilie Barnes, #NFDB
230:How about that?” Henry claps ~ Jojo Moyes, #NFDB
231:I am all that I grok. ~ Robert A Heinlein, #NFDB
232:I hate rap! Can I say that? ~ Chris Kaman, #NFDB
233:I’m not, like, that smart. ~ Paris Hilton, #NFDB
234:I'm not that professional. ~ Andy Richter, #NFDB
235:I never use that word, retire. ~ B B King, #NFDB
236:ISI. “Can I also assume that ~ Kyle Mills, #NFDB
237:It's war that makes generals ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
238:Know the Power that is Peace. ~ Black Elk, #NFDB
239:Men that hazard all ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
240:Mind is all that counts. ~ Robert Collier, #NFDB
241:much? Convinced that what her ~ C M Palov, #NFDB
242:Now, bring me that horizon. ~ Johnny Depp, #NFDB
243:Now is all that matters. ~ Kevin Michaels, #NFDB
244:objects that couldn’t be ~ Danielle Steel, #NFDB
245:Oh, that peace may come. ~ Queen Victoria, #NFDB
246:Peace, that’s all I’m after. ~ Tim Winton, #NFDB
247:pretty name that never ~ Michael Connelly, #NFDB
248:Soul inhabits body that fits. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB
249:Stand firm in that which you are. ~ Kabir, #NFDB
250:that he really had suffered ~ Mary Balogh, #NFDB
251:That old bald cheater, Time. ~ Ben Jonson, #NFDB
252:That's factually crazy... ~ Jennifer Egan, #NFDB
253:That’s how we heroes roll. ~ Nancy Naigle, #NFDB
254:That's my Shinobi Way ~ Masashi Kishimoto, #NFDB
255:That’s what’s this is. ~ James Scott Bell, #NFDB
256:That tastes like hope feels. ~ John Green, #NFDB
257:that those silences, ~ Catherine Steadman, #NFDB
258:That way of inspiration ~ Hilda Doolittle, #NFDB
259:That which submits rules. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
260:thought that she was the ~ Melissa Foster, #NFDB
261:uttering that terrific cry: ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
262:Well, either that or high. ~ Elle Kennedy, #NFDB
263:What we expect, that we find. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
264:Where are you taking that ass? ~ Apuleius, #NFDB
265:Yorda...that's your name? ~ Miyuki Miyabe, #NFDB
266:You know how that feels? ~ Gary D Schmidt, #NFDB
267:Actually, I didn't say that. ~ Mitt Romney, #NFDB
268:A lover fears all that he believes. ~ Ovid, #NFDB
269:And I’m not just saying that ~ Marie Force, #NFDB
270:and that's all it takes. He ~ Penny Wylder, #NFDB
271:Courage is fear that prays. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
272:Do you know that you’re loved? ~ C D Reiss, #NFDB
273:Hold her head; that’s it, lad! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
274:How am I supposed to do that? ~ Chris Voss, #NFDB
275:I am aware that I am aware ~ David Benioff, #NFDB
276:I can't give up that quick ~ Laura Marling, #NFDB
277:If I ruled the world Imagine that... ~ Nas, #NFDB
278:I know that I know nothing. ~ Ashfaq Ahmed, #NFDB
279:I know that it means very ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
280:I left my mark on that man. ~ Alice Sebold, #NFDB
281:I'm an actor that cares. ~ Joe Manganiello, #NFDB
282:I’m not, like, that smart. ~ Paris Hilton, #NFDB
283:I'm somebody that you should know. ~ Drake, #NFDB
284:I never had that star aura. ~ Lauren Holly, #NFDB
285:I never tire of that view, ~ Cathy Bramley, #NFDB
286:I only know that I know nothing ~ Socrates, #NFDB
287:Is that Nutella and bacon? ~ Lisi Harrison, #NFDB
288:Is that right?” she murmured. ~ Katie Reus, #NFDB
289:It something that takes time. ~ Kim Chance, #NFDB
290:It was over, and I knew that. ~ Kiera Cass, #NFDB
291:I’ve missed that dirty mouth. ~ Katie Reus, #NFDB
292:nowhere in the crowd that ~ Danielle Steel, #NFDB
293:number so that he and I could ~ J S Cooper, #NFDB
294:paper that Tina had tossed ~ Sherryl Woods, #NFDB
295:promise you that, mister! ~ Steve Hamilton, #NFDB
296:say “fire flowers.”’ ‘That’s ~ Helen Smith, #NFDB
297:saying we should check that ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
298:Simple is never that simple. ~ Philip Roth, #NFDB
299:standing so close that I can ~ Lila Monroe, #NFDB
300:start. They say that Albemarle ~ G A Henty, #NFDB
301:That brought D.D. up short. ~ Lisa Gardner, #NFDB
302:that fucking motherfucker ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
303:That is some serious penis skills ~ J Lynn, #NFDB
304:That'll boil her ice cream. ~ P T Michelle, #NFDB
305:that Noah and Snow could worry ~ R R Banks, #NFDB
306:That one . . . she is mine. ~ Rachel Hauck, #NFDB
307:That’s my girl.” Again, ~ Victoria Aveyard, #NFDB
308:That’s not even a thing. ~ Kristin Cashore, #NFDB
309:THAT'S THE POINT, SHERLOCK!', ~ John Green, #NFDB
310:That's what I represent: love. ~ DJ Khaled, #NFDB
311:The hand that gives, gathers. ~ Eugene Sue, #NFDB
312:There was no miracle that night. ~ Ed King, #NFDB
313:They laughed at that. She ~ Kristin Hannah, #NFDB
314:To live - is that not enough? ~ D T Suzuki, #NFDB
315:Who's that, the windbreaker? ~ Paul Heyman, #NFDB
316:Will? Will, is that you? ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
317:Yeah. That helps, too.” At ~ Michael Grant, #NFDB
318:Yeah, that’s me. Oddly sweet. ~ Vi Keeland, #NFDB
319:You're the drug that works. ~ Heather Nova, #NFDB
320:And just like that, it's over ~ T Greenwood, #NFDB
321:And that's the way it is. ~ Walter Cronkite, #NFDB
322:A nothing that was everything ~ Lauren Kate, #NFDB
323:ask for my hand.” “That’s ~ Khaled Hosseini, #NFDB
324:Be still and know that I am God ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
325:Blood and death. That moves me. ~ Ikue Mori, #NFDB
326:But now that person is gone ~ Natalie Lloyd, #NFDB
327:Closure. I loathe that word. ~ Gayle Forman, #NFDB
328:Compassion and love, that's all. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
329:Courage isn’t a feeling that ~ Jill Briscoe, #NFDB
330:Daddy, what’s that? ~ John Ajvide Lindqvist, #NFDB
331:Esteem all things that are good. ~ Tibullus, #NFDB
332:Everything that’s loved lives. ~ Mira Grant, #NFDB
333:Find the stories that unite us ~ Ami Vitale, #NFDB
334:Follow that coffeehouse. ~ Frances Hardinge, #NFDB
335:for
the arms
that hold me ~ Rupi Kaur,#NFDB
336:For you, that tree is dead. ~ Richard Stark, #NFDB
337:Fuck…that pussy. Just…fuck. ~ Sierra Simone, #NFDB
338:Girl I knew you knew that Corly ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
339:God is the sum of all that is ~ Mike Dooley, #NFDB
340:Guilt is a rope that wears thin. ~ Ayn Rand, #NFDB
341:How's that for the grapes? ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
342:I Am The Thing That Ends You ~ Sarra Cannon, #NFDB
343:I am who I am and that's it! ~ Jen Calonita, #NFDB
344:I feel certain that words ~ Margarita Engle, #NFDB
345:I know that. What's your point? ~ Tite Kubo, #NFDB
346:i like everything that flows ~ Henry Miller, #NFDB
347:I like songs that are simple. ~ Syd Barrett, #NFDB
348:I smoke, isn't that terrible? ~ Kate Hudson, #NFDB
349:Is that you? Nice wolfie. ~ Jennifer Ashley, #NFDB
350:It doesn't work that way ~ Luis J Rodr guez, #NFDB
351:I think that I shall never see ~ Ogden Nash, #NFDB
352:It is your minds that are moving. ~ Huineng, #NFDB
353:It's good to see a kid that ~ Jorge Posada, #NFDB
354:It’s love that enslaves us. ~ Justin Cronin, #NFDB
355:It’s spirit that gives life. ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
356:Judge not that ye be not judged ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
357:Leaders do stuff that matters. ~ Tom Peters, #NFDB
358:Longing is all that lasts. ~ Jennifer Stone, #NFDB
359:McLanahan thought that Elliott ~ Dale Brown, #NFDB
360:no chance of that, Miles. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
361:no one else sees me that way. ~ R J Palacio, #NFDB
362:On time is late, that’s right. ~ Lyla Payne, #NFDB
363:orange Capri pants that were ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
364:Quiet night, that brings ~ Philip Massinger, #NFDB
365:Sogeking... SHOOT THAT FLAG. ~ Eiichiro Oda, #NFDB
366:That Annie girl—” “Annabeth. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
367:That Bastard's Ass is Grass! ~ Lisa Jackson, #NFDB
368:That explained the unbearable ~ Marie Force, #NFDB
369:That is honor's scorn ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
370:That Logan is in love with me. “No. ~ Tijan, #NFDB
371:that number is 58 percent ~ Steven D Levitt, #NFDB
372:That plant needs a diaper, ~ Betty G Birney, #NFDB
373:that slimy sycophant Hux ~ Alan Dean Foster, #NFDB
374:That son of a bitch hacked me. ~ Jana Aston, #NFDB
375:That’s what I heard,” she ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
376:That's what poems are for, ~ Tess Gallagher, #NFDB
377:That you may be beloved, be amiable. ~ Ovid, #NFDB
378:The lie that started it all. ~ Sara Shepard, #NFDB
379:The place that does ~ John William Fletcher, #NFDB
380:The same thing that’s happened ~ John Boyne, #NFDB
381:Treasure, that is what you are ~ Bruno Mars, #NFDB
382:veiled insubordination that he ~ Jojo Moyes, #NFDB
383:want to live someplace that ~ Mary H K Choi, #NFDB
384:When you call me that, smile. ~ Owen Wister, #NFDB
385:You can't do better than that. ~ Jack White, #NFDB
386:You shouldn't have done that. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
387:A little lie that's almost true. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB
388:All I know is that I know nothing ~ Socrates, #NFDB
389:All's well that ends better. ~ J R R Tolkien, #NFDB
390:All that rescues us is love. ~ Edward Hirsch, #NFDB
391:All that shakes falles not. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
392:Anybody that walks can sing. ~ Michael Stipe, #NFDB
393:A small café, that's love. ~ Mahmoud Darwish, #NFDB
394:A wood that smells of the sea. ~ Nina George, #NFDB
395:Bag of dicks? That’s creative. ~ Elle Casey, #NFDB
396:Believe that a further shore ~ Seamus Heaney, #NFDB
397:Be still and know that I am God! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
398:Be still and know that I am God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
399:Be that self that one is ~ S ren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
400:Be who you are and own that shit ~ B L Berry, #NFDB
401:Deep fry that sucker! - Garfield ~ Jim Davis, #NFDB
402:Don't quote me on that. ~ Eliot Sappingfield, #NFDB
403:For in that universal call, ~ Jonathan Swift, #NFDB
404:God is a thing that thinks. ~ Baruch Spinoza, #NFDB
405:God said it, that settles it. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
406:He is lifeless that is faultless. ~ Voltaire, #NFDB
407:He laughed at that. ‘You’re ~ Robert Goddard, #NFDB
408:He plaies well that winnes. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
409:He's just not that into you. ~ Greg Behrendt, #NFDB
410:He that serves, must serve. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
411:I answer that I cannot answer. ~ Evan Roskos, #NFDB
412:I don't settle. That's how I am. ~ Pau Gasol, #NFDB
413:I don’t want to do that, though. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
414:I enjoy music that is commercial. ~ Babyface, #NFDB
415:I know that this story is true. ~ Dan Rather, #NFDB
416:I like anything that's edible. ~ Niall Horan, #NFDB
417:I like rules that are broken. ~ Shelby Lynne, #NFDB
418:I love that country [Israel]. ~ Helen Mirren, #NFDB
419:I'm really not that confident! ~ Leona Lewis, #NFDB
420:I'm really not that fierce. ~ Iyanla Vanzant, #NFDB
421:Isn’t that the realest shit ever? ~ Issa Rae, #NFDB
422:It is only doubt that creates. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
423:It's the kisses that are universal. ~ Tarkan, #NFDB
424:It was hope that brought me love. ~ Nely Cab, #NFDB
425:Like a mountain that's growing. ~ Neil Young, #NFDB
426:Love was like death that way. ~ Paul Russell, #NFDB
427:mixing with a child like that. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
428:Modeling isn't all that tough. ~ Josie Maran, #NFDB
429:Music is 'that by which I live. ~ Amy Harmon, #NFDB
430:No love is worth that trouble. ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB
431:Oh that it were with me ~ Christina Rossetti, #NFDB
432:only that her lips were moving ~ Kate Morton, #NFDB
433:Science is magic that works. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
434:Smoke that herb and clear your mind. ~ Nelly, #NFDB
435:So face with calm that heritage ~ Allen Tate, #NFDB
436:Sure.” “Well, that happened ~ Robin S Sharma, #NFDB
437:swath of time that stretched out ~ Lily King, #NFDB
438:Talk in order that I may see you. ~ Socrates, #NFDB
439:Tessa? Tessa, is that you? ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
440:That freedom is lost in Hell. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
441:That'll be the day when I die. ~ Buddy Holly, #NFDB
442:That's a fine-looking cat. ~ Kathleen Fuller, #NFDB
443:That's America, competition. ~ John Calipari, #NFDB
444:that's as nutty as squirrel turds ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
445:That sounds like bulshytt! ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
446:That’s right, dear reader. I, ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
447:That's Right! I Own the WCW! ~ Vince McMahon, #NFDB
448:That's the best part. The how. ~ Jessi Kirby, #NFDB
449:That's what fame is: solitude. ~ Coco Chanel, #NFDB
450:that? Trains are wonderful.) ~ Paula Hawkins, #NFDB
451:that was where he came from, ~ Louis L Amour, #NFDB
452:That which is excellent endures. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
453:That which we are, we are. ~ Alfred Tennyson, #NFDB
454:Time passes. That's for sure. ~ Eileen Myles, #NFDB
455:To be weird! That is my goal! ~ Alfred Jarry, #NFDB
456:Uphill, downhill, I like that. ~ Peter Sagan, #NFDB
457:Was he that diabolical? ~ Karen Marie Moning, #NFDB
458:We have a theory about that.” We? ~ Jex Lane, #NFDB
459:We laugh, that we may not cry. ~ Roger Ebert, #NFDB
460:We’ll allow that.” “Thank you. ~ Marie Force, #NFDB
461:Well that just dills my pickle! ~ Penny Reid, #NFDB
462:We see only that which we are. ~ Debbie Ford, #NFDB
463:Whatever happens, love that. ~ Maddie Dawson, #NFDB
464:Whenever I hear that phrase, ~ Gillian Flynn, #NFDB
465:Who knows that about anybody? ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
466:Why would he done that to her? ~ Chanda Hahn, #NFDB
467:With questions that are orders ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
468:Woe to the dupe that yields to Fate! ~ Hafez, #NFDB
469:accent that Fry could detect. ~ Stephen Booth, #NFDB
470:All I know is that I know nothing. ~ Socrates, #NFDB
471:All is fish that comth to net. ~ John Heywood, #NFDB
472:All's well that begins well! ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
473:ALL THAT HAPPENS MUST BE KNOWN. ~ Dave Eggers, #NFDB
474:All that is one and one that is all. ~ Hermes, #NFDB
475:All that’s left is the rest, ~ Jonas Jonasson, #NFDB
476:A sitcom. I hate that word. ~ Angela Lansbury, #NFDB
477:Be still and know that I am God a ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
478:Be still, and know that I am God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
479:bottle that reads, "Drink me. ~ Lewis Carroll, #NFDB
480:Design is art that people use. ~ Ellen Lupton, #NFDB
481:Did you hear that? I'm special. ~ Ally Carter, #NFDB
482:Do the thing that scares you. ~ Jamie McGuire, #NFDB
483:Everything that I make I use. ~ Lenny Kravitz, #NFDB
484:Excuse me, is that a good magazine? ~ Roosh V, #NFDB
485:face that looked partly melted. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
486:first, except that obviously ~ Danielle Steel, #NFDB
487:for cleanliness, that’s a dirty ~ Terry Hayes, #NFDB
488:For dreams that never die. ~ James Tiptree Jr, #NFDB
489:Gimme some of that you and me, ~ Jason Aldean, #NFDB
490:God cannot act in history—that ~ Benedict XVI, #NFDB
491:God, I wish I could be like that, ~ T K Leigh, #NFDB
492:Heaven forbids that man should know ~ Statius, #NFDB
493:Heaven? That has no hold over me. ~ SebastiAn, #NFDB
494:He, that holds fast the golden mean, ~ Horace, #NFDB
495:He that sowes trusts in God. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
496:I am a whisper that never was. ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
497:I believe that death means ‘loss’. ~ Otsuichi, #NFDB
498:I can't be having with that ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
499:I can't do that to myself... ~ Clint Eastwood, #NFDB
500:I'd like to know that your love ~ Carole King, #NFDB
501:I dont have that many friends. ~ Agyness Deyn, #NFDB
502:I do. That is character! ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
503:I love you with all that I am, ~ Shelly Crane, #NFDB
504:I make jokes. That's what I do. ~ Wyatt Cenac, #NFDB
505:I'm not that interesting! ~ Lindsay Davenport, #NFDB
506:I'm too young to be that old. ~ James Crumley, #NFDB
507:I realize that nothing's as it seems. ~ Sting, #NFDB
508:It is my heart that's late, ~ Stanley Kunitz, #NFDB
509:It is the heart that is important. ~ Nichiren, #NFDB
510:It knew things, that smile. ~ Julie Anne Long, #NFDB
511:It's not that I'm so smart. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
512:It's the good-byes that are hard. ~ Jenny Han, #NFDB
513:It's the habit that gets you. ~ Abby McDonald, #NFDB
514:It was you that chose your due, ~ Flavor Flav, #NFDB
515:I was taught that pain is bad. ~ Keith Miller, #NFDB
516:I wish I still had that photo. ~ Warren Ellis, #NFDB
517:leave her out of this’ that it ~ M Ruth Myers, #NFDB
518:life—and that of her child. ~ Debbie Macomber, #NFDB
519:Life is good - we forget that. ~ Maryam d Abo, #NFDB
520:Life is not that complicated. ~ George Carlin, #NFDB
521:My TV ain't HD, that's too real ~ Frank Ocean, #NFDB
522:She brags that she once earned one ~ Lisa See, #NFDB
523:She’s a survivor, that one. ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
524:She's got a smile that heals me. ~ Billy Joel, #NFDB
525:Smile, son! That's the ticket out! ~ A S King, #NFDB
526:That hurts me in my feminism. ~ Myra McEntire, #NFDB
527:that last leg. She had been ~ Barbara Freethy, #NFDB
528:That’s a foregone conclusion. ~ Sabrina Paige, #NFDB
529:That's Chinese, not Japanese ~ Lauren Myracle, #NFDB
530:That secret was a powerful drug. ~ Hugh Howey, #NFDB
531:That's immortality my darlings ~ Sara Shepard, #NFDB
532:That's not my cane," he said. ~ Layce Gardner, #NFDB
533:That sure as fuck ain't no cow ~ Scott Sigler, #NFDB
534:That's what life is. Adjustment. ~ David Wong, #NFDB
535:That tuneful nymph, the babbling Echo. ~ Ovid, #NFDB
536:That was a woman named Blissful. ~ Amy Boyles, #NFDB
537:That which shrinks must first expand. ~ Laozi, #NFDB
538:That would explain its recent ~ Terry Mancour, #NFDB
539:There's a lot that you can be ~ Shannon Hoon, #NFDB
540:think of that? Maybe I want to ~ Elle Kennedy, #NFDB
541:to give him my number so that he ~ J S Cooper, #NFDB
542:treasure that was rightfully ~ Kendall Talbot, #NFDB
543:Trust that God is in our corner. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
544:Two wives? That exceeds the custom. ~ Moliere, #NFDB
545:Use words that soak up life. ~ Virginia Woolf, #NFDB
546:We all want something that sticks ~ Tim Tharp, #NFDB
547:We fear that which we cannot see. ~ Tite Kubo, #NFDB
548:Well, that's an evil smile. ~ James Patterson, #NFDB
549:What do we do if that happens? ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
550:what is that betwixt me and thee? ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
551:Word — That invisible dagger. ~ Emil M Cioran, #NFDB
552:would you want to do that? ~ Nicky Pellegrino, #NFDB
553:you are one with all that is. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
554:You may lay to that. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson, #NFDB
555:Your face. I like that shit. ~ Lani Lynn Vale, #NFDB
556:All love that which they destroy. ~ Gene Wolfe, #NFDB
557:...all's well that ends well. ~ Melody Carlson, #NFDB
558:All that matters is to help the team. ~ Neymar, #NFDB
559:a novel that does its own stunts ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
560:Anything that can go wrong, will ~ Larry Niven, #NFDB
561:Anything that consoles is fake. ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
562:At least I carpe'd that one diem. ~ John Green, #NFDB
563:Been there, done that ~ Jayceon Terrell Taylor, #NFDB
564:Be still and know that I am God. ~ Sarah Young, #NFDB
565:Common sense will tell us, that ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
566:Culture is that which falsifies. ~ Kathy Acker, #NFDB
567:Disciple: That is what we see. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #NFDB
568:Does that make sense? ~ The Arbinger Institute, #NFDB
569:Do not be hasty, that is my motto. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
570:Don't be the team that gets hurt. ~ Joe Flacco, #NFDB
571:don't do things that kill you. ~ John Bytheway, #NFDB
572:do that to a future hero?” She ~ Susan Mallery, #NFDB
573:Do you wonder that they will ~ Rafael Sabatini, #NFDB
574:Even God couldn’t be that cruel. ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB
575:Forget the ones that forget you. ~ Wiz Khalifa, #NFDB
576:For who that noght dar undertake, ~ John Gower, #NFDB
577:God help me, I'm just not that bright. ~ Homer, #NFDB
578:Go nowhere on a horse that fades. ~ Tanith Lee, #NFDB
579:Have you not seen that in our days ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
580:Having a purpose, that's the key. ~ Will Adams, #NFDB
581:He’s Just Not That into You? ~ Catherine Bybee, #NFDB
582:He that cuts off twenty years of life ~ Horace, #NFDB
583:He that lives most dies most. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
584:his brother, except that he had ~ Diana Palmer, #NFDB
585:How to be the best that you can be ~ Meg Cabot, #NFDB
586:I exist as I am. That is enough ~ Walt Whitman, #NFDB
587:if the idea comes to you that ~ James Redfield, #NFDB
588:If you feast, you must fast. That ~ Jason Fung, #NFDB
589:I'm going to marry that girl one day. ~ J Lynn, #NFDB
590:I'm like that, nothing sticks. ~ Gillian Flynn, #NFDB
591:In that direction only pain lies. ~ John Boyne, #NFDB
592:I suspect that hunger was my mother. ~ Plautus, #NFDB
593:It do really be like that sometimes. ~ Unknown, #NFDB
594:I think that Jesus is the product. ~ T D Jakes, #NFDB
595:It is Love that gives joy to happiness. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
596:It's the mind that sees, not eyes. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB
597:It's us that's really amazing. ~ Freeman Dyson, #NFDB
598:I wanted that happily ever after. ~ Lola Stark, #NFDB
599:I wish that I was where I am. ~ Gertrude Stein, #NFDB
600:judge not that ye be not judged ~ John Grisham, #NFDB
601:Let's put a smile on that face! ~ Heath Ledger, #NFDB
602:Let Us Do Evil That Good May Come! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
603:Live in the nowhere that you come from ~ Rumi, #NFDB
604:loneliness that will probably ~ Katherine Owen, #NFDB
605:Love that is fed by jealousy dies hard. ~ Ovid, #NFDB
606:M-O-O-N, that spells sore feet. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
607:My face is not that expressive! ~ Cate Tiernan, #NFDB
608:My love ruined that man’s life. ~ Karina Halle, #NFDB
609:Now that stupid shit is done, ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
610:Oh! that we two were Maying ~ Charles Kingsley, #NFDB
611:Or is it that I think too much? ~ Steve Martin, #NFDB
612:Pursue that which is not meddlesome. ~ Lao Tzu, #NFDB
613:Safe. That is a pretty word. ~ Victoria Schwab, #NFDB
614:Thank you for that experience. ~ Oprah Winfrey, #NFDB
615:That could be fate, you know. ~ Colleen Hoover, #NFDB
616:That home run ties it up, 1-0. ~ Jerry Coleman, #NFDB
617:That I love her. That I’m sorry. ~ Mary Kubica, #NFDB
618:That is what we are. Death. ~ Charlaine Harris, #NFDB
619:That'll do, Pig. That'll do. ~ Dick King Smith, #NFDB
620:That'll do, pig, that'll do. ~ Dick King Smith, #NFDB
621:that my life was with you now. And ~ E L James, #NFDB
622:That’s a terrible idea.” “He ~ Christy Barritt, #NFDB
623:that she wasn’t ‘allowed’, which ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
624:That sounds cool,” Chad said. ~ Richard Laymon, #NFDB
625:That’s So Hot! magazine ~ Rachel Ren e Russell, #NFDB
626:Thats what I crave that diversity. ~ Pam Grier, #NFDB
627:That’s your job, Lottie. All ~ Patricia Gibney, #NFDB
628:that way, the models would be ~ Danielle Steel, #NFDB
629:The City that knows how. ~ William Howard Taft, #NFDB
630:There are secrets that kill. But ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
631:There is a good look that I wear ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
632:They say that terror is a disease, ~ H G Wells, #NFDB
633:Those that are above business. ~ Matthew Henry, #NFDB
634:Too strong for that Bron Bron. ~ Carlos Boozer, #NFDB
635:T-shirt that read I'M A GLEEK. ~ Marlene Perez, #NFDB
636:Twat is twat and that is that. ~ George Carlin, #NFDB
637:Valium would have helped that bash. ~ Lou Reed, #NFDB
638:Voldemort? That might be real. ~ Ralph Fiennes, #NFDB
639:We grow into that which we admire. ~ Emmet Fox, #NFDB
640:What the hell? For what?’ “That ~ Jessica Park, #NFDB
641:Who wrote that?” Tink asked. ~ Andrew Peterson, #NFDB
642:Word - that invisible dagger. ~ Emile M Cioran, #NFDB
643:Yeah, I can dig that... SUCKAAAAAAAAAA! ~ Kane, #NFDB
644:You are you that is truer than true ~ Dr Seuss, #NFDB
645:All is not gold that glitters ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
646:All that glitters is sold as gold. ~ Ogden Nash, #NFDB
647:Along a stream that raced and ran ~ Edgar Guest, #NFDB
648:A lot of cats are not that social. ~ Jack Hanna, #NFDB
649:Anything that happens, happens. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
650:A property is that which not at all ~ Lucretius, #NFDB
651:Art is the lie that reveals the truth ~ Unknown, #NFDB
652:Art is the lie that tells the truth ~ Cris Beam, #NFDB
653:Better safe than sorry. That's my motto. ~ Saul, #NFDB
654:Beware the hobby that eats. ~ Benjamin Franklin, #NFDB
655:But that's a lie, and you know it. ~ John Green, #NFDB
656:Chicks before dicks, and all that. ~ Sylvia Day, #NFDB
657:cobrador costume. A costume that ~ Louise Penny, #NFDB
658:cudgel! That's worth thy trouble, ~ Jacob Grimm, #NFDB
659:Dietrich would never do that ~ Marlene Dietrich, #NFDB
660:Do nothing that is of no use ~ Miyamoto Musashi, #NFDB
661:Don't that make your bosom plim? ~ Thomas Hardy, #NFDB
662:Dreams? What’s the point of that? ~ Erin Hunter, #NFDB
663:Dream! That's all you need to do. ~ Arnold Arre, #NFDB
664:Each time that I think you go, ~ Ella Henderson, #NFDB
665:Efficiency is anything that scores. ~ Bruce Lee, #NFDB
666:Europe. That's where the beauty is. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
667:Everybody's got the mindset that ~ Erik Qualman, #NFDB
668:Everything from toy guns that spark ~ Bob Dylan, #NFDB
669:Everything that deceives also enchants. ~ Plato, #NFDB
670:Everything that is,casts a shadow ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
671:Fiction novels, that's my game. ~ David Benioff, #NFDB
672:Go on with a spirit that fears nothing. ~ Homer, #NFDB
673:Hee that hath all can have no more ~ John Donne, #NFDB
674:Her kung fu is that powerful. ~ Maureen Johnson, #NFDB
675:He’s not the first to say that. ~ Michael Grant, #NFDB
676:He spent all that day roaming ~ Rudyard Kipling, #NFDB
677:Hope is a lie that becomes true ~ Rick Remender, #NFDB
678:I am a dog that loves my fleas. ~ Uncle Kracker, #NFDB
679:I am myself. That is not enough. ~ Sylvia Plath, #NFDB
680:I AM THAT I AM. [Exodus 3:14] ~ Neville Goddard, #NFDB
681:I choose roles that are not me. ~ January Jones, #NFDB
682:I create the world that I live in. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
683:I don't really shout that much. ~ Bill O Reilly, #NFDB
684:I exist as I am. That is enough. ~ Walt Whitman, #NFDB
685:I exist as I am, that is enough, ~ Walt Whitman, #NFDB
686:I exist as I am, that is enough. ~ Walt Whitman, #NFDB
687:I feel that I am a good actor. ~ Burt Lancaster, #NFDB
688:I have a life that did not become, ~ A R Ammons, #NFDB
689:I just create, that's what I do. ~ Patti LuPone, #NFDB
690:I know that and I feel that. ~ Vitali Klitschko, #NFDB
691:I know that love is not finite. ~ Julie Buxbaum, #NFDB
692:I know that my race must change. ~ Chief Joseph, #NFDB
693:I like any place that isn't here. ~ Edna Ferber, #NFDB
694:I like being liked. Is that crazy? ~ John Green, #NFDB
695:(I’ll explain that in a moment), ~ Jon Scieszka, #NFDB
696:I love him in a way that’s toxic. ~ Bella Jewel, #NFDB
697:I love the cause that slew me ~ Emily Dickinson, #NFDB
698:I love to teach - that's my role. ~ Julia Child, #NFDB
699:I love who I am and all that I do. ~ Louise Hay, #NFDB
700:I’M HAVING THE THOUGHT THAT . . . ~ Russ Harris, #NFDB
701:Increase in me that wisdom ~ Benjamin Franklin, #NFDB
702:I neither know nor think that I know ~ Socrates, #NFDB
703:I ran like a thing that runs. ~ Maureen Johnson, #NFDB
704:I say that what one loves is best: ~ Allen Tate, #NFDB
705:Is that a question or an answer? ~ Andrea Smith, #NFDB
706:Is that what happened to you? ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
707:Is virtue something that can be taught? ~ Plato, #NFDB
708:I think and that is all that I am. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
709:I thought that I was in heaven ~ Elvis Presley, #NFDB
710:It is the ego that gets depressed. ~ The Mother, #NFDB
711:It's choice that makes us human. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
712:It's shame that eats men whole. ~ Leigh Bardugo, #NFDB
713:It’s the dull knife that cuts you. ~ N D Wilson, #NFDB
714:It's the story that counts. ~ Vincente Minnelli, #NFDB
715:known that he had to be careful ~ Iris Johansen, #NFDB
716:Laugh because that is the purest sound. ~ Hafez, #NFDB
717:Life is a joke that's just begun. ~ W S Gilbert, #NFDB
718:Love begets love. That's God's way. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
719:Mark you that and noat you wel. ~ Russell Hoban, #NFDB
720:Maybe I need somebody that could save me ~ Slug, #NFDB
721:No pay, no Goldblum. That's it. ~ Jeff Goldblum, #NFDB
722:Not all that is dead truly dies. ~ Jay Kristoff, #NFDB
723:now, and it’s not the one that ~ Stephanie Rowe, #NFDB
724:Now where am I? Lost, that’s where. ~ K Webster, #NFDB
725:O! That way madness lies. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
726:owned by some corporation that ~ Tony Hillerman, #NFDB
727:Passion rules the arrow that flies. ~ Bob Dylan, #NFDB
728:Paths that cross will cross again ~ Patti Smith, #NFDB
729:people around he decided that ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
730:People need people. That's that. ~ Adam Silvera, #NFDB
731:Please, decide that I'm worth it ~ Erin Lawless, #NFDB
732:Poor wretches that depend ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
733:pulsations that rock the planet. ~ Alan Weisman, #NFDB
734:Question: Why is that MC's be wack ~ Phife Dawg, #NFDB
735:Remember that all is opinion. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
736:respected man once said, that the ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB
737:Shake the hand that feeds you. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
738:She stood motionless like that for ~ Donna Leon, #NFDB
739:Sincerity? I can fake that. ~ William J Clinton, #NFDB
740:Some shall reap that never sow ~ Madison Cawein, #NFDB
741:Thank God.
Yeah, God. That guy. ~ Alex Adams,#NFDB
742:That girl is like a fucking ninja. ~ Vi Keeland, #NFDB
743:That hurt querida, that really hurt ~ Meg Cabot, #NFDB
744:That isn’t enough for you?” “I’m ~ Adam Silvera, #NFDB
745:That makes my nipples hard! ~ Jean Louis Gassee, #NFDB
746:That peace did not come easily. ~ Tara Westover, #NFDB
747:That queen of secrecy, the violet. ~ John Keats, #NFDB
748:That's right! The women are smarter! ~ Bob Weir, #NFDB
749:That's the way it was meant to be ~ D J MacHale, #NFDB
750:That's worst than gonerreha, man! ~ Ned Vizzini, #NFDB
751:That the wall is coming down. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
752:That was the best not-sex ever. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
753:That was then. This is now. ~ Linda Lael Miller, #NFDB
754:That was when I saw the Pendulum. ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
755:That was your cue to follow me. ~ Penelope Ward, #NFDB
756:That which begins will also end. ~ John O Brien, #NFDB
757:That which is, always is. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
758:That which is cannot be true. ~ Herbert Marcuse, #NFDB
759:that wild charisma and wanderlust. ~ John Green, #NFDB
760:The heart that gives, gathers. ~ Marianne Moore, #NFDB
761:Then that's all right, isn't it? ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
762:There was no defense -- that's fey. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
763:the worst waste, that of time. ~ Thomas Carlyle, #NFDB
764:They say he missed that whore. ~ Larry McMurtry, #NFDB
765:They sayin I'm back, I agree with that. ~ Drake, #NFDB
766:They that love beyond the world ~ William Penn, #NFDB
767:This. That. Those. All the books. ~ Amor Towles, #NFDB
768:to authorize that personally. ~ Douglas Preston, #NFDB
769:Virtue that wavers is not virtue. ~ John Milton, #NFDB
770:War is sweet to them that know it not. ~ Pindar, #NFDB
771:We cannot wish for that we know not. ~ Voltaire, #NFDB
772:Well, that's an evil smile... ~ James Patterson, #NFDB
773:What thou art, that thou art. ~ Thomas a Kempis, #NFDB
774:Where thou art, that is home. ~ Emily Dickinson, #NFDB
775:Who that man in the black Sedan ~ Mickey Avalon, #NFDB
776:With that, she crossed the small ~ Terri Osburn, #NFDB
777:Words can crush things that are unseen. ~ Jewel, #NFDB
778:Yank grunted. “That sums it up. ~ Carla Neggers, #NFDB
779:You bang that piano real nice. ~ Albert Collins, #NFDB
780:You love Niran too much for that. ~ Dina Silver, #NFDB
781:You want a little talent on that? ~ Chet Atkins, #NFDB
782:Absence - that common cure of love. ~ Lord Byron, #NFDB
783:A forbidden love that ended badly. ~ B J Daniels, #NFDB
784:All I can be is me- whoever that is. ~ Bob Dylan, #NFDB
785:all is not gold that glitters; ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
786:All's well that ends well. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
787:All that is not God is death. ~ George MacDonald, #NFDB
788:All that you've loved is all you own ~ Tom Waits, #NFDB
789:A man that runs away may fight again. ~ Menander, #NFDB
790:and die while in that mindstate. ~ Thupten Jinpa, #NFDB
791:Arabella’s mother that tempting? ~ Marti Talbott, #NFDB
792:Art is lies that tell the truth. ~ Pablo Picasso, #NFDB
793:Awe is the salve that will heal our eyes. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
794:Beauty that arose out of pain. ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
795:Be what it is that you are seeking. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
796:Bologna girl, that's me. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson, #NFDB
797:Can I believe in that God too? ~ Neal Shusterman, #NFDB
798:Castes never meant that much to me. ~ Kiera Cass, #NFDB
799:Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
800:Don’t do that. Don’t walk away. ~ Elizabeth Finn, #NFDB
801:do you know that’s the same woman ~ Fannie Flagg, #NFDB
802:Do you want me to answer that? ~ Monica Lewinsky, #NFDB
803:Drama is a gun that doesn't go off. ~ Jonis Agee, #NFDB
804:Fear is faith that it won't work. ~ Mary Kay Ash, #NFDB
805:Fire destroys that which feeds it. ~ Simone Weil, #NFDB
806:For poets that have had my luck, ~ Alex Comfort, #NFDB
807:Fortuna, that vicious slut. ~ John Kennedy Toole, #NFDB
808:Gamache in anger. “He knew that’s ~ Louise Penny, #NFDB
809:Get out of that comfortable rut. ~ Denis Waitley, #NFDB
810:Glad that I live am I; ~ Lizette Woodworth Reese, #NFDB
811:Glad that's...well, time heels. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
812:good at doing, but before that you ~ Peter Thiel, #NFDB
813:Grieve not that men do not know you; ~ Confucius, #NFDB
814:Handsome is that handsome does. ~ Henry Fielding, #NFDB
815:Have faith in all that you make. ~ Dahvie Vanity, #NFDB
816:He feel’s that he will fly apart, ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
817:He that feares death lives not. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
818:He that preacheth giveth almes. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
819:He that travels much knows much. ~ Thomas Fuller, #NFDB
820:HOLY MOTHER. WAS THAT A FACE? ~ Megan McCafferty, #NFDB
821:How can kindliness rule that man ~ Thiruvalluvar, #NFDB
822:i am thankful that i am here at all. ~ Jomny Sun, #NFDB
823:I believe that story changes reality. ~ Ben Okri, #NFDB
824:I bet that smile could cure cancer. ~ S L Morgan, #NFDB
825:I could watch you eat that all day. ~ L H Cosway, #NFDB
826:If that's art, I'm a Hottentot! ~ Harry S Truman, #NFDB
827:If there's anything that you want, ~ John Lennon, #NFDB
828:I had my freedom and that was nice. ~ Cy Twombly, #NFDB
829:I hate that word dysfunction. ~ Jonathan Franzen, #NFDB
830:I know, baby girl, I’m that good. ~ Kresley Cole, #NFDB
831:I know I am--that simplest bliss ~ Bayard Taylor, #NFDB
832:I like that best as I am so hairy. ~ Ben Affleck, #NFDB
833:I'll save that for Mrs. Battier. ~ Shane Battier, #NFDB
834:I’m not putting that in my mouth. ~ Naima Simone, #NFDB
835:I'm totally crazy, I know that. ~ Maurice Sendak, #NFDB
836:I never boned a honey that I didn't like, ~ Dres, #NFDB
837:I say that Roger Casement ~ William Butler Yeats, #NFDB
838:I sing and dance. That's my job. ~ Dick Van Dyke, #NFDB
839:I stole a Bible, is that a sin? ~ Kendrick Lamar, #NFDB
840:I think that success is having fun. ~ Bruno Mars, #NFDB
841:It matters to me that you're safe. ~ Abbi Glines, #NFDB
842:Its not what happens that counts... ~ Bruce Lee, #NFDB
843:It's pain that changes our lives. ~ Steve Martin, #NFDB
844:It's the thought that counts. ~ Rosamond Lehmann, #NFDB
845:I've said all that I've had to say. ~ Bill Hicks, #NFDB
846:I was brave but not that brave. ~ Laurelin Paige, #NFDB
847:Jove lifts the golden balances that show ~ Homer, #NFDB
848:King of kings, that must be Elvis. ~ Frank Zappa, #NFDB
849:Life was a suitcase. “That’ll ~ Francine Mathews, #NFDB
850:Literature is news that stays news. ~ Ezra Pound, #NFDB
851:Live in the moment that you are in. ~ Al McGuire, #NFDB
852:local jury trial’—that’s the vicinage. ~ C J Box, #NFDB
853:Love's super-sneaky like that. ~ Jess Rothenberg, #NFDB
854:Madness in method, that's genius ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
855:Man, an animal that makes bargains. ~ Adam Smith, #NFDB
856:Money is that dear thing which, ~ Mary Jo Salter, #NFDB
857:Nothing that is so, is so. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
858:No women no kids - that's the rules. ~ Jean Reno, #NFDB
859:One kiss, and that was everything. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
860:Paths that cross will cross again. ~ Patti Smith, #NFDB
861:People love that monkey torture. ~ Thomas Lennon, #NFDB
862:Pick a truth that blesses your life! ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB
863:Really? Was that how you quit me? ~ Gayle Forman, #NFDB
864:rebels captured that base and ~ Joel C Rosenberg, #NFDB
865:Remember that dead man you saw ~ Lindsay Buroker, #NFDB
866:She needed this boat and that boy. ~ Delia Owens, #NFDB
867:Some say that my teaching is nonsense. ~ Lao Tzu, #NFDB
868:Spare the soul that feels a deadly wound. ~ Ovid, #NFDB
869:surround you, they amaze me. That ~ Julie Kibler, #NFDB
870:Teach that asshole some manners. ~ Jamie McGuire, #NFDB
871:Tell that to the Marines! ~ Franklin D Roosevelt, #NFDB
872:That cardinal virtue, temperance. ~ Edmund Burke, #NFDB
873:That computer was made in Alabama ~ Muhammad Ali, #NFDB
874:That could be a very sexy story. ~ LynDee Walker, #NFDB
875:That girl has a special talent ~ John Lee Hooker, #NFDB
876:that if you don't read nobody does ~ Jeff Kinney, #NFDB
877:That name was Adeline March. ~ Diane Setterfield, #NFDB
878:That night I dreamed of turduckens. ~ S A Bodeen, #NFDB
879:That's fucking gay. Everything is gay. ~ Unknown, #NFDB
880:That's my Heaven. And my Hell. ~ Sylvain Reynard, #NFDB
881:That’s not how the system works. ~ Dashka Slater, #NFDB
882:That’s one naughty, bad little voice. ~ Jo Raven, #NFDB
883:That's very...big of you. ~ Marissa Meyer, #NFDB
884:That’s what I said,” said the cat. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
885:That tuft of jungle feathers, ~ Wallace Stevens, #NFDB
886:that underlay the city of Chicago. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
887:That was longer than a heartbeat. ~ Alex Garland, #NFDB
888:The garden that is finished is dead. ~ H E Bates, #NFDB
889:The gods help them that help themselves. ~ Aesop, #NFDB
890:The heart that gives, gathers. ~ Marianne Moore, #NFDB
891:There is one fault that I must find ~ Ogden Nash, #NFDB
892:There's no reason to think that ~ Richard Thaler, #NFDB
893:The worst hatred is that of relatives. ~ Tacitus, #NFDB
894:They tell me, Lord, that when I seem ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
895:Things that go bump in the brain. ~ Andrew Pyper, #NFDB
896:Those things that hurt, instruct. ~ M Scott Peck, #NFDB
897:Truth is that of the Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
898:We'll be back. I promise you that. ~ Samuel West, #NFDB
899:We love that which we corrupt. ~ Kiana Davenport, #NFDB
900:What is known that cannot be named? ~ Ted Dekker, #NFDB
901:What is that hair? So yesterday. ~ Carly Fiorina, #NFDB
902:What is the body? That shadow of a shadow ~ Rumi, #NFDB
903:What matters is that we survive. ~ Reki Kawahara, #NFDB
904:what's up with that air line food ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
905:You can't lead me down that road. ~ Taylor Swift, #NFDB
906:7:1 Judge not, that ye be not judged. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
907:A line is a dot that went for a walk. ~ Paul Klee, #NFDB
908:All I can be is me- whoever that is. ~ Bob Dylan, #NFDB
909:All I know is that I am not a Marxist ~ Karl Marx, #NFDB
910:All is not gold that glitters, ~ Oliver Goldsmith, #NFDB
911:All that had been was now no more. ~ Pearl S Buck, #NFDB
912:All that’s spoke is marr’d. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
913:Always be sexy. I salute that message. ~ Ted Cruz, #NFDB
914:A myth is a lie that conveys a truth. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
915:And that was the voice of Peeta ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
916:Anything that kills hope is a sin. ~ Gayle Forman, #NFDB
917:A sequel that will exist just for us ~ John Green, #NFDB
918:A simple smile. That's the start of ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
919:A story that fate left incomplete ~ Chetan Bhagat, #NFDB
920:August Heat,” by W. F. Harvey—that ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
921:Awards that ignore me are losers. ~ Shahrukh Khan, #NFDB
922:Be still, and know that I am God. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
923:But it is not reason that governs love. ~ Moliere, #NFDB
924:Cailín álainn.” “What’s that mean? ~ Dannika Dark, #NFDB
925:Can it be that you don’t trust me? ~ Louise Penny, #NFDB
926:clout here, and I heard that your ~ Kevin O Brien, #NFDB
927:Dad, that’s okay,” she replied. ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
928:Dance with the one that brought you ~ Hannah Hart, #NFDB
929:Everything that is, casts a shadow. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
930:God forbid that women have fantasies. ~ E L James, #NFDB
931:Good writing just isn't that common. ~ Eric Flint, #NFDB
932:Hail the day that sees Him rise, ~ Charles Wesley, #NFDB
933:Hate knows that love is the cure. ~ Stevie Wonder, #NFDB
934:Have a heart that never hardens ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
935:He that burnes most shines most. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
936:He that endures is not overcome. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
937:He that has many friends, has no friends. ~ Aesop, #NFDB
938:He that is down needs fear no fall. ~ John Bunyan, #NFDB
939:He that's secure is not safe. ~ Benjamin Franklin, #NFDB
940:He warmes too neere that burnes. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
941:He wasn’t that spoiled or selfish. ~ Stuart Gibbs, #NFDB
942:Holy shit! That dog had my vibrator! ~ N M Silber, #NFDB
943:How they hell does it do that? ~ Peter F Hamilton, #NFDB
944:I am The Game and I am that damn good! ~ Triple H, #NFDB
945:I am who I am and that's who I am ~ Nikolai Gogol, #NFDB
946:I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” That ~ Paul Kalanithi, #NFDB
947:I confess that I have been quite ~ M Louisa Locke, #NFDB
948:I couldn’t fail. That wasn’t allowed. ~ C D Reiss, #NFDB
949:I'd lie for you and that's the truth. ~ Meat Loaf, #NFDB
950:I dream of things that never were, ~ W P Kinsella, #NFDB
951:I exist as I am, that is enough... ~ Walt Whitman, #NFDB
952:I feel sad that he's just a voice now. ~ Yoko Ono, #NFDB
953:I feel sad that he’s just a voice now. ~ Yoko Ono, #NFDB
954:I gave life, and that is beautiful. ~ Celine Dion, #NFDB
955:I guess it’s that time of month. ~ Tess Gerritsen, #NFDB
956:I have a thing for things that last. ~ Criss Jami, #NFDB
957:I know one thing, that I know nothing. ~ Socrates, #NFDB
958:I like movies that make you think. ~ Robin Wright, #NFDB
959:I like the work that I get to do. ~ Famke Janssen, #NFDB
960:I like to think that I'm not old yet. ~ Neko Case, #NFDB
961:I love that smell of the emissions! ~ Sarah Palin, #NFDB
962:I love you Stefan, never let that go. ~ L J Smith, #NFDB
963:I'm Short and fat and proud of that!! ~ A A Milne, #NFDB
964:I saw my hometown burning that day. ~ Rodney King, #NFDB
965:I speak my mind. That's who I am. ~ Jesse Ventura, #NFDB
966:I suppose that I am ambitious. ~ Antonio Banderas, #NFDB
967:I think and that is all that I am. ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
968:It offends people that I cling to you, ~ K M Shea, #NFDB
969:It's a lie that matches his desire. ~ Naomi Novik, #NFDB
970:it's a long lane that has no turning. ~ W B Yeats, #NFDB
971:It's not going in that end! ~ T Coraghessan Boyle, #NFDB
972:It's not the kind of tuna that I eat. ~ Adam West, #NFDB
973:It's our scars that define us. ~ Lisa Renee Jones, #NFDB
974:It's the writing that teaches you. ~ Isaac Asimov, #NFDB
975:I've missed that...missed you. ~ Jessica Sorensen, #NFDB
976:I want people that made a fortune. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
977:I want to feel that I own things. ~ Steve Wozniak, #NFDB
978:Judge not, that ye be not judged. ~ Dale Carnegie, #NFDB
979:Love is that which gives of itself. ~ Vivian Amis, #NFDB
980:-Money? in a voice that rustled. ~ William Gaddis, #NFDB
981:Most men are not that evolved. ~ Rosanna Arquette, #NFDB
982:Mr. Bennet replied that he had not. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
983:must say that I think we can accept ~ Ian Fleming, #NFDB
984:My first wife said, 'It's either that ~ Jeff Beck, #NFDB
985:My love of books was all that saved me. ~ Robin S, #NFDB
986:Myself? That's no good, either. ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
987:Never misconceive that which is real ~ Kim Holden, #NFDB
988:No one can hurt me - that's my job. ~ Byron Katie, #NFDB
989:No one is you and that is your power!!! ~ Unknown, #NFDB
990:Now that I have written many words, ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
991:O, happy the soul that saw its own faults. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
992:People hate. That's our reality. ~ Jennifer Brown, #NFDB
993:Put that in your pipe and smoke it. ~ Ian Fleming, #NFDB
994:Reform, that we may preserve. ~ Thomas B Macaulay, #NFDB
995:See the gift that change delivers. ~ Jane Seymour, #NFDB
996:Something that simply mystifies me. ~ Cole Porter, #NFDB
997:that came over his face when he was ~ Rose Gordon, #NFDB
998:That hurts my pride, Watson. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, #NFDB
999:That is not love. That is debt. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
1000:That man gave piggy banks orgasms. ~ Dannika Dark, #NFDB
1001:That night lasted a thousand years. ~ Rick Yancey, #NFDB
1002:That's my ideal day, time with my boys. ~ Kenny G, #NFDB
1003:That's not what I'm looking for. ~ Anita Brookner, #NFDB
1004:That's not writing, that's typing ~ Truman Capote, #NFDB
1005:That's the easiest 69 I ever made. ~ Walter Hagen, #NFDB
1006:That was totally against the runaway ~ Iain Dowie, #NFDB
1007:That which I would discover ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1008:That which we are, we are. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson, #NFDB
1009:The deep pain that is felt ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
1010:The ellipse is as aimless as that, ~ John Ashbery, #NFDB
1011:the Incident That Must Not Be Named ~ Gina Damico, #NFDB
1012:There is only one thing that makes ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
1013:The water has a Water that is driving it; ~ Rumi, #NFDB
1014:They stumble that run fast. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1015:To a life that seizes ~ Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth, #NFDB
1016:was just that she was such a bitch. ~ Abbi Glines, #NFDB
1017:was that he hadn’t yet figured out ~ Louise Penny, #NFDB
1018:we become like that which we worship. ~ G K Beale, #NFDB
1019:We beg one hour of death, that neither she ~ Ovid, #NFDB
1020:We destroy icons - that's what we do. ~ Eric Idle, #NFDB
1021:Well, fab-dabby-dozy to that! ~ Patricia Morrison, #NFDB
1022:What is that unforgettable line? ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
1023:What... is the wind in that door? ~ Thomas Malory, #NFDB
1024:What's the worst that could happen? ~ Tim Ferriss, #NFDB
1025:Wherever you are, that's the entry point. ~ Kabir, #NFDB
1026:Woo-hoo! I'm 40. I can say that now. ~ Kelly Ripa, #NFDB
1027:worldview. “So?” “You knew that? ~ John Lescroart, #NFDB
1028:You are you. Now, isn't that pleasant? ~ Dr Seuss, #NFDB
1029:You cannot be anything that you point to. ~ Mooji, #NFDB
1030:You must avoid sloth, that wicked siren. ~ Horace, #NFDB
1031:You wake up, and that's enough. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
1032:A birthday:-and now a day that rose ~ Jean Ingelow, #NFDB
1033:a heart that is busy cannot mourn, ~ Eileen Goudge, #NFDB
1034:Ah, that tastes nice. Thank you. ~ Johannes Brahms, #NFDB
1035:A little fight in you. I like that. ~ Heath Ledger, #NFDB
1036:All i can do is be me, whoever that is ~ Bob Dylan, #NFDB
1037:All I know is that I am not a Marxist. ~ Karl Marx, #NFDB
1038:all six of them a license.” “That ~ Lawrence Block, #NFDB
1039:All that I am is because of my mind. ~ Paavo Nurmi, #NFDB
1040:All that I seek is already within me. ~ Louise Hay, #NFDB
1041:All that is gold does not glitter, ~ J R R Tolkien, #NFDB
1042:All that is gold does not glitter. ~ J R R Tolkien, #NFDB
1043:All that matters is love and work. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
1044:And I swear that I don't have a gun. ~ Kurt Cobain, #NFDB
1045:And that is why she will never be mine. ~ K M Shea, #NFDB
1046:And that night meant nothing, Sean. ~ Elle Kennedy, #NFDB
1047:And weed's not a drug - that's denial ~ Macklemore, #NFDB
1048:Any man that walks the mead ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson, #NFDB
1049:Anything that exists is possible. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1050:At least I can say that I'm honest. ~ Adam Lambert, #NFDB
1051:Baby, you are gonna miss that plane. ~ Julie Delpy, #NFDB
1052:Base is the slave that pays. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1053:Believe that you may understand. ~ Saint Augustine, #NFDB
1054:Be roses that grow in the concrete. ~ Angie Thomas, #NFDB
1055:Be still and know that I am God. ~ Karen Kingsbury, #NFDB
1056:But even things that heal leave scars. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1057:By that sin fell the angels. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1058:Cake is the only thing that matters. ~ Allie Brosh, #NFDB
1059:cheek, the one so disfigured by that ~ Sandra Hill, #NFDB
1060:Design the life that you want to live. ~ Bruce Mau, #NFDB
1061:Diversity, that is my motto. ~ Jean de La Fontaine, #NFDB
1062:Everything that is popular is wrong. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
1063:failings. I also know that a man, by ~ John Bunyan, #NFDB
1064:f pay attention, O earth, and all that ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1065:Give something that wasn't expected. ~ John Madden, #NFDB
1066:God's presence is all that matters. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
1067:Good man always stands against that. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
1068:Goods are theirs that enjoy them. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
1069:Go to the moon, that's my dream. ~ Steve Jurvetson, #NFDB
1070:he recognized that particular look. ~ Summer Devon, #NFDB
1071:He that cannot reason is a fool. ~ Andrew Carnegie, #NFDB
1072:He that dies pays all debts. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1073:He that is warme, thinkes all so. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
1074:He that lives in love lives in God. ~ William Penn, #NFDB
1075:He that's content hath enough. ~ Benjamin Franklin, #NFDB
1076:He vainly said that human will is free, ~ Voltaire, #NFDB
1077:Holy crap. Is that an elephant penis? ~ Lexi Blake, #NFDB
1078:How do I know that I don’t need what ~ Byron Katie, #NFDB
1079:I am free and that is why I am lost. ~ Franz Kafka, #NFDB
1080:I am made of all that I have seen. ~ Henri Matisse, #NFDB
1081:I am nothing, and not even that. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
1082:I am so tired of that old suffering. ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
1083:I am the drop that contains the ocean ~ Yunus Emre, #NFDB
1084:I believe that all taxes are bad. ~ Stephen Harper, #NFDB
1085:I can bear a lot but not that pall ~ Joanna Newsom, #NFDB
1086:I can't save you like that, Ty. ~ Lucy Christopher, #NFDB
1087:I didn't like jewelry that much anyway ~ C D Reiss, #NFDB
1088:I dreamed of Milderhurst that night. ~ Kate Morton, #NFDB
1089:I echo like a mynah, that’s why. ~ Dorothy Dunnett, #NFDB
1090:I feel guilty that I'm still here.. ~ Jandy Nelson, #NFDB
1091:I feel irrelevant. I hate that. ~ Becky Albertalli, #NFDB
1092:If. I despise that stupid word. ~ Victoria Aveyard, #NFDB
1093:If you call that music real noise ~ Joseph McElroy, #NFDB
1094:I got a smile that'll make the mirror crack, ~ GZA, #NFDB
1095:I got lots of love for my crew, that is; ~ Prodigy, #NFDB
1096:I had to do that. At least once. ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
1097:I know all that better than my own name. ~ Martial, #NFDB
1098:I know I'm strong, and that's good. ~ Gael Monfils, #NFDB
1099:I know that you can do the impossible. ~ Terry Fox, #NFDB
1100:I laughed. “Yeah, that would have ~ Rachel Schurig, #NFDB
1101:I like it that we are not the same. ~ Esther Hicks, #NFDB
1102:I like the pause that tea allows ~ Waris Ahluwalia, #NFDB
1103:I love the world that is my room. ~ Jennifer Niven, #NFDB
1104:I'm cancer-free right now. That's it. ~ Jon Lester, #NFDB
1105:I'm privileged that I'm an artist. ~ Nelly Furtado, #NFDB
1106:I'm single because I was born that way. ~ Mae West, #NFDB
1107:I'm sure that I've already been dead. ~ Edith Piaf, #NFDB
1108:in my own. It forms the image that ~ Kate McCarthy, #NFDB
1109:intern that Lizzy didn’t need or want, ~ T R Ragan, #NFDB
1110:In the hope that people can change. ~ Sam Crescent, #NFDB
1111:I play Rock 'n' Roll, that's what I do. ~ Kid Rock, #NFDB
1112:"I prefer what is. That is freedom." ~ Byron Katie, #NFDB
1113:I read. That's my form of travel. ~ Michael Finkel, #NFDB
1114:I said I love you and that's forever ~ Billy Joel, #NFDB
1115:I smoke herb, but what's the harm it that? ~ Nelly, #NFDB
1116:It hurt that some lives were worth less. ~ S K Ali, #NFDB
1117:It is a lie that America is racist ~ Dennis Prager, #NFDB
1118:It is love alone that counts. ~ Saint Therese of Lisieux, #NFDB
1119:It is not fools that I seek to address. ~ Ayn Rand, #NFDB
1120:It is passivity that dulls feeling. ~ Susan Sontag, #NFDB
1121:It is poetry that changes everything. ~ Bell Hooks, #NFDB
1122:It's a ho wide world that we living in. ~ Ludacris, #NFDB
1123:It's the danger that makes it fun. ~ Katie McGarry, #NFDB
1124:It's the exception that proves the rule. ~ Unknown, #NFDB
1125:It's the grit that makes the pearl. ~ Holly Cupala, #NFDB
1126:It's the impeded stream that sings ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
1127:I want that love that moved the mountains. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
1128:I would say that I'm pretty mainstream. ~ Ron Paul, #NFDB
1129:Jessie knew that,” said ~ Gertrude Chandler Warner, #NFDB
1130:knowledge that she was not alone. ~ Angela Marsons, #NFDB
1131:Lost my ideals in that tunnel of time. ~ Jim Croce, #NFDB
1132:Love is the force that leaves you colorless ~ Ovid, #NFDB
1133:Love is the only thing that endures. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
1134:Madness in method, that is genius. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
1135:Now I'm not the type that gets upset, ~ Slick Rick, #NFDB
1136:Now is the moment that never ends. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
1137:Now is the only thing that exists. ~ Dan Fogelberg, #NFDB
1138:Oh, on that day, that wrathful day, ~ Walter Scott, #NFDB
1139:Oliver Stone. Is that not enough? ~ Scott Eastwood, #NFDB
1140:One shot. That was all you got. - Isaac ~ J R Ward, #NFDB
1141:One time, that true brass thimble. ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
1142:On récolte ce que l’on sème. That ~ Elizabeth Bear, #NFDB
1143:Ought they to smoke like that? ~ Louisa May Alcott, #NFDB
1144:Pay attention to that which sees the mind. ~ Mooji, #NFDB
1145:Remember that credit is money. ~ Benjamin Franklin, #NFDB
1146:Right now, that sweet, little boy in ~ M L Gardner, #NFDB
1147:Strawberries that in gardens grow ~ Robert Graves, #NFDB
1148:That best of blessings, a contented mind. ~ Horace, #NFDB
1149:...that fucker defines cuntishness. ~ Irvine Welsh, #NFDB
1150:that he wouldn’t have anyone to talk ~ Simon Toyne, #NFDB
1151:that I could get my beauty rest. ~ Camille Di Maio, #NFDB
1152:That is gold which is worth gold. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
1153:That is the manner in which I roll. ~ Claudia Gray, #NFDB
1154:That Justice is a blind goddess ~ Langston Hughes, #NFDB
1155:That man with my brother is an envoy ~ Naomi Novik, #NFDB
1156:That parasite: the past. ~ Natalie Clifford Barney, #NFDB
1157:That," said Kail, "was my mother. ~ Patrick Weekes, #NFDB
1158:That’s either powerfully romantic ~ Mary Jo Putney, #NFDB
1159:That’s how they generated Bruno’s ~ David Baldacci, #NFDB
1160:That's poetic in its malevolence ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
1161:That's right, I am a book kisser. ~ Sherman Alexie, #NFDB
1162:That's what I want. Honest loyalty. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
1163:That's what I was supposed to say. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
1164:That's what my life is, writing songs. ~ John Cale, #NFDB
1165:That voice is very dangerous . . . ~ Gaston Leroux, #NFDB
1166:That which we manifest is before us. ~ Garth Stein, #NFDB
1167:The Bat that flits at close of Eve ~ William Blake, #NFDB
1168:The depravities that lie within us all ~ Ker Dukey, #NFDB
1169:The good news is that we are Buddha. ~ Albert Low, #NFDB
1170:The longest tyranny that ever sway'd ~ John Dryden, #NFDB
1171:The mind that's conscious of its rectitude, ~ Ovid, #NFDB
1172:The problem is that he isn't Alex. ~ Lauren Oliver, #NFDB
1173:The sum of all that lives is God. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1174:The wheel that squeaks gets the oil. ~ Tracey Emin, #NFDB
1175:They that do much themselves deny, ~ Thomas Creech, #NFDB
1176:Things change that's the way it is. ~ Tupac Shakur, #NFDB
1177:Thus, then, the All that is is limited ~ Lucretius, #NFDB
1178:Tis an ill wind that blows no minds ~ Gregory Hill, #NFDB
1179:Too many songs, weak rhymes that's mad long. ~ GZA, #NFDB
1180:To see things in the seed, that is genius. ~ Laozi, #NFDB
1181:Trends that can't continue, won't. ~ Herbert Stein, #NFDB
1182:Until we know that death is equal to ~ Byron Katie, #NFDB
1183:Violence is a calm that disturbs you. ~ Jean Genet, #NFDB
1184:War is a proof that idea has boundary. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB
1185:Warning signs that lover is bored: ~ Matt Groening, #NFDB
1186:We are afraid that we have not lived. ~ Allen Tate, #NFDB
1187:We can reveal that John's 85 ~ John Walter Bratton, #NFDB
1188:We have life. That's what's beautiful. ~ DJ Khaled, #NFDB
1189:We love things that are convenient. ~ Jeff Bridges, #NFDB
1190:We make war that we may live in peace. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
1191:What's that got to do with anything? ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
1192:Where Thou art - that - is Home. ~ Emily Dickinson, #NFDB
1193:Where thou art - that - is Home. ~ Emily Dickinson, #NFDB
1194:Who ain’t a slave? Tell me that. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
1195:Why assume that to look is to see? ~ Pablo Picasso, #NFDB
1196:Winds of May, that dance on the sea, ~ James Joyce, #NFDB
1197:Yes. Just. Like. That,” she breathed. ~ Louise Bay, #NFDB
1198:You are the soul that fits into mine ~ Lauren Kate, #NFDB
1199:You gotta win. That's all it takes. ~ Kevin Durant, #NFDB
1200:You screamin' 'no homo', but that's so homo ~ Reks, #NFDB
1201:A book that is shut is but a block. ~ Thomas Fuller, #NFDB
1202:After that she changed the subject: Did ~ Gill Paul, #NFDB
1203:Ah, to that far distant strand ~ Friedrich Schiller, #NFDB
1204:All I can do is be me. Whoever that is. ~ Bob Dylan, #NFDB
1205:All I can do is be me, whoever that is. ~ Bob Dylan, #NFDB
1206:All I know is that I know nothing. ~ Sarah Bakewell, #NFDB
1207:All that glisters is not gold ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1208:All that glitters is not hovery. ~ Scott Westerfeld, #NFDB
1209:A man with perspective! That’s rare. ~ Kevin Hearne, #NFDB
1210:And damn that Spider Queen as well! ~ R A Salvatore, #NFDB
1211:And I dream that something's coming ~ Harry Chapin, #NFDB
1212:And just like that, I became a father. ~ M E Carter, #NFDB
1213:Any man that tells me what to do is sexy! ~ Rihanna, #NFDB
1214:Anything that can happen, will happen. ~ Julie Chen, #NFDB
1215:Anything that is not growing is dead. ~ Lauryn Hill, #NFDB
1216:Are you suggesting that I'm a doormat? ~ Staci Hart, #NFDB
1217:Art tells gorgeous lies that come true. ~ Hakim Bey, #NFDB
1218:As a writer, you are that architect. ~ Larry Brooks, #NFDB
1219:a smile that would melt concrete. ~ Debbie Macomber, #NFDB
1220:A tree that is unbending, is easily broken. ~ Laozi, #NFDB
1221:back of that woman’s dress that night ~ Deb Caletti, #NFDB
1222:Be the change that you want to see ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1223:Be who you are and be that well. ~ Francis de Sales, #NFDB
1224:Be yourself is all that you can do. ~ Chris Cornell, #NFDB
1225:But it works that way if it works. ~ Jeffery Deaver, #NFDB
1226:But love that comes too late, ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1227:By that which you kill are you bound. ~ O R Melling, #NFDB
1228:Challenge me, that'd be to my advantage ~ Lil Wayne, #NFDB
1229:Could it be that we matter? ~ Patrisse Khan Cullors, #NFDB
1230:crow flies. That’s where they met. ~ David Baldacci, #NFDB
1231:Cruel to be kind means that I love you. ~ Nick Lowe, #NFDB
1232:Didn’t she realize that this was Tampa? ~ J S Scott, #NFDB
1233:Do good. That’s all any of us can do. ~ Emlyn Chand, #NFDB
1234:Do I sound like a hillbilly saying that? ~ A J Finn, #NFDB
1235:Do not go gentle into that goodnight ~ Dylan Thomas, #NFDB
1236:Do not insist that the universe comply ~ Gary Zukav, #NFDB
1237:Don't do anything that isn't play ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
1238:Don't look at me in that tone of face. ~ Robin Kaye, #NFDB
1239:Don’t look at me in that tone of face. ~ Robin Kaye, #NFDB
1240:Don't look at me like that, Michael Cole. ~ CM Punk, #NFDB
1241:Don’t toy with things that block your light. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
1242:Driving that train, high on cocaine ~ Robert Hunter, #NFDB
1243:Drop that zero and get with the hero! ~ Vanilla Ice, #NFDB
1244:Enjoy the things that never happened. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
1245:Ensure that your life stays in flux. ~ Jenny Holzer, #NFDB
1246:Everything that is exact is short. ~ Joseph Joubert, #NFDB
1247:Everything that people say is testable. ~ Louis C K, #NFDB
1248:Every Wolverine fan knows who that is. ~ Cassie Mae, #NFDB
1249:Faith that denies fact is fanaticism, ~ Barb Hendee, #NFDB
1250:For every thing that lives is Holy. ~ William Blake, #NFDB
1251:For the weariest road that man may wend ~ Euripides, #NFDB
1252:Frostbite? I consider that a failure. ~ Mark Twight, #NFDB
1253:Google‘parasites that take over hosts’. ~ Matt Shaw, #NFDB
1254:Great name, though. I'd fuck that name. ~ Lang Leav, #NFDB
1255:hair that she often pinned back with ~ Helen Thorpe, #NFDB
1256:Hang those that talk of fear. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1257:Hearts and flowers—that's not who I am. ~ E L James, #NFDB
1258:He got what?" "That you're mine. ~ Jessica Gadziala, #NFDB
1259:He must have made that before he died. ~ Yogi Berra, #NFDB
1260:He that chastens one, chastens 20. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
1261:He that drinks fast, pays slow. ~ Benjamin Franklin, #NFDB
1262:He that hath lands hath quarrells. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
1263:He that hopes no good fears no ill. ~ Thomas Fuller, #NFDB
1264:He that is low need fear no fall. ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
1265:He that marries late, marries ill. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
1266:He that sends a foole expects one. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
1267:He that staies does the businesse. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
1268:He that will be surety, shall pay. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
1269:He was the only place that was safe ~ Marissa Meyer, #NFDB
1270:him out there, that he could dare to ~ Jenny Eclair, #NFDB
1271:History is time that won't quit. ~ Suzan Lori Parks, #NFDB
1272:Holy Hannah, that man is dangerous! ~ Colleen Houck, #NFDB
1273:Holy Hell! That was totally badass ~ Shannon Delany, #NFDB
1274:Honey isn't really that good for you. ~ Erykah Badu, #NFDB
1275:Hope is a risk that must be run. ~ Georges Bernanos, #NFDB
1276:Hope is the destination that we seek. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
1277:How is it that the sky feeds the stars? ~ Lucretius, #NFDB
1278:Husbands are things that wives have to ~ Ogden Nash, #NFDB
1279:I am part of all that I have met. ~ Alfred Tennyson, #NFDB
1280:I am simply just one monk. That's all. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
1281:I am vulnerable; that's why I fight. ~ Ronda Rousey, #NFDB
1282:I buy food and gasoline - that's it. ~ Kat Dennings, #NFDB
1283:I don't hold water with that theory ~ Ron Greenwood, #NFDB
1284:I don’t think I’m all that conservative. ~ Ted Cruz, #NFDB
1285:I drive. That's what I do. All I do. ~ James Sallis, #NFDB
1286:I feel bad that I don't feel worse. ~ Michael Frayn, #NFDB
1287:I feel better now that I threw up. Hey! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1288:I hate that I'm so easy to let go. ~ Dawn Kurtagich, #NFDB
1289:I have that one’s soul, niece. ~ Josephine Angelini, #NFDB
1290:I hope that gay gentleman will be safe. ~ Jean Rhys, #NFDB
1291:I intend to be me. Whatever that is. ~ David Geffen, #NFDB
1292:I like things that are civilized. ~ Martha Plimpton, #NFDB
1293:I’ll never drink that much again. ~ Kirkus MacGowan, #NFDB
1294:I love to cook; that's my passion. ~ Emeril Lagasse, #NFDB
1295:I'm a journalist and that's what I do. ~ Jim Lehrer, #NFDB
1296:I'm an actor, that's my contribution. ~ Glenn Close, #NFDB
1297:I’m not anything that you think I am. ~ Syd Barrett, #NFDB
1298:I'm not that interested in people ~ Taylor Caldwell, #NFDB
1299:I’m not too upset to answer that. ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
1300:I mourned for a life that I'd lost. ~ Cecelia Ahern, #NFDB
1301:I never met a man that I didn't like. ~ Will Rogers, #NFDB
1302:In Russia we say that debt is beautiful ~ T M Logan, #NFDB
1303:I play piano every day. I enjoy that. ~ Frank Ocean, #NFDB
1304:is able to resist that temptation. ~ David Eagleman, #NFDB
1305:I survived. Isn't that what matters? ~ Melissa Marr, #NFDB
1306:I think that sexism existents everywhere. ~ Tinashe, #NFDB
1307:I thought men like that shot themselves. ~ George V, #NFDB
1308:It is our desire that binds us. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
1309:It is that which is and that which is not. ~ Hermes, #NFDB
1310:It is the customer that pays the wages ~ Henry Ford, #NFDB
1311:It is your attachment that creates hell. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1312:It's an ill wind that blows no good. ~ John Heywood, #NFDB
1313:It's damn freaky that's what it is. ~ Shaun Jeffrey, #NFDB
1314:It's doubt that drives a man onward. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
1315:It’s funny that DiCarlo’s security ~ David Baldacci, #NFDB
1316:It was her job to find that reason. ~ Kendra Elliot, #NFDB
1317:It was the fakeness that killed her. ~ Blake Crouch, #NFDB
1318:I've learned that anything is possible. ~ Gabrielle, #NFDB
1319:I want a love that don't mean a thing. ~ Elton John, #NFDB
1320:I want to be the rock that floats. ~ Drew Barrymore, #NFDB
1321:I want to do something that matters. ~ Trent Reznor, #NFDB
1322:Joy is in the ears that hear. ~ Stephen R Donaldson, #NFDB
1323:Key of E. All that shit starts in E. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1324:Kids chase the love that eludes them. ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB
1325:Kill that Garde as hard as you can! ~ Pittacus Lore, #NFDB
1326:Knowest thou not that kings have long hands? ~ Ovid, #NFDB
1327:Life is a smoke that curls- ~ William Ernest Henley, #NFDB
1328:Life is beautiful. He who reads that ~ John Ashbery, #NFDB
1329:Lord of himself; that heritage of woe! ~ Lord Byron, #NFDB
1330:Love is so urgent as all that, eh? ~ Patrick deWitt, #NFDB
1331:Love is the promise that guides me. ~ Dan Fogelberg, #NFDB
1332:Make a movie that you can be proud of. ~ Gaspar Noe, #NFDB
1333:Man loves most that which is his own. ~ Henry Adams, #NFDB
1334:man that confirmed they were similar ~ Lili Valente, #NFDB
1335:Me fail English? That's unpossible. ~ Matt Groening, #NFDB
1336:No, Blitz. That's oversimplifying it. ~ Herman Cain, #NFDB
1337:no need of the physician, but they that ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1338:No one is you, and that is your power. ~ Dave Grohl, #NFDB
1339:No one man should have all that power. ~ Kanye West, #NFDB
1340:Normal is boring. Who wants that? ~ Sarah Mlynowski, #NFDB
1341:Nothing is a waste that makes a memory. ~ Ned Rorem, #NFDB
1342:Of course I had. That's how I do it. ~ Jeff Lindsay, #NFDB
1343:of him going back into that fire. ~ Barbara Freethy, #NFDB
1344:Oh. Yeah. That’s good. That’s ~ Catherine Ryan Hyde, #NFDB
1345:One can love any man that is generous. ~ Leigh Hunt, #NFDB
1346:One hates an author that's all author. ~ Lord Byron, #NFDB
1347:Only the liar knows that he's lying. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
1348:party. I’m long gone from that scene. ~ Paul Levine, #NFDB
1349:Pause. Breathe. Let all of that fade. ~ Leo Babauta, #NFDB
1350:People do that sometimes. Change. ~ Brenna Yovanoff, #NFDB
1351:Play it cool, that's the old school rule man. ~ Nas, #NFDB
1352:Pluck with quick hand the fruit that passes. ~ Ovid, #NFDB
1353:Pray that ye enter not into temptation. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1354:remeber that for life you will need it. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1355:Remember God so much that you are forgotten. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
1356:Remember that email is skywriting. ~ Timothy Snyder, #NFDB
1357:Ring the bells that still can ring. ~ Leonard Cohen, #NFDB
1358:Robots... I think that is a hot topic. ~ Bill Budge, #NFDB
1359:Rock bottom; that's a fishing term. ~ Charlie Sheen, #NFDB
1360:Rotten attitudes ruin a team. That ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
1361:Satisfied that I was I good shape, ~ Luke Chmilenko, #NFDB
1362:Science was the siren that lured him. ~ Gina Conkle, #NFDB
1363:Shake the hand that shook the world. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1364:Sharp like a spoon, that one. Anyway, ~ Ethan Cross, #NFDB
1365:She couldn’t argue with that. “I’ll ~ Beverly Lewis, #NFDB
1366:Solitude was a spell that freed her. ~ Robert Crais, #NFDB
1367:somewhere that glittered and pulsed ~ Gail Honeyman, #NFDB
1368:So what does that make me? Damaged? ~ Saruuh Kelsey, #NFDB
1369:Spend time doing things that matter. ~ Robin Sharma, #NFDB
1370:Strike saw through it, too. That’s ~ Richard Castle, #NFDB
1371:Tell that one to the barn door, laddie; ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1372:That girl can barely spell her name. ~ Tupac Shakur, #NFDB
1373:That he had this power frightened him. ~ Lois Lowry, #NFDB
1374:That Hieronymus Bosch. What a weirdo. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
1375:That last one sounded kinda high to me. ~ Babe Ruth, #NFDB
1376:that looked like something out of an ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
1377:that means I spend the remaining ten ~ Kelly Rimmer, #NFDB
1378:that of the mind is in abysmal stillness; ~ Lao Tzu, #NFDB
1379:That's all I want- to do no harm. ~ Gregory Maguire, #NFDB
1380:That shot was going goalboundward ~ Clive Tyldesley, #NFDB
1381:That’s like piss icing on the shit cake. ~ R S Grey, #NFDB
1382:That’s me. A metric fuckton of fun. ~ Elaine Levine, #NFDB
1383:That's my only goal: Stay off crack. ~ Michael Che, #NFDB
1384:That's okay, I'm still the Greatest. ~ Muhammad Ali, #NFDB
1385:That’s point number one against Mr. ~ Carolyn Keene, #NFDB
1386:That's the conditions that prevail! ~ Jimmy Durante, #NFDB
1387:That’s what Harold said.” “Harold— ~ Ward Tanneberg, #NFDB
1388:That's what we do. We sex things up. ~ Lauren Layne, #NFDB
1389:That time and those people are upon you! ~ Ayn Rand, #NFDB
1390:That was cool.'
You're psychotic. ~ Brandon Mull,#NFDB
1391:That was the hottest haircut ever. ~ Samantha Chase, #NFDB
1392:That was where our fishing began ~ Ernest Hemingway, #NFDB
1393:That was your past. I am your future. ~ Jus Accardo, #NFDB
1394:That which two will, takes effect. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
1395:The Ardent Hymn that Unites Peoples. ~ Pablo Neruda, #NFDB
1396:The city that has speed has success. ~ Le Corbusier, #NFDB
1397:The dog that trots about finds a bone. ~ Golda Meir, #NFDB
1398:The face that cannot smile is never fair. ~ Martial, #NFDB
1399:The joy that isn't shared dies young. ~ Anne Sexton, #NFDB
1400:The light that lies In woman's eyes. ~ Charles Lamb, #NFDB
1401:The meaning of life is that it stops. ~ Franz Kafka, #NFDB
1402:The only thing that works is a good script! ~ Kajol, #NFDB
1403:The Real Beloved is that one who is Unique, ~ Rumi, #NFDB
1404:There are so many songs that I hate. ~ Derek Waters, #NFDB
1405:There is no story that is not true. ~ Chinua Achebe, #NFDB
1406:There is only one legend. That's me ~ Roberto Duran, #NFDB
1407:The winds that never moderation knew, ~ John Dryden, #NFDB
1408:The words that matter always stay. ~ David Levithan, #NFDB
1409:thinking that I had done something ~ Iyanla Vanzant, #NFDB
1410:This is a path that you follow alone. ~ Erin Hunter, #NFDB
1411:Those that are little, little things suit. ~ Horace, #NFDB
1412:To a good man nothing that happens is evil. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1413:To be or not to be, that is the choice ~ Daniel Lee, #NFDB
1414:To me, anything goes. But that's me. ~ Paris Hilton, #NFDB
1415:To see things in the seed, that is genius. ~ Laozi, #NFDB
1416:Twelve minutes. I can give you that. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1417:under our own protection. That was ~ Alexander Kent, #NFDB
1418:Was that designer stubble on his jaw? ~ B J Daniels, #NFDB
1419:Well that's like, your opinion, man. ~ Jeff Bridges, #NFDB
1420:Well, you wear underwear. That helps. ~ Emily Blunt, #NFDB
1421:We ran that company together, Amber, ~ Rachel Hanna, #NFDB
1422:When we have a genuine sense that, ~ Daisaku Ikeda, #NFDB
1423:Why me, lord? Don't answer that! ~ Charles M Schulz, #NFDB
1424:Work divided is in that manner shortened. ~ Martial, #NFDB
1425:Yippie ki-yay and all that shit. ~ Jonathan Maberry, #NFDB
1426:You give head with that dirty mouth? ~ Pamela Clare, #NFDB
1427:You mean that your buddy was lying? ~ Stieg Larsson, #NFDB
1428:You ought to sue that son of a whore ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1429:You're my game changer, you know that? ~ J Sterling, #NFDB
1430:A City that parlies is half gotten. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
1431:A house that has a library in it has a soul. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1432:All I know is that I do not know anything ~ Socrates, #NFDB
1433:All is not gold that glisters. ~ Miguel de Cervantes, #NFDB
1434:All that glisters is not gold, ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1435:All that glisters is not gold. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1436:All that glitters is not gold. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1437:All that hath been majestical ~ James Russell Lowell, #NFDB
1438:All that is not given is lost. ~ Rabindranath Tagore, #NFDB
1439:All that is rare for the rare. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1440:All that I've learned has faded away. ~ Ronnie Radke, #NFDB
1441:All that’s best in me came from you, ~ Laila Ibrahim, #NFDB
1442:All that we know is nothing can be known. ~ Socrates, #NFDB
1443:And how do you know that you're mad? ~ Lewis Carroll, #NFDB
1444:And Im happy that Im not super skinny. ~ Alicia Keys, #NFDB
1445:And just like that the mood was broken. ~ Amy Harmon, #NFDB
1446:and that it would come here too. Paul ~ Randy Shilts, #NFDB
1447:animal in the sitter (a tendency that, ~ Donna Tartt, #NFDB
1448:a relief to all of them that the ~ Catherine Coulter, #NFDB
1449:Art is a lie that reveals the truth. ~ Pablo Picasso, #NFDB
1450:Art is more engaging that propaganda. ~ Larry Norman, #NFDB
1451:a shadow looming in that silhouette. ~ Kevin O Brien, #NFDB
1452:A woman is a creature that's always shopping. ~ Ovid, #NFDB
1453:A word of the faith that never balks, ~ Walt Whitman, #NFDB
1454:Be...As a page that aches for a word ~ Neil Diamond, #NFDB
1455:Be careful with that heart of yours ~ Jennifer Niven, #NFDB
1456:Believe me, it is actions that count. ~ Sophia Loren, #NFDB
1457:Be that self which one truly is. ~ Soren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
1458:Be the girl that everyone loves to hate. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1459:Be the Self that includes all. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
1460:Books are keys that open many doors. ~ James Rollins, #NFDB
1461:But facts are chiels that winna ding, ~ Robert Burns, #NFDB
1462:But stories that live longest ~ William Butler Yeats, #NFDB
1463:California cat that chased off attacking ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1464:Capital is process, and that is that. ~ David Harvey, #NFDB
1465:Clinging to a life that is gone forever ~ A G Riddle, #NFDB
1466:Customer service. That is what it means. ~ Jon Jones, #NFDB
1467:Deaf rage that hears no leader. ~ Friedrich Schiller, #NFDB
1468:Death’s playground, that thing is fast, ~ K F Breene, #NFDB
1469:did not recognize that any of the fault ~ Sarah Lark, #NFDB
1470:Do not go gentle into that good night ~ Dylan Thomas, #NFDB
1471:Don't pet the cat that's had a bath. ~ Susan Dennard, #NFDB
1472:Don’t say nigger, Scout. That’s common. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
1473:Easter means that Christmas worked. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
1474:Everybody loves things that sparkle. ~ Philip Treacy, #NFDB
1475:Every delay that postpones our joys, is long. ~ Ovid, #NFDB
1476:Everyone knows that ghosts don't piss! ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
1477:Everyone wants to feel that they matter. ~ Nick Cave, #NFDB
1478:Families are the compass that guide us. ~ Brad Henry, #NFDB
1479:Faults that are rich are fair. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1480:For I have learned that every heart will get ~ Hafez, #NFDB
1481:For who so firm that cannot be seduced? ~ John Green, #NFDB
1482:free as the Canada geese that pass by ~ Lisa Wingate, #NFDB
1483:Friendship is something that is cultivated. ~ Thalia, #NFDB
1484:God provides for him that trusteth. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
1485:God wants you to know that he gets you. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
1486:got trouble on that tin roof of yours. ~ Evan Currie, #NFDB
1487:Gravity Dress maybe?—and then, that’s ~ Jandy Nelson, #NFDB
1488:Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving. ~ Erma Bombeck, #NFDB
1489:Happiness is a good that nature sells us. ~ Voltaire, #NFDB
1490:Helping each other out, that's America. ~ Chris Kyle, #NFDB
1491:He's arm'd without that's innocent within; ~ Horace, #NFDB
1492:He's my drug that I gladly consume. ~ Krista Ritchie, #NFDB
1493:He that commands us, will enable us. ~ Thomas Watson, #NFDB
1494:He that is jealous is not in love. ~ Saint Augustine, #NFDB
1495:He that takes a wife, takes care ~ Benjamin Franklin, #NFDB
1496:Hipness is the only asset that matters. ~ Paul Saffo, #NFDB
1497:his old school that if there’d been ~ Jeffrey Archer, #NFDB
1498:honor and valor that's what good is ~ Soman Chainani, #NFDB
1499:How ready is heaven to those that pray! ~ Ben Jonson, #NFDB
1500:Hyt is not al golde that glareth. ~ Geoffrey Chaucer, #NFDB
3623 Integral Yoga
2641 Poetry
460 Mysticism
430 Philosophy
330 Occultism
327 Fiction
196 Christianity
139 Yoga
91 Psychology
71 Philsophy
58 Sufism
40 Science
34 Hinduism
30 Kabbalah
26 Education
22 Mythology
21 Buddhism
20 Theosophy
16 Integral Theory
13 Zen
8 Cybernetics
6 Baha i Faith
3 Taoism
1 Thelema
1 Alchemy
2178 The Mother
1417 Sri Aurobindo
1305 Satprem
607 Nolini Kanta Gupta
319 William Wordsworth
283 William Butler Yeats
229 Walt Whitman
223 Percy Bysshe Shelley
162 Aleister Crowley
148 H P Lovecraft
145 Rabindranath Tagore
127 John Keats
111 Friedrich Schiller
94 Friedrich Nietzsche
89 Carl Jung
87 Robert Browning
71 Ralph Waldo Emerson
69 James George Frazer
67 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
66 Plotinus
64 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
64 Jalaluddin Rumi
64 Edgar Allan Poe
63 Rainer Maria Rilke
57 Sri Ramakrishna
57 Jorge Luis Borges
53 Kabir
47 Li Bai
38 Swami Vivekananda
38 Anonymous
37 Swami Krishnananda
34 Saint Augustine of Hippo
34 Hafiz
33 Saint Teresa of Avila
33 Lucretius
32 Franz Bardon
31 Omar Khayyam
31 A B Purani
30 Saint John of Climacus
30 Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
29 Aldous Huxley
25 Rudolf Steiner
25 Aristotle
22 Vyasa
20 Farid ud-Din Attar
18 Lalla
18 Ibn Arabi
15 Nirodbaran
14 Ovid
12 Plato
12 Paul Richard
11 Swami Sivananda Saraswati
11 Sri Ramana Maharshi
11 Peter J Carroll
11 Mirabai
11 George Van Vrekhem
10 Saint Hildegard von Bingen
10 Ramprasad
10 Lewis Carroll
10 Hakim Sanai
8 Thomas Merton
8 Solomon ibn Gabirol
8 Saint John of the Cross
8 Norbert Wiener
8 Joseph Campbell
8 Jetsun Milarepa
7 Symeon the New Theologian
7 Jacopone da Todi
7 Henry David Thoreau
7 Baha u llah
7 Alice Bailey
6 William Blake
6 Thubten Chodron
6 Taigu Ryokan
6 Jordan Peterson
6 Hsuan Chueh of Yung Chia
6 Bokar Rinpoche
6 Al-Ghazali
5 Saint Francis of Assisi
5 Rabbi Abraham Abulafia
5 Patanjali
5 Muso Soseki
5 Mechthild of Magdeburg
5 Bulleh Shah
5 Allama Muhammad Iqbal
5 Alfred Tennyson
5 Abu-Said Abil-Kheir
4 Dante Alighieri
4 Baba Sheikh Farid
3 Yuan Mei
3 Yeshe Tsogyal
3 Shankara
3 R Buckminster Fuller
3 Naropa
3 Michael Maier
3 Matsuo Basho
3 Ken Wilber
3 Chuang Tzu
3 Boethius
2 Yosa Buson
2 Tao Chien
2 Surdas
2 Saint Therese of Lisieux
2 Saint Clare of Assisi
2 Ravidas
2 Moses de Leon
2 Mansur al-Hallaj
2 Mahendranath Gupta
2 Kahlil Gibran
2 Jorge Luis Borges
2 Jean Gebser
2 Italo Calvino
2 Ibn Ata Illah
2 H. P. Lovecraft
2 Han-shan
2 Hakuin
2 Guru Nanak
2 Genpo Roshi
2 Dadu Dayal
2 Catherine of Siena
2 Alexander Pope
558 Record of Yoga
319 Wordsworth - Poems
283 Yeats - Poems
272 Prayers And Meditations
223 Shelley - Poems
221 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
215 Whitman - Poems
162 Agenda Vol 01
148 Lovecraft - Poems
144 The Synthesis Of Yoga
138 Tagore - Poems
138 Agenda Vol 13
127 Keats - Poems
123 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
119 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
111 Schiller - Poems
99 Agenda Vol 12
99 Agenda Vol 08
97 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
96 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
95 Agenda Vol 09
92 Agenda Vol 10
91 Letters On Yoga III
89 Agenda Vol 06
87 Browning - Poems
87 Agenda Vol 03
86 Agenda Vol 07
85 Magick Without Tears
85 Agenda Vol 11
85 Agenda Vol 04
82 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
81 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
79 Agenda Vol 05
73 Agenda Vol 02
71 Emerson - Poems
69 The Golden Bough
65 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
65 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
63 Rilke - Poems
63 Poe - Poems
60 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
56 The Life Divine
56 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
56 Collected Poems
55 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
53 Liber ABA
52 Questions And Answers 1956
49 Savitri
49 Letters On Yoga IV
49 Letters On Yoga II
47 Li Bai - Poems
41 Questions And Answers 1953
41 Goethe - Poems
39 Songs of Kabir
39 Rumi - Poems
39 Letters On Poetry And Art
38 Words Of Long Ago
38 Mysterium Coniunctionis
37 The Study and Practice of Yoga
37 Questions And Answers 1955
36 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
35 Questions And Answers 1954
34 The Divine Comedy
33 Of The Nature Of Things
31 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
31 Borges - Poems
30 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
30 General Principles of Kabbalah
30 Essays On The Gita
30 Essays Divine And Human
29 The Perennial Philosophy
29 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
28 The Bible
28 Crowley - Poems
27 Words Of The Mother II
27 Letters On Yoga I
27 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
26 On Education
26 Labyrinths
25 Poetics
25 Hafiz - Poems
24 The Practice of Psycho therapy
24 The Human Cycle
23 Faust
22 Vishnu Purana
22 The Future of Man
22 City of God
21 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
21 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
20 Bhakti-Yoga
19 The Way of Perfection
19 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
18 Let Me Explain
18 Initiation Into Hermetics
18 Anonymous - Poems
17 On the Way to Supermanhood
15 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
15 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
15 Isha Upanishad
14 The Secret Of The Veda
14 The Practice of Magical Evocation
14 The Phenomenon of Man
14 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
14 Some Answers From The Mother
14 Metamorphoses
13 Vedic and Philological Studies
13 Twilight of the Idols
13 Theosophy
13 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
13 Hymn of the Universe
13 Arabi - Poems
12 Talks
12 Raja-Yoga
12 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
12 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
12 Aion
11 Song of Myself
11 Preparing for the Miraculous
11 Liber Null
11 Kena and Other Upanishads
11 Dark Night of the Soul
10 The Problems of Philosophy
10 The Interior Castle or The Mansions
10 The Integral Yoga
10 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
10 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
9 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
9 Amrita Gita
9 Alice in Wonderland
9 5.1.01 - Ilion
8 Words Of The Mother III
8 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
8 The Blue Cliff Records
8 Milarepa - Poems
8 Cybernetics
7 Words Of The Mother I
7 Walden
7 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 The Red Book Liber Novus
6 The Alchemy of Happiness
6 Tara - The Feminine Divine
6 Ryokan - Poems
6 Maps of Meaning
6 How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator
5 The Gateless Gate
5 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
4 Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit
4 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
4 Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin
3 The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma
3 The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep
3 The Lotus Sutra
3 The Book of Certitude
3 Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking
3 Sex Ecology Spirituality
3 Sefer Yetzirah The Book of Creation In Theory and Practice
3 Naropa - Poems
3 Chuang Tzu - Poems
3 Basho - Poems
3 Agenda Vol 1
2 The Prophet
2 The Ever-Present Origin
2 The Essentials of Education
2 The Castle of Crossed Destinies
2 Symposium
2 Selected Fictions
2 Notes On The Way
2 Jerusalum
2 Han-shan - Poems
2 God Exists
2 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E
00.00 - Publishers Note A, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The present volume consists of the first seven parts of the book The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo which has run into twelve parts, as it stands now; of these twelve, parts five to nine are based upon talks of the Mother (given by Her to the children of the Ashram). In this volume the later parts of the Talks (8 and 9) could not be included: they are to wait for a subsequent volume. The talks, originally in French, were spread over a number of years, ending in about 1960. We are pleased to note That the Government of India have given us a grant to meet the cost of publication of this volume.
13 January 1972
00.00 - Publishers Note B, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We are pleased to note That the Government of India have given us a grant to meet the cost of publication of this volume.
13 January 1973
--
[Like a flame That burns in silence,
Like a perfume That rises straight upward without wavering,
My love goes to Thee..]
00.00 - Publishers Note, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We are happy to note That the Government of India have given to our Centre of Education a grant to meet the cost of publication of this volume.
The Mother has graciously permitted the use of her sketch of the author as a frontispiece to the book.
0 0.01 - Introduction, #Agenda Vol 1, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This AGENDA ... One day, another species among men will pore over this fabulous document as over the tumultuous drama That must have surrounded the birth of the first man among the hostile hordes of a great, delirious Paleozoic. A first man is the dangerous contradiction of a certain simian logic, a threat to the established order That so genteelly ran about amid the high, indefeasible ferns - and to begin with, it does not even know That it is a man. It wonders, indeed, what it is. Even to itself it is strange, distressing. It does not even know how to climb trees any longer in its usual way
- and it is terribly disturbing for all those who still climb trees in the old, millennial way. Perhaps it is even a heresy. Unless it is some cerebral disorder? A first man in his little clearing had to have a great deal of courage. Even this little clearing was no longer so sure. A first man is a perpetual question. What am I, then, in the midst of all That? And where is my law? What is the law? And what if there were no more laws? ... It is terrifying. Mathematics - out of order. Astronomy and biology, too, are beginning to respond to mysterious influences. A tiny point huddled in the center of the world's great clearing. But what is all this, what if I were 'mad'? And then, claws all around, a lot of claws against this uncommon creature. A first man ... is very much alone. He is quite unbearable for the pre-human 'reason.' And the surrounding tribes growled like red monkies in the twilight of Guiana.
One day, we were like this first man in the great, stridulant night of the Oyapock. Our heart was beating with the rediscovery of a very ancient mystery - suddenly, it was absolutely new to be a man amidst the diorite cascades and the pretty red and black coral snakes slithering beneath the leaves. It was even more extraordinary to be a man than our old confirmed tribes, with their infallible equations and imprescriptible biologies, could ever have dreamed. It was an absolutely uncertain 'quantum' That delightfully eluded whatever one thought of it, including perhaps what even the scholars thought of it. It flowed otherwise, it felt otherwise. It lived in a kind of flawless continuity with the sap of the giant balata trees, the cry of the macaws and the scintillating water of a little fountain. It 'understood' in a very different way. To understand was to be in everything. Just a quiver, and one was in the skin of a little iguana in distress. The skin of the world was very vast.
To be a man after rediscovering a million years was mysteriously like being something still other than man, a strange, unfinished possibility That could also be all kinds of other things. It was not in the dictionary, it was fluid and boundless - it had become a man through habit, but in truth, it was formidably virgin, as if all the old laws belonged to laggard barbarians. Then other moons began whirring through the skies to the cry of macaws at sunset, another rhythm was born That was strangely in tune with the rhythm of all, making one single flow of the world, and there we went, lightly, as if the body had never had any weight other than That of our human thought; and the stars were so near, even the giant airplanes roaring overhead seemed vain artifices beneath smiling galaxies. A man was the overwhelming Possible. He was even the great discoverer of the Possible.
Never had this precarious invention had any other aim through millions of species than to discover That which surpassed his own species, perhaps the means to change his species - a light and lawless species. After rediscovering a million years in the great, rhythmic night, a man was still something to be invented. It was the invention of himself, where all was not yet said and done.
And then, and then ... a singular air, an incurable lightness, was beginning to fill his lungs. And what if we were a fable? And what are the means?
--
Thus had we mused in the heart of our ancient forest while we were still hesitating between unlikely flakes of gold and a civilization That seemed to us quite toxic and obsolete, however mathematical. But other mathematics were flowing through our veins, an equation as yet unformed between this mammoth world and a little point replete with a light air and immense forebodings.
It was at this point That we met Mother, at this intersection of the anthropoid rediscovered and the 'something' That had set in motion this unfinished invention momentarily ensnared in a gilded machine. For nothing was finished, and nothing had been invented, really, That would instill peace and wideness in this heart of no species at all.
And what if man were not yet invented? What if he were not yet his own species?
A little white silhouette, twelve thousand miles away, solitary and frail amidst a spiritual horde which had once and for all decided That the meditating and miraculous yogi was the apogee of the species, was searching for the means, for the reality of this man who for a moment believes himself sovereign of the heavens or sovereign of a machine, but who is quite probably something completely different than his spiritual or material glories. Another, a lighter air was throbbing in That breast, unburdened of its heavens and of its prehistoric machines. Another Epic was beginning.
Would Matter and Spirit meet, then, in a third PHYSIOLOGICAL position That would perhaps be at last the position of Man rediscovered, the something That had for so long fought and suffered in quest of becoming its own species? She was the great Possible at the beginning of man. Mother is our fable come true. 'All is possible' was her first open sesame.
Yes, She was in the midst of a spiritual 'horde,' for the pioneer of a new species must always fight against the best of the old: the best is the obstacle, the snare That traps us in its old golden mire.
As for the worst, we know That it is the worst. But then we come to realize That the best is only the pretty muzzle of our worst, the same old beast defending itself, with all its claws out, with its sanctity or its electronic gadgets. Mother was there for something else.
'Something else' is ominous, perilous, disrupting - it is quite unbearable for all those who resemble the old beast. The story of the Pondicherry 'Ashram' is the story of an old clan ferociously clinging to its 'spiritual' privileges, as others clung to the muscles That had made them kings among the great apes. It is armed with all the piousness and all the reasonableness That had made logical man so 'infallible' among his less cerebral brothers. The spiritual brain is probably the worst obstacle to the new species, as were the muscles of the old orangutan for this fragile stranger who no longer climbed so well in the trees and sat, pensive, at the center of a little, uncertain clearing.
There is nothing more pious than the old species. There is nothing more legal. Mother was searching for the path of the new species as much against all the virtues of the old as against all its vices or laws. For, in truth, 'Something Else' ... is something else.
We landed there, one day in February 1954, having emerged from our Guianese forest and a certain number of dead-end peripluses; we had knocked upon all the doors of the old world before reaching That point of absolute impossibility where it was truly necessary to embark into something else or once and for all put a bullet through the brain of this slightly superior ape. The first thing That struck us was this exotic Notre Dame with its burning incense sticks, its effigies and its prostrations in immaculate white: a Church. We nearly jumped into the first train out That very evening, bound straight for the Himalayas, or the devil. But we remained near Mother for nineteen years. What was it, then, That could have held us there? We had not left Guiana to become a little saint in white or to enter some new religion. 'I did not come upon earth to found an ashram; That would have been a poor aim indeed,' She wrote in 1934. What did all this mean, then, this 'Ashram' That was already registered as the owner of a great spiritual business, and this fragile, little silhouette at the center of all these zealous worshippers? In truth, there is no better way to smother someone than to worship him: he chokes beneath the weight of worship, which moreover gives the worshipper claim to ownership. 'Why do you want to worship?' She exclaimed. 'You have but to become! It is the laziness to become That makes one worship.' She wanted so much to make them
become this 'something else,' but it was far easier to worship and quiescently remain what one was.
--
'spiritual life': it was all so comfortable, for we had a supreme 'symbol' of it right there. She let us do as we pleased, She even opened up all kinds of little heavens in us, along with a few hells, since they go together. She even opened the door in us to a certain 'liberation,' which in the end was as soporific as eternity - but there was nowhere to get out: it WAS eternity. We were trapped on all sides. There was nothing left but these 4m2 of skin, the last refuge, That which we wanted to flee by way of above or below, by way of Guiana or the Himalayas. She was waiting for us just there, at the end of our spiritual or not so spiritual pirouettes. Matter was her concern. It took us seven years to understand That She was beginning there, 'where the other yogas leave off,' as Sri Aurobindo had already said twenty-five years earlier. It was necessary to have covered all the paths of the Spirit and all those of Matter, or in any case a large number geographically, before discovering, or even simply understanding, That 'something else' was really Something Else. It was not an improved
Spirit nor even an improved Matter, but ... it could be called 'nothing,' so contrary was it to all we know. For the caterpillar, a butterfly is nothing, it is not even visible and has nothing in common with caterpillar heavens nor even caterpillar matter. So there we were, trapped in an impossible adventure. One does not return from there: one must cross the bridge to the other side. Then one day in That seventh year, while we still believed in liberations and the collected Upanishads, highlighted with a few glorious visions to relieve the commonplace (which remained appallingly commonplace), while we were still considering 'the Mother of the Ashram' rather like some spiritual super-director (endowed, albeit, with a disarming yet ever so provocative smile, as though
She were making fun of us, then loving us in secret), She told us, 'I have the feeling That ALL we have lived, ALL we have known, ALL we have done is a perfect illusion ... When I had the spiritual experience That material life is an illusion, personally I found That so marvelously beautiful and happy That it was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life, but now it is the entire spiritual structure as we have lived it That is becoming an illusion! - Not the same illusion, but an illusion far worse. And I am no baby: I have been here for forty-seven years now!' Yes, She was eighty-three years old then. And That day, we ceased being 'the enemy of our own conception of the Divine,' for this entire Divine was shattered to pieces - and we met Mother, at last. This mystery we call
Mother, for She never ceased being a mystery right to her ninety-fifth year, and to this day still, challenges us from the other side of a wall of invisibility and keeps us floundering fully in the mystery - with a smile. She always smiles. But the mystery is not solved.
--
Where, then, was 'the Mother of the Ashram' in all this? What is even 'the Ashram,' if not a spiritual museum of the resistances to Something Else. They were always - and still today - reciting their catechism beneath a little flag: they are the owners of the new truth. But the new truth is laughing in their faces and leaving them high and dry at the edge of their little stagnant pond. They are under the illusion That Mother and Sri Aurobindo, twenty-seven or four years after their respective departures, could keep on repeating themselves - but then they would not be Mother and
Sri Aurobindo! They would be fossils. The truth is always on the move. It is with those who dare, who have courage, and above all the courage to shatter all the effigies, to de-mystify, and to go
TRULY to the conquest of the new. The 'new' is painful, discouraging, it resembles nothing we know! We cannot hoist the flag of an unconquered country - but this is what is so marvelous: it does not yet exist. We must MAKE IT EXIST. The adventure has not been carved out: it is to be carved out. Truth is not entrapped and fossilized, 'spiritualized': it is to be discovered. We are in a nothing That we must force to become a something. We are in the adventure of the new species. A new species is obviously contradictory to the old species and to the little flags of the alreadyknown. It has nothing in common with the spiritual summits of the old world, nor even with its abysms - which might be delightfully tempting for those who have had enough of the summits, but everything is the same, in black or white, it is fraternal above and below. SOMETHING ELSE is needed.
'Are you conscious of your ceils?' She asked us a short time after the little operation of spiritual demolition She had undergone. 'No? Well, become conscious of your cells, and you will see That it gives TERRESTRIAL results.' To become conscious of one's cells? ... It was a far more radical operation than crossing the Maroni with a machete in hand, for after all, trees and lianas can be cut, but what cannot be so easily uncovered are the grandfa ther and the grandmo ther and the whole atavistic pack, not to mention the animal and plant and mineral layers That form a teeming humus over this single pure little cell beneath its millennial genetic program. The grandfa thers and grandmo thers grow back again like crabgrass, along with all the old habits of being hungry, afraid, falling ill, fearing the worst, hoping for the best, which is still the best of an old mortal habit. All this is not uprooted nor entrapped as easily as celestial 'liberations,' which leave the teeming humus in peace and the body to its usual decomposition. She had come to hew a path through all That. She was the Ancient One of evolution who had come to make a new cleft in the old, tedious habit of being a man. She did not like tedious repetitions, She was the adventuress par excellence - the adventuress of the earth. She was wrenching out for man the great Possible That was already beating there, in his primeval clearing, which he believed he had momentarily trapped with a few machines.
She was uprooting a new Matter, free, free from the habit of inexorably being a man who repeats himself ad infinitum with a few improvements in the way of organ transplants or monetary exchanges. In fact, She was there to discover what would happen after materialism and after spiritualism, these prodigal twin brothers. Because Materialism is dying in the West for the same reason That Spiritualism is dying in the East: it is the hour of the new species. Man needs to awaken, not only from his demons but also from his gods. A new Matter, yes, like a new Spirit, yes, because we still know neither one nor the other. It is the hour when Science, like Spirituality, at the end of their roads, must discover what Matter TRULY is, for it is really there That a Spirit as yet unknown to us is to be found. It is a time when all the 'isms' of the old species are dying: 'The age of
Capitalism and business is drawing to its close. But the age of Communism too will pass ... 'It is the hour of a pure little cell That WILL HAVE TERRESTRIAL REPERCUSSIONS, infinitely more radical than all our political and scientific or spiritualistic panaceas.
This fabulous discovery is the whole story of the AGENDA. What is the passage? How is the path to the new species hewed open? ... Then suddenly, there, on the other side of this old millennial habit - a habit, nothing more than a habit! - of being like a man endowed with time and space and disease: an entire geometry, perfectly implacable and 'scientific' and medical; on the other side ... none of That at all! An illusion, a fantastic medical and scientific and genetic illusion:
death does not exist, time does not exist, disease does not exist, nor do 'scar' and 'far' - another way of being IN A BODY. For so many millions of years we have lived in a habit and put our own thoughts of the world and of Matter into equations. No more laws! Matter is FREE. It can create a little lizard, a chipmunk or a parrot - but it has created enough parrots. Now it is SOMETHING
--
Day after day, for seventeen years, She sat with us to tell us of her impossible odyssey. Ah, how well we now understand why She needed such an 'outlaw' and an incorrigible heretic like us to comprehend a little bit of her impossible odyssey into 'nothing.' And how well we now understand her infinite patience with us, despite all our revolts, which ultimately were only the revolts of the old species against itself. The final revolt. 'It is not a revolt against the British government which any one can easily do. It is, in fact, a revolt against the whole universal Nature!' Sri Aurobindo had proclaimed fifty years earlier. She listened to our grievances, we went away and we returned. We wanted no more of it and we wanted still more. It was infernal and sublime, impossible and the sole possibility in this old, asphyxiating world. It was the only place one could go to in this barbedwired, mechanized world, where Cincinnati is just as crowded and polluted as Hong Kong. The new species is the last free place in the general Prison. It is the last hope for the earth. How we listened to her little faltering voice That seemed to return from afar, afar, after having crossed spaces and seas of the mind to let its little drops of pure, crystalline words fall upon us, words That make you see. We listened to the future, we touched the other thing. It was incomprehensible and yet filled with another comprehension. It eluded us on all sides, and yet it was dazzlingly obvious. The 'other species' was really radically other, and yet it was vibrating within, absolutely recognizable, as if it were That we had been seeking from age to age, That we had been invoking through all our illuminations, one after another, in Thebes as in Eleusis as everywhere we have toiled and grieved in the skin of a man. It was for That we were here, for That supreme Possible in the skin of a man at last. And then her voice grew more and more frail, her breath began gasping as though She had to traverse greater and greater distances to meet us. She was so alone to beat against the walls of the old prison. Many claws were out all around. Oh, we would so quickly have cut ourself free from all this fiasco to fly away with Her into the world's future. She was so tiny, stooped over, as if crushed beneath the 'spiritual' burden That all the old surrounding species kept heaping upon her. They didn't believe, no. For them, She was ninety-five years old + so many days. Can someone become a new species all alone? They even grumbled at Her: they had had enough of this unbearable Ray That was bringing their sordid affairs into the daylight. The Ashram was slowly closing over Her. The old world wanted to make a new, golden little Church, nice and quiet. No, no one wanted TO
BECOME. To worship was so much easier. And then they bury you, solemnly, and the matter is settled - the case is closed: now, no one need bother any more except to print some photographic haloes for the pilgrims to this brisk little business. But they are mistaken. The real business will take place without them, the new species will fly up in their faces - it is already flying in the face of the earth, despite all its isms in black and white; it is exploding through all the pores of this battered old earth, which has had enough of shams - whether illusory little heavens or barbarous little machines.
--
This AGENDA is not even a path: it is a light little vibration That seizes you at any turning - and then, there it is, you are IN IT. 'Another world in the world,' She said. One has to catch the light little vibration, one has to flow with it, in a nothing That is like the only something in the midst of this great debacle. At the beginning of things, when still nothing was FIXED, when there was not yet this habit of the pelican or the kangaroo or the chimpanzee or the XXth century biologist, there was a little pulsation That beat and beat - a delightful dizziness, a joy in the world's great adventure; a little never-imprisoned spark That has kept on beating from species to species, but as if it were always eluding us, as if it were always over there, over there - as if it were something to become,
something to be played forever as the one great game of the world; a who-knows-what That left this sprig of a pensive man in the middle of a clearing; a little 'something' That beats, beats, That keeps on breathing beneath every skin That has ever been put on it - like our deepest breath, our lightest air, our air of nothing - and it keeps on going, it keeps on going. We must catch the light little breath, the little pulsation of nothing. Then suddenly, on the threshold of our clearing of concrete, our head starts spinning incurably, our eyes blink into something else, and all is different, and all seems surcharged with meaning and with life, as though we had never lived until That very minute.
Then we have caught the tail of the Great Possible, we are upon the wayless way, radically in the new, and we flow with the little lizard, the pelican, the big man, we flow everywhere in a world That has lost its old separating skin and its little baggage of habits. We begin seeing otherwise, feeling otherwise. We have opened the gate into an inconceivable clearing. Just a light little vibration That carries you away. Then we begin to understand how it CAN CHANGE, what the mechanism is - a light little mechanism and so miraculous That it looks like nothing. We begin feeling the wonder of a pure little cell, and That a sparkling of joy would be enough to turn the world inside out. We were living in a little thinking fishbowl, we were dying in an old, bottled habit. And then suddenly, all is different. The Earth is free! Who wants freedom?
It begins in a cell.
00.01 - The Approach to Mysticism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Mysticism is not only a science but also, and in a greater degree, an art. To approach it merely as a science, as the modern mind attempts to do, is to move towards futility, if not to land in positive disaster. Sufficient stress is not laid on this aspect of the matter, although the very crux of the situation lies here. The mystic domain has to be apprehended not merely by the true mind and understanding but by the right temperament and character. Mysticism is not merely an object of knowledge, a problem for inquiry and solution, it is an end, an ideal That has to be achieved, a life That has to be lived. The mystics themselves have declared long ago with no uncertain or faltering voice: this cannot be attained by intelligence or much learning, it can be seized only by a purified and clear temperament.
The warning seems to have fallen, in the modern age, on unheeding ears. For the modern mind, being pre-eminently and uncompromisingly scientific, can entertain no doubt as to the perfect competency of science and the scientific method to seize and unveil any secret of Nature. If, it is argued, mysticism is a secret, if there is at all a truth and reality in it, then it is and must be amenable to the rules and regulations of science; for science is the revealer of Nature's secrecies.
But what is not recognised in this view of things is That there are secrecies and secrecies. The material secrecies of Nature are of one category, the mystic secrecies are of another. The two are not only disparate but incommensurable. Any man with a mind and understanding of average culture can see and handle the 'scientific' forces, but not the mystic forces.
A scientist once thought That he had clinched the issue and cut the Gordian knot when he declared triumphantly with reference to spirit sances: "Very significant is the fact That spirits appear only in closed chambers, in half obscurity, to somnolent minds; they are nowhere in the open air, in broad daylight to the wide awake and vigilant intellect!" Well, if the fact is as it is stated, what does it prove? Night alone reveals the stars, during the day they vanish, but That is no proof That stars are not existent. Rather the true scientific spirit should seek to know why (or how) it is so, if it is so, and such a fact would exactly serve as a pointer, a significant starting ground. The attitude of the jesting Pilate is not helpful even to scientific inquiry. This matter of the Spirits we have taken only as an illustration and it must not be understood That this is a domain of high mysticism; rather the contrary. The spiritualists' approach to Mysticism is not the right one and is fraught with not only errors but dangers. For the spiritualists approach their subject with the entire scientific apparatus the only difference being That the scientist does not believe while the spiritualist believes.
Mystic realities cannot be reached by the scientific consciousness, because they are far more subtle than the subtlest object That science can contemplate. The neutrons and positrons are for science today the finest and profoundest object-forces; they belong, it is said, almost to a borderl and where physics ends. Nor for That reason is a mystic reality something like a mathematical abstraction, -n for example. The mystic reality is subtler than the subtlest of physical things and yet, paradoxical to say, more concrete than the most concrete thing That the senses apprehend.
Furthermore, being so, the mystic domain is of infinitely greater potency than the domain of intra-atomic forces. If one comes, all on a sudden, into contact with a force here without the necessary preparation to hold and handle it, he may get seriously bruised, morally and physically. The adventure into the mystic domain has its own toll of casualtiesone can lose the mind, one can lose one's body even and it is a very common experience among those who have tried the path. It is not in vain and merely as a poetic metaphor That the ancient seers have said
Kurasya dhr niit duratyay1
--
The mystic forces are not only of immense potency but of a definite moral disposition and character, That is to say, they are of immense potency either for good or for evil. They are not mechanical and amoral forces like those That physical sciences deal with; they are forces of consciousness and they are conscious forces, they act with an aim and a purpose. The mystic forces are forces either of light or of darkness, either Divine or Titanic. And it is most often the powers of darkness That the naturally ignorant consciousness of man contacts when it seeks to cross the borderline without training or guidance, by the sheer arrogant self-sufficiency of mental scientific reason.
Ignorance, certainly, is not man's ideal conditionit leads to death and dissolution. But knowledge also can be equally disastrous if it is not of the right kind. The knowledge That is born of spiritual disobedience, inspired by the Dark ones, leads to the soul's fall and its calvary through pain and suffering on earth. The seeker of true enlightenment has got to make a distinction, learn to separate the true and the right from the false and the wrong, unmask the luring Mra say clearly and unfalteringly to the dark light of Luciferapage Satana, if he is to come out into the true light and comm and the right forces. The search for knowledge alone, knowledge for the sake of knowledge, the path of pure scientific inquiry and inquisitiveness, in relation to the mystic world, is a dangerous thing. For such a spirit serves only to encourage and enhance man's arrogance and in the end not only limits but warps and falsifies the knowledge itself. A knowledge based on and secured exclusively through the reason and mental light can go only so far as That faculty can be reasonably stretched and not infinitelyto stretch it to infinity means to snap it. This is the warning That Yajnavalkya gave to Gargi when the latter started renewing her question ad infinitum Yajnavalkya said, "If you do not stop, your head will fall off."
The mystic truth has to be approached through the heart. "In the heart is established the Truth," says the Upanishad: it is there That is seated eternally the soul, the real being, who appears no bigger than the thumb. Even if the mind is utilised as an instrument of knowledge, the heart must be there behind as the guide and inspiration. It is precisely because, as I have just mentioned, Gargi sought to shoot uplike "vaulting ambition That o'erleaps itself" of which Shakespeare speaksthrough the mind alone to the highest truth That Yajnavalkya had to pull her up and give the warning That she risked losing her head if she persisted in her questioning endlessly.
For true knowledge comes of, and means, identity of being. All other knowledge may be an apprehension of things but not comprehension. In the former, the knower stands apart from the object and so can envisage only the outskirts, the contour, the surface nature; the mind is capable of this alone. But comprehension means an embracing and penetration which is possible when the knower identifies himself with the object. And when we are so identified we not merely know the object, but becoming it in our consciousness, we love it and live it.
The mystic's knowledge is a part and a formation of his life. That is why it is a knowledge not abstract and remote but living and intimate and concrete. It is a knowledge That pulsates with delight: indeed it is the radiance That is shed by the purest and intensest joy. For this reason it may be That in approaching through the heart there is a chance of one's getting arrested there and not caring for the still higher, the solar lights; but this need not be so. In the heart there is a golden door leading to the deepest delights, but there is also a diamond door opening up into the skies of the brightest luminosities.
For it must be understood That the heart, the mystic heart, is not the external thing which is the seat of emotion or passion; it is the secret heart That is behind, the inner heartantarhdaya of the Upanishadwhich is the centre of the individual consciousness, where all the divergent lines of That consciousness meet and from where they take their rise. That is what the Upanishad means when it says That the heart has a hundred channels which feed the human vehicle. That is the source, the fount and origin, the very substance of the true personality. Mystic knowledge the true mystic knowledge which saves and fulfilsbegins with the awakening or the entrance into this real being. This being is pure and luminous and blissful and sovereignly real, because it is a portion, a spark of the Divine Consciousness and Nature: a contact and communion with it brings automatically into play the light and the truth That are its substance. At the same time it is an uprising flame That reaches out naturally to higher domains of consciousness and manifests them through its translucid dynamism.
The knowledge That is obtained without the heart's instrumentation or co-operation is liable to be what the Gita describes as Asuric. First of all, from the point of view of knowledge itself, it would be, as I have already said, egocentric, a product and agent of one's limited and isolated self, easily put at the service of desire and passion. This knowledge, whether rationalistic or occult, is, as it were, hard and dry in its constitution, and oftener than not, negative and destructivewi thering and blasting in its career like the desert simoom.
There are modes of knowledge That are occultand to That extent mystic and can be mastered by practices in which the heart has no share. But they have not the saving grace That comes by the touch of the Divine. They are not truly mystic the truly mystic belongs to the ultimate realities, the deepest and the highest,they, on the other hand, are transverse and tangential movements belonging to an intermediate region where light and obscurity are mixed up and even for the greater part the light is swallowed up in the obscurity or utilised by it.
The mystic's knowledge and experience is not only true and real: it is delightful and blissful. It has a supremely healing virtue. It brings a sovereign freedom and ease and peace to the mystic himself, but also to those around him, who come in contact with him. For truth and reality are made up of love and harmony, because truth is, in its essence, unity.
Sharp as a razor's edge, difficult of going, hard to traverse is That path!"
This spirit is a thing no weakling can gain."
00.01 - The Mother on Savitri, #Sweet Mother - Harmonies of Light, #unset, #Zen
Have you understood all That you have read?
Not much, but I like poetry, it is because of That I read it.
It does not matter if you do not understand it - Savitri, read it always. You will see That every time you read it, something new will be revealed to you. Each time you will get a new glimpse, each time a new experience; things which were not there, things you did not understand arise and suddenly become clear. Always an unexpected vision comes up through the words and lines. Every time you try to read and understand, you will see That something is added, something which was hidden behind is revealed clearly and vividly. I tell you the very verses you have read once before, will appear to you in a different light each time you re-read them. This is what happens invariably. Always your experience is enriched, it is a revelation at each step.
But you must not read it as you read other books or newspapers. You must read with an empty head, a blank and vacant mind, without there being any other thought; you must concentrate much, remain empty, calm and open; then the words, rhythms, vibrations will penetrate directly to this white page, will put their stamp upon the brain, will explain themselves without your making any effort.
Savitri alone is sufficient to make you climb to the highest peaks. If truly one knows how to meditate on Savitri, one will receive all the help one needs. For him who wishes to follow this path, it is a concrete help as though the Lord himself were taking you by the hand and leading you to the destined goal. And then, every question, however personal it may be, has its answer here, every difficulty finds its solution herein; indeed there is everything That is necessary for doing the Yoga.
*He has crammed the whole universe in a single book.* It is a marvellous work, magnificent and of an incomparable perfection.
--
In truth, the entire form of Savitri has descended "en masse" from the highest region and Sri Aurobindo with His genius only arranged the lines - in a superb and magnificent style. Sometimes entire lines were revealed and He has left them intact; He worked hard, untiringly, so That the inspiration could come from the highest possible summit. And what a work He has created! Yes, it is a true creation in itself. It is an unequalled work. Everything is there, and it is put in such a simple, such a clear form; verses perfectly harmonious, limpid and eternally true. My child, I have read so many things, but I have never come across anything which could be compared with Savitri. I have studied the best works in Greek, Latin, English and of course French literature, also in German and all the great creations of the West and the East, including the great epics; but I repeat it, I have not found anywhere anything comparable with Savitri. All these literary works seems to me empty, flat, hollow, without any deep reality - apart from a few rare exceptions, and these too represent only a small fraction of what Savitri is. What grandeur, what amplitude, what reality: it is something immortal and eternal He has created. I tell you once again there is nothing like in it the whole world. Even if one puts aside the vision of the reality, That is, the essential substance which is the heart of the inspiration, and considers only the lines in themselves, one will find them unique, of the highest classical kind. What He has created is something man cannot imagine. For, everything is there, everything.
It may then be said That Savitri is a revelation, it is a meditation, it is a quest of the Infinite, the Eternal. If it is read with this aspiration for Immortality, the reading itself will serve as a guide to Immortality. To read Savitri is indeed to practice Yoga, spiritual concentration; one can find there all That is needed to realise the Divine. Each step of Yoga is noted here, including the secret of all other Yogas. Surely, if one sincerely follows what is revealed here in each line one will reach finally the transformation of the Supramental Yoga. It is truly the infallible guide who never abandons you; its support is always there for him who wants to follow the path. Each verse of Savitri is like a revealed Mantra which surpasses all That man possessed by way of knowledge, and I repeat this, the words are expressed and arranged in such a way That the sonority of the rhythm leads you to the origin of sound, which is OM.
My child, yes, everything is there: mysticism, occultism, philosophy, the history of evolution, the history of man, of the gods, of creation, of Nature. How the universe was created, why, for what purpose, what destiny - all is there. You can find all the answers to all your questions there. Everything is explained, even the future of man and of the evolution, all That nobody yet knows. He has described it all in beautiful and clear words so That spiritual adventurers who wish to solve the mysteries of the world may understand it more easily. But this mystery is well hidden behind the words and lines and one must rise to the required level of true consciousness to discover it. All prophesies, all That is going to come is presented with the precise and wonderful clarity. Sri Aurobindo gives you here the key to find the Truth, to discover the Consciousness, to solve the problem of what the universe is. He has also indicated how to open the door of the Inconscience so That the light may penetrate there and transform it. He has shown the path, the way to liberate oneself from the ignorance and climb up to the superconscience; each stage, each plane of consciousness, how they can be scaled, how one can cross even the barrier of death and attain immortality. You will find the whole journey in detail, and as you go forward you can discover things altogether unknown to man. That is Savitri and much more yet. It is a real experience - reading Savitri. All the secrets That man possessed, He has revealed, - as well as all That awaits him in the future; all this is found in the depth of Savitri. But one must have the knowledge to discover it all, the experience of the planes of consciousness, the experience of the Supermind, even the experience of the conquest of Death. He has noted all the stages, marked each step in order to advance integrally in the integral Yoga.
All this is His own experience, and what is most surprising is That it is my own experience also. It is my sadhana which He has worked out. Each object, each event, each realisation, all the descriptions, even the colours are exactly what I saw and the words, phrases are also exactly what I heard. And all this before having read the book. I read Savitri many times afterwards, but earlier, when He was writing He used to read it to me. Every morning I used to hear Him read Savitri. During the night He would write and in the morning read it to me. And I observed something curious, That day after day the experiences He read out to me in the morning were those I had had the previous night, word by word. Yes, all the descriptions, the colours, the pictures I had seen, the words I had heard, all, all, I heard it all, put by Him into poetry, into miraculous poetry. Yes, they were exactly my experiences of the previous night which He read out to me the following morning. And it was not just one day by chance, but for days and days together. And every time I used to compare what He said with my previous experiences and they were always the same. I repeat, it was not That I had told Him my experiences and That He had noted them down afterwards, no, He knew already what I had seen. It is my experiences He has presented at length and they were His experiences also. It is, moreover, the picture of Our joint adventure into the unknown or rather into the Supermind.
These are experiences lived by Him, realities, supracosmic truths. He experienced all these as one experiences joy or sorrow, physically. He walked in the darkness of inconscience, even in the neighborhood of death, endured the sufferings of perdition, and emerged from the mud, the world-misery to brea the the sovereign plenitude and enter the supreme Ananda. He crossed all these realms, went through the consequences, suffered and endured physically what one cannot imagine. Nobody till today has suffered like Him. He accepted suffering to transform suffering into the joy of union with the Supreme. It is something unique and incomparable in the history of the world. It is something That has never happened before, He is the first to have traced the path in the Unknown, so That we may be able to walk with certitude towards the Supermind. He has made the work easy for us. Savitri is His whole Yoga of transformation, and this Yoga appears now for the first time in the earth-consciousness.
And I think That man is not yet ready to receive it. It is too high and too vast for him. He cannot understand it, grasp it, for it is not by the mind That one can understand Savitri. One needs spiritual experiences in order to understand and assimilate it. The farther one advances on the path of Yoga, the more does one assimilate and the better. No, it is something which will be appreciated only in the future, it is the poetry of tomorrow of which He has spoken in The Future Poetry. It is too subtle, too refined, - it is not in the mind or through the mind, it is in meditation That Savitri is revealed.
And men have the audacity to compare it with the work of Virgil or Homer and to find it inferior. They do not understand, they cannot understand. What do they know? Nothing at all. And it is useless to try to make them understand. Men will know what it is, but in a distant future. It is only the new race with a new consciousness which will be able to understand. I assure you there is nothing under the blue sky to compare with Savitri. It is the mystery of mysteries. It is a *super-epic,* it is super-literature, super-poetry, super-vision, it is a super-work even if one considers the number of lines He has written. No, these human words are not adequate to describe Savitri. Yes, one needs superlatives, hyperboles to describe it. It is a hyper-epic. No, words express nothing of what Savitri is, at least I do not find them. It is of immense value - spiritual value and all other values; it is eternal in its subject, and infinite in its appeal, miraculous in its mode and power of execution; it is a unique thing, the more you come into contact with it, the higher will you be uplifted. Ah, truly it is something! It is the most beautiful thing He has left for man, the highest possible. What is it? When will man know it? When is he going to lead a life of truth? When is he going to accept this in his life? This yet remains to be seen.
My child, every day you are going to read Savitri; read properly, with the right attitude, concentrating a little before opening the pages and trying to keep the mind as empty as possible, absolutely without a thought. The direct road is through the heart. I tell you, if you try to really concentrate with this aspiration you can light the flame, the psychic flame, the flame of purification in a very short time, perhaps in a few days. What you cannot do normally, you can do with the help of Savitri. Try and you will see how very different it is, how new, if you read with this attitude, with this something at the back of your consciousness; as though it were an offering to Sri Aurobindo. You know it is charged, fully charged with consciousness; as if Savitri were a being, a real guide. I tell you, whoever, wanting to practice Yoga, tries sincerely and feels the necessity for it, will be able to climb with the help of Savitri to the highest rung of the ladder of Yoga, will be able to find the secret That Savitri represents. And this without the help of a Guru. And he will be able to practice it anywhere. For him Savitri alone will be the guide, for all That he needs he will find Savitri. If he remains very quiet when before a difficulty, or when he does not know where to turn to go forward and how to overcome obstacles, for all these hesitations and incertitudes which overwhelm us at every moment, he will have the necessary indications, and the necessary concrete help. If he remains very calm, open, if he aspires sincerely, always he will be as if lead by the hand. If he has faith, the will to give himself and essential sincerity he will reach the final goal.
Indeed, Savitri is something concrete, living, it is all replete, packed with consciousness, it is the supreme knowledge above all human philosophies and religions. It is the spiritual path, it is Yoga, Tapasya, Sadhana, everything, in its single body. Savitri has an extraordinary power, it gives out vibrations for him who can receive them, the true vibrations of each stage of consciousness. It is incomparable, it is truth in its plenitude, the Truth Sri Aurobindo brought down on the earth. My child, one must try to find the secret That Savitri represents, the prophetic message Sri Aurobindo reveals there for us. This is the work before you, it is hard but it is worth the trouble. - 5 November 1967
~ The Mother Sweet Mother The Mother to Mona Sarkar, [T0]
00.02 - Mystic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
These other worlds are constituted in other ways than ours. Their contents are different and the laws That obtain there are also different. It would be a gross blunder to attempt a chart of any of these other systems, to use an Einsteinian term, with the measures and conventions of the system to which our external waking consciousness belongs. For, there "the sun shines not, nor the moon, nor the stars, neither these lightnings nor this fire." The difficulty is further enhanced by the fact That there are very many unseen worlds and they all differ from the seen and from one another in manner and degree. Thus, for example, the Upanishads speak of the swapna, the suupta, and the turya, domains beyond the jgrat which is That where the rational being with its mind and senses lives and moves. And there are other systems and other ways in which systems exist, and they are practically innumerable.
If, however, we have to speak of these other worlds, then, since we can speak only in the terms of this world, we have to use them in a different sense from those they usually bear; we must employ them as figures and symbols. Even then they may prove inadequate and misleading; so there are Mystics who are averse to all speech and expression they are mauni; in silence they experience the inexpressible and in silence they communicate it to the few who have the capacity to receive in silence.
But those who do speak, how do they choose their figures and symbols? What is their methodology? For it might be said, since the unseen and the seen differ out and out, it does not matter what forms or signs are taken from the latter; for any meaning and significance could be put into anything. But in reality, it does not so happen. For, although there is a great divergence between figures and symbols on the one hand and the things figured and symbolised on the other, still there is also some link, some common measure. And That is why we see not unoften the same or similar figures and symbols representing an identical experience in ages and countries far apart from each other.
We can make a distinction here between two types of expression which we have put together indiscriminately, figures and symbols. Figures, we may say, are those That are constructed by the rational mind, the intellect; they are mere metaphors and similes and are not organically related to the thing experienced, but put round it as a robe That can be dropped or changed without affecting the experience itself. Thus, for example, when the Upanishad says, tmnam rathinam viddhi (Know That the soul is the master of the chariot who sits within it) or indriyi haynhu (The senses, they say, are the horses), we have here only a comparison or analogy That is common and natural to the poetic manner. The particular figure or simile used is not inevitable to the idea or experience That it seeks to express, its part and parcel. On the other hand, take this Upanishadic perception: hirayamayena patrea satyasyphitam mukham (The face of the Truth lies hidden under the golden orb). Here the symbol is not mere analogy or comparison, a figure; it is one with the very substance of the experience the two cannot be separated. Or when the Vedas speak of the kindling of the Fire, the rushing of the waters or the rise of the Dawn, the images though taken from the material world, are not used for the sake of mere comparison, but they are the embodiments, the living forms of truths experienced in another world.
When a Mystic refers to the Solar Light or to the Fire the light, for example, That struck down Saul and transformed him into Saint Paul or the burning bush That visited Moses, it is not the physical or material object That he means and yet it is That in a way. It is the materialization of something That is fundamentally not material: some movement in an inner consciousness precipitates itself into the region of the senses and takes from out of the material the form commensurable with its nature That it finds there.
And there is such a commensurability or parallelism between the various levels of consciousness, in and through all the differences That separate them from one another. Thus an object or a movement apprehended on the physical plane has a sort of line of re-echoing images extended in a series along the whole gradation of the inner planes; otherwise viewed, an object or movement in the innermost consciousness translates itself in varying modes from plane to plane down to the most material, where it appears in its grossest form as a concrete three-dimensional object or a mechanical movement. This parallelism or commensurability by virtue of which the different and divergent states of consciousness can portray or represent each other is the source of all symbolism.
A symbol symbolizes something for this reason That both possess in common a certain identical, at least similar, quality or rhythm or vibration, the symbol possessing it in a grosser or more apparent or sensuous form than the thing symbolized does. Sometimes it may happen That it is more than a certain quality or rhythm or vibration That is common between the two: the symbol in its entirety is the thing symbolized but thrown down on another plane, it is the embodiment of the latter in a more concrete world. The light and the fire That Saint Paul and Moses saw appear to be of this kind.
Thus there is a great diversity of symbols. At the one end is the mere metaphor or simile or allegory ('figure', as we have called it) and at the other end is the symbol identical with the thing symbolized. And upon this inner character of the symbol depends also to a large extent its range and scope. There are symbols which are universal and intimately ingrained in the human consciousness itself. Mankind has used them in all ages and climes almost in the same sense and significance. There are others That are limited to peoples and ages. They are made out of forms That are of local and temporal interest and importance. Their significances vary according to time and place. Finally, there are symbols which are true of the individual consciousness only; they depend on personal peculiarities and idiosyncrasies, on one's environment and upbringing and education.
Man being an embodied soul, his external consciousness (what the Upanishad calls jgrat) is the milieu in which his soul-experiences naturally manifest and find their play. It is the forms and movements of That consciousness which clo the and give a concrete habitation and name to perceptions on the subtler ranges of the inner existence. If the experiences on these planes are to be presented to the conscious memory and to the brain-mind and made communicable to others through speech, this is the inevitable and natural process. Symbols are a translation in mental and sensual (and vocal) terms of experiences That are beyond the mind and the sense and the speech and yet throw a kind of echoing vibrations upon these lesser levels.
***
0 0.02 - Topographical Note, #Agenda Vol 1, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Algeria and in France or of her current experiences; and gradually, She opened the mind of the rebellious and materialistic Westerner That we were and made us understand the laws of the worlds, the play of forces, the working of past lives - especially this latter, which was an important factor in the difficulties with which we were struggling at That time and which periodically made us abscond.
Mother would be seated in this rather medieval-looking chair with its high, carved back, her feet on a little tabouret, while we sat on the floor, on a slightly faded carpet, conquered and seduced, revolted and never satisfied - but nevertheless, very interested. Treasures, never noted down, were lost until, with the cunning of the Sioux, we succeeded in making Mother consent to the presence of a tape recorder. But even then, and for a long time thereafter, She carefully made us erase or delete in our notes all That concerned Her rather too personally - sometimes we disobeyed Her.
But finally we were able to convince Her of the value inherent in keeping a chronicle of the route.
It was only in 1958 That we began having the first tape-recorded conversations, which, properly speaking, constitute Mother's Agenda. But even then, many of these conversations were lost or only partly noted down. Or else we considered That our own words should not figure in these notes and we carefully omitted all our questions - which was absurd. At That time, no one - neither Mother, nor ourself - knew That this was 'the Agenda' and That we were out to explore the 'Great Passage.'
Only gradually did we become aware of the true nature of these meetings. Furthermore, we were constantly on the road, so much so That there are sizable gaps in the text. In fact, for seven years,
Mother was patiently preparing the instrument That would be able to traverse the adventure without breaking along the way.
From 1960, the Agenda took its final shape arid grew for thirteen years, until May 1973, filling thirteen volumes in all (some six thousand pages), with a change of setting in March 1962 at the time of the Great Turning in Mother's yoga when She permanently retired to her room upstairs, as had Sri Aurobindo in 1926. The interviews then took place high up in this large room carpeted in golden wool, like a ship's stateroom, amidst the rustling of the Copper Pod tree and the cawing of crows. Mother would sit in a low rosewood chair, her face turned towards Sri Aurobindo's tomb, as though She were wearing down the distance separating That world from our own. Her voice had become like That of a child, one could hear her laughter. She always laughed, this Mother. And then her long silences. Until the day the disciples closed her door on us. It was May 19, 1973. We did not want to believe it. She was alone, just as we were suddenly alone. Slowly, painfully, we had to discover the why of this rupture. We understood nothing of the jealousies of the old species, we did not yet realize That they were becoming the 'owners' of Mother - of the Ashram, of Auroville, of
Sri Aurobindo, of everything - and That the new world was going to be denatured into a new
Church. There and then, they made us understand why She had pulled us from our forest, one day, and chosen as her confidant an incurable rebel.
0 0.03 - 1951-1957. Notes and Fragments, #Agenda Vol 1, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The lack of the earth's receptivity and the behavior of Sri Aurobindo's disciples 1 are largely responsible for what happened to his body. But one thing is certain: the great misfortune That has just beset us in no way affects the truth of his teaching. All he said is perfectly true and remains so.
Time and the course of events will make this abundantly clear.
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A certain rationalistic critic divides the Upanishadic symbols into three categoriesthose That are rational and can be easily understood by the mind; those That are not understood by the mind and yet do not go against reason, having nothing inherently irrational in them and may be simply called non-rational; those That seem to be quite irrational, for they go frankly against all canons of logic and common sense. As an example of the last, the irrational type, the critic cites a story from the Chhndogya, which may be rendered thus:
There was an aspirant, a student who was seeking after knowledge. One day there appeared to him a white dog. Soon, other dogs followed and addressed their predecessor: "O Lord, sing to our Food, for we desire to eat." The white dog answered, "Come to me at dawn here in this very place." The aspirant waited. The dogs, like singer-priests, circled round in a ring. Then they sat and cried aloud; they cried out," Om We eat and Om we drink, may the gods bring here our food."
Now, before any explanation is attempted it is important to bear in mind That the Upanishads speak of things experiencednot merely thought, reasoned or argued and That these experiences belong to a world and consciousness other than That of the mind and the senses. One should naturally expect here a different language and mode of expression than That which is appropriate to mental and physical things. For example, the world of dreams was once supposed to be a sheer chaos, a mass of meaningless confusion; but now it is held to be quite otherwise. Psychological scientists have discovered a methodeven a very well-defined and strict methodin the madness of That domain. It is an ordered, organised, significant world; but its terminology has to be understood, its code deciphered. It is not a jargon, but a foreign language That must be learnt and mastered.
In the same way, the world of spiritual experiences is also something methodical, well-organized, significant. It may not be and is not the rational world of the mind and the sense; but it need not, for That reason, be devoid of meaning, mere fancifulness or a child's imagination running riot. Here also the right key has to be found, the grammar and vocabulary of That language mastered. And as the best way to have complete mastery of a language is to live among the people who speak it, so, in the matter of spiritual language, the best and the only way to learn it is to go and live in its native country.
Now, as regards the interpretation of the story cited, should not a suspicion arise naturally at the very outset That the dog of the story is not a dog but represents something else? First, a significant epithet is given to itwhite; secondly, although it asks for food, it says That Om is its food and Om is its drink. In the Vedas we have some references to dogs. Yama has twin dogs That "guard the path and have powerful vision." They are his messengers, "they move widely and delight in power and possess the vast strength." The Vedic Rishis pray to them for Power and Bliss and for the vision of the Sun1. There is also the Hound of Heaven, Sarama, who comes down and discovers the luminous cows stolen and hidden by the Panis in their dark caves; she is the path-finder for Indra, the deliverer.
My suggestion is That the dog is a symbol of the keen sight of Intuition, the unfailing perception of direct knowledge. With this clue the Upanishadic story becomes quite sensible and clear and not mere abracadabra. To the aspirant for Knowledge came first a purified power of direct understanding, an Intuition of fundamental value, and this brought others of the same species in its train. They were all linked together organically That is the significance of the circle, and formed a rhythmic utterance and expression of the supreme truth (Om). It is also to be noted That they came and met at dawn to chant, the Truth. Dawn is the opening and awakening of the consciousness to truths That come from above and beyond.
It may be asked why the dog has been chosen as the symbol of Intuition. In the Vedas, the cow and the horse also play a large part; even the donkey and the frog have their own assigned roles. These objects are taken from the environment of ordinary life, and are those That are most familiar to the external consciousness, through which the inner experiences have to express themselves, if they are to be expressed at all. These material objects represent various kinds of forces and movements and subtle and occult and spiritual dynamisms. Strictly speaking, however, symbols are not chosen in a subtle or spiritual experience, That is to say, they are not arbitrarily selected and constructed by the conscious intelligence. They form part of a dramatization (to use a term of the Freudian psychology of dreams), a psychological alchemy, whose method and process and rationale are very obscure, which can be penetrated only by the vision of a third eye.
I. The Several Lights
The Brihadaranyaka speaks of several lights That man possesses, one in the absence of another, for his illumination and guidance.
First of all, he has the Sun; it is the primary light by which he lives and moves. When the Sun sets, the Moon rises to replace it. When both the Sun and the Moon set, he has recourse to the Fire. And when the Fire, too, is extinguished, there comes the Word. In the end, when the Fire is quieted and the Word silenced, man is lighted by the Light of the Atman. This Atman is All-Knowledge; it is secreted within the life, within the heart: it is selfluminous Vijnamaya preu rdyantar jyoti..
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The Sun is the first and the most immediate source of light That man has and needs. He is the presiding deity of our waking consciousness and has his seat in the eyecakusa ditya, ditya caku bhtvakii prviat. The eye is the representative of the senses; it is the sense par excellence. In truth, sense-perception is the initial light with which we have to guide us, it is the light with which we start on the way. A developed stage comes when the Sun sets for us, That is to say, when we retire from the senses and rise into the mind, whose divinity is the Moon. It is the mental knowledge, the light of reason and intelligence, of reflection and imagination That govern our consciousness. We have to proceed farther and get beyond the mind, exceed the derivative light of the Moon. So when the Moon sets, the Fire is kindled. It is the light of the ardent and aspiring heart, the glow of an inner urge, the instincts and inspirations of our secret life-will. Here we come into touch with a source of knowledge and realization, a guidance more direct than the mind and much deeper than the sense-perception. Still this light partakes more of heat than of pure luminosity; it is, one may say, incandescent feeling, but not vision. We must probe deeper, mount higherreach heights and profundities That are serene and transparent. The Fire is to be quieted and silenced, says the Upanishad. Then we come nearer, to the immediate vicinity of the Truth: an inner hearing opens, the direct voice of Truth the Wordreaches us to lead and guide. Even so, however, we have not come to the end of our journey; the Word of revelation is not the ultimate Light. The Word too is clothing, though a luminous clothinghiramayam ptram When this last veil dissolves and disappears, when utter silence, absolute calm and quietude reign in the entire consciousness, when no other lights trouble or distract our attention, there appears the Atman in its own body; we stand face to face with the source of all lights, the self of the Light, the light of the Self. We are That Light and we become That Light.
II. The Four Oblations
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The duty of life consists, it is said, in the repaying of three debts which every man contracts as soon as he takes birth upon earth the debt to the Gods, to Men and to the Ancestors. This threefold debt or duty has, in other terms, reference to the three fields or domains wherein an embodied being lives and moves and to which he must adjust and react rightly -if he is to secure for his life an integral fulfilment. These are the family, society and the world and beyond-world. The Gods are the Powers That rule the world and beyond, they are the forms and forces of the One Spirit underlying the universe, the varied expressions of divine Truth and Reality: To worship the Gods, to do one's duty by them, means to come into contact and to be unitedin being, consciousness and activitywith the universal and spiritual existence, which is the supreme end and purpose of human life. The seconda more circumscribed fieldis the society to which one belongs, the particular group of humanity in which he functions as a limb. The service to society or good citizenship entails the worship of humanity, of Man as a god. Lastly, man belongs to the family, which is the unit of society; and the backbone of the family is the continuous line of ancestors, who are its presiding deity and represent the norm of a living dharma, the ethic of an ideal life.
From the psychological standpoint, the four oblations are movements or reactions of consciousness in its urge towards the utterance and expression of Divine Truth. Like some other elements in the cosmic play, these also form a quartetcaturvyha and work together for a common purpose in view of a perfect and all-round result.
Svh is the offering and invocation. One must dedicate everything to the Divine, cast all one has or does into the Fire of Aspiration That blazes up towards the Most High, and through the tongue of That one-pointed flame call on the Divinity.
In doing so, in invoking the Truth and consecrating oneself to it, one begins to ascend to it step by step; and each step means a tearing of another veil and a further opening of the I passage. This graded mounting is vaakra.
Hantakr is the appearance, the manifestation of the Divinity That which makes the worshipper cry in delight, "Hail!" It is the coming of the Dawnahanwhen the night has been traversed and the lid rent open, the appearance of the Divine to a human vision for the human consciousness to seize, almost in a human form.
Finally, once the Truth is reached, it is to be held fast, firmly established, embodied and fixed in its inherent nature here in life and the waking consciousness. This is Svadh.
The Gods feed upon Svdh and Vaa, as these represent the ascending movement of human consciousness: it is man's self-giving and aspiration and the upward urge of his heart and soul That reach to the Gods, and it is That which the immortals take into themselves and are, as it were, nourished by, since it is something That appertains to their own nature.
And in response they descend and approach and enter into the aspiring human soulthis descent and revelation and near and concrete presence of Divinity, this Hanta is man's food, for by it his consciousness is nourished.
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With this sacrifice nourish the Gods, That the Gods may nourish you; thus mutually nourishing ye shall obtain the highest felicity3 is the very secret of the cosmic play, the basis of the spiritual evolution in the universal existence.
The Gods are the formations or particularisations of the Truth-consciousness, the multiple individualisations of the One spirit. The Pitris are the Divine Fathers, That is to say, souls That once laboured and realised here below, and now have passed beyond. They dwell in another world, not too far removed from the earth, and from there, with the force of their Realisation, lend a more concrete help and guidance to the destiny That is being worked out upon earth. They are forces and formations of consciousness in an intermediate region between Here and There (antarika), and serve to bring men and gods nearer to each other, inasmuch as they belong to both the categories, being a divinised humanity or a humanised divinity. Each fixation of the Truth-consciousness in an earthly mould is a thing of joy to the Pitris; it is the Svadh or food by which they live and grow, for it is the consolidation and also the resultant of their own realisation. The achievements of the sons are more easily and securely reared and grounded upon those of the forefa thers, whose formative powers we have to invoke, so That we may pass on to the realisation, the firm embodiment of higher and greater destinies.
III. The Path of the Fathers and the Path of the Gods
One is an ideal in and of the world, the other is an ideal transcending the world. The Path of the Fathers (Pityna) enjoins the right accomplishing of the dharma of Lifeit is the path of works, of Karma; it is the line of progressive evolution That, man follows through the experience of life after life on earth. The Path of the Gods (Devayna) runs above life's evolutionary course; it lifts man out of the terrestrial cycle and places him in a superior consciousness it is the path of knowledge, of Vidya.4 The Path of the Fathers is the soul's southern or inferior orbit (dakiyana, aparrdha); the Path of the Gods is the northern or superior orbit (uttaryaa, parrdha)The former is also called the Lunar Path and the latter the Solar Path.5 For the moon represents the mind,6 and is therefore, an emblem That befits man so long as he is a mental being and pursues a dharma That is limited by the mind; the sun, on the other hand, is the knowledge and consciousness That is beyond the mindit is the eye of the Gods.7
Man has two aspects or natures; he dwells in two worlds. The first is the manifest world the world of the body, the life and the mind. The body has flowered into the mind through the life. The body gives the basis or the material, the life gives power and energy and the mind the directing knowledge. This triune world forms the humanity of man. But there is another aspect hidden behind this apparent nature, there is another world where man dwells in his submerged, larger and higher consciousness. To That his soul the Purusha in his heart only has access. It is the world where man's nature is transmuted into another triune realitySat, Chit and Ananda.
The one, however, is not completely divorced from the other. The apparent, the inferior nature is only a preparation for the real, the superior nature. The Path of the Fathers concerns itself with man as a mental being and seeks so to ordain and accomplish its duties and ideals as to lead him on to the Path of the Gods; the mind, the life, and the body consciousness should be so disciplined, educated, purified, they should develop along such a line and gradually rise to such a stage as to make them fit to receive the light which belongs to the higher level, so allowing the human soul imbedded in them to extricate itself and pass on to the Immortal Life.
And they who are thus lifted up into the Higher Orbit are freed from the bondage to the cycle of rebirth. They enjoy the supreme Liberation That is of the Spirit; and even when they descend into the Inferior Path, it is to work out as free agents, as vehicles of the Divine, a special purpose, to bring down something of the substance and nature of the Solar reality into the lower world, enlighten and elevate the lower, as far as it is allowed, into the higher.
IV. The Triple Agni
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Indeed, it was to this godhead That Nachiketas turned and he wanted to know of it and find it, when faith seized on his pure heart and he aspired for the higher spiritual life. The very opening hymn of the Rig Veda, too, is addressed to Agni, who is invoked as the vicar seated in the front of the sacrifice, the giver of the supreme gifts.
King Yama initiated Nachiketas into the mystery of Fire Worship and spoke of three fires That have to be kindled if one aspires to enter the heaven of immortality.
The three fires are named elsewhere Garhapatya, Dakshina, and Ahavaniya.9 They are the three tongues of the one central Agni, That dwells secreted in the hearth of the soul. They manifest as aspirations That flame up from the three fundamental levels of our being, the body, the life and the mind. For although the spiritual consciousness is the natural element of the soul and is gained in and through the soul, yet, in order That man may take possession of it and dwell in it consciously, in order That the soul's empire may be established, the external being too must respond to the soul's impact and yearn for its truth in the Spirit. The mind, the life and the body which are usually obstructions in the path, must discover the secret flame That is in them tooeach has his own portion of the Soul's Fireand mount on its ardent tongue towards the heights of the Spirit.
Garhapatya is the Fire in the body-consciousness, the fire of Earth, as it is sometimes called; Dakshina is the Fire of the moon or mind, and Ahavaniya That of life.10 The earthly fire is also the fire of the sun; the sun is the source of all earth's heat and symbolises at the same time the spiritual light manifested in the physical consciousness. The lunar fire is also the fire of the stars, the stars, mythologically, being the consorts or powers of the moon and they symbolise, in Yogic experience, the intuitive thoughts. The fire of the life-force has its symbol in lightning, electric energy being its vehicle.
Agni in the physical consciousness is calledghapati, for the body is the house in which the soul is lodged and he is its keeper, guardian and lord. The fire in the mental consciousness is called daki; for it is That which gives discernment, the power to discriminate between the truth and the falsehood, it is That which by the pressure of its heat and light cleaves the wrong away from the right. And the fire in the life-force is called havanya; for pra is not only the plane of hunger and desire, but also of power and dynamism, it is That which calls forth forces, brings them into' play and it is That which is to be invoked for the progression of the Sacrifice, for an onward march on the spiritual path.
Of the three fires one is the upholderhe who gives the firm foundation, the stable house where the Sacrifice is performed and Truth realised; the second is the Knower, often called in the Veda jtaved, who guides and directs; and the third the Doer, the effective Power, the driving Energyvaivnara.
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The five elements of the ancientsearth, water, fire, air and ether or spaceare symbols taken from the physical world to represent other worlds That are in it and behind it. Each one is a principle That constitutes the fundamental nature of a particular plane of existence.
Earth represents the material world itself, Matter or existence in its most concrete, its grossest form. It is the basis of existence, the world That supports other worlds (dhar, dharitri),the first or the lowest of the several ranges of creation. In man it is his body. The principle here is That of stability, substantiality, firmness, consistency.
Water represents the next rung the vital world, the world life-force (pra). Physiologically also we know That water is the element forming three-fourths of the constituents of a living body and That dead and dry are synonymous terms; it is the medium in which the living cells dwell and through which they draw their sustenance. Water is the veritable sap of lifeit is the emblem of life itself. The principle it represents is That of movement, continuity, perpetuity.
Fire represents the Heart. It is That which gives the inner motive to the forces of life, it is the secret inspiration and aspiration That drive the movements of life. It is the heat of consciousness, the ardour of our central being That lives in the Truth and accepts nothing, nothing but the Truth. It is the pure and primal energy of our divine essence, driving ever upward and onward life's course of evolution.
Air is Mind, the world of thought, of conscious formation; it is where life-movements are taken up and given a shape or articulate formula for an organised expression. The forms here have not, however, the concrete rigidity of Matter, but are pliant and variable and fluidin fact, they are more in the nature of possibilities, rather than actualities. The Vedic Maruts are thought-gods, and lndra (the Luminous Mind), their king, is called the Fashioner of perfect forms.
Ether or Space is the infinitude of the Spirit, the limitless Presence That dwells in and yet transcends the body, the life the heart and the mind.
VI. The Science of the Five Fires
The Science of the Five Agnis (Fires), as propounded by Pravahan, explains and illustrates the process of the birth of the body, the passage of the soul into earth existence. It describes the advent of the child, the building of the physical form of the human being. The process is conceived of as a sacrifice, the usual symbol with the Vedic Rishis for the expression of their vision and perception of universal processes of Nature, physical and psychological. Here, the child IS said to be the final fruit of the sacrifice, the different stages in the process being: (i) Soma, (ii) Rain, (iii) Food, (iv) Semen, (v) Child. Soma means Rasaphysically the principle of water, psychologically the 'principle of delightand symbolises and constitutes the very soul and substance of life. Now it is said That these five principles the fundamental and constituent elementsare born out of the sacrifice, through the oblation or offering to the five Agnis. The first Agni is Heaven or the Sky-God, and by offering to it one's faith and one's ardent desire, one calls into manifestation Soma or Rasa or Water, the basic principle of life. This water is next offered to the second Agni, the Rain-God, who sends down Rain. Rain, again, is offered to the third Agni, the Earth, who brings forth Food. Food is, in its turn, offered to the fourth Agni, the Father or Male, who elaborates in himself the generating fluid.
Finally, this fluid is offered to the fifth Agni, the Mother or the Female, who delivers the Child.
The biological process, described in what may seem to be crude and mediaeval terms, really reflects or echoes a more subtle and psychological process. The images used form perhaps part of the current popular notion about the matter, but the esoteric sense goes beyond the outer symbols. The sky seems to be the far and tenuous region where the soul rests and awaits its next birthit is the region of Soma, the own Home of Bliss and Immortality. Now when the time or call comes, the soul stirs and journeys down That is the Rain. Next, it enters the earth atmosphere and clothes itself with the earth consciousness. Then it waits and calls for the formation of the material body, first by the contri bution of the father and then by That of the mother; when these two unite and the material body is formed, the soul incarnates.
Apart from the question whether the biological phenomenon described is really a symbol and a cloak for another order of reality, and even taking it at its face value, what is to be noted here is the idea of a cosmic cycle, and a cosmic cycle That proceeds through the principle of sacrifice. If it is asked what there is wonderful or particularly spiritual in this rather naf description of a very commonplace happening That gives it an honoured place in the Upanishads, the answer is That it is wonderful to see how the Upanishadic Rishi takes from an event its local, temporal and personal colour and incorporates it in a global movement, a cosmic cycle, as a limb of the Universal Brahman. The Upanishads contain passages which a puritanical mentality may perhaps describe as 'pornographic'; these have in fact been put by some on the Index expurgatorius. But the ancients saw these matters with other eyes and through another consciousness.
We have, in modern times, a movement towards a more conscious and courageous, knowledge of things That were taboo to puritan ages. Not to shut one's eyes to the lower, darker and hidden strands of our nature, but to bring them out into the light of day and to face them is the best way of dealing with such elements, which otherwise, if they are repressed, exert an unhealthy influence on the mind and nature. The Upanishadic view runs on the same lines, but, with the unveiling and the natural and not merely naturalisticdelineation of these under-worlds (concerning sex and food), it endows them with a perspective sub specie aeternitatis. The sexual function, for example, is easily equated to the double movement of ascent and descent That is secreted in nature, or to the combined action of Purusha and Prakriti in the cosmic Play, or again to the hidden fount of Delight That holds and moves the universe. In this view there is nothing merely secular and profane, but all is woven into the cosmic spiritual whole; and man is taught to consider and to mould all his movementsof soul and mind and bodyin the light and rhythm of That integral Reality.11
The central secret of the transfigured consciousness lies, as we have already indicated, in the mystic rite or law of Sacrifice. It is the one basic, fundamental, universal Law That upholds and explains the cosmic movement, conformity to which brings to the thrice-bound human being release and freedom. Sacrifice consists essentially of two elements or processes: (i) The offering or self giving of the lower reality to the higher, and, as a consequence, an answering movement of (ii) the descent of the higher into the lower. The lower offered to the higher means the lower sublimated and integrated into the higher; and the descent of the higher into the lower means the incarnation of the former and the fulfilment of the latter. The Gita elaborates the same idea when it says That by Sacrifice men increase the gods and the gods increase men and by so increasing each other they attain the supreme Good. Nothing is, nothing is done, for its own sake, for an egocentric satisfaction; all, even movements relating to food and to sex should be dedicated to the Cosmic BeingVisva Purusha and That alone received which comes from Him.
VII. The Cosmic and the Transcendental
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TheChhandyogya12 gives a whole typal scheme of this universal reality and explains how to realise it and what are the results of the experience. The Universal Brahman means the cosmic movement, the cyclic march of things and events taken in its global aspect. The typical movement That symbolises and epitomises the phenomenon, embodies the truth, is That of the sun. The movement consists of five stages which are called the fivefold sma Sma means the equal Brahman That is ever present in all, the Upanishad itself says deriving the word from sama It is Sma also because it is a rhythmic movement, a cadencea music of the spheres. And a rhythmic movement, in virtue of its being a wave, consists of these five stages: (i) the start, (ii) the rise, (iii) the peak, (iv) the decline and (v) the fall. Now the sun follows this curve and marks out the familiar divisions of the day: dawn, forenoon, noon, afternoon and sunset. Sometimes two other stages are added, one at each end, one of preparation and another of final lapse the twilights with regard to the sun and then ,we have seven instead of five smas Like the Sun, the Fire That is to say, the sacrificial Firecan also be seen in its fivefold cyclic movement: (i) the lighting, (ii) the smoke, (iii) the flame, (iv) smouldering and finally (v) extinction the fuel as it is rubbed to produce the fire and the ashes may be added as the two supernumerary stages. Or again, we may take the cycle of five seasons or of the five worlds or of the deities That control these worlds. The living wealth of this earth is also symbolised in a quintetgoat and sheep and cattle and horse and finally man. Coming to the microcosm, we have in man the cycle of his five senses, basis of all knowledge and activity. For the macrocosm, to I bring out its vast extra-human complexity, the Upanishad refers to a quintet, each term of which is again a trinity: (i) the threefold Veda, the Divine Word That is the origin of creation, (ii) the three worlds or fieldsearth, air-belt or atmosphere and space, (iii) the three principles or deities ruling respectively these worldsFire, Air and Sun, (iv) their expressions, emanations or embodimentsstars and birds and light-rays, and finally, (v) the original inhabitants of these worldsto earth belong the reptiles, to the mid-region the Gandharvas and to heaven the ancient Fathers.
Now, this is the All, the Universal. One has to realise it and possess in one's consciousness. And That can be done only in one way: one has to identify oneself with it, be one with it, become it. Thus by losing one's individuality one lives the life universal; the small lean separate life is enlarged and moulded in the rhythm of the Rich and the Vast. It is thus That man shares in the consciousness and energy That inspire and move and sustain the cosmos. The Upanishad most emphatically enjoins That one must not decry this cosmic godhead or deny any of its elements, not even such as are a taboo to the puritan mind. It is in and through an unimpaired global consciousness That one attains the All-Life and lives uninterruptedly and perennially: Sarvamanveti jyok jvati.
Still the Upanishad says this is not the final end. There is yet a higher status of reality and consciousness to which one has to rise. For beyond the Cosmos lies the Transcendent. The Upanishad expresses this truth and experience in various symbols. The cosmic reality, we have seen, is often conceived as a septenary, a unity of seven elements, principles and worlds. Further to give it its full complex value, it is considered not as a simple septet, but a threefold heptad the whole gamut, as it were, consisting of 21 notes or syllables. The Upanishad says, this number does not exhaust the entire range; I for there is yet a 22nd place. This is the world beyond the Sun, griefless and deathless, the supreme Selfhood. The Veda I also sometimes speaks of the integral reality as being represented by the number 100 which is 99 + I; in other words, 99 represents the cosmic or universal, the unity being the reality beyond, the Transcendent.
Elsewhere the Upanishad describes more graphically this truth and the experience of it. It is said there That the sun has fivewe note the familiar fivemovements of rising and setting: (i) from East to West, (ii) from South to North, (iii) from West to East, (iv) from North to South and (v) from abovefrom the Zenithdownward. These are the five normal and apparent movements. But there is a sixth one; rather it is not a movement, but a status, where the sun neither rises nor sets, but is always visible fixed in the same position.
Some Western and Westernised scholars have tried to show That the phenomenon described here is an exclusively natural phenomenon, actually visible in the polar region where the sun never sets for six months and moves in a circle whose plane is parallel to the plane of the horizon on the summer solstice and is gradually inclined as the sun regresses towards the equinox (on which day just half the solar disc is visible above the horizon). The sun may be said there to move in the direction East-South-West-North and again East. Indeed the Upanishad mentions the positions of the sun in That order and gives a character to each successive station. The Ray from the East is red, symbolising the Rik, the Southern Ray is white, symbolising the Yajur, the Western Ray is black symbolising the Atharva. The natural phenomenon, however, might have been or might not have been before the mind's eye of the Rishi, but the symbolism, the esotericism of it is clear enough in the way the Rishi speaks of it. Also, apart from the first four movements (which it is already sufficiently difficult to identify completely with what is visible), the fifth movement, as a separate descending movement from above appears to be a foreign element in the context. And although, with regard to the sixth movement or status, the sun is visible as such exactly from the point of the North Pole for a while, the ring of the Rishi's utterance is unmistakably spiritual, it cannot but refer to a fact of inner consciousness That is at least what the physical fact conveys to the Rishi and what he seeks to convey and express primarily.
Now this is what is sought to be conveyed and expressed. The five movements of the sun here also are nothing but the five smas and they refer to the cycle of the Cosmic or Universal Brahman. The sixth status where all movements cease, where there is no rising and setting, no ebb and flow, no waxing and waning, where there is the immutable, the ever-same unity, is very evidently the Transcendental Brahman. It is That to which the Vedic Rishi refers when he prays for a constant and fixed vision of the eternal Sunjyok ca sryam drie.
It would be interesting to know what the five ranges or levels or movements of consciousness exactly are That make up the Universal Brahman described in this passage. It is the mystic knowledge, the Upanishad says, of the secret delight in thingsmadhuvidy. The five ranges are the five fundamental principles of delightimmortalities, the Veda would say That form the inner core of the pyramid of creation. They form a rising tier and are ruled respectively by the godsAgni, Indra, Varuna, Soma and Brahmawith their emanations and instrumental personalities the Vasus, the Rudras, the Adityas, the Maruts and the Sadhyas. We suggest That these refer to the five well-known levels of being, the modes or nodi of consciousness or something very much like them. The Upanishad speaks elsewhere of the five sheaths. The six Chakras of Tantric system lie in the same line. The first and the basic mode is the physical and the ascent from the physical: Agni and the Vasus are always intimately connected with the earth and -the earth-principles (it can be compared with the Muladhara of the Tantras). Next, second in the line of ascent is the Vital, the centre of power and dynamism of which the Rudras are the deities and Indra the presiding God (cf. Swadhishthana of the Tantras the navel centre). Indra, in the Vedas, has two aspects, one of knowledge and vision and the other of dynamic force and drive. In the first aspect he is more often considered as the Lord of the Mind, of the Luminous Mind. In the present passage, Indra is taken in his second aspect and instead of the Maruts with whom he is usually invoked has the Rudras as his agents and associates.
The third in the line of ascension is the region of Varuna and the Adityas, That is to say, of the large Mind and its lightsperhaps it can be connected with Tantric Ajnachakra. The fourth is the domain of Soma and the Marutsthis seems to be the inner heart, the fount of delight and keen and sweeping aspirations the Anahata of the Tantras. The fifth is the region of the crown of the head, the domain of Brahma and the Sadhyas: it is the Overmind status from where comes the descending inflatus, the creative Maya of Brahma. And when you go beyond, you pass into the ultimate status of the Sun, the reality absolute, the Transcendent which is indescribable, unseizable, indeterminate, indeterminable, incommensurable; and once there, one never returns, neverna ca punarvartate na ca punarvartate.
VIII. How Many Gods?
"How many Gods are there?" Yajnavalkya was once asked.13 The Rishi answered, they say there are three thousand and three of them, or three hundred and three, or again, thirty-three; it may be said too there are six or three or two or one and a half or one finally. Indeed as the Upanishad says elsewhere, it is the One Unique who wished to be many: and all the gods are the various glories (mahim) or emanations of the One Divine. The ancient of ancient Rishis had declared long long ago, in the earliest Veda, That there is one indivisible Reality, the seers name it in various ways.
In Yajnavalkya's enumeration, however, it is to be noted, first of all, That he stresses on the number three. The principle of triplicity is of very wide application: it permeates all fields of consciousness and is evidently based upon a fundamental fact of reality. It seems to embody a truth of synthesis and comprehension, points to the order and harmony That reigns in the cosmos, the spheric music. The metaphysical, That is to say, the original principles That constitute existence are the well-known triplets: (i) the superior: Sat, Chit, Ananda; and (ii) the inferior: Body, Life and Mindthis being a reflection or translation or concretisation of the former. We can see also here how the dual principle comes in, the twin godhead or the two gods to which Yajnavalkya refers. The same principle is found in the conception of Ardhanarishwara, Male and Female, Purusha-Prakriti. The Upanishad says 14 yet again That the One original Purusha was not pleased at being alone, so for a companion he created out of himself the original Female. The dual principle signifies creation, the manifesting activity of the Reality. But what is this one and a half to which Yajnavalkya refers? It simply means That the other created out of the one is not a wholly separate, independent entity: it is not an integer by itself, as in the Manichean system, but That it is a portion, a fraction of the One. And in the end, in the ultimate analysis, or rather synthesis, there is but one single undivided and indivisible unity. The thousands and hundreds, very often mentioned also in the Rig Veda, are not simply multiplications of the One, a graphic description of its many-sidedness; it indicates also the absolute fullness, the complete completeness (prasya pram) of the Reality. It includes and comprehends all and is a rounded totality, a full circle. The hundred-gated and the thousand-pillared cities of which the ancient Rishis chanted are formations and embodiments of consciousness human and divine, are realities whole and entire englobing all the layers and grades of consciousness.
Besides this metaphysics there is also an occult aspect in numerology of which Pythagoras was a well-known adept and in which the Vedic Rishis too seem to take special delight. The multiplication of numbers represents in a general way the principle of emanation. The One has divided and subdivided itself, but not in a haphazard way: it is not like the chaotic pulverisation of a piece of stone by hammer-blows. The process of division and subdivision follows a pattern almost as neat and methodical as a genealogical tree. That is to say, the emanations form a hierarchy. At the top, the apex of the pyramid, stands the one supreme Godhead. That Godhead is biune in respect of manifestation the Divine and his creative Power. This two-in-one reality may be considered, according to one view of creation, as dividing into three forms or aspects the well-known Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra of Hindu mythology. These may be termed the first or primary emanations.
Now, each one of them in its turn has its own emanations the eleven Rudriyas are familiar. These are secondary and there are tertiary and other graded emanations the last ones touch the earth and embody physico-vital forces. The lowest formations or beings can trace their origin to one or other of the primaries and their nature and function partake of or are an echo of their first ancestor.
Man, however, is an epitome of creation. He embraces and incarnates the entire gamut of consciousness and comprises in him all beings from the highest Divinity to the lowest jinn or elf. And yet each human being in his true personality is a lineal descendant of one or other typal aspect or original Personality of the one supreme Reality; and his individual character is all the more pronounced and well-defined the more organised and developed is the being. The psychic being in man is thus a direct descent, an immediate emanation along a definite line of devolution of the supreme consciousness. We may now understand and explain easily why one chooses a particular Ishta, an ideal god, what is the drive That pushes one to become a worshipper of Siva or Vishnu or any other deity. It is not any rational understanding, a weighing of pros and cons and then a resultant conclusion That leads one to choose a path of religion or spirituality. It is the soul's natural call to the God, the type of being and consciousness of which it is a spark, from which it has descended, it is the secret affinity the spiritual blood-relation as it were That determines the choice and adherence. And it is this That we name Faith. And the exclusiveness and violence and bitterness which attend such adherence and which go "by the "name of partisanship, sectarianism, fanaticism etc., a;e a deformation in the ignorance on the physico-vital plane of the secret loyalty to one's source and origin. Of course, the pattern or law is not so simple and rigid, but it gives a token or typal pattern. For it must not be forgotten That the supreme source or the original is one and indivisible and in the highest integration consciousness is global and not exclusive. And the human being That attains such a status is not bound or wholly limited to one particular formation: its personality is based on the truth of impersonality. And yet the two can go together: an individual can be impersonal in consciousness and yet personal in becoming and true to type.
The number of gods depends on the level of consciousness on which we stand. On this material plane there are as many gods as there are bodies or individual forms (adhar). And on the supreme height there is only one God without a second. In between there are gradations of types and sub-types whose number and function vary according to the aspect of consciousness That reveals itself.
IX. Nachiketas' Three Boons
--
Nachiketas is the young aspiring human being still in the Ignorancenaciketa, meaning one without consciousness or knowledge. The three boons he asks for are in reference to the three fundamental modes of being and consciousness That are at the very basis, forming, as it were, the ground-plan of the integral reality. They are (i) the individual, (ii) the universal or cosmic and (iii) the transcendental.
The first boon regards the individual, That is to say, the individual identity and integrity. It asks for the maintenance of That individuality so That it may be saved from the dissolution That Death brings about. Death, of course, means the dissolution of the body, but it represents also dissolution pure and simple. Indeed death is a process which does not stop with the physical phenomenon, but continues even after; for with the body gone, the other elements of the individual organism, the vital and the mental too gradually fall off, fade and dissolve. Nachiketas wishes to secure from Death the safety and preservation of the earthly personality, the particular organisation of mind and vital based upon a recognisable physical frame. That is the first necessity for the aspiring mortalfor, it is said, the body is the first instrument for the working out of one's life ideal. But man's true personality, the real individuality lies beyond, beyond the body, beyond the life, beyond the mind, beyond the triple region That Death lords it over. That is the divine world, the Heaven of the immortals, beyond death and beyond sorrow and grief. It is the hearth secreted in the inner heart where burns the Divine Fire, the God of Life Everlasting. And this is the nodus That binds together the threefold status of the manifested existence, the body, the life and the mind. This triplicity is the structure of name and form built out of the bricks of experience, the kiln, as it were, within which burns the Divine Agni, man's true soul. This soul can be reached only when one exceeds the bounds and limitations of the triple cord and experiences one's communion and identity with all souls and all existence. Agni is the secret divinity within, within the individual and within the world; he is the Immanent Divine, the cosmic godhead That holds together and marshals all the elements and components, all the principles That make up the manifest universe. He it is That has entered into the world and created facets of his own reality in multiple forms: and it is he That lies secret in the human being as the immortal soul through all its adventure of life and death in the series of incarnations in terrestrial evolution. The adoration and realisation of this Immanent Divinity, the worship of Agni taught by Yama in the second boon, consists in the triple sacrifice, the triple work, the triple union in the triple status of the physical, the vital and the mental consciousness, the mastery of which leads one to the other shore, the abode of perennial existence where the human soul enjoys its eternity and unending continuity in cosmic life. Therefore, Agni, the master of the psychic being, is called jtaveds, he who knows the births, all the transmigrations from life to life.
The third boon is the secret of secrets, for it is the knowledge and realisation of Transcendence That is sought here. Beyond the individual lies the universal; is there anything beyond the universal? The release of the individual into the cosmic existence gives him the griefless life eternal: can the cosmos be rolled up and flung into something beyond? What would be the nature of That thing? What is there outside creation, outside manifestation, outside Maya, to use a latter day term? Is there existence or non-existence (utter dissolution or extinctionDeath in his supreme and absolute status)? King Yama did not choose to answer immediately and even endeavoured to dissuade Nachiketas from pursuing the question over which people were confounded, as he said. Evidently it was a much discussed problem in those days. Buddha was asked the same question and he evaded it, saying That the pragmatic man should attend to practical and immediate realities and not, waste time and energy in discussing things ultimate and beyond That have hardly any relation to the present and the actual.
But Yama did answer and unveil the mystery and impart the supreme secret knowledge the knowledge of the Transcendent Brahman: it is out of the transcendent reality That the immanent deity takes his birth. Hence the Divine Fire, the Lord of creation and the Inner Mastersarvabhtntartm, antarymis called brahmajam, born of the Brahman. Yama teaches the process of transcendence. Apart from the knowledge and experience first of the individual and then of the cosmic Brahman, there is a definite line along which the human consciousness (or unconsciousness, as it is at present) is to ascend and evolve. The first step is to learn to distinguish between the Good and the Pleasurable (reya and preya). The line of pleasure leads to the external, the superficial, the false: while the other path leads towards the inner and the higher truth. So the second step is the gradual withdrawal of the consciousness from the physical and the sensual and even the mental preoccupation and focussing it upon what is certain and permanent. In the midst of the death-ridden consciousness in the heart of all That is unstable and fleetingone has to look for Agni, the eternal godhead, the Immortal in mortality, the Timeless in time through whom lies the passage to Immortality beyond Time.
Man has two souls corresponding to his double status. In the inferior, the soul looks downward and is involved in the current of Impermanence and Ignorance, it tastes of grief and sorrow and suffers death and dissolution: in the higher it looks upward and communes and joins with the Eternal (the cosmic) and then with the Absolute (the transcendent). The lower is a reflection of the higher, the higher comes down in a diminished and hence tarnished light. The message is That of deliverance, the deliverance and reintegration of the lower soul out of its bondage of worldly ignorant life into the freedom and immortality first of its higher and then of its highest status. It is true, however, That the Upanishad does not make a trenchant distinction between the cosmic and the transcendent and often it speaks of both in the same breath, as it were. For in fact they are realities involved in each other and interwoven. Indeed the triple status, including the Individual, forms one single totality and the three do not exclude or cancel each other; on the contrary, they combine and may be said to enhance each other's reality. The Transcendence expresses or deploys itself in the cosmoshe goes abroad,sa paryagt: and the cosmic individualises, concretises itself in the particular and the personal. The one single spiritual reality holds itself, aspects itself in a threefold manner.
The teaching of Yama in brief may be said to be the gospel of immortality and it consists of the knowledge of triple immortality. And who else can be the best teacher of immortality than Death himself, as Nachiketas pointedly said? The first immortality is That of the physical existence and consciousness, the preservation of the personal identity, the individual name and formthis being in itself as expression and embodiment and instrument of the Inner Reality. This inner reality enshrines the second immortality the eternity and continuity of the soul's life through its incarnations in time, the divine Agni lit for ever and ever growing in flaming consciousness. And the third and final immortality is in the being and consciousness beyond time, beyond all relativities, the absolute and self-existent delight.
Rig Veda, X. 14-11, 12.
--
The secularisation of man's vital functions in modem ages has not been a success. It has made him more egocentric and blatantly hedonistic. From an occult point of view he has in this way subjected himself to the influences of dark and undesirable world-forces, has made an opening, to use an Indian symbolism, for Kali (the Spirit of the Iron Age) to enter into him. The sex-force is an extremely potent agent, but it is extremely fluid and elusive and uncontrollable. It was for this reason That the ancients always sought to give it a proper mould, a right continent, a fixed and definite channel; the moderns, on the other hand, allow it to run free and play with it recklessly. The result has been, in the life of those born under such circumstances, a growing lack of poise and balance and a corresponding incidence of neuras thenia, hysteria and all abnormal pathological conditions.
Chhandyogya, II, III.
00.04 - The Beautiful in the Upanishads, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The white Mother comes reddening with the ruddy child; the dark Mother opens wide her chambers, the feeling and the expression of the beautiful raise no questioning; they are au thentic as well as evident. All will recognise at once t at we have here beautiful things said in a beautiful way. No less au thentic however is the sense of the beautiful That underlies these Upanishadic lines:
na tatra sryo bhti na candratrakam
--
There the sun shines not, nor the moon, nor the stars; these lightnings too there shine not; how then this fire! That shines and therefore all shine in its wake; by the sheen of That, all this shines.
Only, to some perhaps the beauty may not appear as evident and apparent. The Spirit of beauty That resides in the Upanishadic consciousness is more retiring and reticent. It dwells in its own privacy, in its own home, as it were, and therefore chooses to be bare and austere, simple and sheer. Beauty means usually the beauty of form, even if it be not always the decorative, ornamental and sumptuous form. The early Vedas aimed at the perfect form (surpaktnum), the faultless expression, the integral and complete embodiment; the gods they envisaged and invoked were gleaming powers carved out of harmony and beauty and figured close to our modes of apprehension (spyan). But the Upanishads came to lay stress upon what is beyond the form, what the eye cannot see nor the vision reflect:
na sandi tihati rpamasya
--
The form of a thing can be beautiful; but the formless too has its beauty. Indeed, the beauty of the formless, That is to say, the very sum and substance, the ultimate essence, the soul of beauty That is what suffuses, with in-gathered colour and enthusiasm, the realisation and poetic creation of the Upanishadic seer. All the forms That are scattered abroad in their myriad manifest beauty hold within themselves a secret Beauty and are reflected or projected out of it. This veiled Name of Beauty can be compared to nothing on the phenomenal hemisphere of Nature; it has no adequate image or representation below:
na tasya pratimsti
it cannot be defined or figured in the terms of the phenomenal consciousness. In speaking of it, however, the Upanishads invariably and repeatedly refer to two attributes That characterise its fundamental nature. These two aspects have made such an impression upon the consciousness of the Upanishadic seer That his enthusiasm almost wholly plays about them and is centred on them. When he contemplates or communes with the Supreme Object, these seem to him to be the mark of its au thenticity, the seal of its high status and the reason of all the charm and magic it possesses. The first aspect or attri bute is That of light the brilliance, the solar effulgenceravituly-arpa the bright, clear, shadow less Light of lightsvirajam ubhram jyotim jyoti The second aspect is That of delight, the bliss, the immortality inherent in That wide effulgencenandarpam amtam yad vibhti.
And what else is the true character, the soul of beauty than light and delight? "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever." And a thing of joy is a thing of light. Joy is the radiance rippling over a thing of beauty. Beauty is always radiant: the charm, the loveliness of an object is but the glow of light That it emanates. And it would not be a very incorrect mensuration to measure the degree of beauty by the degree of light radiated. The diamond is not only a thing of value, but a thing of beauty also, because of the concentrated and undimmed light That it enshrines within itself. A dark, dull and dismal thing, devoid of interest and attraction becomes aesthetically precious and significant as soon as the artist presents it in terms of the values of light. The entire art of painting is nothing but the expression of beauty, in and through the modalities of light.
And where there is light, there is cheer and joy. Rasamaya and jyotirmayaare thus the two conjoint characteristics fundamental to the nature of the ultimate reality. Sometimes these two are named as the 'solar and the lunar aspect. The solar aspect refers obviously to the Light, That is to say, to the Truth; the lunar aspect refers to the rasa (Soma), to Immortality, to Beauty proper,
yatte suamam hdayam adhi candramasi ritam
--
O Lord of Immortality! Thy' heart of beauty That is sheltered in the moon
or, as the Prasna Upanishad has it,
--
That which lives not by Life, but which makes Life live That is Brahman.
or,
--
The rich and sensuous beauty luxuriating in high colour and ample decoration That one meets often in the creation of the earlier Vedic seers returned again, in a more chiselled and polished and stylised manner, in the classical poets. The Upanishads in this respect have a certain kinship with the early poets of the intervening ageVyasa and Valmiki. Upam KlidsasyaKalidasa revels in figures and images; they are profusely heaped on one another and usually possess a complex and composite texture. Valmiki's images are simple and elemental, brief and instinct with a vast resonance, spare and full of power. The same brevity and simplicity, vibrant with an extraordinary power of evocation, are also characteristic of the Upanishadic mantra With Valmiki's
kamiva dupram
--
Be wholly fixed on That, like an arrow on its target,
or again,
--
like these rivers That flowing journey towards the sea.
Art at its highest tends to become also the simplest and the most unconventional; and it is then the highest art, precisely because it does not aim at being artistic. The aesthetic motive is totally absent in the Upanishads; the sense of beauty is there, but it is attendant upon and involved in a deeper strand of consciousness. That consciousness seeks consciousness itself, the fullness of consciousness, the awareness and possession of the Truth and Reality,the one thing which, if known, gives the knowledge of all else. And this consciousness of the Truth is also Delight, the perfect Bliss, the Immortality where the whole universe resolves itself into its original state of rasa, That is to say, of essential and inalienable harmony and beauty.
***
00.05 - A Vedic Conception of the Poet, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
'Kavi' is an invariable epithet of the gods. The Vedas mean by this attribute to bring out a most fundamental character, an inalienable dharma of the heavenly host. All the gods are poets; and a human being can become a poet only in so far as he attains to the nature and status of a god. Who is then a kavi? The Poet is he who by his poetic power raises forms of beauty in heavenkavi kavitv divi rpam sajat.1Thus the essence of poetic power is to fashion divine Beauty, to reveal heavenly forms. What is this Heaven whose forms the Poet discovers and embodies? HeavenDyaushas a very definite connotation in the Veda. It means the luminous or divine Mind 2the mind purified of its obscurity and limitations, due to subjection to the external senses, thus opening to the higher Light, receiving and recording faithfully the deeper and vaster movements and vibrations of the Truth, giving them a form, a perfect body of the right thought and the right word. Indra is the lord of this world and he can be approached only with an enkindled intelligence, ddhay man,3a faultless understanding, sumedh. He is the supreme Artisan of the poetic power,Tash, the maker of perfect forms, surpa ktnum.4 All the gods turn towards Indra and become gods and poets, attain their Great Names of Supreme Beauty.5 Indra is also the master of the senses, indriyas, who are his hosts. It is through this mind and the senses That the poetic creation has to be manifested. The mind spreads out wide the Poet's weaving;6 the poet is the priest who calls down and works out the right thinking in the sacrificial labour of creation.7 But That creation is made in and through the inner mind and the inner senses That are alive to the subtle formation of a vaster knowledge.8 The poet envisages the golden forms fashioned out of the very profundity of the consciousness.9 For the substance, the material on which the Poet works, is Truth. The seat of the Truth the poets guard, they uphold the supreme secret Names.10 The poet has the expressive utterance, the creative word; the poet is a poet by his poetic creation-the shape faultlessly wrought out That unveils and holds the Truth.11The form of beauty is the body of the Truth.
The poet is a trinity in himself. A triune consciousness forms his personality. First of all, he is the Knower-the Seer of the Truth, kavaya satyadrara. He has the direct vision, the luminous intelligence, the immediate perception.12 A subtle and profound and penetrating consciousness is his,nigam, pracetas; his is the eye of the Sun,srya caku.13 He secures an increased being through his effulgent understanding.14 In the second place, the Poet is not only Seer but Doer; he is knower as well as creator. He has a dynamic knowledge and his vision itself is power, ncak;15 he is the Seer-Will,kavikratu.16 He has the blazing radiance of the Sun and is supremely potent in his self-Iuminousness.17 The Sun is the light and the energy of the Truth. Even like the Sun the Poet gives birth to the Truth, srya satyasava, satyya satyaprasavya. But the Poet as Power is not only the revealer or creator,savit, he is also the builder or fashioner,ta, and he is the organiser,vedh is personality. First of all, he is the Knower-the Seer of the Truth, kavaya satyadrara, of the Truth.18 As Savita he manifests the Truth, as Tashta he gives a perfected body and form to the Truth, and as Vedha he maintains the Truth in its dynamic working. The effective marshalling and organisation of the Truth is what is called Ritam, the Right; it is also called Dharma,19 the Law or the Rhythm, the ordered movement and invincible execution of the Truth. The Poet pursues the Path of the Right;20 it is he who lays out the Path for the march of the Truth, the progress of the Sacrifice.21 He is like a fast steed well-yoked, pressing forward;22 he is the charger That moves straight and unswerving and carries us beyond 23into the world of felicity.
Indeed delight is the third and the supremely intimate element of the poetic personality. Dear and delightful is the poet, dear and delightful his works, priya, priyi His hand is dripping with sweetness,kavir hi madhuhastya.24 The Poet-God shines in his pristine beauty and is showering delight.25 He is filled with utter ecstasy so That he may rise to the very source of the luminous Energy.26? Pure is the Divine Joy and it enters and purifies all forms as it moves to the seat of the Immortals.27Indeed this sparkling Delight is the Poet-Seer and it is That That brings forth the creative word, the utterance of Indra.28
The solar vision of the Poet encompasses in its might the wide Earth and Heaven, fuses them in supreme Delight in the womb of the Truth.29 The Earth is lifted up and given in marriage to Heaven in the home of Truth, for the creation and expression of the Truth in its varied beauty,cru citram.
The Poet creates forms of beauty in Heaven; but these forms are not made out of the void. It is the Earth That is raised to Heaven and transmuted into divine truth forms. The union of Earth and Heaven is the source of the Joy, the Ananda, That the Poet unseals and distributes. Heaven and Earth join and meet in the world of Delight; between them they press out Soma, the drink of the gods.
The Mind and the Body are held together by means of the Life, the mid-world. The Divine Mind by raising the body-consciousness into itself gathers up too, by That act, the delight of life and releases the fountain of immortal Bliss. That is the work and achievement of the gods as poets.
Where then is the birth of the Poets? Ask it of the Masters. The Poets have seized and mastered the Mind, they have the perfect working and they fashion the Heaven.
On this Earth they hold everywhere in themselves all the secrets. They make Earth and Heaven move together, so That they may realise their heroic strength. They measure them with their rhythmic measurings, they hold in their controlled grasp the vast and great twins, and unite them and establish between them the mid-world of Delight for the perfect poise.30
All the gods are poetstheir forms are perfect, surpa, suda, their Names full of beauty,cru devasya nma.31 This means also That the gods embody the different powers That constitute the poetic consciousness. Agni is the Seer-Will, the creative vision of the Poet the luminous energy born of an experience by identity with the Truth. Indra is the Idea-Form, the architectonic conception of the work or achievement. Mitra and Varuna are the large harmony, the vast cadence and sweep of movement. The Aswins, the Divine Riders, represent the intense zest of well-yoked Life-Energy. Soma is Rasa, Ananda, the Supreme Bliss and Delight.
The Vedic Poet is doubtless the poet of Life, the architect of Divinity in man, of Heaven upon earth. But what is true of Life is fundamentally true of Art tooat least true of the Art as it was conceived by the ancient seers and as it found expression at their hands.32
0.00a - Introduction, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
It is ironic That a period of the most tremendous technological advancement known to recorded history should also be labeled the Age of Anxiety. Reams have been written about modern man's frenzied search for his soul-and, indeed, his doubt That he even has one at a time when, like castles built on sand, so many of his cherished theories, long mistaken for verities, are crumbling about his bewildered brain.
The age-old advice, "Know thyself," is more imperative than ever. The tempo of science has accelerated to such a degree That today's discoveries frequently make yesterday's equations obsolescent almost before they can be chalked up on a blackboard. Small wonder, then That every other hospital bed is occupied by a mental patient. Man was not constructed to spend his life at a crossroads, one of which leads he knows not where, and the other to threatened annihilation of his species.
In view of this situation it is doubly reassuring to know That, even in the midst of chaotic concepts and conditions there still remains a door through which man, individually, can enter into a vast store-house of knowledge, knowledge as dependable and immutable as the measured tread of Eternity.
For this reason I am especially pleased to be writing an introduction to a new edition of A Garden of Pomegranates. I feel That never, perhaps, was the need more urgent for just such a roadmap as the Qabalistic system provides. It should be equally useful to any who chooses to follow it, whether he be Jew, Christian or Buddhist, Deist, Theosophist, agnostic or atheist.
The Qabalah is a trustworthy guide, leading to a comprehension both of the Universe and one's own Self. Sages have long taught That Man is a miniature of the Universe, containing within himself the diverse elements of That macrocosm of which he is the microcosm. Within the Qabalah is a glyph called the Tree of Life which is at once a symbolic map of the Universe in its major aspects, and also of its smaller counterpart, Man.
Manly P. Hall, in The Secret Teachings of All Ages, deplores the failure of modern science to "sense the profundity of these philosophical deductions of the ancients." Were they to do so, he says, they "would realize those who fabricated the structure of the Qabalah possessed a knowledge of the celestial plan comparable in every respect with That of the modern savant."
Fortunately many scientists in the field of psycho therapy are beginning to sense this correlation. In Francis G. Wickes' The Inner World of Choice reference is made to "the existence in every person of a galaxy of potentialities for growth marked by a succession of personalogical evolution and interaction with environments." She points out That man is not only an individual particle but "also a part of the human stream, governed by a Self greater than his own individual self."
The Book of the Law states simply, "Every man and every woman is a star." This is a startling thought for those who considered a star a heavenly body, but a declaration subject to proof by anyone who will venture into the realm of his own Unconscious. This realm, he will learn if he persists, is not hemmed in by the boundaries of his physical body but is one with the boundless reaches of outer space.
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A simple example is the concept of the Trinity in the Christian religion. The student is frequently amazed to learn through a study of the Qabalah That Egyptian mythology followed a similar concept with its trinity of gods, Osiris the father, Isis the virgin-mother, and Horus the son. The Qabalah indicates similar correspondences in the pantheon of Roman and Greek deities, proving the father-mother (Holy Spirit) - son principles of deity are primordial archetypes of man's psyche, rather than being, as is frequently and erroneously supposed a development peculiar to the Christian era.
At this juncture let me call attention to one set of attri butions by Rittangelius usually found as an appendix attached to the Sepher Yetzirah. It lists a series of "Intelligences" for each one of the ten Sephiros and the twenty-two Paths of the Tree of Life. It seems to me, after prolonged meditation, That the common attri butions of these Intelligences is altogether arbitrary and lacking in serious meaning.
For example, Keser is called "The Admirable or the Hidden Intelligence; it is the Primal Glory, for no created being can attain to its essence." This seems perfectly all right; the meaning at first sight seems to fit the significance of Keser as the first emanation from Ain Soph. But there are half a dozen other similar attri butions That would have served equally well. For instance, it could have been called the "Occult Intelligence" usually attri buted to the seventh Path or Sephirah, for surely Keser is secret in a way to be said of no other Sephirah. And what about the "Absolute or Perfect Intelligence." That would have been even more explicit and appropriate, being applicable to Keser far more than to any other of the Paths. Similarly, there is one attri buted to the 16th Path and called "The Eternal or Triumphant Intelligence," so-called because it is the pleasure of the Glory, beyond which is no Glory like to it, and it is called also the Paradise prepared for the Righteous." Any of these several would have done equally well. Much is true of so many of the other attri butions in this particular area- That is the so-called Intelligences of the Sepher Yetzirah. I do not think That their use or current arbitrary usage stands up to serious examination or criticism.
A good many attri butions in other symbolic areas, I feel are subject to the same criticism. The Egyptian Gods have been used with a good deal of carelessness, and without sufficient explanation of motives in assigning them as I did. In a recent edition of Crowley's masterpiece Liber 777 (which au fond is less a reflection of Crowley's mind as a recent critic claimed than a tabulation of some of the material given piecemeal in the Golden Dawn knowledge lectures), he gives for the first time brief explanations of the motives for his attri butions. I too should have been far more explicit in the explanations I used in the case of some of the Gods whose names were used many times, most inadequately, where several paths were concerned. While it is true That the religious coloring of the Egyptian Gods differed from time to time during Egypt's turbulent history, nonetheless a word or two about just That one single point could have served a useful purpose.
Some of the passages in the book force me today to emphasize That so far as the Qabalah is concerned, it could and should be employed without binding to it the partisan qualities of any one particular religious faith. This goes as much for Judaism as it does for Christianity. Neither has much intrinsic usefulness where this scientific scheme is concerned. If some students feel hurt by this statement, That cannot be helped. The day of most contemporary faiths is over; they have been more of a curse than a boon to mankind. Nothing That I say here, however, should reflect on the peoples concerned, those who accept these religions. They are merely unfortunate. The religion itself is worn out and indeed is dying.
The Qabalah has nothing to do with any of them. Attempts on the part of cultish-partisans to impart higher mystical meanings, through the Qabalah, etc., to their now sterile faiths is futile, and will be seen as such by the younger generation. They, the flower and love children, will have none of this nonsense.
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Much knowledge obtained by the ancients through the use of the Qabalah has been supported by discoveries of modern scientists- anthropologists, astronomers, psychiatrists, et al. Learned Qabalists for hundreds of years have been aware of what the psychiatrist has only discovered in the last few decades- That man's concept of himself, his deities and the Universe is a constantly evolving process, changing as man himself evolves on a higher spiral. But the roots of his concepts are buried in a race-consciousness That antedated Neanderthal man by uncounted aeons of time.
What Jung calls archetypal images constantly rise to the surface of man's awareness from the vast unconscious That is the common heritage of all mankind.
The tragedy of civilized man is That he is cut off from awareness of his own instincts. The Qabalah can help him achieve the necessary understanding to effect a reunion with them, so That rather than being driven by forces he does not understand, he can harness for his conscious use the same power That guides the homing pigeon, teaches the beaver to build a dam and keeps the planets revolving in their appointed orbits about the sun.
I began the study of the Qabalah at an early age. Two books I read then have played unconsciously a prominent part in the writing of my own book. One of these was "Q.B.L. or the Bride's Reception" by Frater Achad (Charles Stansfeld Jones), which I must have first read around 1926. The other was "An Introduction to the Tarot" by Paul Foster Case, published in the early 1920's. It is now out of print, superseded by later versions of the same topic. But as I now glance through this slender book, I perceive how profoundly even the format of his book had influenced me, though in these two instances there was not a trace of plagiarism. It had not consciously occurred to me until recently That I owed so much to them. Since Paul Case passed away about a decade or so ago, this gives me the opportunity to thank him, overtly, wherever he may now be.
By the middle of 1926 I had become aware of the work of Aleister Crowley, for whom I have a tremendous respect. I studied as many of his writings as I could gain access to, making copious notes, and later acted for several years as his secretary, having joined him in Paris on October 12, 1928, a memorable day in my life.
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During a short retirement in North Devon in 1931, I began to amalgamate my notes. It was out of these That A Garden of Pomegranates gradually emerged. I unashamedly admit That my book contains many direct plagiarisms from Crowley, Waite, Eliphas Levi, and D. H. Lawrence. I had incorporated numerous fragments from their works into my notebooks without citing individual references to the various sources from which I condensed my notes.
Prior to the closing down of the Mandrake Press in London about 1930-31, I was employed as company secretary for a while. Along with several Crowley books, the Mandrake Press published a lovely little monogram by D. H. Lawrence entitled "Apropos of Lady Chatterley's Lover." My own copy accompanied me on my travels for long years. Only recently did I discover That it had been lost. I hope That any one of my former patients who had borrowed it will see fit to return it to me forthwith.
The last chapter of A Garden deals with the Way of Return. It used almost entirely Crowley's concept of the Path as described in his superb essay "One Star in Sight." In addition to this, I borrowed extensively from Lawrence's Apropos. Somehow, they all fitted together very nicely. In time, all these variegated notes were incorporated into the text without acknowledgment, an oversight which I now feel sure would be forgiven, since I was only twenty-four at the time.
Some modern Nature-worshippers and members of the newly-washed and redeemed witch-cult have complimented me on this closing chapter which I entitled 'The Ladder." I am pleased about this. For a very long time I was not at all familiar with the topic of witchcraft. I had avoided it entirely, not being attracted to its literature in any way. In fact, I only became slightly conversant with its theme and literature just a few years ago, after reading "The Anatomy of Eve" written by Dr. Leopold Stein, a Jungian analyst. In the middle of his study of four cases, he included a most informative chapter on the subject. This served to stimulate me to wider reading in That area.
In 1932, at the suggestion of Thomas Burke, the novelist, I submitted my manuscript to one of his publishers, Messrs. Constable in London. They were unable to use it, but made some encouraging comments and advised me to submit it to Riders. To my delight and surprise, Riders published it, and throughout the years the reaction it has had indicated other students found it also fulfilled their need for a condensed and simplified survey of such a vast subject as the Qabalah.
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In his profound investigation into the origins and basic nature of man, Robert Ardrey in African Genesis recently made a shocking statement. Although man has begun the conquest of outer space, the ignorance of his own nature, says Ardrey, "has become institutionalized, universalized and sanctified." He further states That were a brotherhood of man to be formed today, "its only possible common bond would be ignorance of what man is."
Such a condition is both deplorable and appalling when the means are readily available for man to acquire a thorough understanding of himself-and in so doing, an understanding of his neighbor and the world in which he lives as well as the greater Universe of which each is a part.
May everyone who reads this new edition of A Garden of Pomegranates be encouraged and inspired to light his own candle of inner vision and begin his journey into the boundless space That lies within himself. Then, through realization of his true identity, each student can become a lamp unto his own path. And more. Awareness of the Truth of his being will rip asunder the veil of unknowing That has heretofore enshrouded the star he already is, permitting the brilliance of his light to illumine the darkness of That part of the Universe in which he abides.
000 - Humans in Universe, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
1500 lay well within That "known" flat world: it was and as yet remains the
spontaneous theater of popular historical conceptioning.
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Indochina, as it is an art and science That has traveled consistently westward. Over
3,000 years ago the Greeks made further magnificent contributions to geometry,
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strength of a sailing vessel as well as That of its vast wind-energy-driven complex of
compression and tension spars, sails, and rigging-replacing the trial-and-error
guesswork That had previously been used in naval and land architecture. This
capability in mathematical multiplication and division opened up a whole new field
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knowledge That the old open-edged, infinite world system had closed back on itself
in all circumferential directions to become a finite system: a closed sphere. The
monarchs and merchants realized That, within That closed system, whoever
commanded the line of most efficient high seas supply would become the masters
of world wealth. Ships could carry cargoes That overland caravans could not.
000.106 In 1600 the East India Company was founded as a private enterprise by
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officers of the enterprise for their world-wide deployment; That college and its
handsome campus are still in operation as of 1979. The British Empire became the
first in history of which it could be said That the Sun never set.
000.107 As professor of economics at the East India Company College in 1810
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century Malthus published his documented thesis That humanity was multiplying its
numbers at a geometric (exponential) rate of gain while increasing life-support
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closed-system sphere, it apparently became scientifically manifest That there is a
fundamental inadequacy of life support on our planet. Until then all opinions on
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economists insisted That superior physical fitness obviously governed economic
survival as well. Karl Marx accepted the scientific viewpoints of both Malthus and
Darwin when he declared in effect That the working class is the fittest to .survive:
they know how to use the tools and to cultivate the fields-the wealthy are parasites.
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political ideologies have since adopted a prime philosophy That says: "You may not
like our political system, but we are convinced That we have the fairest, most
logical, and ingenious method of coping with the inherent inadequacy of terrestrial
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000.111 Up until the 20th century reality consisted of everything That humans
could see, smell, touch, and hear. Then at the entry into the 20th century the
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structural system. That is the law of gravity. Symmetrical, noncontacting,
concentric interpositioning of already-symmetrical arrays of atoms produces
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enclosure combined to produce highly successful wooden vessels of the sea That
could carry great cargoes.000.116 In the 1850s humans arrived at the mass production of steel, an alloy of
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capability That they accomplished "vertol" jet plane flight and vertical space-vehicle
blastoffs. Since then human scientists developing ever greater strength per weight
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humanity has as yet no idea That this increase in tensile capability has come about or
how it came about or why it works. While humans cannot see the ever-lessening
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state That as a consequence of the myriad of more-with-less, invisible, technological
advances of the 20th century, and employing only well-proven technologies and
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feasible to retool and redirect world industry in such a manner That within 10 years
we can have all of humanity enjoying a sustainably higher standard of living-with
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moon-crater cities That will be energy-harvesting and -exporting centers rather than
energy sinkholes.
000.122 All of the foregoing makes it possible to say That since we now know That
there is a sustainable abundance of life support and accommodation for all, it
follows That all politics and warring are obsolete and invalid. We no longer need to
rationalize selfishness. No one need ever again "earn a living." Further living for all
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revolution by design science? Less than one percent of humanity now knows That
the option exists; 99 percent of humanity cannot understand the mathematical
language of science. The people who make up That 99 percent do not know That all
That science has ever found out is That the Universe consists of the most reliable
technology. They think of technology as something new; they regard it as
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000.125 The fact That 99 percent of humanity does not understand nature is the
prime reason for humanity's failure to exercise its option to attain universally
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system That can be comprehended by anyone. Fortunately television, is
spontaneously attractive and can be used to teach all the world's people nature's
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by thoughts That it might some day be otherwise:
And no one will work for money and no one will
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Khudiram Chattopadhyaya and Chandra Devi, the parents of Sri Ramakrishna, were married in 1799. At That time Khudiram was living in his ancestral village of Dereypore, not far from Kamarpukur. Their first son, Ramkumar, was born in 1805, and their first daughter, Katyayani, in 1810. In 1814 Khudiram was ordered by his landlord to bear false witness in court against a neighbour. When he refused to do so, the landlord brought a false case against him and deprived him of his ancestral property. Thus dispossessed, he arrived, at the invitation of another landlord, in the quiet village of Kamarpukur, where he was given a dwelling and about an acre of fertile land. The crops from this little property were enough to meet his family's simple needs. Here he lived in simplicity, dignity, and contentment.
Ten years after his coming to Kamarpukur, Khudiram made a pilgrimage on foot to Rameswar, at the southern extremity of India. Two years later was born his second son, whom he named Rameswar. Again in 1835, at the age of sixty, he made a pilgrimage, this time to Gaya. Here, from ancient times, Hindus have come from the four corners of India to discharge their duties to their departed ancestors by offering them food and drink at the sacred footprint of the Lord Vishnu. At this holy place Khudiram had a dream in which the Lord Vishnu promised to he born as his son. And Chandra Devi, too, in front of the Siva temple at Kamarpukur, had a vision indicating the birth of a divine child. Upon his return the husband found That she had conceived.
It was on February 18, 1836, That the child, to be known afterwards as Ramakrishna, was born. In memory of the dream at Gaya he was given the name of Gadadhar, the "Bearer of the Mace", an epithet of Vishnu. Three years later a little sister was born.
--- BOYHOOD
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At the age of six or seven Gadadhar had his first experience of spiritual ecstasy. One day in June or July, when he was walking along a narrow path between paddy-fields, eating the puffed rice That he carried in a basket, he looked up at the sky and saw a beautiful, dark thunder-cloud. As it spread, rapidly enveloping the whole sky, a flight of snow-white cranes passed in front of it. The beauty of the contrast overwhelmed the boy. He fell to the ground, unconscious, and the puffed rice went in all directions. Some villagers found him and carried him home in their arms. Gadadhar said later That in That state he had experienced an indescribable joy.
Gadadhar was seven years old when his father died. This incident profoundly affected him. For the first time the boy realized That life on earth was impermanent. Unobserved by others, he began to slip into the mango orchard or into one of the cremation grounds, and he spent hours absorbed in his own thoughts. He also became more helpful to his mother in the discharge of her household duties. He gave more attention to reading and hearing the religious stories recorded in the Puranas. And he became interested in the wandering monks and pious pilgrims who would stop at Kamarpukur on their way to Puri. These holy men, the custodians of India's spiritual heritage and the living witnesses of the ideal of renunciation of the world and all-absorbing love of God, entertained the little boy with stories from the Hindu epics, stories of saints and prophets, and also stories of their own adventures. He, on his part, fetched their water and fuel and
served them in various ways. Meanwhile, he was observing their meditation and worship.
At the age of nine Gadadhar was invested with the sacred thread. This ceremony conferred upon him the privileges of his brahmin lineage, including the worship of the Family Deity, Raghuvir, and imposed upon him the many strict disciplines of a brahmin's life. During the ceremony of investiture he shocked his relatives by accepting a meal cooked by his nurse, a sudra woman. His father would never have dreamt of doing such a thing But in a playful mood Gadadhar had once promised this woman That he would eat her food, and now he fulfilled his plighted word. The woman had piety and religious sincerity, and these were more important to the boy than the conventions of society.
Gadadhar was now permitted to worship Raghuvir. Thus began his first training in meditation. He so gave his heart and soul to the worship That the stone image very soon appeared to him as the living Lord of the Universe. His tendency to lose himself in contemplation was first noticed at this time. Behind his boyish light-heartedness was seen a deepening of his spiritual nature.
About this time, on the Sivaratri night, consecrated to the worship of Siva, a dramatic performance was arranged. The principal actor, who was to play the part of Siva, suddenly fell ill, and Gadadhar was persuaded to act in his place. While friends were dressing him for the role of Siva — smearing his body with ashes, matting his locks, placing a trident in his hand and a string of rudraksha beads around his neck — the boy appeared to become absent-minded. He approached the stage with slow and measured step, supported by his friends. He looked the living image of Siva. The audience loudly applauded what it took to be his skill as an actor, but it was soon discovered That he was really lost in meditation. His countenance was radiant and tears flowed from his eyes. He was lost to the outer world. The effect of this scene on the audience was tremendous. The people felt blessed as by a vision of Siva Himself. The performance had to be stopped, and the boy's mood lasted till the following morning.
Gadadhar himself now organized a dramatic company with his young friends. The stage was set in the mango orchard. The themes were selected from the stories of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Gadadhar knew by heart almost all the roles, having heard them from professional actors. His favourite theme was the Vrindavan episode of Krishna's life, depicting those exquisite love-stories of Krishna and the milkmaids and the cowherd boys. Gadadhar would play the parts of Radha or Krishna and would often lose himself in the character he was portraying. His natural feminine grace heightened the dramatic effect. The mango orchard would ring with the loud kirtan of the boys. Lost in song and merry-making, Gadadhar became indifferent to the routine of school.
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Gadadhar was on the threshold of youth. He had become the pet of the women of the village. They loved to hear him talk, sing, or recite from the holy books. They enjoyed his knack of imitating voices. Their woman's instinct recognized the innate purity and guilelessness of this boy of clear skin, flowing hair, beaming eyes, smiling face, and inexhaustible fun. The pious elderly women looked upon him as Gopala, the Baby Krishna, and the younger ones saw in him the youthful Krishna of Vrindavan. He himself so idealized the love of the gopis for Krishna That he sometimes yearned to be born as a woman, if he must be born again, in order to be able to love Sri Krishna with all his heart and soul.
--- COMING TO CALCUTTA
At the age of sixteen Gadadhar was summoned to Calcutta by his elder brother Ramkumar, who wished assistance in his priestly duties. Ramkumar had opened a Sanskrit academy to supplement his income, and it was his intention gradually to turn his younger brother's mind to education. Gadadhar applied himself heart and soul to his new duty as family priest to a number of Calcutta families. His worship was very different from That of the professional priests. He spent hours decorating the images and singing hymns and devotional songs; he performed with love the other duties of his office. People were impressed with his ardour. But to his studies he paid scant attention.
Ramkumar did not at first oppose the ways of his temperamental brother. He wanted Gadadhar to become used to the conditions of city life. But one day he decided to warn the boy about his indifference to the world. After all, in the near future Gadadhar must, as a householder, earn his livelihood through the performance of his brahminical duties; and these required a thorough knowledge of Hindu law, astrology, and kindred subjects. He gently admonished Gadadhar and asked him to pay more attention to his studies. But the boy replied spiritedly: "Brother, what shall I do with a mere bread-winning education? I would rather acquire That wisdom which will illumine my heart and give me satisfaction for ever."
--- BREAD-WINNING EDUCATION
The anguish of the inner soul of India found expression through these passionate words of the young Gadadhar. For what did his unsophisticated eyes see around him in Calcutta, at That time the metropolis of India and the centre of modem culture and learning? Greed and lust held sway in the higher levels of society, and the occasional religious practices were merely outer forms from which the soul had long ago departed. Gadadhar had never seen anything like this at Kamarpukur among the simple and pious villagers. The sadhus and wandering monks whom he had served in his boyhood had revealed to him an altogether different India. He had been impressed by their devotion and purity, their self-control and renunciation. He had learnt from them and from his own intuition That the ideal of life as taught by the ancient sages of India was the realization of God.
When Ramkumar reprimanded Gadadhar for neglecting a "bread-winning education", the inner voice of the boy reminded him That the legacy of his ancestors — the legacy of Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Sankara, Ramanuja, Chaitanya — was not worldly security but the Knowledge of God. And these noble sages were the true representatives of Hindu society. Each of them was seated, as it were, on the crest of the wave That followed each successive trough in the tumultuous course of Indian national life. All demonstrated That the life current of India is spirituality. This truth was revealed to Gadadhar through That inner vision which scans past and future in one sweep, unobstructed by the barriers of time and space. But he was unaware of the history of the profound change That had taken place in the land of his birth during the previous one hundred years.
Hindu society during the eighteenth century had been passing through a period of decadence. It was the twilight of the Mussalman rule. There were anarchy and confusion in all spheres. Superstitious practices dominated the religious life of the people. Rites and rituals passed for the essence of spirituality. Greedy priests became the custodians of heaven. True philosophy was supplanted by dogmatic opinions. The pundits took delight in vain polemics.
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The first effect of the draught on the educated Hindus was a complete effacement from their minds of the time-honoured beliefs and traditions of Hindu society. They came to believe That there was no transcendental Truth; The world perceived by the senses was all That existed. God and religion were illusions of the untutored mind. True knowledge could be derived only from the analysis of nature. So atheism and agnosticism became the fashion of the day. The youth of India, taught in English schools, took malicious delight in openly breaking the customs and traditions of their society. They would do away with the caste-system and remove the discriminatory laws about food. Social reform, the spread of secular education, widow remarriage, abolition of early marriage — they considered these the panacea for the degenerate condition of Hindu society.
The Christian missionaries gave the finishing touch to the process of transformation. They ridiculed as relics of a barbarous age the images and rituals of the Hindu religion. They tried to persuade India That the teachings of her saints and seers were the cause of her downfall, That her Vedas, Puranas, and other scriptures were filled with superstition. Christianity, they maintained, had given the white races position and power in this world and assurance of happiness in the next; therefore Christianity was the best of all religions. Many intelligent young Hindus became converted. The man in the street was confused. The majority of the educated grew materialistic in their mental outlook. Everyone living near Calcutta or the other strong-holds of Western culture, even those who attempted to cling to the orthodox traditions of Hindu society, became infected by the new uncertainties and the new beliefs.
But the soul of India was to be resuscitated through a spiritual awakening. We hear the first call of this renascence in the spirited retort of the young Gadadhar: "Brother, what shall I do with a mere bread-winning education?"
Ramkumar could hardly understand the import of his young brother's reply. He described in bright colours the happy and easy life of scholars in Calcutta society. But Gadadhar intuitively felt That the scholars, to use one of his own vivid illustrations, were like so many vultures, soaring high on the wings of their uninspired intellect, with their eyes fixed on the charnel-pit of greed and lust. So he stood firm and Ramkumar had to give way.
--- KALI TEMPLE AT DAKSHINESWAR
At That time there lived in Calcutta a rich widow named Rani Rasmani, belonging to the sudra caste, and known far and wide not only for her business ability, courage, and intelligence, but also for her largeness of heart, piety, and devotion to God. She was assisted in the management of her vast property by her son-in-law Mathur Mohan.
In 1847 the Rani purchased twenty acres of land at Dakshineswar, a village about four miles north of Calcutta. Here she created a temple garden and constructed several temples. Her Ishta, or Chosen Ideal, was the Divine Mother, Kali.
The temple garden stands directly on the east bank of the Ganges. The northern section of the land and a portion to the east contain an orchard, flower gardens, and two small reservoirs. The southern section is paved with brick and mortar. The visitor arriving by boat ascends the steps of an imposing bathing-ghat which leads to the chandni, a roofed terrace, on either side of which stand in a row six temples of Siva. East of the terrace and the Siva temples is a large court, paved, rectangular in shape, and running north and south. Two temples stand in the centre of this court, the larger one, to the south and facing south, being dedicated to Kali, and the smaller one, facing the Ganges, to Radhakanta, That is, Krishna, the Consort of Radha. Nine domes with spires surmount the temple of Kali, and before it stands the spacious natmandir, or music hall, the terrace of which is sup- ported by stately pillars. At the northwest and southwest
corners of the temple compound are two nahabats, or music towers, from which music flows at different times of day, especially at sunup, noon, and sundown, when the worship is performed in the temples. Three sides of the paved courtyard — all except the west — are lined with rooms set apart for kitchens, store-rooms, dining-rooms, and quarters for the temple staff and guests. The chamber in the northwest angle, just beyond the last of the Siva temples, is of special interest to us; for here Sri Ramakrishna was to spend a considerable part of his life. To the west of this chamber is a semicircular porch overlooking the river. In front of the porch runs a foot-path, north and south, and beyond the path is a large garden and, below the garden, the Ganges. The orchard to the north of the buildings contains the Panchavati, the banyan, and the bel-tree, associated with Sri Ramakrishna's spiritual practices. Outside and to the north of the temple compound proper is the kuthi, or bungalow, used by members of Rani Rasmani's family visiting the garden. And north of the temple garden, separated from it by a high wall, is a powder-magazine belonging to the British Government.
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Unable to resist the persuasion of Mathur Babu, Sri Ramakrishna at last entered the temple service, on condition That Hriday should be asked to assist him. His first duty was to dress and decorate the image of Kali.
One day the priest of the Radhakanta temple accidentally dropped the image of Krishna on the floor, breaking one of its legs. The pundits advised the Rani to install a new image, since the worship of an image with a broken limb was against the scriptural injunctions. But the Rani was fond of the image, and she asked Sri Ramakrishna's opinion. In an abstracted mood, he said: "This solution is ridiculous. If a son-in-law of the Rani broke his leg, would she discard him and put another in his place? Wouldn't she rather arrange for his treatment? Why should she not do the same thing in this case too? Let the image be repaired and worshipped as before." It was a simple, straightforward solution and was accepted by the Rani. Sri Ramakrishna himself mended the break. The priest was dismissed for his carelessness, and at Mathur Babu's earnest request Sri Ramakrishna accepted the office of priest in the Radhakanta temple.
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^Hriday's mother was the daughter of Sri Ramakrishna's aunt (Khudiram's sister). Such a degree of relationship is termed in Bengal That of a "distant nephew".
--- SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS A PRIEST
Born in an orthodox brahmin family, Sri Ramakrishna knew the formalities of worship, its rites and rituals. The innumerable gods and goddesses of the Hindu religion are the human aspects of the indescribable and incomprehensible Spirit, as conceived by the finite human mind. They understand and appreciate human love and emotion, help men to realize their secular and spiritual ideals, and ultimately enable men to attain liberation from the miseries of phenomenal life. The Source of light, intelligence, wisdom, and strength is the One alone from whom comes the fulfilment of desire. Yet, as long as a man is bound by his human limitations, he cannot but worship God through human forms. He must use human symbols. Therefore Hinduism asks the devotees to look on God as the ideal father, the ideal mother, the ideal husband, the ideal son, or the ideal friend. But the name ultimately leads to the Nameless, the form to the Formless, the word to the Silence, the emotion to the serene realization of Peace in Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. The gods gradually merge in the one God. But until That realization is achieved, the devotee cannot dissociate human factors from his worship. Therefore the Deity is bathed and clothed and decked with ornaments. He is fed and put to sleep. He is propitiated with hymns, songs, and prayers. And there are appropriate rites connected with all these functions. For instance, to secure for himself external purity, the priest bathes himself in holy water and puts on a holy cloth. He purifies the mind and the sense-organs by appropriate meditations. He fortifies the place of worship against evil forces by drawing around it circles of fire and water. He awakens the different spiritual centres of the body and invokes the Supreme Spirit in his heart. Then he transfers the Supreme Spirit to the image before him and worships the image, regarding it no longer as clay or stone, but as the embodiment of Spirit, throbbing with Life and Consciousness. After the worship the Supreme Spirit is recalled from the image to Its true sanctuary, the heart of the priest. The real devotee knows the absurdity of worshipping the Transcendental Reality with material articles — clothing That which pervades the whole universe and the beyond, putting on a pedestal That which cannot be limited by space, feeding That which is disembodied and incorporeal, singing before That whose glory the music of the spheres tries vainly to proclaim. But through these rites the devotee aspires to go ultimately beyond rites and rituals, forms and names, words and praise, and to realize God as the All-pervading Consciousness.
Hindu priests are thoroughly acquainted with the rites of worship, but few of them are aware of their underlying significance. They move their hands and limbs mechanically, in obedience to the letter of the scriptures, and repeat the holy mantras like parrots. But from the very beginning the inner meaning of these rites was revealed to Sri Ramakrishna. As he sat facing the image, a strange transformation came over his mind. While going through the prescribed ceremonies, he would actually find himself encircled by a wall of fire protecting him and the place of worship from unspiritual vibrations, or he would feel the rising of the mystic Kundalini through the different centres of the body. The glow on his face, his deep absorption, and the intense atmosphere of the temple impressed everyone who saw him worship the Deity.
--
Mathur begged Sri Ramakrishna to take charge of the worship in the Kali temple. The young priest pleaded his incompetence and his ignorance of the scriptures. Mathur insisted That devotion and sincerity would more than compensate for any lack of formal knowledge and make the Divine Mother manifest Herself through the image. In the end, Sri Ramakrishna had to yield to Mathur's request. He became the priest of Kali.
In 1856 Ramkumar breathed his last. Sri Ramakrishna had already witnessed more than one death in the family. He had come to realize how impermanent is life on earth. The more he was convinced of the transitory nature of worldly things, the more eager he became to realize God, the Fountain of Immortality.
--
The worship in the temple intensified Sri Ramakrishna's yearning for a living vision of the Mother of the Universe. He began to spend in meditation the time not actually employed in the temple service; and for this purpose he selected an extremely solitary place. A deep jungle, thick with underbrush and prickly plants, lay to the north of the temples. Used at one time as a burial ground, it was shunned by people even during the day-time for fear of ghosts. There Sri Ramakrishna began to spend the whole night in meditation, returning to his room only in the morning with eyes swollen as though from much weeping. While meditating, he would lay aside his cloth and his brahminical thread. Explaining this strange conduct, he once said to Hriday: "Don't you know That when one thinks of God one should be freed from all ties? From our very birth we have the eight fetters of hatred, shame, lineage, pride of good conduct, fear, secretiveness, caste, and grief. The sacred thread reminds me That I am a brahmin and therefore superior to all. When calling on the Mother one has to set aside all such ideas." Hriday thought his uncle was becoming insane.
As his love for God deepened, he began either to forget or to drop the formalities of worship. Sitting before the image, he would spend hours singing the devotional songs of great devotees of the Mother, such as Kamalakanta and Ramprasad. Those rhapsodical songs, describing the direct vision of God, only intensified Sri Ramakrishna's longing. He felt the pangs of a child separated from its mother. Sometimes, in agony, he would rub his face against the ground and weep so bitterly That people, thinking he had lost his earthly mother, would sympathize with him in his grief. Sometimes, in moments of scepticism, he would cry: "Art Thou true, Mother, or is it all fiction — mere poetry without any reality? If Thou dost exist, why do I not see Thee? Is religion a mere fantasy and art Thou only a figment of man's imagination?" Sometimes he would sit on the prayer carpet for two hours like an inert object. He began to behave in an abnormal manner
, most of the time unconscious of the world. He almost gave up food; and sleep left him altogether.
But he did not have to wait very long. He has thus described his first vision of the Mother: "I felt as if my heart were being squeezed like a wet towel. I was overpowered with a great restlessness and a fear That it might not be my lot to realize Her in this life. I could not bear the separation from Her any longer. Life seemed to be not worth living. Suddenly my glance fell on the sword That was kept in the Mother's temple. I determined to put an end to my life. When I jumped up like a madman and seized it, suddenly the blessed Mother revealed Herself. The buildings with their different parts, the temple, and everything else vanished from my sight, leaving no trace whatsoever, and in their stead I saw a limitless, infinite, effulgent Ocean of Consciousness. As far as the eye could see, the shining billows were madly rushing at me from all sides with a terrific noise, to swallow me up! I was panting for breath. I was caught in the rush
and collapsed, unconscious. What was happening in the outside world I did not know; but within me there was a steady flow of undiluted bliss, altogether new, and I felt the presence of the Divine Mother." On his lips when he regained consciousness of the world was the word "Mother".
--
Yet this was only a foretaste of the intense experiences to come. The first glimpse of the Divine Mother made him the more eager for Her uninterrupted vision. He wanted to see Her both in meditation and with eyes open. But the Mother began to play a teasing game of hide-and-seek with him, intensifying both his joy and his suffering. Weeping bitterly during the moments of separation from Her, he would pass into a trance and then find Her standing before him, smiling, talking, consoling, bidding him be of good cheer, and instructing him. During this period of spiritual practice he had many uncommon experiences. When he sat to meditate, he would hear strange clicking sounds in the joints of his legs, as if someone were locking them up, one after the other, to keep him motionless; and at the conclusion of his meditation he would again hear the same sounds, this time unlocking them and leaving him free to move about. He would see flashes like a swarm of fire-flies floating before his eyes, or a sea of deep mist around him, with luminous waves of molten silver. Again, from a sea of translucent mist he would behold the Mother rising, first Her feet, then Her waist, body, face, and head, finally Her whole person; he would feel Her breath and hear Her voice. Worshipping in the temple, sometimes he would become exalted, sometimes he would remain motionless as stone, sometimes he would almost collapse from excessive emotion. Many of his actions, contrary to all tradition, seemed sacrilegious to the people. He would take a flower and touch it to his own head, body, and feet, and then offer it to the Goddess. Or, like a drunkard, he would reel to the throne of the Mother, touch Her chin by way of showing his affection for Her, and sing, talk, joke, laugh, and dance. Or he would take a morsel of food from the plate and hold it to Her mouth, begging Her to eat it, and would not be satisfied till he was convinced That She had really eaten. After the Mother had been put to sleep at night, from his own room he would hear Her ascending to the upper storey of the temple with the light steps of a happy girl, Her anklets jingling. Then he would discover Her standing with flowing hair. Her black form silhouetted against the sky of the night, looking at the Ganges or at the distant lights of Calcutta.
Naturally the temple officials took him for an insane person. His worldly well-wishers brought him to skilled physicians; but no-medicine could cure his malady. Many a time he doubted his sanity himself. For he had been sailing across an uncharted sea, with no earthly guide to direct him. His only haven of security was the Divine Mother Herself. To Her he would pray: "I do not know what these things are. I am ignorant of mantras and the scriptures. Teach me, Mother, how to realize Thee. Who else can help me? Art Thou not my only refuge and guide?" And the sustaining presence of the Mother never failed him in his distress or doubt. Even those who criticized his conduct were greatly impressed with his purity, guilelessness, truthfulness, integrity, and holiness. They felt an uplifting influence in his presence.
It is said That samadhi, or trance, no more than opens the portal of the spiritual realm. Sri Ramakrishna felt an unquenchable desire to enjoy God in various ways. For his meditation he built a place in the northern wooded section of the temple garden. With Hriday's help he planted there five sacred trees. The spot, known as the Panchavati, became the scene of many of his visions.
As his spiritual mood deepened he more and more felt himself to be a child of the Divine Mother. He learnt to surrender himself completely to Her will and let Her direct him.
--
On a certain occasion Mathur Babu stealthily entered the temple to watch the worship. He was profoundly moved by the young priest's devotion and sincerity. He realized That Sri Ramakrishna had transformed the stone image into the living Goddess.
Sri Ramakrishna one day fed a cat with the food That was to be offered to Kali. This was too much for the manager of the temple garden, who considered himself responsible for the proper conduct of the worship. He reported Sri Ramakrishna's insane behaviour to Mathur Babu.
Sri Ramakrishna has described the incident: "The Divine Mother revealed to me in the Kali temple That it was She who had become everything. She showed me That everything was full of Consciousness. The image was Consciousness, the altar was Consciousness, the water-vessels were Consciousness, the door-sill was Consciousness, the marble floor was Consciousness — all was Consciousness. I found everything inside the room soaked, as it were, in Bliss — the Bliss of God. I saw a wicked man in front of the Kali temple; but in him also I saw the power of the Divine Mother vibrating. That was why I fed a cat with the food That was to be offered to the Divine Mother. I clearly perceived That all this was the Divine Mother — even the cat. The manager of the temple garden wrote to Mathur Babu saying That I was feeding the cat with the offering intended for the Divine Mother. But Mathur Babu had insight into the state of my mind. He wrote back to the manager: 'Let him do whatever he likes. You must not say anything to him.'"
One of the painful ailments from which Sri Ramakrishna suffered at this time was a burning sensation in his body, and he was cured by a strange vision. During worship in the temple, following the scriptural injunctions, he would imagine the presence of the "sinner" in himself and the destruction of this "sinner". One day he was meditating in the Panchavati, when he saw come out of him a red-eyed man of black complexion, reeling like a drunkard. Soon there emerged from him another person, of serene countenance, wearing the ochre cloth of a sannyasi and carrying in his hand a trident. The second person attacked the first and killed him with the trident. Thereafter Sri Ramakrishna was free of his pain.
--
Mathur and Rani Rasmani began to ascribe the mental ailment of Sri Ramakrishna in part, at least, to his observance of rigid continence. Thinking That a natural life would relax the tension of his nerves, they engineered a plan with two women of ill fame. But as soon as the women entered his room, Sri Ramakrishna beheld in them the manifestation of the Divine Mother of the Universe and went into samadhi uttering Her name.
--- HALADHARI
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One day Haladhari upset Sri Ramakrishna with the statement That God is incomprehensible to the human mind. Sri Ramakrishna has described the great moment of doubt when he wondered whether his visions had really misled him: "With sobs I prayed to the Mother, 'Canst Thou have the heart to deceive me like this because I am a fool?' A stream of tears flowed from my eyes. Shortly afterwards I saw a volume of mist rising from the floor and filling the space before me. In the midst of it there appeared a face with flowing beard, calm, highly expressive, and fair. Fixing its gaze steadily upon me, it said solemnly, 'Remain in bhavamukha, on the threshold of relative consciousness.' This it repeated three times and then it gently disappeared in the mist, which itself dissolved. This vision reassured me."
A garbled report of Sri Ramakrishna's failing health, indifference to worldly life, and various abnormal activities reached Kamarpukur and filled the heart of his poor mother with anguish. At her repeated request he returned to his village for a change of air. But his boyhood friends did not interest him any more. A divine fever was consuming him. He spent a great part of the day and night in one of the cremation grounds, in meditation. The place reminded him of the impermanence of the human body, of human hopes and achievements. It also reminded him of Kali, the Goddess of destruction.
--
Hardly had he crossed the threshold of the Kali temple when he found himself again in the whirlwind. His madness reappeared tenfold. The same meditation and prayer, the same ecstatic moods, the same burning sensation, the same weeping, the same sleeplessness, the same indifference to the body and the outside world, the same divine delirium. He subjected himself to fresh disciplines in order to eradicate greed and lust, the two great impediments to spiritual progress. With a rupee in one hand and some earth in the other, he would reflect on the comparative value of these two for the realization of God, and finding them equally worthless he would toss them, with equal indifference, into the Ganges. Women he regarded as the manifestations of the Divine Mother. Never even in a dream did he feel the impulses of lust. And to root out of his mind the idea of caste superiority, he cleaned a pariahs house with his long and neglected hair. When he would sit in meditation, birds would perch on his head and peck in his hair for grains of food. Snakes would crawl over his body, and neither would be aware of the other. Sleep left him altogether. Day and night, visions flitted before him. He saw the sannyasi who had previously killed the "sinner" in him again coming out of his body, threatening him with the trident, and ordering him to concentrate on God. Or the same sannyasi would visit distant places, following a luminous path, and bring him reports of what was happening there. Sri Ramakrishna used to say later That in the case of an advanced devotee the mind itself becomes the guru, living and moving like an embodied being.
Rani Rasmani, the foundress of the temple garden, passed away in 1861. After her death her son-in-law Mathur became the sole executor of the estate. He placed himself and his resources at the disposal of Sri Ramakrishna and began to look after his physical comfort. Sri Ramakrishna later spoke of him as one of his five "suppliers of stores" appointed by the Divine Mother. Whenever a desire arose in his mind, Mathur fulfilled it without hesitation.
--
Sri Ramakrishna welcomed the visitor with great respect, described to her his experiences and visions, and told her of people's belief That these were symptoms of madness. She listened to him attentively and said: "My son, everyone in this world is mad. Some are mad for money, some for creature comforts, some for name and fame; and you are mad for God." She assured him That he was passing through the almost unknown spiritual experience described in the scriptures as mahabhava, the most exalted rapture of divine love. She told him That this extreme exaltation had been described as manifesting itself through nineteen physical symptoms, including the shedding of tears, a tremor of the body, horripilation, perspiration, and a burning sensation. The Bhakti scriptures, she declared, had recorded only two instances of the experience, namely, those of Sri Radha and Sri Chaitanya.
Very soon a tender relationship sprang up between Sri Ramakrishna and the Brahmani, she looking upon him as the Baby Krishna, and he upon her as mother. Day after day she watched his ecstasy during the kirtan and meditation, his samadhi, his mad yearning; and she recognized in him a power to transmit spirituality to others. She came to the conclusion That such things were not possible for an ordinary devotee, not even for a highly developed soul. Only an Incarnation of God was capable of such spiritual manifestations. She proclaimed openly That Sri Ramakrishna, like Sri Chaitanya, was an Incarnation of God.
When Sri Ramakrishna told Mathur what the Brahmani had said about him, Mathur shook his head in doubt. He was reluctant to accept him as an Incarnation of God, an Avatar comparable to Rama, Krishna, Buddha, and Chaitanya, though he admitted Sri Ramakrishna's extraordinary spirituality. Whereupon the Brahmani asked Mathur to arrange a conference of scholars who should discuss the matter with her. He agreed to the proposal and the meeting was arranged. It was to be held in the natmandir in front of the Kali temple.
Two famous pundits of the time were invited: Vaishnavcharan, the leader of the Vaishnava society, and Gauri. The first to arrive was Vaishnavcharan, with a distinguished company of scholars and devotees. The Brahmani, like a proud mother, proclaimed her view before him and supported it with quotations from the scriptures. As the pundits discussed the deep theological question, Sri Ramakrishna, perfectly indifferent to everything happening around him, sat in their midst like a child, immersed in his own thoughts, sometimes smiling, sometimes chewing a pinch of spices from a pouch, or again saying to Vaishnavcharan with a nudge: "Look here. Sometimes I feel like this, too." Presently Vaishnavcharan arose to declare himself in total agreement with the view of the Brahmani. He declared That Sri Ramakrishna had undoubtedly experienced mahabhava and That this was the certain sign of the rare manifestation of God in a man. The people assembled
there, especially the officers of the temple garden, were struck dumb. Sri Rama- krishna said to Mathur, like a boy: "Just fancy, he too says so! Well, I am glad to learn That after all it is not a disease."
When, a few days later, Pundit Gauri arrived, another meeting was held, and he agreed with the view of the Brahmani and Vaishnavcharan. To Sri Ramakrishna's remark That Vaishnavcharan had declared him to be an Avatar, Gauri replied: "Is That all he has to say about you? Then he has said very little. I am fully convinced That you are That Mine of Spiritual Power, only a small fraction of which descends on earth, from time to time, in the form of an Incarnation."
"Ah!" said Sri Ramakrishna with a smile, "you seem to have quite outbid Vaishnavcharan in this matter. What have you found in me That makes you entertain such an idea?"
Gauri said: "I feel it in my heart and I have the scriptures on my side. I am ready to prove it to anyone who challenges me."
--
Thus the insane priest was by verdict of the great scholars of the day proclaimed a Divine Incarnation. His visions were not the result of an over-heated brain; they had precedent in spiritual history. And how did the proclamation affect Sri Ramakrishna himself? He remained the simple child of the Mother That he had been since the first day of his life. Years later, when two of his householder disciples openly spoke of him as a Divine Incarnation and the matter was reported to him, he said with a touch of sarcasm: "Do they think they will enhance my glory That way? One of them is an actor on the stage and the other a physician. What do they know about Incarnations? Why, years ago pundits like Gauri and Vaishnavcharan declared me to be an Avatar. They were great scholars and knew what they said. But That did not make any change in my mind."
Sri Ramakrishna was a learner all his life. He often used to quote a proverb to his disciples: "Friend, the more I live the more I learn." When the excitement created by the Brahmani's declaration was over, he set himself to the task of practising spiritual disciplines according to the traditional methods laid down in the Tantra and Vaishnava scriptures. Hitherto he had pursued his spiritual ideal according to the promptings of his own mind and heart. Now he accepted the Brahmani as his guru and set foot on the traditional highways.
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The average man wishes to enjoy the material objects of the world. Tantra bids him enjoy these, but at the same time discover in them the presence of God. Mystical rites are prescribed by which, slowly, the sense-objects become spiritualized and sense attraction is transformed into a love of God. So the very "bonds" of man are turned into "releasers". The very poison That kills is transmuted into the elixir of life. Outward renunciation is not necessary. Thus the aim of Tantra is to sublimate bhoga, or enjoyment into yoga, or union with Consciousness. For, according to this philosophy, the world with all its manifestations is nothing but the sport of Siva and Sakti, the Absolute and Its inscrutable Power.
The disciplines of Tantra are graded to suit aspirants of all degrees. Exercises are prescribed for people with "animal", "heroic", and "divine" outlooks. Certain of the rites require the presence of members of the opposite sex. Here the aspirant learns to look on woman as the embodiment of the Goddess Kali, the Mother of the Universe. The very basis of Tantra is the Motherhood of God and the glorification of woman. Every part of a woman's body is to be regarded as incarnate Divinity. But the rites are extremely dangerous. The help of a qualified guru is absolutely necessary. An unwary devotee may lose his foothold and fall into a pit of depravity.
According to the Tantra, Sakti is the active creative force in the universe. Siva, the Absolute, is a more or less passive principle. Further, Sakti is as inseparable from Siva as fire's power to burn is from fire itself. Sakti, the Creative Power, contains in Its womb the universe, and therefore is the Divine Mother. All women are Her symbols. Kali is one of Her several forms. The meditation on Kali, the Creative Power, is the central discipline of the Tantra. While meditating, the aspirant at first regards himself as one with the Absolute and then thinks That out of That Impersonal Consciousness emerge two entities, namely, his own self and the living form of the Goddess. He then projects the Goddess into the tangible image before him and worships it as the Divine Mother.
Sri Ramakrishna set himself to the task of practising the disciplines of Tantra; and at the bidding of the Divine Mother Herself he accepted the Brahmani as his guru. He performed profound and delicate ceremonies in the Panchavati and under the bel-tree at the northern extremity of the temple compound. He practised all the disciplines of the sixty-four principal Tantra books, and it took him never more than three days to achieve the result promised in any one of them. After the observance of a few preliminary rites, he would be overwhelmed with a strange divine fervour and would go into samadhi, where his mind would dwell in exaltation. Evil ceased to exist for him. The word "carnal" lost its meaning. The whole world and everything in it appeared as the lila, the sport, of Siva and Sakti. He beheld held everywhere manifest the power and beauty of the Mother; the whole world, animate and inanimate, appeared to him as pervaded with Chit, Consciousness, and with Ananda, Bliss.
--
But the most remarkable experience during this period was the awakening of the Kundalini Sakti, the "Serpent Power". He actually saw the Power, at first lying asleep at the bottom of the spinal column, then waking up and ascending along the mystic Sushumna canal and through its six centres, or lotuses, to the Sahasrara, the thousand-petalled lotus in the top of the head. He further saw That as the Kundalini went upward the different lotuses bloomed. And this phenomenon was accompanied by visions and trances. Later on he described to his disciples and devotees the various movements of the Kundalini: the fishlike, birdlike, monkeylike, and so on. The awaken- ing of the Kundalini is the beginning of spiritual consciousness, and its union with Siva in the Sahasrara, ending in samadhi, is the consummation of the Tantrik disciplines.
About this time it was revealed to him That in a short while many devotees would seek his guidance.
--- VAISHNAVA DISCIPLINES
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Vaishnavism is exclusively a religion of bhakti. Bhakti is intense love of God, attachment to Him alone; it is of the nature of bliss and bestows upon the lover immortality and liberation. God, according to Vaishnavism, cannot be realized through logic or reason; and, without bhakti, all penances, austerities and rites are futile. Man cannot realize God by self-exertion alone. For the vision of God His grace is absolutely necessary, and this grace is felt by the pure of heart. The mind is to be purified through bhakti. The pure mind then remains for ever immersed in the ecstasy of God-vision. It is the cultivation of this divine love That is the chief concern of the Vaishnava religion.
There are three kinds of formal devotion: tamasic, rajasic, and sattvic. If a person, while showing devotion, to God, is actuated by malevolence, arrogance, jealousy, or anger, then his devotion is tamasic, since it is influenced by tamas, the quality of inertia. If he worships God from a desire for fame or wealth, or from any other worldly ambition, then his devotion is rajasic, since it is influenced by rajas, the quality of activity. But if a person loves God without any thought of material gain, if he performs his duties to please God alone and maintains toward all created beings the attitude of friendship, then his devotion is called sattvic, since it is influenced by sattva, the quality of harmony. But the highest devotion transcends the three gunas, or qualities, being a spontaneous, uninterrupted inclination of the mind toward God, the Inner Soul of all beings; and it wells up in the heart of a true devotee as soon as he hears the name of God or mention of God's attributes. A devotee possessed of this love would not accept the happiness of heaven if it were offered him. His one desire is to love God under all conditions — in pleasure and pain, life and death, honour and dishonour, prosperity and adversity.
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While practising the discipline of the madhur bhava, the male devotee often regards himself as a woman, in order to develop the most intense form of love for Sri Krishna, the only purusha, or man, in the universe. This assumption of the attitude of the opposite sex has a deep psychological significance. It is a matter of common experience That an idea may be cultivated to such an intense degree That every idea alien to it is driven from the mind. This peculiarity of the mind may be utilized for the subjugation of the lower desires and the development of the spiritual nature. Now, the idea which is the basis of all desires and passions in a man is the conviction of his indissoluble association with a male body. If he can inoculate himself thoroughly with the idea That he is a woman, he can get rid of the desires peculiar to his male body. Again, the idea That he is a woman may in turn be made to give way to another higher idea, namely, That he is neither man nor woman, but the Impersonal Spirit. The Impersonal Spirit alone can enjoy real communion with the Impersonal God. Hence the highest est realization of the Vaishnava draws close to the transcendental experience of the Vedantist.
A beautiful expression of the Vaishnava worship of God through love is to be found in the Vrindavan episode of the Bhagavata. The gopis, or milk-maids, of Vrindavan regarded the six-year-old Krishna as their Beloved. They sought no personal gain or happiness from this love. They surrendered to Krishna their bodies, minds, and souls. Of all the gopis, Radhika, or Radha, because of her intense love for Him, was the closest to Krishna. She manifested mahabhava and was united with her Beloved. This union represents, through sensuous language, a supersensuous experience.
--
About the year 1864 there came to Dakshineswar a wandering Vaishnava monk, Jatadhari, whose Ideal Deity was Rama. He always carried with him a small metal image of the Deity, which he called by the endearing name of Ramlala, the Boy Rama. Toward this little image he displayed the tender affection of Kausalya for her divine Son, Rama. As a result of lifelong spiritual practice he had actually found in the metal image the presence of his Ideal. Ramlala was no longer for him a metal image, but the living God. He devoted himself to nursing Rama, feeding Rama, playing with Rama, taking Rama for a walk, and bathing Rama. And he found That the image responded to his love.
Sri Ramakrishna, much impressed with his devotion, requested Jatadhari to spend a few days at Dakshineswar. Soon Ramlala became the favourite companion of Sri Ramakrishna too. Later on he described to the devotees how the little image would dance gracefully before him, jump on his back, insist on being taken in his arms, run to the fields in the sun, pluck flowers from the bushes, and play pranks like a naughty boy. A very sweet relationship sprang up between him and Ramlala, for whom he felt the love of a mother.
One day Jatadhari requested Sri Ramakrishna to keep the image and bade him adieu with tearful eyes. He declared That Ramlala had fulfilled his innermost prayer and That he now had no more need of formal worship. A few days later Sri Ramakrishna was blessed through Ramlala with a vision of Ramachandra, whereby he realized That the Rama of the Ramayana, the son of Dasaratha, pervades the whole universe as Spirit and Consciousness; That He is its Creator, Sustainer, and Destroyer; That, in still another aspect, He is the transcendental Brahman, without form, attribute, or name.
While worshipping Ramlala as the Divine Child, Sri Ramakrishna's heart became filled with motherly tenderness, and he began to regard himself as a woman. His speech and gestures changed. He began to move freely with the ladies of Mathur's family, who now looked upon him as one of their own sex. During this time he worshipped the Divine Mother as Her companion or handmaid.
--
He said later on: "It is impossible to describe the heavenly beauty and sweetness of Radha. Her very appearance showed That she had completely forgotten herself in her passionate attachment to Krishna. Her complexion was a light yellow."
Now one with Radha, he manifested the great ecstatic love, the mahabhava, which had found in her its fullest expression. Later Sri Ramakrishna said: "The manifestation in the same individual of the nineteen different kinds of emotion for God is called, in the books on bhakti, mahabhava. An ordinary man takes a whole lifetime to express even a single one of these. But in this body [meaning himself] there has been a complete manifestation of all nineteen."
The love of Radha is the precursor of the resplendent vision of Sri Krishna, and Sri Ramakrishna soon experienced That vision. The enchanting ing form of Krishna appeared to him and merged in his person. He became Krishna; he totally forgot his own individuality and the world; he saw Krishna in himself and in the universe. Thus he attained to the fulfilment of the worship of the Personal God. He drank from the fountain of Immortal Bliss. The agony of his heart vanished forever. He realized Amrita, Immortality, beyond the shadow of death.
One day, listening to a recitation of the Bhagavata on the verandah of the Radhakanta temple, he fell into a divine mood and saw the enchanting form of Krishna. He perceived the luminous rays issuing from Krishna's Lotus Feet in the form of a stout rope, which touched first the Bhagavata and then his own chest, connecting all three — God, the scripture, and the devotee. "After this vision", he used to say, "I came to realize That Bhagavan, Bhakta, and Bhagavata — God, Devotee, and Scripture — are in reality one and the same."
--- VEDANTA
--
The path of the Vedantic discipline is the path of negation, "neti", in which, by stern determination, all That is unreal is both negated and renounced. It is the path of jnana, knowledge, the direct method of realizing the Absolute. After the negation of everything relative, including the discriminating ego itself, the aspirant merges in the One without a Second, in the bliss of nirvikalpa samadhi, where subject and object are alike dissolved. The soul goes beyond the realm of thought. The domain of duality is transcended. Maya is left behind with all its changes and modifications. The Real Man towers above the delusions of creation, preservation, and destruction. An avalanche of indescribable Bliss sweeps away all relative ideas of pain and pleasure, good and evil. There shines in the heart the glory of the Eternal Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. Knower, knowledge, and known are dissolved in the Ocean of one eternal Consciousness; love, lover, and beloved merge in the unbounded Sea of supreme Felicity; birth, growth, and death vanish in infinite Existence. All doubts and misgivings are quelled for ever; the oscillations of the mind are stopped; the momentum of past actions is exhausted. Breaking down the ridge-pole of the tabernacle in which the soul has made its abode for untold ages, stilling the body, calming the mind, drowning the ego, the sweet joy of Brahman wells up in That superconscious state. Space disappears into nothingness, time is swallowed in eternity, and causation becomes a dream of the past. Only Existence is. Ah! Who can describe what the soul then feels in its communion with the Self?
Even when man descends from this dizzy height, he is devoid of ideas of "I" and "mine"; he looks on the body as a mere shadow, an outer sheath encasing the soul. He does not dwell on the past, takes no thought for the future, and looks with indifference on the present. He surveys everything in the world with an eye of equality; he is no longer touched by the infinite variety of phenomena; he no longer reacts to pleasure and pain. He remains unmoved whether he — That is to say, his body — is worshipped by the good or tormented by the wicked; for he realizes That it is the one Brahman That manifests Itself through everything. The impact of such an experience devastates the body and mind. Consciousness becomes blasted, as it were, with an excess of Light. In the Vedanta books it is said That after the experience of nirvikalpa samadhi the body drops off like a dry leaf. Only those who are born with a special mission for the world can return
from this height to the valleys of normal life. They live and move in the world for the welfare of mankind. They are invested with a supreme spiritual power. A divine glory shines through them.
--
Totapuri arrived at the Dakshineswar temple garden toward the end of 1864. Perhaps born in the Punjab, he was the head of a monastery in That province of India and claimed leadership of seven hundred sannyasis. Trained from early youth in the disciplines of the Advaita Vedanta, he looked upon the world as an illusion. The gods and goddesses of the dualistic worship were to him mere fantasies of the deluded mind. Prayers, ceremonies, rites, and rituals had nothing to do with true religion, and about these he was utterly indifferent. Exercising self-exertion and unshakable will-power, he had liberated himself from attachment to the sense-objects of the relative universe. For forty years he had practised austere discipline on the bank of the sacred Narmada and had finally realized his identity with the Absolute. Thenceforward he roamed in the world as an unfettered soul, a lion free from the cage. Clad in a loin-cloth, he spent his days under the canopy of the sky alike in storm and sunshine, feeding his body on the slender pittance of alms. He had been visiting the estuary of the Ganges. On his return journey along the bank of the sacred river, led by the inscrutable Divine Will, he stopped at Dakshineswar.
Totapuri, discovering at once That Sri Ramakrishna was prepared to be a student of Vedanta, asked to initiate him into its mysteries. With the permission of the Divine Mother, Sri Ramakrishna agreed to the proposal. But Totapuri explained That only a sannyasi could receive the teaching of Vedanta. Sri Ramakrishna agreed to renounce the world, but with the stipulation That the ceremony of his initiation into the monastic order be performed in secret, to spare the feelings of his old mother, who had been living with him at Dakshineswar.
On the appointed day, in the small hours of the morning, a fire was lighted in the Panchavati. Totapuri and Sri Ramakrishna sat before it. The flame played on their faces. "Ramakrishna was a small brown man with a short beard and beautiful eyes, long dark eyes, full of light, obliquely set and slightly veiled, never very wide open, but seeing half-closed a great distance both outwardly and inwardly. His mouth was open over his white teeth in a bewitching smile, at once affectionate and mischievous. Of medium height, he was thin to emaciation and extremely delicate. His temperament was high-strung, for he was supersensitive to all the winds of joy and sorrow, both moral and physical. He was indeed a living reflection of all That happened before the mirror of his eyes, a two-sided mirror, turned both out and in." (Romain Rolland, Prophets of the New India, pp. 38-9.) Facing him, the other rose like a rock. He was very tall and robust, a sturdy and tough oak. His constitution and mind were of iron. He was the strong leader of men.
In the burning flame before him Sri Ramakrishna performed the rituals of destroying his attachment to relatives, friends, body, mind, sense-organs, ego, and the world. The leaping flame swallowed it all, making the initiate free and pure. The sacred thread and the tuft of hair were consigned to the fire, completing his severance from caste, sex, and society. Last of all he burnt in That fire, with all That is holy as his witness, his desire for enjoyment here and hereafter. He uttered the sacred mantras giving assurance of safety and fearlessness to all beings, who were only manifestations of his own Self. The rites completed, the disciple received from the guru the loin-cloth and ochre robe, the emblems of his new life.
The teacher and the disciple repaired to the meditation room near by. Totapuri began to impart to Sri Ramakrishna the great truths of Vedanta.
"Brahman", he said, "is the only Reality, ever pure, ever illumined, ever free, beyond the limits of time, space, and causation. Though apparently divided by names and forms through the inscrutable power of maya, That enchantress who makes the impossible possible, Brahman is really One and undivided. When a seeker merges in the beatitude of samadhi, he does not perceive time and space or name and form, the offspring of maya. Whatever is within the domain of maya is unreal. Give it up. Destroy the prison-house of name and form and rush out of it with the strength of a lion. Dive deep in search of the Self and realize It through samadhi. You will find the world of name and form vanishing into void, and the puny ego dissolving in Brahman-Consciousness. You will realize your identity with Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute." Quoting the Upanishad, Totapuri said: " That knowledge is shallow by which one sees or hears or knows another
. What is shallow is worthless and can never give real felicity. But the Knowledge by which one does not see another or hear another or know another, which is beyond duality, is great, and through such Knowledge one attains the Infinite Bliss. How can the mind and senses grasp That which shines in the heart of all as the Eternal Subject?"
Totapuri asked the disciple to withdraw his mind from all objects of the relative world, including the gods and goddesses, and to concentrate on the Absolute. But the task was not easy even for Sri Ramakrishna. He found it impossible to take his mind beyond Kali, the Divine Mother of the Universe. "After the initiation", Sri Ramakrishna once said, describing the event, "Nangta began to teach me the various conclusions of the Advaita Vedanta and asked me to withdraw the mind completely from all objects and dive deep into the Atman. But in spite of all my attempts I could not altogether cross the realm of name and form and bring my mind to the unconditioned state. I had no difficulty in taking the mind from all the objects of the world. But the radiant and too familiar figure of the Blissful Mother, the Embodiment of the essence of Pure Consciousness, appeared before me as a living reality. Her bewitching smile prevented me from passing into the Great Beyond. Again and again I tried, but She stood in my way every time. In despair I said to Nangta: 'It is hopeless. I cannot raise my mind to the unconditioned state and come face to face with Atman.' He grew excited and sharply said: 'What? You can't do it? But you have to.' He cast his eyes around. Finding a piece of glass he took it up and stuck it between my eyebrows. 'Concentrate the mind on this point!' he thundered. Then with stern determination I again sat to meditate. As soon as the gracious form of the Divine Mother appeared before me, I used my discrimination as a sword and with it clove Her in two. The last barrier fell. My spirit at once soared beyond the relative plane and I lost myself in samadhi."
Sri Ramakrishna remained completely absorbed in samadhi for three days. "Is it really true?" Totapuri cried out in astonishment. "Is it possible That he has attained in a single day what it took me forty years of strenuous practice to achieve? Great God! It is nothing short of a miracle!" With the help of Totapuri, Sri Ramakrishna's mind finally came down to the relative plane.
Totapuri, a monk of the most orthodox type, never stayed at a place more than three days. But he remained at Dakshineswar eleven months. He too had something to learn.
Totapuri had no idea of the struggles of ordinary men in the toils of passion and desire. Having maintained all through life the guilelessness of a child, he laughed at the idea of a man's being led astray by the senses. He was convinced That the world was maya and had only to be denounced to vanish for ever. A born non-dualist, he had no faith in a Personal God. He did not believe in the terrible aspect of Kali, much less in Her benign aspect. Music and the chanting of God's holy name were to him only so much nonsense. He ridiculed the spending of emotion on the worship of a Personal God.
--- KALI AND MAYA
Sri Ramakrishna, on the other hand, though fully aware, like his guru, That the world is an illusory appearance, instead of slighting maya, like an orthodox monist, acknowledged its power in the relative life. He was all love and reverence for maya, perceiving in it a mysterious and majestic expression of Divinity. To him maya itself was God, for everything was God. It was one of the faces of Brahman. What he had realized on the heights of the transcendental plane, he also found here below, everywhere about him, under the mysterious garb of names and forms. And this garb was a perfectly transparent sheath, through which he recognized the glory of the Divine Immanence. Maya, the mighty weaver of the garb, is none other than Kali, the Divine Mother. She is the primordial Divine Energy, Sakti, and She can no more be distinguished from the Supreme Brahman than can the power of burning be distinguished from fire. She projects the world and again withdraws it. She spins it as the spider spins its web. She is the Mother of the Universe, identical with the Brahman of Vedanta, and with the Atman of Yoga. As eternal Lawgiver, She makes and unmakes laws; it is by Her imperious will That karma yields its fruit. She ensnares men with illusion and again releases them from bondage with a look of Her benign eyes. She is the supreme Mistress of the cosmic play, and all objects, animate and inanimate, dance by Her will. Even those who realize the Absolute in nirvikalpa samadhi are under Her jurisdiction as long as they still live on the relative plane.
Thus, after nirvikalpa samadhi, Sri Ramakrishna realized maya in an altogether new role. The binding aspect of Kali vanished from before his vision. She no longer obscured his understanding. The world became the glorious manifestation of the Divine Mother. Maya became Brahman. The Transcendental Itself broke through the Immanent. Sri Ramakrishna discovered That maya operates in the relative world in two ways, and he termed these "avidyamaya" and "vidyamaya". Avidyamaya represents the dark forces of creation: sensuous desires, evil passions, greed, lust, cruelty, and so on. It sustains the world system on the lower planes. It is responsible for the round of man's birth and death. It must be fought and vanquished. But vidyamaya is the higher force of creation: the spiritual virtues, the enlightening qualities, kindness, purity, love, devotion. Vidyamaya elevates man to the higher planes of consciousness. With the help of vidyamaya the devotee rids himself of avidyamaya; he then becomes mayatita, free of maya. The two aspects of maya are the two forces of creation, the two powers of Kali; and She stands beyond them both. She is like the effulgent sun, bringing into existence and shining through and standing behind the clouds of different colours and shapes, conjuring up wonderful forms in the blue autumn heaven.
The Divine Mother asked Sri Ramakrishna not to be lost in the featureless Absolute but to remain, in bhavamukha, on the threshold of relative consciousness, the border line between the Absolute and the Relative. He was to keep himself at the "sixth centre" of Tantra, from which he could see not only the glory of the seventh, but also the divine manifestations of the Kundalini in the lower centres. He gently oscillated back and forth across the dividing line. Ecstatic devotion to the Divine Mother alternated with serene absorption in the Ocean of Absolute Unity. He thus bridged the gulf between the Personal and the Impersonal, the immanent and the transcendent aspects of Reality. This is a unique experience in the recorded spiritual history of the world.
--
One day, when guru and disciple were engaged in an animated discussion about Vedanta, a servant of the temple garden came there and took a coal from the sacred fire That had been lighted by the great ascetic. He wanted it to light his tobacco. Totapuri flew into a rage and was about to beat the man. Sri Ramakrishna rocked with laughter. "What a shame!" he cried. "You are explaining to me the reality of Brahman and the illusoriness of the world; yet now you have so far forgotten yourself as to be about to beat a man in a fit of passion. The power of maya is indeed inscrutable!" Totapuri was embarrassed.
About this time Totapuri was suddenly laid up with a severe attack of dysentery. On account of this miserable illness he found it impossible to meditate. One night the pain became excruciating. He could no longer concentrate on Brahman. The body stood in the way. He became incensed with its demands. A free soul, he did not at all care for the body. So he determined to drown it in the Ganges. Thereupon he walked into the river. But, lo! He walks to the other bank." (This version of the incident is taken from the biography of Sri Ramakrishna by Swami Saradananda, one of the Master's direct disciples.) Is there not enough water in the Ganges? Standing dumbfounded on the other bank he looks back across the water. The trees, the temples, the houses, are silhouetted against the sky. Suddenly, in one dazzling moment, he sees on all sides the presence of the Divine Mother. She is in everything; She is everything. She is in the water; She is on land. She is the body; She is the mind. She is pain; She is comfort. She is knowledge; She is ignorance. She is life; She is death. She is everything That one sees, hears, or imagines. She turns "yea" into "nay", and "nay" into "yea". Without Her grace no embodied being can go beyond Her realm. Man has no free will. He is not even free to die. Yet, again, beyond the body and mind She resides in Her Transcendental, Absolute aspect. She is the Brahman That Totapuri had been worshipping all his life.
Totapuri returned to Dakshineswar and spent the remaining hours of the night meditating on the Divine Mother. In the morning he went to the Kali temple with Sri Ramakrishna and prostrated himself before the image of the Mother. He now realized why he had spent eleven months at Dakshineswar. Bidding farewell to the disciple, he continued on his way, enlightened.
--
After the departure of Totapuri, Sri Ramakrishna remained for six months in a state of absolute identity with Brahman. "For six months at a stretch", he said, "I remained in That state from which ordinary men can never return; generally the body falls off, after three weeks, like a sere leaf. I was not conscious of day and night. Flies would enter my mouth and nostrils just as they do a dead body's, but I did not feel them. My hair became matted with dust."
His body would not have survived but for the kindly attention of a monk who happened to be at Dakshineswar at That time and who somehow realized That for the good of humanity Sri Ramakrishna's body must be preserved. He tried various means, even physical violence, to recall the fleeing soul to the prison-house of the body, and during the resultant fleeting moments of consciousness he would push a few morsels of food down Sri Ramakrishna's throat. Presently Sri Ramakrishna received the command of the Divine Mother to remain on the threshold of relative consciousness. Soon there-after after he was afflicted with a serious attack of dysentery. Day and night the pain tortured him, and his mind gradually came down to the physical plane.
--- COMPANY OF HOLY MEN AND DEVOTEES
--
Sri Ramakrishna used to say That when the flower blooms the bees come to it for honey of their own accord. Now many souls began to visit Dakshineswar to satisfy their spiritual hunger. He, the devotee and aspirant, became the Master. Gauri, the great scholar who had been one of the first to proclaim Sri Ramakrishna an Incarnation of God, paid the Master a visit in 1870 and with the Master's blessings renounced the world. Narayan Shastri, another great pundit, who had mastered the six systems of Hindu philosophy and had been offered a lucrative post by the Maharaja of Jaipur, met the Master and recognized in him one who had realized in life those ideals which he himself had encountered merely in books. Sri Ramakrishna initiated Narayan Shastri, at his earnest request, into the life of sannyas. Pundit Padmalochan, the court pundit of the Maharaja of Burdwan, well known for his scholarship in both the Vedanta and the Nyaya systems of philosophy, accepted the Master as an Incarnation of God. Krishnakishore, a Vedantist scholar, became devoted to the Master. And there arrived Viswanath Upadhyaya, who was to become a favourite devotee; Sri Ramakrishna always addressed him as "Captain". He was a high officer of the King of Nepal and had received the title of Colonel in recognition of his merit. A scholar of the Gita, the Bhagavata, and the Vedanta philosophy, he daily performed the worship of his Chosen Deity with great devotion. "I have read the Vedas and the other scriptures", he said. "I have also met a good many monks and devotees in different places. But it is in Sri Ramakrishna's presence That my spiritual yearnings have been fulfilled. To me he seems to be the embodiment of the truths of the scriptures."
The Knowledge of Brahman in nirvikalpa samadhi had convinced Sri Ramakrishna That the gods of the different religions are but so many readings of the Absolute, and That the Ultimate Reality could never be expressed by human tongue. He understood That all religions lead their devotees by differing paths to one and the same goal. Now he became eager to explore some of the alien religions; for with him understanding meant actual experience.
--- ISLAM
--
Eight years later, some time in November 1874, Sri Ramakrishna was seized with an irresistible desire to learn the truth of the Christian religion. He began to listen to readings from the Bible, by Sambhu Charan Mallick, a gentleman of Calcutta and a devotee of the Master. Sri Ramakrishna became fascinated by the life and teachings of Jesus. One day he was seated in the parlour of Jadu Mallick's garden house (This expression is used throughout to translate the Bengali word denoting a rich man's country house set in a garden.) at Dakshineswar, when his eyes became fixed on a painting of the Madonna and Child. Intently watching it, he became gradually overwhelmed with divine emotion. The figures in the picture took on life, and the rays of light emanating from them entered his soul. The effect of this experience was stronger than That of the vision of Mohammed. In dismay he cried out, "O Mother! What are You doing to me?" And, breaking through the barriers of creed and religion, he entered a new realm of ecstasy. Christ possessed his soul. For three days he did not set foot in the Kali temple. On the fourth day, in the afternoon, as he was walking in the Panchavati, he saw coming toward him a person with beautiful large eyes, serene countenance, and fair skin. As the two faced each other, a voice rang out in the depths of Sri Ramakrishna's soul: "Behold the Christ, who shed His heart's blood for the redemption of the world, who suffered a sea of anguish for love of men. It is He, the Master Yogi, who is in eternal union with God. It is Jesus, Love Incarnate." The Son of Man embraced the Son of the Divine Mother and merged in him. Sri Ramakrishna krishna realized his identity with Christ, as he had already realized his identity with Kali, Rama, Hanuman, Radha, Krishna, Brahman, and Mohammed. The Master went into samadhi and communed with the Brahman with attributes. Thus he experienced the truth That Christianity, too, was a path leading to God-Consciousness. Till the last moment of his life he believed That Christ was an Incarnation of God. But Christ, for him, was not the only Incarnation; there were others — Buddha, for instance, and Krishna.
--- ATTITUDE TOWARD DIFFERENT RELIGIONS
Sri Ramakrishna accepted the divinity of Buddha and used to point out the similarity of his teachings to those of the Upanishads. He also showed great respect for the Tirthankaras, who founded Jainism, and for the ten Gurus of Sikhism. But he did not speak of them as Divine Incarnations. He was heard to say That the Gurus of Sikhism were the reincarnations of King Janaka of ancient India. He kept in his room at Dakshineswar a small statue of Tirthankara Mahavira and a picture of Christ, before which incense was burnt morning and evening.
Without being formally initiated into their doctrines, Sri Ramakrishna thus realized the ideals of religions other than Hinduism. He did not need to follow any doctrine. All barriers were removed by his overwhelming love of God. So he became a Master who could speak with authority regarding the ideas and ideals of the various religions of the world. "I have practised", said he, "all religions — Hinduism, Islam, Christianity — and I have also followed the paths of the different Hindu sects. I have found That it is the same God toward whom all are directing their steps, though along different paths. You must try all beliefs and traverse all the different ways once. Wherever I look, I see men quarrelling in the name of religion — Hindus, Mohammedans, Brahmos, Vaishnavas, and the rest. But they never reflect That He who is called Krishna is also called Siva, and bears the name of the Primal Energy, Jesus, and Allah as well — the same Rama with a thousand names. A lake has several ghats. At one the Hindus take water in pitchers and call it 'jal'; at another the Mussalmans take water in leather bags and call it pani'. At a third the Christians call it 'water'. Can we imagine That it is not 'jal', but only 'pani' or 'water'? How ridiculous! The substance is One under different names, and everyone is seeking the same substance; only climate, temperament, and name create differences. Let each man follow his own path. If he sincerely and ardently wishes to know God, peace be unto him! He will surely realize Him."
In 1867 Sri Ramakrishna returned to Kamarpukur to recuperate from the effect of his austerities. The peaceful countryside, the simple and artless companions of his boyhood, and the pure air did him much good. The villagers were happy to get back their playful, frank, witty, kind-hearted, and truthful Gadadhar, though they did not fail to notice the great change That had come over him during his years in Calcutta. His wife, Sarada Devi, now fourteen years old, soon arrived at Kamarpukur. Her spiritual development was much beyond her age and she was able to understand immediately her husband's state of mind. She became eager to learn from him about God and to live with him as his attendant. The Master accepted her cheerfully both as his disciple and as his spiritual companion. Referring to the experiences of these few days, she once said: "I used to feel always as if a pitcher full of bliss were placed in my heart. The joy was indescribable."
--- PILGRIMAGE
On January 27, 1868, Mathur Babu with a party of some one hundred and twenty-five persons set out on a pilgrimage to the sacred places of northern India. At Vaidyanath in Behar, when the Master saw the inhabitants of a village reduced by poverty and starvation to mere skeletons, he requested his rich patron to feed the people and give each a piece of cloth. Mathur demurred at the added expense. The Master declared bitterly That he would not go on to Benares, but would live with the poor and share their miseries. He actually left Mathur and sat down with the villagers. Whereupon Mathur had to yield. On another occasion, two years later, Sri Ramakrishna showed a similar sentiment for the poor and needy. He accompanied Mathur on a tour to one of the latter's estates at the time of the collection of rents. For two years the harvests had failed and the tenants were in a state of extreme poverty. The Master asked Mathur to remit their rents, distribute help to them, and in addition give the hungry people a sumptuous feast. When Mathur grumbled, the Master said: "You are only the steward of the Divine Mother. They are the Mother's tenants. You must spend the Mother's money. When they are suffering, how can you refuse to help them? You must help them." Again Mathur had to give in. Sri Ramakrishna's sympathy for the poor sprang from his perception of God in all created beings. His sentiment was not That of the humanist or philanthropist. To him the service of man was the same as the worship of God.
The party entered holy Benares by boat along the Ganges. When Sri Ramakrishna's eyes fell on this city of Siva, where had accumulated for ages the devotion and piety of countless worshippers, he saw it to be made of gold, as the scriptures declare. He was visibly moved. During his stay in the city he treated every particle of its earth with utmost respect. At the Manikarnika Ghat, the great cremation ground of the city, he actually saw Siva, with ash-covered body and tawny matted hair, serenely approaching each funeral pyre and breathing into the ears of the corpses the mantra of liberation; and then the Divine Mother removing from the dead their bonds. Thus he realized the significance of the scriptural statement That anyone dying in Benares attains salvation through the grace of Siva. He paid a visit to Trailanga Swami, the celebrated monk, whom he later declared to be a real paramahamsa, a veritable image of Siva.
Sri Ramakrishna visited Allahabad, at the confluence of the Ganges and the Jamuna, and then proceeded to Vrindavan and Mathura, hallowed by the legends, songs, and dramas about Krishna and the gopis. Here he had numerous visions and his heart overflowed with divine emotion. He wept and said: "O Krishna! Everything here is as it was in the olden days. You alone are absent." He visited the great woman saint, Gangamayi, regarded by Vaishnava devotees as the reincarnation of an intimate attendant of Radha. She was sixty years old and had frequent trances. She spoke of Sri Ramakrishna as an incarnation of Radha. With great difficulty he was persuaded to leave her.
On the return journey Mathur wanted to visit Gaya, but Sri Ramakrishna declined to go. He recalled his father's vision at Gaya before his own birth and felt That in the temple of Vishnu he would become permanently absorbed in God. Mathur, honouring the Master's wish, returned with his party to Calcutta.
From Vrindavan the Master had brought a handful of dust. Part of this he scattered in the Panchavati; the rest he buried in the little hut where he had practised meditation. "Now this place", he said, "is as sacred as Vrindavan."
--
In 1872 Sarada Devi paid her first visit to her husband at Dakshineswar. Four years earlier she had seen him at Kamarpukur and had tasted the bliss of his divine company. Since then she had become even more gentle, tender, introspective, serious, and unselfish. She had heard many rumours about her husband's insanity. People had shown her pity in her misfortune. The more she thought, the more she felt That her duty was to be with him, giving him, in whatever measure she could, a wife's devoted service. She was now eighteen years old. Accompanied by her father, she arrived at Dakshineswar, having come on foot the distance of eighty miles. She had had an attack of fever on the way. When she arrived at the temple garden the Master said sorrowfully: "Ah! You have come too late. My Mathur is no longer here to look after you." Mathur had passed away the previous year.
The Master took up the duty of instructing his young wife, and this included everything from housekeeping to the Knowledge of Brahman. He taught her how to trim a lamp, how to behave toward people according to their differing temperaments, and how to conduct herself before visitors. He instructed her in the mysteries of spiritual life — prayer, meditation, japa, deep contemplation, and samadhi. The first lesson That Sarada Devi received was: "God is everybody's Beloved, just as the moon is dear to every child. Everyone has the same right to pray to Him. Out of His grace He reveals Himself to all who call upon Him. You too will see Him if you but pray to Him."
Totapuri, coming to know of the Master's marriage, had once remarked: "What does it matter? He alone is firmly established in the Knowledge of Brahman who can adhere to his spirit of discrimination and renunciation even while living with his wife. He alone has attained the supreme illumination who can look on man and woman alike as Brahman. A man with the idea of sex may be a good aspirant, but he is still far from the goal." Sri Ramakrishna and his wife lived together at Dakshineswar, but their minds always soared above the worldly plane. A few months after Sarada Devi's arrival Sri Ramakrishna arranged, on an auspicious day, a special worship of Kali, the Divine Mother. Instead of an image of the Deity, he placed on the seat the living image, Sarada Devi herself. The worshipper and the worshipped went into deep samadhi and in the transcendental plane their souls were united. After several hours Sri Ramakrishna came down again to the relative plane, sang a hymn to the Great Goddess, and surrendered, at the feet of the living image, himself, his rosary, and the fruit of his life-long sadhana. This is known in Tantra as the Shorasi Puja, the "Adoration of Woman". Sri Ramakrishna realized the significance of the great statement of the Upanishad: "O Lord, Thou art the woman. Thou art the man; Thou art the boy. Thou art the girl; Thou art the old, tottering on their crutches. Thou pervadest the universe in its multiple forms."
By his marriage Sri Ramakrishna admitted the great value of marriage in man's spiritual evolution, and by adhering to his monastic vows he demonstrated the imperative necessity of self-control, purity, and continence, in the realization of God. By this unique spiritual relationship with his wife he proved That husband and wife can live together as spiritual companions. Thus his life is a synthesis of the ways of life of the householder and the monk.
--- THE "EGO" OF THE MASTER
In the nirvikalpa samadhi Sri Ramakrishna had realized That Brahman alone is real and the world illusory. By keeping his mind six months on the plane of the non-dual Brahman, he had attained to the state of the vijnani, the knower of Truth in a special and very rich sense, who sees Brahman not only in himself and in the transcendental Absolute, but in everything of the world. In this state of vijnana, sometimes, bereft of body-consciousness, he would regard himself as one with Brahman; sometimes, conscious of the dual world, he would regard himself as God's devotee, servant, or child. In order to enable the Master to work for the welfare of humanity, the Divine Mother had kept in him a trace of ego, which he described — according to his mood — as the "ego of Knowledge", the "ego of Devotion", the "ego of a child", or the "ego of a servant". In any case this ego of the Master, consumed by the fire of the Knowledge of Brahman, was an appearance only, like a burnt string. He often referred to this ego as the "ripe ego" in contrast with the ego of the bound soul, which he described as the "unripe" or "green" ego. The ego of the bound soul identifies itself with the body, relatives, possessions, and the world; but the "ripe ego", illumined by Divine Knowledge, knows the body, relatives, possessions, and the world to be unreal and establishes a relationship of love with God alone. Through this "ripe ego" Sri Ramakrishna dealt with the world and his wife. One day, while stroking his feet, Sarada Devi asked the Master, "What do you think of me?" Quick came the answer: "The Mother who is worshipped in the temple is the mother who has given birth to my body and is now living in the nahabat, and it is She again who is stroking my feet at this moment. Indeed, I always look on you as the personification of the Blissful Mother Kali."
Sarada Devi, in the company of her husband, had rare spiritual experiences. She said: "I have no words to describe my wonderful exaltation of spirit as I watched him in his different moods. Under the influence of divine emotion he would sometimes talk on abstruse subjects, sometimes laugh, sometimes weep, and sometimes become perfectly motionless in samadhi. This would continue throughout the night. There was such an extraordinary divine presence in him That now and then I would shake with fear and wonder how the night would pass. Months went by in this way. Then one day he discovered That I had to keep awake the whole night lest, during my sleep, he should go into samadhi — for it might happen at any moment —, and so he asked me to sleep in the nahabat."
--- SUMMARY OF THE MASTER'S SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES
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Second, he knew That he had always been a free soul, That the various disciplines through which he had passed were really not necessary for his own liberation but were solely for the benefit of others. Thus the terms liberation and bondage were not applicable to him. As long as there are beings who consider themselves bound. God must come down to earth as an Incarnation to free them from bondage, just as a magistrate must visit any part of his district in which there is trouble.
Third, he came to foresee the time of his death. His words with respect to this matter were literally fulfilled.
About spirituality in general the following were his conclusions: First, he was firmly convinced That all religions are true, That every doctrinal system represents a path to God. He had followed all the main paths and all had led him to the same goal. He was the first religious prophet recorded in history to preach the harmony of religions.
Second, the three great systems of thought known as Dualism, Qualified Non-dualism, and Absolute Non-dualism — Dvaita, Visishtadvaita, and Advaita — he perceived to represent three stages in man's progress toward the Ultimate Reality. They were not contradictory but complementary and suited to different temperaments. For the ordinary man with strong attachment to the senses, a dualistic form of religion, prescribing a certain amount of material support, such as music and other symbols, is useful. A man of God-realization transcends the idea of worldly duties, but the ordinary mortal must perform his duties, striving to be unattached and to surrender the results to God. The mind can comprehend and describe the range of thought and experience up to the Visishtadvaita, and no further. The Advaita, the last word in spiritual experience, is something to be felt in samadhi. for it transcends mind and speech. From the highest standpoint, the Absolute and Its manifestation are equally real — the Lord's Name, His Abode, and the Lord Himself are of the same spiritual Essence. Everything is Spirit, the difference being only in form.
Third, Sri Ramakrishna realized the wish of the Divine Mother That through him She should found a new Order, consisting of those who would uphold the universal doctrines illustrated in his life.
Fourth, his spiritual insight told him That those who were having their last birth on the mortal plane of existence and those who had sincerely called on the Lord even once in their lives must come to him.
During this period Sri Ramakrishna suffered several bereavements. The first was the death of a nephew named Akshay. After the young man's death Sri Ramakrishna said: "Akshay died before my very eyes. But it did not affect me in the least. I stood by and watched a man die. It was like a sword being drawn from its scabbard. I enjoyed the scene, and laughed and sang and danced over it. They removed the body and cremated it. But the next day as I stood there (pointing to the southeast verandah of his room), I felt a racking pain for the loss of Akshay, as if somebody were squeezing my heart like a wet towel. I wondered at it and thought That the Mother was teaching me a lesson. I was not much concerned even with my own body — much less with a relative. But if such was my pain at the loss of a nephew, how much more must be the grief of the householders at the loss of their near and dear ones!" In 1871 Mathur died, and some five years later Sambhu Mallick — who, after Mathur's passing away, had taken care of the Master's comfort. In 1873 died his elder brother Rameswar, and in 1876, his beloved mother. These bereavements left their imprint on the tender human heart of Sri Ramakrishna, albeit he had realized the immortality of the soul and the illusoriness of birth and death.
In March 1875, about a year before the death of his mother, the Master met Keshab Chandra Sen. The meeting was a momentous event for both Sri Ramakrishna and Keshab. Here the Master for the first time came into actual, contact with a worthy representative of modern India.
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Keshab was the leader of the Brahmo Samaj, one of the two great movements That, during the latter part of the nineteenth century, played an important part in shaping the course of the renascence of India. The founder of the Brahmo movement had been the great Raja Rammohan Roy (1774-1833). Though born in an orthodox brahmin family, Rammohan Roy had shown great sympathy for Islam and Christianity. He had gone to Tibet in search of the Buddhist mysteries. He had extracted from Christianity its ethical system, but had rejected the divinity of Christ as he had denied the Hindu Incarnations. The religion of Islam influenced him, to a great extent, in the formulation of his monotheistic doctrines. But he always went back to the Vedas for his spiritual inspiration. The Brahmo Samaj, which he founded in 1828, was dedicated to the "worship and adoration of the Eternal, the Unsearchable, the Immutable Being, who is the Author and Preserver of the Universe". The Samaj was open to all without distinction of colour, creed, caste, nation, or religion.
The real organizer of the Samaj was Devendranath Tagore (1817-1905), the father of the poet Rabindranath. His physical and spiritual beauty, aristocratic aloofness, penetrating intellect, and poetic sensibility made him the foremost leader of the educated Bengalis. These addressed him by the respectful epithet of Maharshi, the "Great Seer". The Maharshi was a Sanskrit scholar and, unlike Raja Rammohan Roy, drew his inspiration entirely from the Upanishads. He was an implacable enemy of image worship ship and also fought to stop the infiltration of Christian ideas into the Samaj. He gave the movement its faith and ritual. Under his influence the Brahmo Samaj professed One Self-existent Supreme Being who had created the universe out of nothing, the God of Truth, Infinite Wisdom, Goodness, and Power, the Eternal and Omnipotent, the One without a Second. Man should love Him and do His will, believe in Him and worship Him, and thus merit salvation in the world to come.
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Keshab possessed a complex nature. When passing through a great moral crisis, he spent much of his time in solitude and felt That he heard the voice of God, When a devotional form of worship was introduced into the Brahmo Samaj, he spent hours in singing kirtan with his followers. He visited England land in 1870 and impressed the English people with his musical voice, his simple English, and his spiritual fervour. He was entertained by Queen Victoria. Returning to India, he founded centres of the Brahmo Samaj in various parts of the country. Not unlike a professor of comparative religion in a European university, he began to discover, about the time of his first contact with Sri Ramakrishna, the harmony of religions. He became sympathetic toward the Hindu gods and goddesses, explaining them in a liberal fashion. Further, he believed That he was called by God to dictate to the world God's newly revealed law, the New Dispensation, the Navavidhan.
In 1878 a schism divided Keshab's Samaj. Some of his influential followers accused him of infringing the Brahmo principles by marrying his daughter to a wealthy man before she had attained the marriageable age approved by the Samaj. This group seceded and established the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, Keshab remaining the leader of the Navavidhan. Keshab now began to be drawn more and more toward the Christ ideal, though under the influence of Sri Ramakrishna his devotion to the Divine Mother also deepened. His mental oscillation between Christ and the Divine Mother of Hinduism found no position of rest. In Bengal and some other parts of India the Brahmo movement took the form of unitarian Christianity, scoffed at Hindu rituals, and preached a crusade against image worship. Influenced by Western culture, it declared the supremacy of reason, advocated the ideals of the French Revolution, abolished the caste-system among its own members, stood for the emancipation of women, agitated for the abolition of early marriage, sanctioned the remarriage of widows, and encouraged various educational and social-reform movements. The immediate effect of the Brahmo movement in Bengal was the checking of the proselytizing activities of the Christian missionaries. It also raised Indian culture in the estimation of its English masters. But it was an intellectual and eclectic religious ferment born of the necessity of the time. Unlike Hinduism, it was not founded on the deep inner experiences of sages and prophets. Its influence was confined to a comparatively few educated men and women of the country, and the vast masses of the Hindus remained outside it. It sounded monotonously only one of the notes in the rich gamut of the Eternal Religion of the Hindus.
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The other movement playing an important part in the nineteenth-century religious revival of India was the Arya Samaj. The Brahmo Samaj, essentially a movement of compromise with European culture, tacitly admitted the superiority of the West. But the founder of the Arya Samaj was a ' pugnacious Hindu sannyasi who accepted the challenge of Islam and Christianity and was resolved to combat all foreign influence in India. Swami Dayananda (1824-1883) launched this movement in Bombay in 1875, and soon its influence was felt throughout western India. The Swami was a great scholar of the Vedas, which he explained as being strictly monotheistic. He preached against the worship of images and re-established the ancient Vedic sacrificial rites. According to him the Vedas were the ultimate authority on religion, and he accepted every word of them as literally true. The Arya Samaj became a bulwark against the encroachments of Islam and Christianity, and its orthodox flavour appealed to many Hindu minds. It also assumed leadership in many movements of social reform. The caste-system became a target of its attack. Women it liberated from many of their social disabilities. The cause of education received from it a great impetus. It started agitation against early marriage and advocated the remarriage of Hindu widows. Its influence was strongest in the Punjab, the battle-ground of the Hindu and Islamic cultures. A new fighting attitude was introduced into the slumbering Hindu society. Unlike the Brahmo Samaj, the influence of the Arya Samaj was not confined to the intellectuals. It was a force That spread to the masses. It was a dogmatic movement intolerant of those who disagreed with its views, and it emphasized only one way, the Arya Samaj way, to the realization of Truth. Sri Ramakrishna met Swami Dayananda when the latter visited Bengal.
--- KESHAB CHANDRA SEN
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Shivanath, one day, was greatly impressed by the Master's utter simplicity and abhorrence of praise. He was seated with Sri Ramakrishna in the latter's room when several rich men of Calcutta arrived. The Master left the room for a few minutes. In the mean time Hriday, his nephew, began to describe his samadhi to the visitors. The last few words caught the Master's ear as he entered the room. He said to Hriday: "What a mean-spirited fellow you must be to extol me thus before these rich men! You have seen their costly apparel and their gold watches and chains, and your object is to get from them as much money as you can. What do I care about what they think of me? (Turning to the gentlemen) No, my friends, what he has told you about me is not true. It was not love of God That made me absorbed in God and indifferent to external life. I became positively insane for some time. The sadhus who frequented this temple told me to practise many things. I tried to follow them, and the consequence was That my austerities drove me to insanity." This is a quotation from one of Shivanath's books. He took the Master's words literally and failed to see their real import.
Shivanath vehemently criticized the Master for his other-worldly attitude toward his wife. He writes: "Ramakrishna was practically separated from his wife, who lived in her village home. One day when I was complaining to some friends about the virtual widowhood of his wife, he drew me to one side and whispered in my ear: 'Why do you complain? It is no longer possible; it is all dead and gone.' Another day as I was inveighing against this part of his teaching, and also declaring That our program of work in the Brahmo Samaj includes women, That ours is a social and domestic religion, and That we want to give education and social liberty to women, the saint became very much excited, as was his way when anything against his settled conviction was asserted — a trait we so much liked in him — and exclaimed, 'Go, thou fool, go and perish in the pit That your women will dig for you.' Then he glared at me and said: 'What does a gardener do with a young plant? Does he not surround it with a fence, to protect it from goats and cattle? And when the young plant has grown up into a tree and it can no longer be injured by cattle, does he not remove the fence and let the tree grow freely?' I replied, 'Yes, That is the custom with gardeners.' Then he remarked, 'Do the same in your spiritual life; become strong, be full-grown; then you may seek them.' To which I replied, 'I don't agree with you in thinking That women's work is like That of cattle, destructive; they are our associates and helpers in our spiritual struggles and social progress' — a view with which he could not agree, and he marked his dissent by shaking his head. Then referring to the lateness of the hour he jocularly remarked, 'It is time for you to depart; take care, do not be late; otherwise your woman will not admit you into her room.' This evoked hearty laughter."
Pratap Chandra Mazumdar, the right-hand man of Keshab and an accomplished Brahmo preacher in Europe and America, bitterly criticized Sri Ramakrishna's use of uncultured language and also his austere attitude toward his wife. But he could not escape the spell of the Master's personality. In the course of an article about Sri Ramakrishna, Pratap wrote in the "Theistic Quarterly Review": "What is there in common between him and me? I, a Europeanized, civilized, self-centred, semi-sceptical, so-called educated reasoner, and he, a poor, illiterate, unpolished, half-idolatrous, friendless Hindu devotee? Why should I sit long hours to attend to him, I, who have listened to Disraeli and Fawcett, Stanley and Max Muller, and a whole host of European scholars and divines? . . . And it is not I only, but dozens like me, who do the same. . . . He worships Siva, he worships Kali, he worships Rama, he worships Krishna, and is a confirmed advocate of Vedantic doctrines. . . . He is an idolater, yet is a faithful and most devoted meditator on the perfections of the One Formless, Absolute, Infinite Deity. . . . His religion is ecstasy, his worship means transcendental insight, his whole nature burns day and night with a permanent fire and fever of a strange faith and feeling. . . . So long as he is spared to us, gladly shall we sit at his feet to learn from him the sublime precepts of purity, unworldliness, spirituality, and inebriation in the love of God. . . . He, by his childlike bhakti, by his strong conceptions of an ever-ready Motherhood, helped to unfold it [God as our Mother] in our minds wonderfully. . . . By associating with him we learnt to realize better the divine attributes as scattered over the three hundred and thirty millions of deities of mythological India, the gods of the Puranas."
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This contact with the educated and progressive Bengalis opened Sri Ramakrishna's eyes to a new realm of thought. Born and brought up in a simple village, without any formal education, and taught by the orthodox holy men of India in religious life, he had had no opportunity to study the influence of modernism on the thoughts and lives of the Hindus. He could not properly estimate the result of the impact of Western education on Indian culture. He was a Hindu of the Hindus, renunciation being to him the only means to the realization of God in life. From the Brahmos he learnt That the new generation of India made a compromise between God and the world. Educated young men were influenced more by the Western philosophers than by their own prophets. But Sri Ramakrishna was not dismayed, for he saw in this, too, the hand of God. And though he expounded to the Brahmos all his ideas about God and austere religious disciplines, yet he bade them accept from his teachings only as much as suited their tastes and temperaments.
^The term "woman and gold", which has been used throughout in a collective sense, occurs again and again in the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna to designate the chief impediments to spiritual progress. This favourite expression of the Master, "kaminikanchan", has often been misconstrued. By it he meant only "lust and greed", the baneful influence of which retards the aspirant's spiritual growth. He used the word "kamini", or "woman", as a concrete term for the sex instinct when addressing his man devotees. He advised women, on the other hand, to shun "man". "Kanchan", or "gold", symbolizes greed, which is the other obstacle to spiritual life.
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Contact with the Brahmos increased Sri Ramakrishna's longing to encounter aspirants who would be able to follow his teachings in their purest form. "There was no limit", he once declared, "to the longing I felt at That time. During the day-time I somehow managed to control it. The secular talk of the worldly-minded was galling to me, and I would look wistfully to the day when my own beloved companions would come. I hoped to find solace in conversing with them and relating to them my own realizations. Every little incident would remind me of them, and thoughts of them wholly engrossed me. I was already arranging in my mind what I should say to one and give to another, and so on. But when the day would come to a close I would not be able to curb my feelings. The thought That another day had gone by, and they had not come, oppressed me. When, during the evening service, the temples rang with the sound of bells and conch-shells, I would climb to the roof of the kuthi in the garden and, writhing in anguish of heart, cry at the top of my voice: 'Come, my children! Oh, where are you? I cannot bear to live without you.' A mother never longed so intensely for the sight of her child, nor a friend for his companions, nor a lover for his sweetheart, as I longed for them. Oh, it was indescribable! Shortly after this period of yearning the devotees1 began to come."
In the year 1879 occasional writings about Sri Ramakrishna by the Brahmos, in the Brahmo magazines, began to attract his future disciples from the educated middle-class Bengalis, and they continued to come till 1884. But others, too, came, feeling the subtle power of his attraction. They were an ever shifting crowd of people of all castes and creeds: Hindus and Brahmos, Vaishnavas and Saktas, the educated with university degrees and the illiterate, old and young, maharajas and beggars, journalists and artists, pundits and devotees, philosophers and the worldly-minded, jnanis and yogis, men of action and men of faith, virtuous women and prostitutes, office-holders and vagabonds, philanthropists and self-seekers, dramatists and drunkards, builders-up and pullers-down. He gave to them all, without stint, from his illimitable store of realization. No one went away empty-handed. He taught them the lofty .knowledge of the Vedanta and the soul
-melting love of the Purana. Twenty hours out of twenty-four he would speak without out rest or respite. He gave to all his sympathy and enlightenment, and he touched them with That strange power of the soul which could not but melt even the most hardened. And people understood him according to their powers of comprehension.
^The word is generally used in the text to denote one devoted to God, a worshipper of the Personal God, or a follower of the path of love. A devotee of Sri Ramakrishna is one who is devoted to Sri Ramakrishna and follows his teachings. The word "disciple", when used in connexion with Sri Ramakrishna, refers to one who had been initiated into spiritual life by Sri Ramakrishna and who regarded him as his guru.
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But he remained as ever the willing instrument in the hand of God, the child of the Divine Mother, totally untouched by the idea of being a teacher. He used to say That three ideas — That he was a guru, a father, and a master — pricked his flesh like thorns. Yet he was an extraordinary teacher. He stirred his disciples' hearts more by a subtle influence than by actions or words. He never claimed to be the founder of a religion or the organizer of a sect. Yet he was a religious dynamo. He was the verifier of all religions and creeds. He was like an expert gardener, who prepares the soil and removes the weeds, knowing That the plants will grow because of the inherent power of the seeds, producing each its appropriate flowers and fruits. He never thrust his ideas on anybody. He understood people's limitations and worked on the principle That what is good for one may be bad for another. He had the unusual power of knowing the devotees' minds, even their inmost souls, at the first sight. He accepted disciples with the full knowledge of their past tendencies and future possibilities. The life of evil did not frighten him, nor did religious squeamishness raise anybody in his estimation. He saw in everything the unerring finger of the Divine Mother. Even the light That leads astray was to him the light from God.
To those who became his intimate disciples the Master was a friend, companion, and playmate. Even the chores of religious discipline would be lightened in his presence. The devotees would be so inebriated with pure joy in his company That they would have no time to ask themselves whether he was an Incarnation, a perfect soul, or a yogi. His very presence was a great teaching; words were superfluous. In later years his disciples remarked That while they were with him they would regard him as a comrade, but afterwards would tremble to think of their frivolities in the presence of such a great person. They had convincing proof That the Master could, by his mere wish, kindle in their hearts the love of God and give them His vision.
Through all this fun and frolic, this merriment and frivolity, he always kept before them the shining ideal of God-Consciousness and the path of renunciation. He prescribed ascents steep or graded according to the powers of the climber. He permitted no compromise with the basic principles of purity. An aspirant had to keep his body, mind, senses, and soul unspotted; had to have a sincere love for God and an ever mounting spirit of yearning. The rest would be done by the Mother.
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For the householders Sri Ramakrishna did not prescribe the hard path of total renunciation. He wanted them to discharge their obligations to their families. Their renunciation was to be mental. Spiritual life could not be acquired by flying away from responsibilities. A married couple should live like brother and sister after the birth of one or two children, devoting their time to spiritual talk and contemplation. He encouraged the householders, saying That their life was, in a way, easier than That of the monk, since it was more advantageous to fight the enemy from inside a fortress than in an open field. He insisted, however, on their repairing into solitude every now and then to strengthen their devotion and faith in God through prayer, japa, and meditation. He prescribed for them the companionship of sadhus. He asked them to perform their worldly duties with one hand, while holding to God with the other, and to pray to God to make their duties fewer and fewer so That in the end they might cling to Him with both hands. He would discourage in both the householders and the celibate youths any lukewarmness in their spiritual struggles. He would not ask them to follow indiscriminately the ideal of non-resistance, which ultimately makes a coward of the unwary.
--- FUTURE MONKS
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The first two householder devotees to come to Dakshineswar were Ramchandra Dutta and Manomohan Mitra. A medical practitioner and chemist, Ram was sceptical about God and religion and never enjoyed peace of soul. He wanted tangible proof of God's existence. The Master said to him: "God really" exists. You don't see the stars in the day-time, but That doesn't mean That the stars do not exist. There is butter in milk. But can anybody see it by merely looking at the milk? To get butter you must churn milk in a quiet and cool place. You cannot realize God by a mere wish; you must go through some mental disciplines." By degrees the Master awakened Ram's spirituality and the latter became one of his foremost lay disciples. It was Ram who introduced Narendranath to Sri Ramakrishna. Narendra was a relative of Ram.
Manomohan at first met with considerable opposition from his wife and other relatives, who resented his visits to Dakshineswar. But in the end the unselfish love of the Master triumphed over worldly affection. It was Manomohan who brought Rakhal to the Master.
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. But see That you don't become intoxicated; you must not reel and your thoughts must not wander. At first you will feel ordinary excitement, but soon you will experience spiritual exaltation." Gradually Surendra's entire life was changed. The Master designated him as one of those commissioned by the Divine Mother to defray a great part of his expenses. Surendra's purse was always open for the Master's comfort.
--- KEDAR
Kedarnath Chatterji was endowed with a spiritual temperament and had tried various paths of religion, some not very commendable. When he met the Master at Dakshineswar he understood the true meaning of religion. It is said That the Master, weary of instructing devotees who were coming to him in great numbers for guidance, once prayed to the Goddess Kali: "Mother, I am tired of speaking to people. Please give power to Kedar, Girish, Ram, Vijay, and Mahendra to give them the preliminary instruction, so That just a little teaching from me will be enough." He was aware, however, of Kedar's lingering attachment to worldly things and often warned him about it.
--- HARISH
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Balaram Bose came of a wealthy Vaishnava family. From his youth he had shown a deep religious temperament and had devoted his time to meditation, prayer, and the study of the Vaishnava scriptures. He was very much impressed by Sri Ramakrishna even at their first meeting. He asked Sri Ramakrishna whether God really existed and, if so, whether a man could realize Him. The Master said: "God reveals Himself to the devotee who thinks of Him as his nearest and dearest. Because you do not draw response by praying to Him once, you must not conclude That He does not exist. Pray to God, thinking of Him as dearer than your very self. He is much attached to His devotees. He comes to a man even before He is sought. There is none more intimate and affectionate than God." Balaram had never before heard God spoken of in such forceful words; every one of the words seemed true to him. Under the Master's influence he outgrew the conventions of the Vaishnava worship and became one of the most beloved of the disciples. It was at his home That the Master slept whenever he spent a night in Calcutta.
--- MAHENDRA OR M.
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Durgacharan Nag, also known as Nag Mahashay, was the ideal householder among the lay disciples of Sri Ramakrishna. He was the embodiment of the Master's ideal of life in the world, unstained by worldliness. In spite of his intense desire to become a sannyasi, Sri Ramakrishna asked him to live in the world in the spirit of a monk, and the disciple truly carried out this injunction. He was born of a poor family and even during his boyhood often sacrificed everything to lessen the sufferings of the needy. He had married at an early age and after his wife's death had married a second time to obey his father's command. But he once said to his wife: "Love on the physical level never lasts. He is indeed blessed who can give his love to God with his whole heart. Even a little attachment to the body endures for several births. So do not be attached to this cage of bone and flesh. Take shelter at the feet of the Mother and think of Her alone. Thus your life here and hereafter will be ennobled." The Master spoke of him as a "blazing light". He received every word of Sri Ramakrishna in dead earnest. One day he heard the Master saying That it was difficult for doctors, lawyers, and brokers to make much progress in spirituality. Of doctors he said, "If the mind clings to the tiny drops of medicine, how can it conceive of the Infinite?" That was the end of Durgacharan's medical practice and he threw his chest of medicines into the Ganges. Sri Ramakrishna assured him That he would not lack simple food and clothing. He bade him serve holy men. On being asked where he would find real holy men, the Master said That the sadhus themselves would seek his company. No sannyasi could have lived a more austere life than Durgacharan.
--- GIRISH GHOSH
Girish Chandra Ghosh was a born rebel against God, a sceptic, a Bohemian, a drunkard. He was the greatest Bengali dramatist of his time, the father of the modem Bengali stage. Like other young men he had imbibed all the vices of the West. He had plunged into a life of dissipation and had become convinced That religion was only a fraud. Materialistic philosophy he justified as enabling one to get at least a little fun out of life. But a series of reverses shocked him and he became eager to solve the riddle of life. He had heard people say That in spiritual life the help of a guru was imperative and That the guru was to be regarded as God Himself. But Girish was too well acquainted with human nature to see perfection in a man. His first meeting with Sri Ramakrishna did not impress him at all. He returned home feeling as if he had seen a freak at a circus; for the Master, in a semi-conscious mood, had inquired whether it was evening, though the lamps were burning in the room. But their paths often crossed, and Girish could not avoid further encounters. The Master attended a performance in Girish's Star Theatre. On this occasion, too, Girish found nothing impressive about him. One day, however, Girish happened to see the Master dancing and singing with the devotees. He felt the contagion and wanted to join them, but restrained himself for fear of ridicule. Another day Sri Ramakrishna was about to give him spiritual instruction, when Girish said: "I don't want to listen to instructions. I have myself written many instructions. They are of no use to me. Please help me in a more tangible way If you can." This pleased the Master and he asked Girish to cultivate faith.
As time passed, Girish began to learn That the guru is the one who silently unfolds the disciple's inner life. He became a steadfast devotee of the Master. He often loaded the Master with insults, drank in his presence, and took liberties which astounded the other devotees. But the Master knew That at heart Girish was tender, faithful, and sincere. He would not allow Girish to give up the theatre. And when a devotee asked him to tell Girish to give up drinking, he sternly replied: " That is none of your business. He who has taken charge of him will look after him. Girish is a devotee of heroic type. I tell you, drinking will not affect him." The Master knew That mere words could not induce a man to break deep-rooted habits, but That the silent influence of love worked miracles. Therefore he never asked him to give up alcohol, with the result That Girish himself eventually broke the habit. Sri Ramakrishna had strengthened Girish's resolution by allowing him to feel That he was absolutely free.
One day Girish felt depressed because he was unable to submit to any routine of spiritual discipline. In an exalted mood the Master said to him: "All right, give me your power of attorney. Henceforth I assume responsibility for you. You need not do anything." Girish heaved a sigh of relief. He felt happy to think That Sri Ramakrishna had assumed his spiritual responsibilities. But poor Girish could not then realize That He also, on his part, had to give up his freedom and make of himself a puppet in Sri Ramakrishna's hands. The Master began to discipline him according to this new attitude. One day Girish said about a trifling matter, "Yes, I shall do this." "No, no!" the Master corrected him. "You must not speak in That egotistic manner. You should say, 'God willing, I shall do it.'" Girish understood. Thenceforth he tried to give up all idea of personal responsibility and surrender himself to the Divine Will. His mind began to dwell constantly on Sri Ramakrishna. This unconscious meditation in time chastened his turbulent spirit.
The householder devotees generally visited Sri Ramakrishna on Sunday afternoons and other holidays. Thus a brotherhood was gradually formed, and the Master encouraged their fraternal feeling. Now and then he would accept an invitation to a devotee's home, where other devotees would also be invited. Kirtan would be arranged and they would spend hours in dance and devotional music. The Master would go into trances or open his heart in religious discourses and in the narration of his own spiritual experiences. Many people who could not go to Dakshineswar participated in these meetings and felt blessed. Such an occasion would be concluded with a sumptuous feast.
But it was in the company of his younger devotees, pure souls yet unstained by the touch of worldliness, That Sri Ramakrishna took greatest joy. Among the young men who later embraced the householder's life were Narayan, Paitu, the younger Naren, Tejchandra, and Purna. These visited the Master sometimes against strong opposition from home.
--- PURNA
Purna was a lad of thirteen, whom Sri Ramakrishna described as an Isvarakoti, a soul born with special spiritual qualities. The Master said That Purna was the last of the group of brilliant devotees who, as he once had seen in a trance, would come to him for spiritual illumination. Purna said to Sri Ramakrishna during their second meeting, "You are God Himself incarnated in flesh and blood." Such words coming from a mere youngster proved of what stuff the boy was made.
--- MAHIMACHARAN AND PRATAP HAZRA
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.
--- SOME NOTED MEN
Sri Ramakrishna also became acquainted with a number of people whose scholarship or wealth entitled them everywhere to respect. He had met, a few years before, Devendranath Tagore, famous all over Bengal for his wealth, scholarship, saintly character, and social position. But the Master found him disappointing; for, whereas Sri Ramakrishna expected of a saint complete renunciation of the world, Devendranath combined with his saintliness a life of enjoyment. Sri Ramakrishna met the great poet Michael Madhusudan, who had embraced Christianity "for the sake of his stomach". To him the Master could not impart instruction, for the Divine Mother "pressed his tongue". In addition he met Maharaja Jatindra Mohan Tagore, a titled aristocrat of Bengal; Kristodas Pal, the editor, social reformer, and patriot; Iswar Vidyasagar, the noted philanthropist and educator; Pundit Shashadhar, a great champion of Hindu orthodoxy; Aswini Kumar Dutta, a headmaster, moralist, and leader of Indian Nationalism; and Bankim Chatterji, a deputy magistrate, novelist, and essayist, and one of the fashioners of modern Bengali prose. Sri Ramakrishna was not the man to be dazzled by outward show, glory, or eloquence. A pundit without discrimination he regarded as a mere straw. He would search people's hearts for the light of God, and if That was missing he would have nothing to do with them.
--- KRISTODAS PAL
The Europeanized Kristodas Pal did not approve of the Master's emphasis on renunciation and said; "Sir, this cant of renunciation has almost ruined the country. It is for this reason That the Indians are a subject nation today. Doing good to others, bringing education to the door of the ignorant, and above all, improving the material conditions of the country — these should be our duty now. The cry of religion and renunciation would, on the contrary, only weaken us. You should advise the young men of Bengal to resort only to such acts as will uplift the country." Sri Ramakrishna gave him a searching look and found no divine light within, "You man of poor understanding!" Sri Ramakrishna said sharply. "You dare to slight in these terms renunciation and piety, which our scriptures describe as the greatest of all virtues! After reading two pages of English you think you have come to know the world! You appear to think you are omniscient. Well, have you seen those tiny crabs That are born in the Ganges just when the rains set in? In this big universe you are even less significant than one of those small creatures. How dare you talk of helping the world? The Lord will look to That. You haven't the power in you to do it." After a pause the Master continued: "Can you explain to me how you can work for others? I know what you mean by helping them. To feed a number of persons, to treat them when they are sick, to construct a road or dig a well — isn't That all? These, are good deeds, no doubt, but how trifling in comparison with the vastness of the universe! How far can a man advance in this line? How many people can you save from famine? Malaria has ruined a whole province; what could you do to stop its onslaught? God alone looks after the world. Let a man first realize Him. Let a man get the authority from God and be endowed with His power; then, and then alone, may he think of doing good to others. A man should first be purged of all egotism. Then alone will the Blissful Mother ask him to work for the world." Sri Ramakrishna mistrusted philanthropy That presumed to pose as charity. He warned people against it. He saw in most acts of philanthropy nothing but egotism, vanity, a desire for glory, a barren excitement to kill the boredom of life, or an attempt to soothe a guilty conscience. True charity, he taught, is the result of love of God — service to man in a spirit of worship.
--- MONASTIC DISCIPLES
--
Even before Rakhal's coming to Dakshineswar, the Master had had visions of him as his spiritual son and as a playmate of Krishna at Vrindavan. Rakhal was born of wealthy parents. During his childhood he developed wonderful spiritual traits and used to play at worshipping gods and goddesses. In his teens he was married to a sister of Manomohan Mitra, from whom he first heard of the Master. His father objected to his association with Sri Ramakrishna but afterwards was reassured to find That many celebrated people were visitors at Dakshineswar. The relationship between the Master and this beloved disciple was That of mother and child. Sri Ramakrishna allowed Rakhal many liberties denied to others. But he would not hesitate to chastise the boy for improper actions. At one time Rakhal felt a childlike jealousy because he found That other boys were receiving the Master's affection. He soon got over it and realized his guru as the Guru of the whole universe. The Master was worried to hear of his marriage, but was relieved to find That his wife was a spiritual soul who would not be a hindrance to his progress.
--- THE ELDER GOPAL
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As he read in college the rationalistic Western philosophers of the nineteenth century, his boyhood faith in God and religion was unsettled. He would not accept religion on mere faith; he wanted demonstration of God. But very soon his passionate nature discovered That mere Universal Reason was cold and bloodless. His emotional nature, dissatisfied with a mere abstraction, required a concrete support to help him in the hours of temptation. He wanted an external power, a guru, who by embodying perfection in the flesh would still the commotion of his soul. Attracted by the magnetic personality of Keshab, he joined the Brahmo Samaj and became a singer in its choir. But in the Samaj he did not find the guru who could say That he had seen God.
In a state of mental conflict and torture of soul, Narendra came to Sri Ramakrishna at Dakshineswar. He was then eighteen years of age and had been in college two years. He entered the Master's room accompanied by some light-hearted friends. At Sri Ramakrishna's request he sang a few songs, pouring his whole soul into them, and the Master went into samadhi. A few minutes later Sri Ramakrishna suddenly left his seat, took Narendra by the hand, and led him to the screened verandah north of his room. They were alone. Addressing Narendra most tenderly, as if he were a friend of long acquaintance, the Master said: "Ah! You have come very late. Why have you been so unkind as to make me wait all these days? My ears are tired of hearing the futile words of worldly men. Oh, how I have longed to pour my spirit into the heart of someone fitted to receive my message!" He talked thus, sobbing all the time. Then, standing before Narendra with folded hands, he addressed him as Narayana, born on earth to remove the misery of humanity. Grasping Narendra's hand, he asked him to come again, alone, and very soon. Narendra was startled. "What is this I have come to see?" he said to himself. "He must be stark mad. Why, I am the son of Viswanath Dutta. How dare he speak this way to me?"
When they returned to the room and Narendra heard the Master speaking to others, he was surprised to find in his words an inner logic, a striking sincerity, and a convincing proof of his spiritual nature. In answer to Narendra's question, "Sir, have you seen God?" the Master said: "Yes, I have seen God. I have seen Him more tangibly than I see you. I have talked to Him more intimately than I am talking to you." Continuing, the Master said: "But, my child, who wants to see God? People shed jugs of tears for money, wife, and children. But if they would weep for God for only one day they would surely see Him." Narendra was amazed. These words he could not doubt. This was the first time he had ever heard a man saying That he had seen God. But he could not reconcile these words of the Master with the scene That had taken place on the verandah only a few minutes before. He concluded That Sri Ramakrishna was a monomaniac, and returned home rather puzzled in mind.
During his second visit, about a month later, suddenly, at the touch of the Master, Narendra felt overwhelmed and saw the walls of the room and everything around him whirling and vanishing. "What are you doing to me?" he cried in terror. "I have my father and mother at home." He saw his own ego and the whole universe almost swallowed in a nameless void. With a laugh the Master easily restored him. Narendra thought he might have been hypnotized, but he could not understand how a monomaniac could cast a spell over the mind of a strong person like himself. He returned home more confused than ever, resolved to be henceforth on his guard before this strange man.
But during his third visit Narendra fared no better. This time, at the Master's touch, he lost consciousness entirely. While he was still in That state, Sri Ramakrishna questioned him concerning his spiritual antecedents and whereabouts, his mission in this world, and the duration of his mortal life. The answers confirmed what the Master himself had known and inferred. Among other things, he came to know That Narendra was a sage who had already attained perfection, and That the day he learnt his real nature he would give up his body in yoga, by an act of will.
A few more meetings completely removed from Narendra's mind the last traces of the notion That Sri Ramakrishna might be a monomaniac or wily hypnotist. His integrity, purity, renunciation, and unselfishness were beyond question. But Narendra could not accept a man, an imperfect mortal, as his guru. As a member of the Brahmo Samaj, he could not believe That a human intermediary was necessary between man and God. Moreover, he openly laughed at Sri Ramakrishna's visions as hallucinations. Yet in the secret chamber of his heart he bore a great love for the Master.
Sri Ramakrishna was grateful to the Divine Mother for sending him one who doubted his own realizations. Often he asked Narendra to test him as the money-changers test their coins. He laughed at Narendra's biting criticism of his spiritual experiences and samadhi. When at times Narendra's sharp words distressed him, the Divine Mother Herself would console him, saying: "Why do you listen to him? In a few days he will believe your every word." He could hardly bear Narendra's absences. Often he would weep bitterly for the sight of him. Sometimes Narendra would find the Master's love embarrassing; and one day he sharply scolded him, warning him That such infatuation would soon draw him down to the level of its object. The Master was distressed and prayed to the Divine Mother. Then he said to Narendra: "You rogue, I won't listen to you any more. Mother says That I love you because I see God in you, and the day I no longer see God in you I shall not be able to bear even the sight of you."
The Master wanted to train Narendra in the teachings of the non-dualistic Vedanta philosophy. But Narendra, because of his Brahmo upbringing, considered it wholly blasphemous to look on man as one with his Creator. One day at the temple garden he laughingly said to a friend: "How silly! This jug is God! This cup is God! Whatever we see is God! And we too are God! Nothing could be more absurd." Sri Ramakrishna came out of his room and gently touched him. Spellbound, he immediately perceived That everything in the world was indeed God. A new universe opened around him. Returning home in a dazed state, he found there too That the food, the plate, the eater himself, the people around him, were all God. When he walked in the street, he saw That the cabs, the horses, the streams of people, the buildings, were all Brahman. He could hardly go about his day's business. His parents became anxious about him and thought him ill. And when the intensity of the experience abated a little, he saw the world as a dream. Walking in the public square, he would strike his head against the iron railings to know whether they were real. It took him a number of days to recover his normal self. He had a foretaste of the great experiences yet to come and realized That the words of the Vedanta were true.
At the beginning of 1884 Narendra's father suddenly died of heart-failure, leaving the family in a state of utmost poverty. There were six or seven mouths to feed at home. Creditors were knocking at the door. Relatives who had accepted his father's unstinted kindness now became enemies, some even bringing suit to deprive Narendra of his ancestral home. Actually starving and barefoot, Narendra searched for a job, but without success. He began to doubt whether anywhere in the world there was such a thing as unselfish sympathy. Two rich women made evil proposals to him and promised to put an end to his distress; but he refused them with contempt.
Narendra began to talk of his doubt of the very existence of God. His friends thought he had become an atheist, and piously circulated gossip adducing unmentionable motives for his unbelief. His moral character was maligned. Even some of the Master's disciples partly believed the gossip, and Narendra told these to their faces That only a coward believed in God through fear of suffering or hell. But he was distressed to think That Sri Ramakrishna, too, might believe these false reports. His pride revolted. He said to himself: "What does it matter? If a man's good name rests on such slender foundations, I don't care." But later on he was amazed to learn That the Master had never lost faith in him. To a disciple who complained about Narendra's degradation, Sri Ramakrishna replied: "Hush, you fool! The Mother has told me it can never be so. I won't look at you if you speak That way again."
The moment came when Narendra's distress reached its climax. He had gone the whole day without food. As he was returning home in the evening he could hardly lift his tired limbs. He sat down in front of a house in sheer exhaustion, too weak even to think. His mind began to wander. Then, suddenly, a divine power lifted the veil over his soul. He found the solution of the problem of the coexistence of divine justice and misery, the presence of suffering in the creation of a blissful Providence. He felt bodily refreshed, his soul was bathed in peace, and he slept serenely.
Narendra now realized That he had a spiritual mission to fulfil. He resolved to renounce the world, as his grandfather had renounced it, and he came to Sri Ramakrishna for his blessing. But even before he had opened his mouth, the Master knew what was in his mind and wept bitterly at the thought of separation. "I know you cannot lead a worldly life," he said, "but for my sake live in the world as long as I live."
One day, soon after, Narendra requested Sri Ramakrishna to pray to the Divine Mother to remove his poverty. Sri Ramakrishna bade him pray to Her himself, for She would certainly listen to his prayer. Narendra entered the shrine of Kali. As he stood before the image of the Mother, he beheld Her as a living Goddess, ready to give wisdom and liberation. Unable to ask Her for petty worldly things, he prayed only for knowledge and renunciation, love and liberation. The Master rebuked him for his failure to ask the Divine Mother to remove his poverty and sent him back to the temple. But Narendra, standing in Her presence, again forgot the purpose of his coming. Thrice he went to the temple at the bidding of the Master, and thrice he returned, having forgotten in Her presence why he had come. He was wondering about it when it suddenly flashed in his mind That this was all the work of Sri Ramakrishna; so now he asked the Master himself to remove his poverty, and was assured That his family would not lack simple food and clothing.
This was a very rich and significant experience for Narendra. It taught him That Sakti, the Divine Power, cannot be ignored in the world and That in the relative plane the need of worshipping a Personal God is imperative. Sri Ramakrishna was overjoyed with the conversion. The next day, sitting almost on Narendra's lap, he said to a devotee, pointing first to himself, then to Narendra: "I see I am this, and again That. Really I feel no difference. A stick floating in the Ganges seems to divide the water; But in reality the water is one. Do you see my point? Well, whatever is, is the Mother — isn't That so?" In later years Narendra would say: "Sri Ramakrishna was the only person who, from the time he met me, believed in me uniformly throughout. Even my mother and brothers did not. It was his unwavering trust and love for me That bound me to him for ever. He alone knew how to love. Worldly people, only make a show of love for selfish ends.
--- TARAK
Others destined to be monastic disciples of Sri Ramakrishna came to Dakshineswar. Taraknath Ghoshal had felt from his boyhood the noble desire to realize God. Keshab and the Brahmo Samaj had attracted him but proved inadequate. In 1882 he first met the Master at Ramchandra's house and was astonished to hear him talk about samadhi, a subject which always fascinated his mind. And That evening he actually saw a manifestation of That superconscious state in the Master. Tarak became a frequent visitor at Dakshineswar and received the Master's grace in abundance. The young boy often felt ecstatic fervour in meditation. He also wept profusely while meditating on God. Sri Ramakrishna said to him: "God favours those who can weep for Him. Tears shed for God wash away the sins of former births."
--- BABURAM
Baburam Ghosh came to Dakshineswar accompanied by Rakhal, his classmate. The Master, as was often his custom, examined the boy's physiognomy and was satisfied about his latent spirituality. At the age of eight Baburam had thought of leading a life of renunciation, in the company of a monk, in a hut shut out from the public view by a thick wall of trees. The very sight of the Panchavati awakened in his heart That dream of boyhood. Baburam was tender in body and soul. The Master used to say That he was pure to his very bones. One day Hazra in his usual mischievous fashion advised Baburam and some of the other young boys to ask Sri Ramakrishna for some spiritual powers and not waste their life in mere gaiety and merriment. The Master, scenting mischief, called Baburam to his side and said: "What can you ask of me? Isn't everything That I have already yours? Yes, everything I have earned in the shape of realizations is for the sake of you all. So get rid of the idea of begging, which alienates by creating a distance. Rather realize your kinship with me and gain the key to all the treasures.
--- NIRANJAN
Nitya Niranjan Sen was a disciple of heroic type. He came to the Master when he was eighteen years old. He was a medium for a group of spiritualists. During his first visit the Master said to him: "My boy, if you think always of ghosts you will become a ghost, and if you think of God you will become God. Now, which do you prefer?" Niranjan severed all connexions with the spiritualists. During his second visit the Master embraced him and said warmly: "Niranjan, my boy, the days are flitting away. When will you realize God? This life will be in vain if you do not realize Him. When will you devote your mind wholly to God?" Niranjan was surprised to see the Master's great anxiety for his spiritual welfare. He was a young man endowed with unusual spiritual parts. He felt disdain for worldly pleasures and was totally guileless, like a child. But he had a violent temper. One day, as he was coming in a country boat to Dakshineswar, some of his fellow passengers began to speak ill of the Master. Finding his protest futile, Niranjan began to rock the boat, threatening to sink it in mid stream. That silenced the offenders. When he reported the incident to the Master, he was rebuked for his inability to curb his anger.
--- JOGINDRA
Jogindranath, on the other hand, was gentle to a fault. One day, under circumstances very like those That had evoked Niranjan's anger, he curbed his temper and held his peace instead of threatening Sri Ramakrishna's abusers. The Master, learning of his conduct, scolded him roundly. Thus to each the fault of the other was recommended as a virtue. The guru was striving to develop, in the first instance, composure, and in the second, mettle. The secret of his training was to build up, by a tactful recognition of the requirements of each given case, the character of the devotee.
Jogindranath came of an aristocratic brahmin family of Dakshineswar. His father and relatives shared the popular mistrust of Sri Ramakrishna's sanity. At a very early age the boy developed religious tendencies, spending two or three hours daily in meditation, and his meeting with Sri Ramakrishna deepened his desire for the realization of God. He had a perfect horror of marriage. But at the earnest request of his mother he had had to yield, and he now believed That his spiritual future was doomed. So he kept himself away from the Master.
Sri Ramakrishna employed a ruse to bring Jogindra to him. As soon as the disciple entered the room, the Master rushed forward to meet the young man. Catching hold of the disciple's hand, he said: "What if you have married? Haven't I too married? What is there to be afraid of in That?" Touching his own chest he said: "If this [meaning himself] is propitious, then even a hundred thousand marriages cannot injure you. If you desire to lead a householder's life, then bring your wife here one day, and I shall see That she becomes a real companion in your spiritual progress. But if you want to lead a monastic life, then I shall eat up your attachment to the world." Jogin was dumbfounded at these words. He received new strength, and his spirit of renunciation was re-established.
--- SASHI AND SARAT
Sashi and Sarat were two cousins who came from a pious brahmin family of Calcutta. At an early age they had joined the Brahmo Samaj and had come under the influence of Keshab Sen. The Master said to them at their first meeting: "If bricks and tiles are burnt after the trade-mark has been stamped on them, they retain the mark for ever. Similarly, man should be stamped with God before entering the world. Then he will not become attached to worldliness." Fully aware of the future course of their life, he asked them not to marry. The Master asked Sashi whether he believed in God with form or in God without form. Sashi replied That he was not even sure about the existence of God; so he could not speak one way or the other. This frank answer very much pleased the Master.
Sarat's soul longed for the all-embracing realization of the Godhead. When the Master inquired whether there was any particular form of God he wished to see, the boy replied That he would like to see God in all the living beings of the world. "But", the Master demurred, " That is the last word in realization. One cannot have it at the very outset." Sarat stated calmly: "I won't be satisfied with anything short of That. I shall trudge on along the path till I attain That blessed state." Sri Ramakrishna was very much pleased.
--- HARINATH
Harinath had led the austere life of a brahmachari even from his early boyhood — bathing in the Ganges every day, cooking his own meals, waking before sunrise, and reciting the Gita from memory before leaving bed. He found in the Master the embodiment of the Vedanta scriptures. Aspiring to be a follower of the ascetic Sankara, he cherished a great hatred for women. One day he said to the Master That he could not allow even small girls to come near him. The Master scolded him and said: "You are talking like a fool. Why should you hate women? They are the manifestations of the Divine Mother. Regard them as your own mother and you will never feel their evil influence. The more you hate them, the more you will fall into their snares." Hari said later That these words completely changed his attitude toward women.
The Master knew Hari's passion for Vedanta. But he did not wish any of his disciples to become a dry ascetic or a mere bookworm. So he asked Hari to practise Vedanta in life by giving up the unreal and following the Real. "But it is not so easy", Sri Ramakrishna said, "to realize the illusoriness of the world. Study alone does not help one very much. The grace of God is required. Mere personal effort is futile. A man is a tiny creature after all, with very limited powers. But he can achieve the impossible if he prays to God for His grace." Whereupon the Master sang a song in praise of grace. Hari was profoundly moved and shed tears. Later in life Hari achieved a wonderful synthesis of the ideals of the Personal God and the Impersonal Truth.
--
Unsurpassed among the woman devotees of the Master in the richness of her devotion and spiritual experiences was Aghoremani Devi, an orthodox brahmin woman. Widowed at an early age, she had dedicated herself completely to spiritual pursuits. Gopala, the Baby Krishna, was her Ideal Deity, whom she worshipped following the vatsalya attitude of the Vaishnava religion, regarding Him as her own child. Through Him she satisfied her unassuaged maternal love, cooking for Him, feeding Him, bathing Him, and putting Him to bed. This sweet intimacy with Gopala won her the sobriquet of Gopal Ma, or Gopala's Mother. For forty years she had lived on the bank of the Ganges in a small, bare room, her only companions being a threadbare copy of the Ramayana and a bag containing her rosary. At the age of sixty, in 1884, she visited Sri Ramakrishna at Dakshineswar. During the second visit, as soon as the Master saw her, he said: "Oh, you have come! Give me something to eat." With great hesitation she gave him some ordinary sweets That she had purchased for him on the way. The Master ate them with relish and asked her to bring him simple curries or sweets prepared by her own hands. Gopal Ma thought him a queer kind of monk, for, instead of talking of God, he always asked for food. She did not want to visit him again, but an irresistible attraction brought her back to the temple garden; She carried with her some simple curries That she had cooked herself.
One early morning at three o'clock, about a year later, Gopal Ma was about to finish her daily devotions, when she was startled to find Sri Ramakrishna sitting on her left, with his right hand clenched, like the hand of the image of Gopala. She was amazed and caught hold of the hand, whereupon the figure vanished and in its place appeared the real Gopala, her Ideal Deity. She cried aloud with joy. Gopala begged her for butter. She pleaded her poverty and gave Him some dry coconut candies. Gopala, sat on her lap, snatched away her rosary, jumped on her shoulders, and moved all about the room. As soon as the day broke she hastened to Dakshineswar like an insane woman. Of course Gopala accompanied her, resting His head on her shoulder. She clearly saw His tiny ruddy feet hanging over her breast. She entered Sri Ramakrishna's room. The Master had fallen into samadhi. Like a child, he sat on her lap, and she began to feed him with butter, cream, and other delicacies. After some time he regained consciousness and returned to his bed. But the mind of Gopala's Mother was still roaming in another plane. She was steeped in bliss. She saw Gopala frequently entering the Master's body and again coming out of it. When she returned to her hut, still in a dazed condition, Gopala accompanied her.
She spent about two months in uninterrupted communion with God, the Baby Gopala never leaving her for a moment. Then the intensity of her vision was lessened; had it not been, her body would have perished. The Master spoke highly of her exalted spiritual condition and said That such vision of God was a rare thing for ordinary mortals. The fun-loving Master one day confronted the critical Narendranath with this simple-minded woman. No two could have presented a more striking contrast. The Master knew of Narendra's lofty contempt for all visions, and he asked the old lady to narrate her experiences to Narendra. With great hesitation she told him her story. Now and then she interrupted her maternal chatter to ask Narendra: "My son, I am a poor ignorant woman. I don't understand anything. You are so learned. Now tell me if these visions of Gopala are true." As Narendra listened to the story he was profoundly moved. He said, "Yes, mother, they are quite true." Behind his cynicism Narendra, too, possessed a heart full of love and tenderness.
--- THE MARCH OF EVENTS
--
One day, in January 1884, the Master was going toward the pine-grove when he went into a trance. He was alone. There was no one to support him or guide his footsteps. He fell to the ground and dislocated a bone in his left arm. This accident had a significant influence on his mind, the natural inclination of which was to soar above the consciousness of the body. The acute pain in the arm forced his mind to dwell on the body and on the world outside. But he saw even in this a divine purpose; for, with his mind compelled to dwell on the physical plane, he realized more than ever That he was an instrument in the hand of the Divine Mother, who had a mission to fulfil through his human body and mind. He also distinctly found That in the phenomenal world God manifests Himself, in an inscrutable way, through diverse human beings, both good and evil. Thus he would speak of God in the guise of the wicked, God in the guise of the pious. God in the guise of the hypocrite, God in the guise of the lewd. He began to take a special delight in watching the divine play in the relative world. Sometimes the sweet human relationship with God would appear to him more appealing than the all-effacing Knowledge of Brahman. Many a time he would pray: "Mother, don't make me unconscious through the Knowledge of Brahman. Don't give me Brahmajnana, Mother. Am I not Your child, and naturally timid? I must have my Mother. A million salutations to the Knowledge of Brahman! Give it to those who want it." Again he prayed: "O Mother let me remain in contact with men! Don't make me a dried-up ascetic. I want to enjoy Your sport in the world." He was able to taste this very rich divine experience and enjoy the love of God and the company of His devotees because his mind, on account of the injury to his arm, was forced to come down to the consciousness of the body. Again, he would make fun of people who proclaimed him as a Divine Incarnation, by pointing to his broken arm. He would say, "Have you ever heard of God breaking His arm?" It took the arm about five months to heal.
--- BEGINNING OF HIS ILLNESS
--
At Syampukur the devotees led an intense life. Their attendance on the Master was in itself a form of spiritual discipline. His mind was constantly soaring to an exalted plane of consciousness. Now and then they would catch the contagion of his spiritual fervour. They sought to divine the meaning of this illness of the Master, whom most of them had accepted as an Incarnation of God. One group, headed by Girish with his robust optimism and great power of imagination, believed That the illness was a mere pretext to serve a deeper purpose. The Master had willed his illness in order to bring the devotees together and promote solidarity among them. As soon as this purpose was served, he would himself get rid of the disease. A second group thought That the Divine Mother, in whose hand the Master was an instrument, had brought about this illness to serve Her own mysterious ends. But the young rationalists, led by Narendra, refused to ascribe a
supernatural cause to a natural phenomenon. They believed That the Master's body, a material thing, was subject, like all other material things, to physical laws. Growth, development, decay, and death were laws of nature to which the Master's body could not but respond. But though holding differing views, they all believed That it was to him alone That they must look for the attainment of their spiritual goal.
In spite of the physician's efforts and the prayers and nursing of the devotees, the illness rapidly progressed. The pain sometimes appeared to be unbearable. The Master lived only on liquid food, and his frail body was becoming a mere skeleton. Yet his face always radiated joy, and he continued to welcome the visitors pouring in to receive his blessing. When certain zealous devotees tried to keep the visitors away, they were told by Girish, "You cannot succeed in it; he has been born for this very purpose — to sacrifice himself for the redemption of others."
--
It was noticed at this time That some of the devotees were making an unbridled display of their emotions. A number of them, particularly among the householders, began to cultivate, though at first unconsciously, the art of shedding tears, shaking the body, contorting the face, and going into trances, attempting thereby to imitate the Master. They began openly to declare Sri Ramakrishna a Divine Incarnation and to regard themselves as his chosen people, who could neglect religious disciplines with impunity. Narendra's penetrating eye soon sized up the situation. He found out That some of these external manifestations were being carefully practised at home, while some were the outcome of malnutrition, mental weakness, or nervous debility. He mercilessly exposed the devotees who were pretending to have visions, and asked all to develop a healthy religious spirit. Narendra sang inspiring songs for the younger devotees, read with them the Imitation of Christ and the Gita, and held before them the positive ideals of spirituality.
--- LAST DAYS AT COSSIPORE
--
It was at Cossipore That the curtain fell on the varied activities of the Master's life on the physical plane. His soul lingered in the body eight months more. It was the period of his great Passion, a constant crucifixion of the body and the triumphant revelation of the Soul. Here one sees the humanity and divinity of the Master passing and repassing across a thin border line. Every minute of those eight months was suffused with touching tenderness of heart and breath-taking elevation of spirit. Every word he uttered was full of pathos and sublimity.
It took the group only a few days to become adjusted to the new environment. The Holy Mother, assisted by Sri Ramakrishna's niece, Lakshmi Devi, and a few woman devotees, took charge of the cooking for the Master and his attendants. Surendra willingly bore the major portion of the expenses, other householders contributing according to their means. Twelve disciples were constant attendants of the Master: Narendra, Rakhal, Baburam, Niranjan, Jogin, Latu, Tarak, the-elder Gopal, Kali, Sashi, Sarat, and the younger Gopal. Sarada, Harish, Hari, Gangadhar, and Tulasi visited the Master from time to time and practised sadhana at home. Narendra, preparing for his law examination, brought his books to the garden house in order to continue his studies during the infrequent spare moments. He encouraged his brother disciples to intensify their meditation, scriptural studies, and other spiritual disciplines. They all forgot their relatives and their
--
Among the attendants Sashi was the embodiment of service. He did not practise meditation, japa, or any of the other disciplines followed by his brother devotees. He was convinced That service to the guru was the only religion for him. He forgot food and rest and was ever ready at the Master's bedside.
Pundit Shashadhar one day suggested to the Master That the latter could remove the illness by concentrating his mind on the throat, the scriptures having declared That yogis had power to cure themselves in That way. The Master rebuked the pundit. "For a scholar like you to make such a proposal!" he said. "How can I withdraw the mind from the Lotus Feet of God and turn it to this worthless cage of flesh and blood?" "For our sake at least", begged Narendra and the other disciples. "But", replied Sri Ramakrishna, do you think I enjoy this suffering? I wish to recover, but That depends on the Mother."
NARENDRA: "Then please pray to Her. She must listen to you."
--
A few hours later the Master said to Narendra: "I said to Her: 'Mother, I cannot swallow food because of my pain. Make it possible for me to eat a little.' She pointed you all out to me and said: 'What? You are eating enough through all these mouths. Isn't That so?' I was ashamed and could not utter another word." This dashed all the hopes of the devotees for the Master's recovery.
"I shall make the whole thing public before I go", the Master had said some time before. On January 1, 1886, he felt better and came down to the garden for a little stroll. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon. Some thirty lay disciples were in the hall or sitting about under the trees. Sri Ramakrishna said to Girish, "Well, Girish, what have you seen in me, That you proclaim me before everybody as an Incarnation of God?" Girish was not the man to be taken by surprise. He knelt before the Master and said, with folded hands, "What can an insignificant person like myself say about the One whose glory even sages like Vyasa and Valmiki could not adequately measure?" The Master was profoundly moved. He said: "What more shall I say? I bless you all. Be illumined!" He fell into a spiritual mood. Hearing these words the devotees, one and all, became overwhelmed with emotion. They rushed to him and fell at his feet. He touched them all, and each received an appropriate benediction. Each of them, at the touch of the Master, experienced ineffable bliss. Some laughed, some wept, some sat down to meditate, some began to pray. Some saw light, some had visions of their Chosen Ideals, and some felt within their bodies the rush of spiritual power.
Narendra, consumed with a terrific fever for realization, complained to the Master That all the others had attained peace and That he alone was dissatisfied. The Master asked what he wanted. Narendra begged for samadhi, so That he might altogether forget the world for three or four days at a time. "You are a fool", the Master rebuked him. "There is a state even higher than That. Isn't it you who sing, 'All That exists art Thou'? First of all settle your family affairs and then come to me. You will experience a state even higher than samadhi."
The Master did not hide the fact That he wished to make Narendra his spiritual heir. Narendra was to continue the work after Sri Ramakrishna's passing. Sri Ramakrishna said to him: "I leave these young men in your charge. See That they develop their spirituality and do not return home." One day he asked the boys, in preparation for a monastic life, to beg their food from door to door without thought of caste. They hailed the Master's order and went out with begging-bowls. A few days later he gave the ochre cloth of the sannyasi to each of them, including Girish, who was now second to none in his spirit of renunciation. Thus the Master himself laid the foundation of the future Ramakrishna Order of monks.
Sri Ramakrishna was sinking day by day. His diet was reduced to a minimum and he found it almost impossible to swallow. He whispered to M.: "I am bearing all this cheerfully, for otherwise you would be weeping. If you all say That it is better That the body should go rather than suffer this torture, I am willing." The next morning he said to his depressed disciples seated near the bed: "Do you know what I see? I see That God alone has become everything. Men and animals are only frameworks covered with skin, and it is He who is moving through their heads and limbs. I see That it is God Himself who has become the block, the executioner, and the victim for the sacrifice.' He fainted with emotion. Regaining partial consciousness, he said: "Now I have no pain. I am very well." Looking at Latu he said: "There sits Latu resting his head on the palm of his hand. To me it is the Lord who is seated in That posture."
The words were tender and touching. Like a mother he caressed Narendra and Rakhal, gently stroking their faces. He said in a half whisper to M., "Had this body been allowed to last a little longer, many more souls would have been illumined." He paused a moment and then said: "But Mother has ordained otherwise. She will take me away lest, finding me guileless and foolish, people should take advantage of me and persuade me to bestow on them the rare gifts of spirituality." A few minutes later he touched his chest and said: "Here are two beings. One is She and the other is Her devotee. It is the latter who broke his arm, and it is he again who is now ill. Do you understand me?" After a pause he added: "Alas! To whom shall I tell all this? Who will understand me?" "Pain", he consoled them again, 'is unavoidable as long as there is a body. The Lord takes on the body for the sake of His devotees."
Yet one is not sure whether the Master's soul actually was tortured by this agonizing disease. At least during his moments of spiritual exaltation — which became almost constant during the closing days of his life on earth — he lost all consciousness of the body, of illness and suffering. One of his attendants (Latu, later known as Swami Adbhutananda.) said later on: "While Sri Ramakrishna lay sick he never actually suffered pain. He would often say: 'O mind! Forget the body, forget the sickness, and remain merged in Bliss.' No, he did not really suffer. At times he would be in a state when the thrill of joy was clearly manifested in his body. Even when he could not speak he would let us know in some way That there was no suffering, and this fact was clearly evident to all who watched him. People who did not understand him thought That his suffering was very great. What spiritual joy he transmitted to us at That time! Could such a thing have been possible if he had 'been suffering physically? It was during this period That he taught us again these truths: 'Brahman is always unattached. The three gunas are in It, but It is unaffected by them, just as the wind carries odour yet remains odourless.' 'Brahman is Infinite Being, Infinite Wisdom, Infinite Bliss. In It there exist no delusion, no misery, no disease, no death, no growth, no decay.' 'The Transcendental Being and the being within are one and the same. There is one indivisible Absolute Existence.'"
The Holy Mother secretly went to a Siva temple across the Ganges to intercede with the Deity for the Master's recovery. In a revelation she was told to prepare herself for the inevitable end.
One day when Narendra was on the ground floor, meditating, the Master was lying awake in his bed upstairs. In the depths of his meditation Narendra felt as though a lamp were burning at the back of his head. Suddenly he lost consciousness. It was the yearned-for, all-effacing experience of nirvikalpa samadhi, when the embodied soul realizes its unity with the Absolute. After a very long time he regained partial consciousness but was unable to find his body. He could see only his head. "Where is my body?" he cried. The elder Gopal entered the room and said, "Why, it is here, Naren!" But Narendra could not find it. Gopal, frightened, ran upstairs to the Master. Sri Ramakrishna only said: "Let him stay That way for a time. He has worried me long enough."
After another long period Narendra regained full consciousness. Bathed in peace, he went to the Master, who said: "Now the Mother has shown you everything. But this revelation will remain under lock and key, and I shall keep the key. When you have accomplished the Mother's work you will find the treasure again."
--
Dr. Sarkar arrived the following noon and pronounced That life had departed not more than half an hour before. At five o'clock the Masters body was brought downstairs, laid on a cot, dressed in ochre clothes, and decorated with sandal-paste and flowers. A procession was formed. The passers-by wept as the body was taken to the cremation ground at the Baranagore Ghat on the Ganges.
While the devotees were returning to the garden house, carrying the urn with the sacred ashes, a calm resignation came to their souls and they cried, "Victory unto the Guru!"
The Holy Mother was weeping in her room, not for her husband, but because she felt That Mother Kali had left her. As she was about to put on the marks of a Hindu widow, in a moment of revelation she heard the words of faith, "I have only passed from one room to another."
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
And I would That I could utter
The thoughts That arise in me!"
(OPPOSITE: Photo of FRATER PERDURABO on his ass.)
--
book That we can do no better That quote some
passages which we find scattered about in the un-
--
77 Laylah, whose name adds to That number; and
80, the number of the letter Pe, referred to Mars, a
--
initiation. Given these I do not hesitate to claim That
in none other of my writings have I given so pro-
--
fore destined to be more fertile That almost any other
study, and That in a way despite itself. A word should
be pertinent with regard to the question of secrecy.
--
tremendous import, and though it is so simple That
I could disclose it...in a short paragraph, I might
--
indiscriminately...I have found in practice That the
secret of the O.T.O. cannot be used unworthily...."
--
Head of the O.T.O.) came to me. (At That time I did
not realise That there was anything in the O.T.O.
beyond a convenient compendium of the more
important truths of Free Masonry.) He said That since
I was acquainted with the supreme secret of the
--
regard to it. I protested That I knew no such secret.
He said `But you have printed it in the plainest
language'. I said That I could not have done so
because I did not know it. He went to the book-
--
blazed upon my spiritual vision. From That moment
the O.T.O. assumed its proper importance in my
mind. I understood That I held in my hands the key
to the future progress of humanity...."
--
COMMENTARY (The Chapter That is not a Chapter)
This chapter, numbered 0, corresponds to the Negative,
--
That system.
Those familiar with That system will recognise Kether,
Chokmah, Binah, in the First Triad; Daath, in the Abyss; Chesed,
--
It will be noticed That this cosmogony is very complete; the
manifestation even of God does not appear until Tiphareth; and
--
to in the previous chapter. It is explained That this triad
lives in Night, the Night of Pan, which is mystically
--
Nox is then further explained, and it is shown That
the ultimate Trinity, O!, is supported, or fed, by the
--
It is then asserted That the ultimate letter A has two
names, or phases, Life and Death.
Line 7 balances line 5. It will be notice That the
phraseology of these two lines is so conceived That the
one contains the other more than itself.
--
That Mine as Thine be the Crown of the Kingdom,
even now.
--
It is now seen That this Hawk is not Solar, but
Mercurial; hence the words, the Cry of the Hawk, the
--
weapons, and it must be remembered That this card is
numbered 1, again connecting all these symbols with
--
That is not which is.
The only Word is Silence.
The only Meaning of That Word is not.
Thoughts are false.
--
statement, That That which can be thought is not true.
In line 5, we come to an important statement, an
--
That substance is composed of many spheres.
The account given of Creation is the same as That
familiar to students of the Christian tradition, the
--
better to say, he recognises it as Nothing, in That positive
sense of the word, which is only intelligible in
--
Seven(6) are these Six That live not in the City of the
Pyramids, under the Night of Pan.
--
All That a man is or may be is hidden therein.
Bodily functions are parts of the machine; silent,
--
of the mediaeval tradition That by steeping horsehair
a snake is produced, and the snake is the hieroplyphic
--
race-consciousness, That which is omnipotent, omnis-
cient, omnipresent, is hidden therein.
--
The name of That is not known; the Pronoun
interprets, That is , misinterprets, It.
Time and Space are Adverbs.
--
jeciton is the sound That endeth in the Silence.
Destroy therefore the Eight Parts of Speech; the
--
There is no silence in That Abyss: for all That men
call Silence is Its Speech.
--
But That which neither is silent, nor speaks, re-
joices therein.
--
Cross, the rapture of Union That destroys, That is
The Way. The Rosy Cross is the Ambassador of Pan.
How infinite is the distance form This to That! Yet
All is Here and Now. Nor is there any there or Then;
for all That is, what is it but a manifestation, That is,
a part, That is, a falsehood, of That which is not?
Yet That which is not neither is nor is not That
which is!
--
Holy, Holy, Holy are these Truths That I utter,
knowing them to be but falsehoods, broken mirrors,
--
contradictories are also false, it seems as if That
which I uttered not were true.
--
subtle reference to the nature of That light.
Eleven is the great number of Magick, and this
--
without all, there is joy, joy, joy That is but one
facet of a diamond, every other facet whereof is
--
O thou That settest out upon The Path, false is the
Phantom That thou seekest. When thou hast it
thou shalt know all bitterness, thy teeth fixed in
--
Thus hast thou been lured along That Path, whose
terror else had driven thee far away.
O thou That stridest upon the middle of The Path, no
phantoms mock thee. For the stride's sake thou
--
Thus art thou lured along That Path, whose fascina-
tion else had driven thee far away.
O thou That drawest toward the End of The Path,
effort is no more. Faster and faster dos thou fall;
--
For there is not Thou upon That Path: thou hast
become The Way.
--
Last came those That wept because they could not
see the Joke, and those That laughed lest they
should be thought not to see the Joke, and thought
--
At the end of the chapter it is, however, seen That to
the Master of the Temple the opposite perception occurs
simultaneously, and That he himself is beyond both of
these.
And in the last paragraph it is shown That he realises
the truth as beyond any statement of it.
--
seed thereof is That which I have borne within me
from Eternity; and it is lost within the Body of
--
That which is beyond.
The formula of Samadhi is the same, from the
--
That which hath no person, which is beyond the
changing, even beyond changelessness, what hast
--
belief, and suppose That in death they are united to the
Deity which they have cultivated during life. This is "a
--
Amen. Motion is relative: there is Nothing That is
still.
--
ceiving That I was but a Pure Fool, they let me
pass.
--
In paragraphs 3 and 4 it is, however, recognised That
even Aum is impermanent. There is no meaning in the
--
The story of the Gospel, and That of Parsifal, will
occur to the mind.
--
That is not his.
Yet That life is of his very essence; it is more He
than all That he calls He.
In the silence of a dewdrop is every tendency of his
--
are the forces That made him and his father and his
father's father before him.
--
than That of the man who is its guardian and servant.
[47]
--
Resemble all That surroundeth thee; yet be Thyself
-and take thy pleasure among the living.
This is That which is written-Lurk!-in The Book
of The Law.
--
The Universe is in equilibrium; therefore He That is
without it, though his force be but a feather, can
--
Be not caught within That web, O child of Freedom!
Be not entangled in the universal lie, O child of
--
That which causes us to create is our true father and
mother; we create in our own image, which is theirs.
--
create nothing That is not GOD.
[52]
--
It is Pure Chance That rules the Universe; therefore,
and only therefore, life is good.
--
In the fourth section is shown That there is no return
for one That has started on this path.
The word OUT is then analysed, and treated as a
--
That returns into the Naught unmanifest.
The All-Mighty, the All-Ruler, the All-Knower, the
--
The number of the chapter, 26, is That of Tetra-
grammaton, the manifest creator, Jehovah.
He is called the Second in relation to That which is
above the Abyss, comprehended under the title of the
--
Paragraph 3 introduces a new conception; That of
the square within the hexagram, the universe enclosed
--
was none That did not instantly obey his bidding.
In the whole system of ten million times ten million
--
Love taketh no heed of That which is not and of That
which is.
--
Love destroyeth self, uniting self with That which is
not-self, so That Love breedeth All and None in
One.
--
Note That the word Laylah is the Arabic for "Night".
The author begins to identify the Beloved with the
--
(16) I.e. the truth That he hath slept.
[71]
--
So That IT does neither of these things. IT does
That one thing which we must express by two
things neither of which possesses any rational
--
say That it is true and false.
Strain forth thine Intelligence, O man, O worthy
--
IT is apparently a more exalted thing than That.
This chapter should be compared with Chapter 11;
That method of destroying the reason by formulating
contradictions is definitely inculcated.
--
The idea is That, by forcing the mind to follow, and
as far as possible to realise, the language of Beyond
--
All That moves well moves without will.
All skillfulness, all strain, all intention is contrary to
--
and it is no longer Thou That doeth it, but It That
doeth itself through thee. Not until then is That
which is done well done.
--
That is Ass-headed did he dare not speak.
[76]
--
The Eagle described in paragraph 1 is That of the
Templars.
--
Love and death are the greyhounds That course him.
God bred the hounds and taketh His pleasure in the
--
This is the Comedy of Pan, That man should think
he hunteth, while those hounds hunt him.
--
That.
What do I love? There is no from, no being, to which
--
statement That the female body becomes beautiful in so
far as it approximates to the male.
--
signs of N.O.X.; for it is not he That shall arise in
the Sign of Isis Rejoicing.
--
ego: the Sun is That.
Both eclipses are darkness; both are exceeding rare;
--
number, which is That of Jechidah the highest unity of
the soul.
In this chapter, the idea is given That all limitation
and evil is an exceedingly rare accident; there can be
--
It is a serious misfortune That we happen to live in a
tiny corner of the system, where the darkness reaches such
--
It is thinkable That A is not-A; to reverse this is but
to revert to the normal.
--
of That of which Reason is the blasphemy.
But without the Experience these words are the
--
Paragraphs 2-6 explain the method That was given
in Chapters 11 and 31. This method, however, occurs
--
the one colour That it is not.
This Law, Reason, Time, Space, all Limitation blinds
--
All That we know of Man, Nature, God, is just That
which they are not; it is That which they throw off
as repungnant.
--
In paragraph 2 it is suggested analogically That all
thinkable things are similarly blinds for the Unthinkable
--
Therefore none is That pertaineth not to V.V.V.V.V.
In any may he manifest; yet in one hath he chosen
--
means That the statements in this chapter are to be
understood in the most ordinary and commonplace
--
The number 41 is That of the Barren Mother.
NOTE
--
The Stars are but thistles in That waste.
Yet this desert is but one spot accursed in a world of
--
the 10th Aethyr. It is to That dramatic experience That it refers.
The mind is called "wind", because of its nature; as has been
--
The theory of the formation of the Ego is That of the Hindus,
whose Ahamkara is itself a function of the mind, whose ego it
--
This is That which is written: "A feast for Life, and
a greater feast for Death!" in THE BOOK OF
--
That of the prophet who heard "a going in the mulberry
tops"; and to Browning's phrase, "a bruised, black-
--
Hail Ra, That goest in Thy bark
Into the Caverns of the DarK!
--
That Thy one crown of all the Ten.
Even now and here be mine. AMEN.
--
The Chinese cannot help thinking That the octave has
5 notes.
--
the more certain it is That I only assert a limitation.
I slept with Faith, and found a corpse in my arms on
--
the like. Similarly we find people asserting today That
woman is superior to man, and That all men are born
equal.
--
statement, a practical aspect of the fact That all truth
is relative, and in the last paragraph we see how
--
the very sleep That it induces.
[101]
--
Be thou more greedy That the shark, more full of
yearning than the wind among the pines.
--
Do this by virtue of That in thyself before which
law and nature are but shadows.
--
The fact remains That in vice, as in everything else,
some things satiate, others refresh. Any game in which
--
This is the Seal upon the Ring That is on the Fore-
finger of IT: and it is the Seal upon the Tombs of
--
Here is Wisdom. Let Him That hath Understanding
count the Number of Our Lady; for it is the
--
It will be noticed That the figure, or sigil, of BABALON
is a seal upon a ring, and this ring is upon the forefinger
--
It will be noticed That this seal, except for the absence of
a border, is the official seal of the A.'.A.'. Compare Chapter
--
It is also said to be the seal upon the tombs of them That
she hath slain, That is, of the Masters of the Temple.
In connection with the number 49, see Liber 418, the
--
this do I believe, and That devoutly."
"Then why do you not worship Me?"
--
until thou unearth the fox That. On, hounds!
Yoicks! Tally-ho! Bring That to bay!
Then, wind the Mort!
--
6 and 7 it will be noticed That the identification of the
Soldier with the Hunchback has reached such a pitch
That the symbols are interchanged, enthusiasm being
represented as the sinuous snake, scepticism as the
--
Beyond That is a still deeper state of mind, which is
That.
[113]
--
from the Wrath That is fallen upon you?
O Babblers, Prattlers, Talkers, Loquacious Ones,
Tatlers, Chewers of the Red Rag That inflameth
Apis the Redeemer to fury, learn first what is
--
but rather to the fact That 91 is the number of Amen,
implying the completeness of his work.
--
sistently, while it is notorious That a red cloth will excite
the rage of a bull.
--
Also this PADDOCK is the Toad That hath the
jewel between his eyes-Aum Mani Padmen
--
itself. That is to say, the secret spring of life is found in the
place of life, with the result That the horse, who represents
ordinary animal life, becomes the divine horse Pegasus.
--
That "lives and moves and has its being". Note this phrase,
which is highly significant; the word "lives" excluding the
--
this seems to suggest That this "toad" is the Yoni; the
suggestion is further strengthened by the concluding phrase
--
The moral of the chapter is apparently That the
mother-letter {Aleph} is an inadequate solution of the Great
--
the doctrine is therefore That Magick, in That highest
sense explained in the Book of the Law, is the truer
--
truth, That I who love have lost; and how may I
regain?
--
Pounds in That Three Weeks in Paris!...Slash the
Breaks on thine arm with a pole-axe!
--
The only sense which abides is That of loss, and the
craving to retrieve it. In paragraph 3 it is seen That this
is impossible, owing (paragraph 4) to his not having
--
In paragraph 5 it is shown That this is because of
allowing enjoyment to cause forgetfulness of the really
--
times holy be OUR LADY That rideth upon THE
BEAST!
--
harlot whom he loveth not. For it is LAYLAH That
he loveth...................................
--
Thus argued he, the Wise One, not mindful That all
place is wrong.
--
And worship Him That swore by His holy T That One
should not be One except in so far as it is Two.
I am glad That LAYLAH is afar; no doubt clouds
love.
--
necessary to separate things, in order That they might
rejoice in uniting. See Liber Legis I, 28-30, which is
--
(It is to be observed That the philosopher having first
committed the syllogistic error quaternis terminorum,
--
non distributia medii. It is possible That considerations
with Sir Wm. Hamilton's qualification (or quantifica-
--
discover the most formidable secret of That degree con-
cealed in the paragraph.
Paragraphs 4-6 express an anguish to which That of
Gethsemane and Golgotha must appear like whitlows.
--
passion and ecstasy which it brings forth. (Note That
the words "passion" and "ecstasy" may be taken as
--
Man That has spine, and hopes of heaven-to-be,
Lacks the Amoeba's immortality.
--
My certainty That destiny is "good"
Rests on its picking me for Buddhahood.
--
Good evidence That fate was "bloody bad".
[128]
--
sophers, hinting That their view of the universe depends
on their own circumstances. The sufferer from toothache
does not agree with Doctor Pangloss, That "all is for
the best in the best of all possible worlds". Nor does the
wealthiest of our Dukes complain to his cronies That
"Times is cruel 'ard".
--
sacrifice That which is dearest to thee unto the
Infernal Gods!
--
every new code there is hope. Provided always That
the code is not changed because it is too hard, but
--
O if everyman did No Matter What, provided That it
is the one thing That he will not and cannot do!
[130]
--
doctrine That whatever you have must be abandoned.
Obviously, That which differentiates your consciousness
from the absolute is part of the content of That con-
sciousness.
--
wounded by his own spear, the spear That had made him
king.
--
for Pe comes after O-after Ayin That triumphs
over Aleph in Ain, That is O.(29)
OP-us, the Work! the OP-ening of THE EYE!(30)
--
HORUS to the Blind Eye That weeps!(31) The Up-
right One in thine Uprightness rejoiceth-Death
--
their shape, sound, and That of the figures which resemble them in shape.
Paragraph 1 calls upon the Fool of the Tarot, who is to be referred to Ipsiss
--
The word Naught-y suggests not only That the problem is sexual, but does not
really
--
philosophy, it is said That Shiva, the Destroyer, is asleep, and That when he o
pens
--
eye That weeps" is a poetic Arab name for the lingam).
The doctrine is That the Great Work should be accomplished without creating n
ew
--
and create no new, so That, as it were, the books are balanced. WHile you have
either a credit or a debit, you are still in account with the universe.
--
minute and a half. That is how you must know the Qabalah.)
NOTE
--
Who told thee, man, That LAYLAH is not Nuit, nd
I hadit?
--
Leaving me That. elsehow may do his worst."
DONI and DIN, perceiving me inspired,
--
of That planet, Din and Doni.
Th moral of the chapter is That one wants liberty,
although one may not wish to exercise it: the author
--
in this Lily That flowereth at the midnight. In
this Lily is all perfume; in this Lily is all music.
--
Thus the disciples That watched found a dead body
kneeling at the altar. Amen!
--
yet I know That the clouds will gather closer for
the false clearing.
--
the Night of PAN, remember That ye shall see no
more light but That of the great fire That shall
consume your dust to ashes!
--
This chapter means That it is useless to try to abandon
the Great Work. You may occupy yourself for a time
--
That obtainable at Rumpelmayer's. (4) In a few days
I am going to rejoin Laylah. (5) My mission will
--
not That Word equal to Cheth, That is Cancer.
whose Sigil is {Cancer}?
--
That of Horus, a sign specially revealed by him per-
sonally, at the Equinox of the Gods. (It is the flame
--
interlocked word. We assume That the reader has
thoroughly studied That word in Liber D., etc. The
sigil of Cancer links up this symbolism with the number
--
Nor deem That thou amid the cosmic crash
May find one thing of all those things the same!
--
Of That most "high" and That most holy game,
Shemhamphorash!
--
The Hebrews say That by uttering this Name the
universe is destroyed. This statement means the same
as That of the Hindus, That the effective utterance of
the name of Shiva would cause him to awake, and so
--
not imagine That any single ides, however high, however
holy (or even however insignificant!!), can escape the
--
That in That case at least one known phenomenon of this
universe is identical with one of That." Vain word!
The logician and his logic are alike involved in the
--
Lines 8-11 indicate That this fact is the essential one
about Shivadarshana.
--
Thou humped and stiff-necked one That groanest in
Thine Asana, death will relieve thee!
--
The Infinite Snake Ananta That surroundeth the
Universe is but the Coffin-Worm!
--
allude merely to the tradition about the camel, That he can go ten days without
water.
--
of all That we call life, in a way in which what we call death is not. 3, silv
er,
--
since gimel is the Path That leads from the Microcosm in tiphareth to the
Macrocosm in Kether.
--
The reason for thus addresing the reader is That he has now transcended the
first and second persons. Cf. Liber LXV, Chapter III, vv. 21-24, and
--
Paragraph 5 expresses the wish of the Guru That his Chela may attain safely
to binah, the Mother.
--
ear, identifying the vastness of the Most Holy with the obscene worm That
gnaws the bowels of the damned.
--
(37) UNT, Hindustani for Camel. I.e. Would That BABALON might look
on thee with favour. [157]
--
That haunts me, haunts me sleeping or awake?
If I had Laylah, how could I forget
--
Even were I That, there still were one sore
spot-
The Abyss That stretches between That and
NOT.
--
material for the moral idea, before That, in its turn, is
surrendered to the spiritual. And so on. This is a
--
Paragraph 1 means That change of diet is pleasant;
vanity pleases the mind; the idee fixe is a sign of
--
it, absurd That the the text of this book, composed as it is
of English, simple, austere, and terse, should need a
--
of many most worthy brethren That we have yielded up
That time and thought which gold could not have bought,
or torture wrested.
--
But by the Silence That succeeds the Neigh!
[162]
--
That
it is true and false.
--
That this is the true meaning, or rather use, of this chapter, is evident fro
the poetry.
--
already postulated as beyond IT. The suggestion is, That there may be somethin
falsely described as silence, to represent absence-of-conception beyond That
negative.
--
The text need no comment, but it will be noticed That it is
much shorter That the title.
Now, the Devil of the Tarot is the Phallus, the Redeemer,
--
true meaning of the chapter, which is, That Redemption is
really as simple as it appears complex, That the names (or
veils) of truth are obscure and many, the Truth itself plain
and one; but That the latter must be reached through the
former. This chapter is therefore an apology, were one
--
complete, mayst thou perceive That Will which
moved it first. [There is no first or last.}
--
The number of this chapter is That of the cards of the
Tarot.
--
reminds the student That the universe is not to be
contemplated as a phenomenon in time.
--
men of courage. The plea That "love is sorrow", because
its ecstasies are only transitory, is contemptible.
--
is therefore presumably intended to assert That even
women may enjoy life sometimes.
--
Paragraph 1 explains That Frater P. sees no use
in the employment of such feeble implements as bombs.
--
liberty of the Russian is immensely greater than That of
the Englishman. The latest Radical devices for
--
Witch-moon That turnest all the streams to blood,
I take this hazel rod, and stand, and swear
--
That rears its agony above the flood
Whose swollen mask mutters an atheist's prayer.
--
And all the leopards in thy woods That range,
And all the vampires in their boughs That glow,
Brooding on blood-thirst-these are not so strange
--
He That endureth even to the end
Hath sworn That Love's own corpse shall lie at noon
Even in the coffin of its hopes, and spend
--
In verse 2, he shows That death is impotent against
life.
--
Ay! shall he not do so? he knows That the Many is
Naught; and having Naught, enjoys That Naught
even in the enjoyment of the Many.
--
verily, oft-times he is weary; it is well That the
weight of the Karma of the Infinite is with him.
--
or because That it feels That it needs exercise. Perfectly
unconscious, perfectly indifferent, it obeys the laws of
--
It is the sun and its own weight That loosen it.
So, also, is the act of the Adept. "Delivered from the
--
seeks to identify himself with the Intelligence That
communicates to him the Holy Books.
--
Any yet again! Do we not find That the most robust
of men express no thoughts at all? They eat, drink,
--
What better proof of the fact That all thought is
dis-ease?
--
We like it; this only proves That our tastes also are
depraved and debauched by our disease.
--
We now return to That series of chapters which started
with Chapter 8 ({Eta}).
--
N. the Fire That twisteth itself and burneth like a
scorpion.
--
The title is the Sanskrit for That, in its sense of "The Existing".
This chapter is an attempt to replace Elohim by a more
--
Nihil is taken to affirm That the universe is Nothing, and That is
now to be analysed. The order of the element is That of Jeheshua.
The elements are taken rather as in Nature; N is easily Fire,
--
of Pentagrammaton, That followed by Dr. Dee, and by the Hindus,
Tibetans, Chinese and Japanese. Fire is the Foundation, the
--
to express "the Mother" instead of Epsilon ({Epsilon}), to show That She
has been impregnated by the Spirit; it is the rough breathing and
--
It means That, however great may be one's own
achievements the gifts from on high are still better.
--
A man advertises That he could tell anyone how to
make four hundred a year certain, and would do so
--
The moral of the chapter is, That it is no good trying
to teach people who need to be taught.
--
That, too, is wise; for since I am annoyed, I could
not write even a reasonably decent lie.
--
He shows That his mind was completely poisoned in
respect of That number by his allowing himself to be
annoyed.
(But note That a good Qabalist cannot err. "In Him
all is right." 89 is Body- That which annoys-and
--
in every land That is under the dominion of the
Sun, and I have sailed the seas from pole to pole.
Now do I lift up my voice and testify That all is
vanity on earth, except the love of a good woman,
and That good woman LAYLAH. And I testify
That in heaven all is vanity (for I have journeyed
oft, and sojourned oft, in every heaven), except the
--
That beyond heaven and earth is the love of OUR
LADY NUIT.
And seeing That I am old and well stricken in years,
and That my natural forces fail, therefore do I rise
up i my throne and call upon THE END.
--
ANd at THE END is SHE That was LAYLAH, and
BABALON, and NUIT, being...
--
But its general nature is That of a certain minute
whiteness, appearing at the extreme end of great
--
of his That has wandered long in the darkness.
91 is the numberation of Amen.
0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
IN THE HISTORY of the arts, genius is a thing of very rare occurrence. Rarer still, however, are the competent reporters and recorders of That genius. The world has had many hundreds of admirable poets and philosophers; but of these hundreds only a very few have had the fortune to attract a Boswell or an Eckermann.
When we leave the field of art for That of spiritual religion, the scarcity of competent reporters becomes even more strongly marked. Of the day-to-day life of the great theocentric saints and contemplatives we know, in the great majority of cases, nothing whatever. Many, it is true, have recorded their doctrines in writing, and a few, such as St. Augustine, Suso and St. Teresa, have left us autobiographies of the greatest value.
But, all doctrinal writing is in some measure formal and impersonal, while the autobiographer tends to omit what he regards as trifling matters and suffers from the further disadvantage of being unable to say how he strikes other people and in what way he affects their lives. Moreover, most saints have left neither writings nor self-portraits, and for knowledge of their lives, their characters and their teachings, we are forced to rely upon the records made by their disciples who, in most cases, have proved themselves singularly incompetent as reporters and biographers. Hence the special interest attaching to this enormously detailed account of the daily life and conversations of Sri Ramakrishna.
"M", as the author modestly styles himself, was peculiarly qualified for his task. To a reverent love for his master, to a deep and experiential knowledge of That master's teaching, he added a prodigious memory for the small happenings of each day and a happy gift for recording them in an interesting and realistic way. Making good use of his natural gifts and of the circumstances in which he found himself, "M" produced a book unique, so far as my knowledge goes, in the literature of hagiography. No other saint has had so able and indefatigable a Boswell. Never have the small events of a contemplative's daily life been described with such a wealth of intimate detail. Never have the casual and unstudied utterances of a great religious teacher been set down with so minute a fidelity. To Western readers, it is true, this fidelity and this wealth of detail are sometimes a trifle disconcerting; for the social, religious and intellectual frames of reference within which Sri Ramakrishna did his thinking and expressed his feelings were entirely Indian. But after the first few surprises and bewilderments, we begin to find something peculiarly stimulating and instructive about the very strangeness and, to our eyes, the eccentricity of the man revealed to us in "M's" narrative. What a scholastic philosopher would call the "accidents" of Ramakrishna's life were intensely Hindu and therefore, so far as we in the West are concerned, unfamiliar and hard to understand; its "essence", however, was intensely mystical and therefore universal. To read through these conversations in which mystical doctrine alternates with an unfamiliar kind of humour, and where discussions of the oddest aspects of Hindu mythology give place to the most profound and subtle utterances about the nature of Ultimate Reality, is in itself a liberal, education in humility, tolerance and suspense of judgment. We must be grateful to the translator for his excellent version of a book so curious and delightful as a biographical document, so precious, at the same time, for what it teaches us of the life of the spirit.
--------------------
--
The reader will find mentioned in this work many visions and experiences That fall outside the ken of physical science and even psychology. With the development of modern knowledge the border line between the natural and the supernatural is ever shifting its position. Genuine mystical experiences are not as suspect now as they were half a century ago. The words of Sri Ramakrishna have already exerted a tremendous influence in the land of his birth. Savants of Europe have found in his words the ring of universal truth.
But these words were not the product of intellectual cogitation; they were rooted in direct experience. Hence, to students of religion, psychology, and physical science, these experiences of the Master are of immense value for the understanding of religious phenomena in general. No doubt Sri Ramakrishna was a Hindu of the Hindus; yet his experiences transcended the limits of the dogmas and creeds of Hinduism. Mystics of religions other than Hinduism will find in Sri Ramakrishna's experiences a corroboration of the experiences of their own prophets and seers. And this is very important today for the resuscitation of religious values. The sceptical reader may pass by the supernatural experiences; he will yet find in the book enough material to provoke his serious thought and solve many of his spiritual problems.
--
I have thought it necessary to write a rather lengthy Introduction to the book. In it I have given the biography of the Master, descriptions of people who came in contact with him, short explanations of several systems of Indian religious thought intimately connected with Sri Ramakrishna's life, and other relevant matters which, I hope, will enable the reader better to understand and appreciate the unusual contents of this book. It is particularly important That the Western reader, unacquainted with Hindu religious thought, should first read carefully the introductory chapter, in order That he may fully enjoy these conversations. Many Indian terms and names have been retained in the book for want of suitable English equivalents. Their meaning is given either in the Glossary or in the foot-notes. The Glossary also gives explanations of a number of expressions unfamiliar to Western readers. The diacritical marks are explained under Notes on Pronunciation.
In the Introduction I have drawn much material from the Life of Sri Ramakrishna, published by the Advaita Ashrama, Myvati, India. I have also consulted the excellent article on Sri Ramakrishna by Swami Nirvednanda, in the second volume of the Cultural Heritage of India.
--
The life and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna have redirected the thoughts of the denationalized Hindus to the spiritual ideals of their forefa thers. During the latter part of the nineteenth century his was the time-honoured role of the Saviour of the Eternal Religion of the Hindus. His teachings played an important part in liberalizing the minds of orthodox pundits and hermits. Even now he is the silent force That is moulding the spiritual destiny of India. His great disciple, Swami Vivekananda, was the first Hindu missionary to preach the message of Indian culture to the enlightened minds of Europe and America. The full consequence of Swami Vivekn and work is still in the womb of the future.
May this translation of the first book of its kind in the religious history of the world, being the record of the direct words of a prophet, help stricken humanity to come nearer to the Eternal Verity of life and remove dissension and quarrel from among the different faiths!
--
In the life of the great Saviours and Prophets of the world it is often found That they are accompanied by souls of high spiritual potency who play a conspicuous part in the furtherance of their Master's mission. They become so integral a part of the life and work of these great ones That posterity can think of them only in mutual association. Such is the case with Sri Ramakrishna and M., whose diary has come to be known to the world as the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna in English and as Sri Rmakrishna Kathmrita in the original Bengali version.
Sri Mahendra Nath Gupta, familiary known to the readers of the Gospel by his pen name M., and to the devotees as Master Mahashay, was born on the 14th of July, 1854 as the son of Madhusudan Gupta, an officer of the Calcutta High Court, and his wife, Swarnamayi Devi. He had a brilliant scholastic career at Hare School and the Presidency College at Calcutta. The range of his studies included the best That both occidental and oriental learning had to offer. English literature, history, economics, western philosophy and law on the one hand, and Sanskrit literature and grammar, Darsanas, Puranas, Smritis, Jainism, Buddhism, astrology and Ayurveda on the other were the subjects in which he attained considerable proficiency.
He was an educationist all his life both in a spiritual and in a secular sense. After he passed out of College, he took up work as headmaster in a number of schools in succession Narail High School, City School, Ripon College School, Metropolitan School, Aryan School, Oriental School, Oriental Seminary and Model School. The causes of his migration from school to school were That he could not get on with some of the managements on grounds of principles and That often his spiritual mood drew him away to places of pilgrimage for long periods. He worked with some of the most noted public men of the time like Iswar Chandra Vidysgar and Surendranath Banerjee. The latter appointed him as a professor in the City and Ripon Colleges where he taught subjects like English, philosophy, history and economics. In his later days he took over the Morton School, and he spent his time in the staircase room of the third floor of it, administering the school and preaching the message of the Master. He was much respected in educational circles where he was usually referred to as Rector Mahashay. A teacher who had worked under him writes thus in warm appreciation of his teaching methods: "Only when I worked with him in school could I appreciate what a great educationist he was. He would come down to the level of his students when teaching, though he himself was so learned, so talented. Ordinarily teachers confine their instruction to what is given in books without much thought as to whether the student can accept it or not. But M., would first of all gauge how much the student could take in and by what means. He would employ aids to teaching like maps, pictures and diagrams, so That his students could learn by seeing. Thirty years ago (from 1953) when the question of imparting education through the medium of the mother tongue was being discussed, M. had already employed Bengali as the medium of instruction in the Morton School." (M The Apostle and the Evangelist by Swami Nityatmananda Part I. P. 15.)
Imparting secular education was, however, only his profession ; his main concern was with the spiritual regeneration of man a calling for which Destiny seems to have chosen him. From his childhood he was deeply pious, and he used to be moved very much by Sdhus, temples and Durga Puja celebrations. The piety and eloquence of the great Brahmo leader of the times, Keshab Chander Sen, elicited a powerful response from the impressionable mind of Mahendra Nath, as it did in the case of many an idealistic young man of Calcutta, and prepared him to receive the great Light That was to dawn on him with the coming of Sri Ramakrishna into his life.
This epoch-making event of his life came about in a very strange way. M. belonged to a joint family with several collateral members. Some ten years after he began his career as an educationist, bitter quarrels broke out among the members of the family, driving the sensitive M. to despair and utter despondency. He lost all interest in life and left home one night to go into the wide world with the idea of ending his life. At dead of night he took rest in his sister's house at Baranagar, and in the morning, accompanied by a nephew Siddheswar, he wandered from one garden to another in Calcutta until Siddheswar brought him to the Temple Garden of Dakshineswar where Sri Ramakrishna was then living. After spending some time in the beautiful rose gardens there, he was directed to the room of the Paramahamsa, where the eventful meeting of the Master and the disciple took place on a blessed evening (the exact date is not on record) on a Sunday in March 1882. As regards what took place on the occasion, the reader is referred to the opening section of the first chapter of the Gospel.
The Master, who divined the mood of desperation in M, his resolve to take leave of this 'play-field of deception', put new faith and hope into him by his gracious words of assurance: "God forbid! Why should you take leave of this world? Do you not feel blessed by discovering your Guru? By His grace, what is beyond all imagination or dreams can be easily achieved!" At these words the clouds of despair moved away from the horizon of M.'s mind, and the sunshine of a new hope revealed to him fresh vistas of meaning in life. Referring to this phase of his life, M. used to say, "Behold! where is the resolve to end life, and where, the discovery of God! That is, sorrow should be looked upon as a friend of man. God is all good." ( Ibid P.33.)
After this re-settlement, M's life revolved around the Master, though he continued his professional work as an educationist. During all holidays, including Sundays, he spent his time at Dakshineswar in the Master's company, and at times extended his stay to several days.
It did not take much time for M. to become very intimate with the Master, or for the Master to recognise in this disciple a divinely commissioned partner in the fulfilment of his spiritual mission. When M. was reading out the Chaitanya Bhagavata, the Master discovered That he had been, in a previous birth, a disciple and companion of the great Vaishnava Teacher, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and the Master even saw him 'with his naked eye' participating in the ecstatic mass-singing of the Lord's name under the leadership of That Divine personality. So the Master told M, "You are my own, of the same substance as the father and the son," indicating thereby That M. was one of the chosen few and a part and parcel of his Divine mission.
There was an urge in M. to abandon the household life and become a Sannysin. When he communicated this idea to the Master, he forbade him saying," Mother has told me That you have to do a little of Her work you will have to teach Bhagavata, the word of God to humanity. The Mother keeps a Bhagavata Pandit with a bondage in the world!"
( Ibid P.36.)
An appropriate allusion indeed! Bhagavata, the great scripture That has given the word of Sri Krishna to mankind, was composed by the Sage Vysa under similar circumstances. When caught up in a mood of depression like That of M, Vysa was advised by the sage Nrada That he would gain peace of mind only qn composing a work exclusively devoted to the depiction of the Lord's glorious attributes and His teachings on Knowledge and Devotion, and the result was That the world got from Vysa the invaluable gift of the Bhagavata Purana depicting the life and teachings of Sri Krishna.
From the mental depression of the modem Vysa, the world has obtained the Kathmrita (Bengali Edition) the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna in English.
Sri Ramakrishna was a teacher for both the Orders of mankind, Sannysins and householders. His own life offered an ideal example for both, and he left behind disciples who followed the highest traditions he had set in respect of both these ways of life. M., along with Nag Mahashay, exemplified how a householder can rise to the highest level of sagehood. M. was married to Nikunja Devi, a distant relative of Keshab Chander Sen, even when he was reading at College, and he had four children, two sons and two daughters. The responsibility of the family, no doubt, made him dependent on his professional income, but the great devotee That he was, he never compromised with ideals and principles for this reason. Once when he was working as the headmaster in a school managed by the great Vidysgar, the results of the school at the public examination happened to be rather poor, and Vidysgar attri buted it to M's preoccupation with the Master and his consequent failure to attend adequately to the school work. M. at once resigned his post without any thought of the morrow. Within a fortnight the family was in poverty, and M. was one day pacing up and down the verandah of his house, musing how he would feed his children the next day. Just then a man came with a letter addressed to 'Mahendra Babu', and on opening it, M. found That it was a letter from his friend Sri Surendra Nath Banerjee, asking whether he would like to take up a professorship in the Ripon College. In this way three or four times he gave up the job That gave him the wherewithal to support the family, either for upholding principles or for practising spiritual Sadhanas in holy places, without any consideration of the possible dire worldly consequences; but he was always able to get over these difficulties somehow, and the interests of his family never suffered. In spite of his disregard for worldly goods, he was, towards the latter part of his life, in a fairly flourishing condition as the proprietor of the Morton School which he developed into a noted educational institution in the city. The Lord has said in the Bhagavad Git That in the case of those who think of nothing except Him, He Himself would take up all their material and spiritual responsibilities. M. was an example of the truth of the Lord's promise.
Though his children received proper attention from him, his real family, both during the Master's lifetime and after, consisted of saints, devotees, Sannysins and spiritual aspirants. His life exemplifies the Master's teaching That an ideal householder must be like a good maidservant of a family, loving and caring properly for the children of the house, but knowing always That her real home and children are elsewhere. During the Master's lifetime he spent all his Sundays and other holidays with him and his devotees, and besides listening to the holy talks and devotional music, practised meditation both on the Personal and the Impersonal aspects of God under the direct guidance of the Master. In the pages of the Gospel the reader gets a picture of M.'s spiritual relationship with the Master how from a hazy belief in the Impersonal God of the Brahmos, he was step by step brought to accept both Personality and Impersonality as the two aspects of the same Non-dual Being, how he was convinced of the manifestation of That Being as Gods, Goddesses and as Incarnations, and how he was established in a life That was both of a Jnni and of a Bhakta. This Jnni-Bhakta outlook and way of living became so dominant a feature of his life That Swami Raghavananda, who was very closely associated with him during his last six years, remarks: "Among those who lived with M. in latter days, some felt That he always lived in this constant and conscious union with God even with open eyes (i.e., even in waking consciousness)." (Swami Raghavananda's article on M. in Prabuddha Bharata vol. XXXVII. P. 442.)
Besides undergoing spiritual disciplines at the feet of the Master, M. used to go to holy places during the Master's lifetime itself and afterwards too as a part of his Sdhan.
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The life of Sdhan and holy association That he started on at the feet of the Master, he continued all through his life. He has for this reason been most appropriately described as a Grihastha-Sannysi (householder-Sannysin). Though he was forbidden by the Master to become a Sannysin, his reverence for the Sannysa ideal was whole-hearted and was without any reservation. So after Sri Ramakrishna's passing away, while several of the Master's householder devotees considered the young Sannysin disciples of the Master as inexperienced and inconsequential, M. stood by them with the firm faith That the Master's life and message were going to be perpetuated only through them. Swami Vivekananda wrote from America in a letter to the inmates of the Math: "When Sri Thkur (Master) left the body, every one gave us up as a few unripe urchins. But M. and a few others did not leave us in the lurch. We cannot repay our debt to them." (Swami Raghavananda's article on M. in Prabuddha Bharata vol. XXX P. 442.)
M. spent his weekends and holidays with the monastic brethren who, after the Master's demise, had formed themselves into an Order with a Math at Baranagore, and participated in the intense life of devotion and meditation That they followed. At other times he would retire to Dakshineswar or some garden in the city and spend several days in spiritual practice taking simple self-cooked food. In order to feel That he was one with all mankind he often used to go out of his home at dead of night, and like a wandering Sannysin, sleep with the waifs on some open verandah or footpath on the road.
After the Master's demise, M. went on pilgrimage several times. He visited Banras, Vrindvan, Ayodhy and other places. At Banras he visited the famous Trailinga Swmi and fed him with sweets, and he had long conversations with Swami Bhaskarananda, one of the noted saintly and scholarly Sannysins of the time. In 1912 he went with the Holy Mother to Banras, and spent about a year in the company of Sannysins at Banras, Vrindvan, Hardwar, Hrishikesh and Swargashram. But he returned to Calcutta, as That city offered him the unique opportunity of associating himself with the places hallowed by the Master in his lifetime. Afterwards he does not seem to have gone to any far-off place, but stayed on in his room in the Morton School carrying on his spiritual ministry, speaking on the Master and his teachings to the large number of people who flocked to him after having read his famous Kathmrita known to English readers as The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna.
This brings us to the circumstances That led to the writing and publication of this monumental work, which has made M. one of the immortals in hagiographic literature.
While many educated people heard Sri Ramakrishna's talks, it was given to this illustrious personage alone to leave a graphic and exact account of them for posterity, with details like date, hour, place, names and particulars about participants. Humanity owes this great book to the ingrained habit of diary-keeping with which M. was endowed.
Even as a boy of about thirteen, while he was a student in the 3rd class of the Hare School, he was in the habit of keeping a diary. "Today on rising," he wrote in his diary, "I greeted my father and mother, prostrating on the ground before them" (Swami Nityatmananda's 'M The Apostle and the Evangelist' Part I. P 29.) At another place he wrote, "Today, while on my way to school, I visited, as usual, the temples of Kli, the Mother at Tharitharia, and of Mother Sitala, and paid my obeisance to them." About twenty-five years after, when he met the Great Master in the spring of 1882, it was the same instinct of a born diary-writer That made him begin his book, 'unique in the literature of hagiography', with the memorable words: "When hearing the name of Hari or Rma once, you shed tears and your hair stands on end, then you may know for certain That you do not have to perform devotions such as Sandhya any more."
In addition to this instinct for diary-keeping, M. had great endowments contri buting to success in this line. Writes Swami Nityatmananda who lived in close association with M., in his book entitled M - The Apostle and Evangelist: "M.'s prodigious memory combined with his extraordinary power of imagination completely annihilated the distance of time and place for him. Even after the lapse of half a century he could always visualise vividly, scenes from the life of Sri Ramakrishna. Superb too was his power to portray pictures by words."
Besides the prompting of his inherent instinct, the main inducement for M. to keep this diary of his experiences at Dakshineswar was his desire to provide himself with a means for living in holy company at all times. Being a school teacher, he could be with the Master only on Sundays and other holidays, and it was on his diary That he depended for 'holy company' on other days. The devotional scriptures like the Bhagavata say That holy company is the first and most important means for the generation and growth of devotion. For, in such company man could hear talks on spiritual matters and listen to the glorification of Divine attri butes, charged with the fervour and conviction emanating from the hearts of great lovers of God. Such company is therefore the one certain means through which Sraddha (Faith), Rati (attachment to God) and Bhakti (loving devotion) are generated. The diary of his visits to Dakshineswar provided M. with material for re-living, through reading and contemplation, the holy company he had had earlier, even on days when he was not able to visit Dakshineswar. The wealth of details and the vivid description of men and things in the midst of which the sublime conversations are set, provide excellent material to re-live those experiences for any one with imaginative powers. It was observed by M.'s disciples and admirers That in later life also whenever he was free or alone, he would be pouring over his diary, transporting himself on the wings of imagination to the glorious days he spent at the feet of the Master.
During the Master's lifetime M. does not seem to have revealed the contents of his diary to any one. There is an unconfirmed tradition That when the Master saw him taking notes, he expressed apprehension at the possibility of his utilising these to publicise him like Keshab Sen; for the Great Master was so full of the spirit of renunciation and humility That he disliked being lionised. It must be for this reason That no one knew about this precious diary of M. for a decade until he brought out selections from it as a pamphlet in English in 1897 with the Holy Mother's blessings and permission. The Holy Mother, being very much pleased to hear parts of the diary read to her in Bengali, wrote to M.: "When I heard the Kathmrita, (Bengali name of the book) I felt as if it was he, the Master, who was saying all That." ( Ibid Part I. P 37.)
The two pamphlets in English entitled the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna appeared in October and November 1897. They drew the spontaneous acclamation of Swami Vivekananda, who wrote on 24th November of That year from Dehra Dun to M.:"Many many thanks for your second leaflet. It is indeed wonderful. The move is quite original, and never was the life of a Great Teacher brought before the public untarnished by the writer's mind, as you are doing. The language also is beyond all praise, so fresh, so pointed, and withal so plain and easy. I cannot express in adequate terms how I have enjoyed them. I am really in a transport when I read them. Strange, isn't it? Our Teacher and Lord was so original, and each one of us will have to be original or nothing.
I now understand why none of us attempted His life before. It has been reserved for you, this great work. He is with you evidently." ( Vednta Kesari Vol. XIX P. 141. Also given in the first edition of the Gospel published from Ramakrishna Math, Madras in 1911.)
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It looks as if M. was brought to the world by the Great Master to record his words and transmit them to posterity. Swami Sivananda, a direct disciple of the Master and the second President of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, says on this topic: "Whenever there was an interesting talk, the Master would call Master Mahashay if he was not in the room, and then draw his attention to the holy words spoken. We did not know then why the Master did so. Now we can realise That this action of the Master had an important significance, for it was reserved for Master Mahashay to give to the world at large the sayings of the Master." ( Vednta Kesari Vol. XIX P 141.) Thanks to M., we get, unlike in the case of the great teachers of the past, a faithful record with date, time, exact report of conversations, description of concerned men and places, references to contemporary events and personalities and a hundred other details for the last four years of the Master's life (1882-'86), so That no one can doubt the historicity of the Master and his teachings at any time in the future.
M. was, in every respect, a true missionary of Sri Ramakrishna right from his first acquaintance with him in 1882. As a school teacher, it was a practice with him to direct to the Master such of his students as had a true spiritual disposition. Though himself prohibited by the Master to take to monastic life, he encouraged all spiritually inclined young men he came across in his later life to join the monastic Order. Swami Vijnanananda, a direct Sannysin disciple of the Master and a President of the Ramakrishna Order, once remarked to M.: "By enquiry, I have come to the conclusion That eighty percent and more of the Sannysins have embraced the monastic life after reading the Kathmrita (Bengali name of the book) and coming in contact with you." ( M
The Apostle and the Evangelist by Swami Nityatmananda Part I, P 37.)
In 1905 he retired from the active life of a Professor and devoted his remaining twenty-seven years exclusively to the preaching of the life and message of the Great Master. He bought the Morton Institution from its original proprietors and shifted it to a commodious four-storeyed house at 50 Amherst Street, where it flourished under his management as one of the most efficient educational institutions in Calcutta. He generally occupied a staircase room at the top of it, cooking his own meal which consisted only of milk and rice without variation, and attended to all his personal needs himself. His dress also was the simplest possible. It was his conviction That limitation of personal wants to the minimum is an important aid to holy living. About one hour in the morning he would spend in inspecting the classes of the school, and then retire to his staircase room to pour over his diary and live in the divine atmosphere of the earthly days of the Great Master, unless devotees and admirers had already gathered in his room seeking his holy company.
In appearance, M. looked a Vedic Rishi. Tall and stately in bearing, he had a strong and well-built body, an unusually broad chest, high forehead and arms extending to the knees. His complexion was fair and his prominent eyes were always tinged with the expression of the divine love That filled his heart. Adorned with a silvery beard That flowed luxuriantly down his chest, and a shining face radiating the serenity and gravity of holiness, M. was as imposing and majestic as he was handsome and engaging in appearance. Humorous, sweet-tongued and eloquent when situations required, this great Maharishi of our age lived only to sing the glory of Sri Ramakrishna day and night.
Though a very well versed scholar in the Upanishads, Git and the philosophies of the East and the West, all his discussions and teachings found their culmination in the life and the message of Sri Ramakrishna, in which he found the real explanation and illustration of all the scriptures. Both consciously and unconsciously, he was the teacher of the Kathmrita the nectarine words of the Great Master.
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As time went on and the number of devotees increased, the staircase room and terrace of the 3rd floor of the Morton Institution became a veritable Naimisaranya of modern times, resounding during all hours of the day, and sometimes of night, too, with the word of God coming from the Rishi-like face of M. addressed to the eager God-seekers sitting around. To the devotees who helped him in preparing the text of the Gospel, he would dictate the conversations of the Master in a meditative mood, referring now and then to his diary. At times in the stillness of midnight he would awaken a nearby devotee and tell him: "Let us listen to the words of the Master in the depths of the night as he explains the truth of the Pranava." ( Vednta Kesari XIX P. 142.) Swami Raghavananda, an intimate devotee of M., writes as follows about these devotional sittings: "In the sweet and warm months of April and May, sitting under the canopy of heaven on the roof-garden of 50 Amherst Street, surrounded by shrubs and plants, himself sitting in their midst like a Rishi of old, the stars and planets in their courses beckoning us to things infinite and sublime, he would speak to us of the mysteries of God and His love and of the yearning That would rise in the human heart to solve the Eternal Riddle, as exemplified in the life of his Master. The mind, melting under the influence of his soft sweet words of light, would almost transcend the frontiers of limited existence and dare to peep into the infinite. He himself would take the influence of the setting and say,'What a blessed privilege it is to sit in such a setting (pointing to the starry heavens), in the company of the devotees discoursing on God and His love!' These unforgettable scenes will long remain imprinted on the minds of his hearers." (Prabuddha Bharata Vol XXXVII P 497.)
About twenty-seven years of his life he spent in this way in the heart of the great city of Calcutta, radiating the Master's thoughts and ideals to countless devotees who flocked to him, and to still larger numbers who read his Kathmrita (English Edition : The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna), the last part of which he had completed before June 1932 and given to the press. And miraculously, as it were, his end also came immediately after he had completed his life's mission. About three months earlier he had come to stay at his home at 13/2 Gurdasprasad Chaudhuary Lane at Thakur Bari, where the Holy Mother had herself installed the Master and where His regular worship was being conducted for the previous 40 years. The night of 3rd June being the Phalahrini Kli Pooja day, M.
0.00 - The Wellspring of Reality, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
We are in an age That assumes the narrowing trends of specialization to be logical, natural, and desirable. Consequently, society expects all earnestly responsible communication to be crisply brief. Advancing science has now discovered That all the known cases of biological extinction have been caused by overspecialization, whose concentration of only selected genes sacrifices general adaptability. Thus the specialist's brief for pinpointing brevity is dubious. In the meantime, humanity has been deprived of comprehensive understanding. Specialization has bred feelings of isolation, futility, and confusion in individuals. It has also resulted in the individual's leaving responsibility for thinking and social action to others.
Specialization breeds biases That ultimately aggregate as international and ideological discord, which, in turn, leads to war.
We are not seeking a license to ramble wordily. We are intent only upon being adequately concise. General systems science discloses the existence of minimum sets of variable factors That uniquely govern each and every system. Lack of knowledge concerning all the factors and the failure to include them in our integral imposes false conclusions. Let us not make the error of inadequacy in examining our most comprehensive inventory of experience and thoughts regarding the evoluting affairs of all humanity.
There is an inherently minimum set of essential concepts and current information, cognizance of which could lead to our operating our planet Earth to the lasting satisfaction and health of all humanity. With this objective, we set out on our review of the spectrum of significant experiences and seek therein for the greatest meanings as well as for the family of generalized principles governing the realization of their optimum significance to humanity aboard our Sun circling planet Earth.
We must start with scientific fundamentals, and That means with the data of experiments and not with assumed axioms predicated only upon the misleading nature of That which only superficially seems to be obvious. It is the consensus of great scientists That science is the attempt to set in order the facts of experience.
Holding within their definition, we define Universe as the aggregate of allhumanity's consciously apprehended and communicated, nonsimultaneous, and only partially overlapping experiences. An aggregate of finites is finite. Universe is a finite but nonsimultaneously conceptual scenario.
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As Korzybski, the founder of general semantics, pointed out, the consequence of its single-tagging is That the rose becomes reflexively considered by man only as a red, white, or pink device for paying tribute to a beautiful girl, a thoughtful hostess, or last night's deceased acquaintance. The tagging of the complex biological process under the single title rose tends to detour human curiosity from further differentiation of its integral organic operations as well as from consideration of its interecological functionings aboard our planet. We don't know what a rose is, nor what may be its essential and unique cosmic function. Thus for long have we inadvertently deferred potential discovery of the essential roles in Universe That are performed complementarily by many, if not most, of the phenomena we experience.
But, goaded by youth, we older ones are now taking second looks at almost everything. And That promises many ultimately favorable surprises. The oldsters do have vast experience banks not available to the youth. Their memory banks, integrated and reviewed, may readily disclose generalized principles of eminent importance.
The word generalization in literature usually means covering too much territory too thinly to be persuasive, let alone convincing. In science, however, a generalization means a principle That has been found to hold true in every special case.
The principle of leverage is a scientific generalization. It makes no difference of what material either the fulcrum or the lever consists-wood, steel, or reinforced concrete. Nor do the special-case sizes of the lever and fulcrum, or of the load pried at one end, or the work applied at the lever's other end in any way alter either the principle or the mathematical regularity of the ratios of physical work advantage That are provided at progressive fulcrum-to-load increments of distance outward from the fulcrum in the opposite direction along the lever's arm at which theoperating effort is applied.
Mind is the weightless and uniquely human faculty That surveys the ever larger inventory of special-case experiences stored in the brain bank and, seeking to identify their intercomplementary significance, from time to time discovers one of the rare scientifically generalizable principles running consistently through all the relevant experience set. The thoughts That discover these principles are weightless and tentative and may also be eternal. They suggest eternity but do not prove it, even though there have been no experiences thus far That imply exceptions to their persistence. It seems also to follow That the more experiences we have, the more chances there are That the mind may discover, on the one hand, additional generalized principles or, on the other hand, exceptions That disqualify one or another of the already catalogued principles That, having heretofore held "true" without contradiction for a long time, had been tentatively conceded to be demonstrating eternal persistence of behavior. Mind's relentless reviewing of the comprehensive brain bank's storage of all our special-case experiences tends both to progressive enlargement and definitive refinement of the catalogue of generalized principles That interaccommodatively govern all transactions of Universe.
It follows That the more specialized society becomes, the less attention does it pay to the discoveries of the mind, which are intuitively beamed toward the brain, there to be received only if the switches are "on." Specialization tends to shut off the wide-band tuning searches and thus to preclude further discovery of the all-powerful generalized principles. Again we see how society's perverse fixation on specialization leads to its extinction. We are so specialized That one man discovers empirically how to release the energy of the atom, while another, unbeknownst to him, is ordered by his political factotum to make an atomic bomb by use of the secretly and anonymously published data. That gives much expedient employment, which solves the politician's momentary problem, but requires That the politicians keep on preparing for further warring with other political states to keep their respective peoples employed. It is also mistakenly assumed That employment is the only means by which humans can earn the right to live, for politicians have yet to discover how much wealth is available for distribution. All this is rationalized on the now scientifically discredited premise That there can never be enough life support for all. Thus humanity's specialization leads only toward warring and such devastating tools, both, visible and invisible, as ultimately to destroy all Earthians.
Only a comprehensive switch from the narrowing specialization and toward an evermore inclusive and refining comprehension by all humanity-regarding all the factors governing omnicontinuing life aboard our spaceship Earth-can bring about reorientation from the self-extinction-bound human trending, and do so within the critical time remaining before we have passed the point of chemical process irretrievability.
Quite clearly, our task is predominantly metaphysical, for it is how to get all of humanity to educate itself swiftly enough to generate spontaneous social behaviors That will avoid extinction.
Living upon the threshold between yesterday and tomorrow, which threshold we reflexively assumed in some long ago yesterday to constitute an eternal now, we are aware of the daily-occurring, vast multiplication of experience generated information by which we potentially may improve our understanding of our yesterdays' experiences and therefrom derive our most farsighted preparedness for successive tomorrows.
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We are able to assert That this rationally coordinating system bridge has been established between science and the humanities because we have made adequate experimental testing of it in a computerized world-resource-use-exploration system, which by virtue of the proper inclusion of all the parameters-as guaranteed by the synergetic start with Universe and the progressive differentiation out of all the parts-has demonstrated a number of alternate ways in which it is eminently feasible not only to provide full life support for all humans but also to permit all humans' individual enjoyment of all the Earth without anyone profiting at the expense of another and without any individuals interfering with others.
While it takes but meager search to discover That many well-known concepts are false, it takes considerable search and even more careful examination of one's own personal experiences and inadvertently spontaneous reflexing to discover That there are many popularly and even professionally unknown, yet nonetheless fundamental, concepts to hold true in all cases and That already have been discovered by other as yet obscure individuals. That is to say That many scientific generalizations have been discovered but have not come to the attention of what we call the educated world at large, thereafter to be incorporated tardily within the formal education processes, and even more tardily, in the ongoing political-economic affairs of everyday life. Knowledge of the existence and comprehensive significance of these as yet popularly unrecognized natural laws often is requisite to the solution of many of the as yet unsolved problems now confronting society. Lack of knowledge of the solution's existence often leaves humanity confounded when it need not be.
Intellectually advantaged with no more than the child's facile, lucid eagerness to understand constructively and usefully the major transformational events of our own times, it probably is synergetically advantageous to review swiftly the most comprehensive inventory of the most powerful human environment transforming events of our totally known and reasonably extended history. This is especially useful in winnowing out and understanding the most significant of the metaphysical revolutions now recognized as swiftly tending to reconstitute history. By such a comprehensively schematic review, we might identify also the unprecedented and possibly heretofore overlooked pivotal revolutionary events not only of today but also of those trending to be central to tomorrow's most cataclysmic changes.
It is synergetically reasonable to assume That relativistic evaluation of any of the separate drives of art, science, education, economics, and ideology, and their complexedly interacting trends within our own times, may be had only through the most comprehensive historical sweep of which we are capable.
There could be produced a synergetic understanding of humanity's cosmic functioning, which, until now, had been both undiscovered and unpredictable due to our deliberate and exclusive preoccupation only with the separate statistics of separate events. As a typical consequence of the latter, we observe our society's persistent increase of educational and employment specialization despite the already mentioned, well-documented scientific disclosure That the extinctions of biological species are always occasioned by overspecialization. Specialization's preoccupation with parts deliberately forfeits the opportunity to apprehend and comprehend what is provided exclusively by synergy.
Today's news consists of aggregates of fragments. Anyone who has taken part in any event That has subsequently appeared in the news is aware of the gross disparity between the actual and the reported events. The insistence by reporters upon having advance "releases" of what, for instance, convocation speakers are supposedly going to say but in fact have not yet said, automatically discredits the value of the largely prefabricated news. We also learn frequently of prefabricated and prevaricated events of a complex nature purportedly undertaken for purposes either of suppressing or rigging the news, which in turn perverts humanity's tactical information resources. All history becomes suspect. Probably our most polluted resource is the tactical information to which humanity spontaneously reflexes.
Furthermore, today's hyperspecialization in socioeconomic functioning has come to preclude important popular philosophic considerations of the synergetic significance of, for instance, such historically important events as the discovery within the general region of experimental inquiry known as virology That the as-yet popularly assumed validity of the concepts of animate and inanimate phenomena have been experimentally invalidated. Atoms and crystal complexes of atoms were held to be obviously inanimate; the protoplasmic cells of biological phenomena were held to be obviously animate. It was deemed to be common sense That warm- blooded, moist, and soft-skinned humans were clearly not to be confused with hard, cold granite or steel objects. A clear-cut threshold between animate and inanimate was therefore assumed to exist as a fundamental dichotomy of all physical phenomena. This seemingly placed life exclusively within the bounds of the physical.
The supposed location of the threshold between animate and inanimate was methodically narrowed down by experimental science until it was confined specifically within the domain of virology. Virologists have been too busy, for instance, with their DNA-RNA genetic code isolatings, to find time to see the synergetic significance to society of the fact That they have found That no physical threshold does in fact exist between animate and inanimate. The possibility of its existence vanished because the supposedly unique physical qualities of both animate and inanimate have persisted right across yesterday's supposed threshold in both directions to permeate one another's-previously perceived to be exclusive- domains. Subsequently, what was animate has become foggier and foggier, and what is inanimate clearer and clearer. All organisms consist physically and in entirety of inherently inanimate atoms. The inanimate alone is not only omnipresent but is alone experimentally demonstrable. Belated news of the elimination of this threshold must be interpreted to mean That whatever life may be, it has not been isolated and thereby identified as residual in the biological cell, as had been supposed by the false assumption That there was a separate physical phenomenoncalled animate within which life existed. No life per se has been isolated. The threshold between animate and inanimate has vanished. Those chemists who are preoccupied in synthesizing the particular atomically structured molecules identified as the prime constituents of humanly employed organisms will, even if they are chemically successful, be as remote from creating life as are automobile manufacturers from creating the human drivers of their automobiles. Only the physical connections and development complexes of distinctly "nonlife" atoms into molecules, into cells, into animals, has been and will be discovered. The genetic coding of the design controls of organic systems offers no more explanation of life than did the specifications of the designs of the telephone system's apparatus and operation explain the nature of the life That communicates weightlessly to life over the only physically ponderable telephone system. Whatever else life may be, we know it is weightless. At the moment of death, no weight is lost. All the chemicals, including the chemist's life ingredients, are present, but life has vanished. The physical is inherently entropic, giving off energy in ever more disorderly ways. The metaphysical is antientropic, methodically marshalling energy. Life is antientropic.
It is spontaneously inquisitive. It sorts out and endeavors to understand.
The overconcentration on details of hyperspecialization has also been responsible for the lack of recognition by science of its inherently mandatory responsibility to reorient all our educational curricula because of the synergetically disclosed, but popularly uncomprehended, significance of the 1956 Nobel Prize-winning discovery in physics of the experimental invalidation of the concept of "parity" by which science previously had misassumed That positive-negative complementations consisted exclusively of mirror-imaged behaviors of physical phenomena.
Science's self-assumed responsibility has been self-limited to disclosure to society only of the separate, supposedly physical (because separately weighable) atomic component isolations data. Synergetic integrity would require the scientists to announce That in reality what had been identified heretofore as physical is entirely metaphysical-because synergetically weightless. Metaphysical has been science's designation for all weightless phenomena such as thought. But science has made no experimental finding of any phenomena That can be described as a solid, or as continuous, or as a straight surface plane, or as a straight line, or as infinite anything. We are now synergetically forced to conclude That all phenomena are metaphysical; wherefore, as many have long suspected-like it or not-life is but a dream.Science has found no up or down directions of Universe, yet scientists are personally so ill-coordinated That they all still personally and sensorially see "solids" going up or down-as, for instance, they see the Sun "going down." Sensorially disconnected from their theoretically evolved information, scientists discern no need on their part to suggest any educational reforms to correct the misconceiving That science has tolerated for half a millennium.
Society depends upon its scientists for just such educational reform guidance.
Where else might society turn for advice? Unguided by science, society is allowed to go right on filling its childrens' brain banks with large inventories of competence-devastating misinformation. In order to emerge from its massive ignorance, society will probably have to rely exclusively upon its individuals' own minds to survey the pertinent experimental data-as do all great scientist-artists. This, in effect, is what the intuition of world-around youth is beginning to do. Mind can see That reality is evoluting into weightless metaphysics. The wellspring of reality is the family of weightless generalized principles.
It is essential to release humanity from the false fixations of yesterday, which seem now to bind it to a rationale of action leading only to extinction.
0.00 - To the Reader, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
The reader is requested to note That Sri Aurobindo is not responsible for these records as he had no opportunity to see them. So, it is not as if Sri Aurobindo said exactly these things but That I remember him to have said them. All I can say is That I have tried to be as faithful in recording them as I was humanly capable. That does not minimise my personal responsibility which I fully accept.
A. B. PURANI
0.01f - FOREWARD, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
Seeing. We might say That the whole of life lies in That verb
if not ultimately, at least essentially. Fuller being is closer union :
--
sciousness, That is to say in vision. And That, doubtless, is why the
history of the living world can be summarised as the elaboration
--
everything That makes up the universe, by reason of the mysterious
gift of existence. And this, in superior measure, is man's condition.
But if it is true That it is so vital and so blessed to know, let us
ask again why we are turning our attention particularly to man.
--
science, perhaps inevitably, imagined That we could observe
phenomena in themselves, as they would take place in our
--
research ; so That, when they reach the end of their analyses they
cannot tell with any certainty whether the structure they have
--
realise That as the result of their discoveries, they are caught body
and soul to the network of relationships they thought to cast
--
radiate? In That event the subjective viewpoint coincides with
the way things are distributed objectively, and perception reaches
--
of the cosmos That is at present within reach of our experience.
Man, the centre of perspective, is at the same time the centre of
--
First to assert That man, in nature, is a genuine fact falling (at
least partially) within the scope of the requirements and methods
--
Secondly, to make plain That of all the facts offered to our
knowledge, none is more extraordinary or more illuminating ;
--
I repeat That my only aim, and my only vantage-ground in
these pages, is to try to see ; That is to say, to try to develop a
homogeneous and coherent perspective of our general extended
--
the dawn of life, or life in the Palaeozoic era, I do not forget That
there would be a cosmic contradiction in imagining a man as
--
ourselves so That the world may be true for us at this moment.
What I depict is not the past in itself, but as it must appear to an
--
and its measureless horizons : we incline to all That is bad in
anthropocentrism. And it is this That still leads scientists to refuse
to consider man as an object of scientific scrutiny except through
--
The time has come to realise That an interpretation of the
universe even a positivist one remains unsatisfying unless it
--
as matter. The true physics is That which will, one day, achieve
the inclusion of man in his wholeness in a coherent picture of the
--
I hope I shall persuade the reader That such an attempt is
possible, and That the preservation of courage and the joy of
action in those of us who wish, and know how, to plumb the
--
discovers That he is not an isolated unit lost in the cosmic solitudes,
and realises That a universal will to live converges and is hominised
in him.
0.01 - I - Sri Aurobindos personality, his outer retirement - outside contacts after 1910 - spiritual personalities- Vibhutis and Avatars - transformtion of human personality, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
The question which Arjuna asks Sri Krishna in the Gita (second chapter) occurs pertinently to many about all spiritual personalities: "What is the language of one whose understanding is poised? How does he speak, how sit, how walk?" Men want to know the outer signs of the inner attainment, the way in which a spiritual person differs outwardly from other men. But all the tests which the Gita enumerates are inner and therefore invisible to the outer view. It is true also That the inner or the spiritual is the essential and the outer derives its value and form from the inner. But the transformation about which Sri Aurobindo writes in his books has to take place in nature, because according to him the divine Reality has to manifest itself in nature. So, all the parts of nature including the physical and the external are to be transformed. In his own case the very physical became the transparent mould of the Spirit as a result of his intense Sadhana. This is borne out by the impression created on the minds of sensitive outsiders like Sj. K. M. Munshi who was deeply impressed by his radiating presence when he met him after nearly forty years.
The Evening Talks collected here may afford to the outside world a glimpse of his external personality and give the seeker some idea of its richness, its many-sidedness, its uniqueness. One can also form some notion of Sri Aurobindo's personality from the books in which the height, the universal sweep and clear vision of his integral ideal and thought can be seen. His writings are, in a sense, the best representative of his mental personality. The versatile nature of his genius, the penetrating power of his intellect, his extraordinary power of expression, his intense sincerity, his utter singleness of purpose all these can be easily felt by any earnest student of his works. He may discover even in the realm of mind That Sri Aurobindo brings the unlimited into the limited. Another side of his dynamic personality is represented by the Ashram as an institution. But the outer, if one may use the phrase, the human side of his personality, is unknown to the outside world because from 1910 to 1950 a span of forty years he led a life of outer retirement. No doubt, many knew about his staying at Pondicherry and practising some kind of very special Yoga to the mystery of which they had no access. To some, perhaps, he was living a life of enviable solitude enjoying the luxury of a spiritual endeavour. Many regretted his retirement as a great loss to the world because they could not see any external activity on his part which could be regarded as 'public', 'altruistic' or 'beneficial'. Even some of his admirers thought That he was after some kind of personal salvation which would have very little significance for mankind in general. His outward non-participation in public life was construed by many as lack of love for humanity.
But those who knew him during the days of the national awakening from 1900 to 1910 could not have these doubts. And even these initial misunderstandings and false notions of others began to evaporate with the growth of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram from 1927 onwards. The large number of books published by the Ashram also tended to remove the idea of the other-worldliness of his Yoga and the absence of any good by it to mankind.
This period of outer retirement was one of intense Sadhana and of intellectual activity it was also one during which he acted on external events, though he was not dedicated outwardly to a public cause. About his own retirement he writes: "But this did not mean, as most people supposed, That he [Sri Aurobindo] had retired into some height of spiritual experience devoid of any further interest in the world or in the fate of India. It could not mean That, for the very principle of his Yoga was not only to realise the Divine and attain to a complete spiritual consciousness, but also to take all life and all world activity into the scope of this spiritual consciousness and action and to base life on the Spirit and give it a spiritual meaning. In his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all That was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened, whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action; for it is part of the experience of those who have advanced in yoga That besides the ordinary forces and activities of the mind and life and body in Matter, there are other forces and powers That can and do act from behind and from above; there is also a spiritual dynamic power which can be possessed by those who are advanced in spiritual consciousness, though all do not care to possess or, possessing, to use it and this power is greater than any other and more effective. It was this force which, as soon as he attained to it, he used at first only in a limited field of personal work, but afterwards in a constant action upon the world forces."[1]
Twice he found it necessary to go out of his way to make public pronouncements on important world-issues, which shows distinctly That renunciation of life is not a part of his Yoga. "The first was in relation to the Second World War. At the beginning he did not actively concern himself with it, but when it appeared as if Hitler would crush all the forces opposed to him and Nazism dominate the world, he began to intervene."[2]
The second was with regard to Sir Stafford Cripps' proposal for the transfer of power to India.
--
Jung has admitted That there is an element of mystery, something That baffles the reason, in human personality. One finds That the greater the personality the greater is the complexity. And this is especially so with regard to spiritual personalities whom the Gita calls Vibhutis and Avatars.
Sri Aurobindo has explained the mystery of personality in some of his writings. Ordinarily by personality we mean something which can be described as "a pattern of being marked out by a settled combination of fixed qualities, a determined character.... In one view personality is regarded as a fixed structure of recognisable qualities expressing a power of being"; another idea regards "personality as a flux of self-expressive or sensitive and responsive being.... But flux of nature and fixity of nature" which some call character "are two aspects of being neither of which, nor indeed both together, can be a definition of personality.... But besides this flux and this fixity there is also a third and occult element, the Person behind of whom the personality is a self-expression; the Person puts forward the personality as his role, character, persona, in the present act of his long drama of manifested existence. But the Person is larger than his personality, and it may happen That this inner largeness overflows into the surface formation; the result is a self-expression of being which can no longer be described by fixed qualities, normalities of mood, exact lineaments, or marked out by structural limits."[4]
The gospel of the Supermind which Sri Aurobindo brought to man envisages a new level of consciousness beyond Mind. When this level is attained it imposes a complete and radical reintegration of the human personality. Sri Aurobindo was not merely the exponent but the embodiment of the new, dynamic truth of the Supermind. While exploring and sounding the tremendous possibilities of human personality in his intense spiritual Sadhana, he has shown us That practically there are no limits to its expansion and ascent. It can reach in its growth what appears to man at present as a 'divine' status. It goes without saying That this attainment is not an easy task; there are conditions to be fulfilled for the transformation from the human to the divine.
The Gita in its chapters on the Vibhuti and the Avatar takes in general the same position. It shows That the present formula of our nature, and therefore the mental personality of man, is not final. A Vibhuti embodies in a human manifestation a certain divine quality and thus demonstrates the possibility of overcoming the limits of ordinary human personality. The Vibhuti the embodiment of a divine quality or power, and the Avatar the divine incarnation, are not to be looked upon as supraphysical miracles thrown at humanity without regard to the process of evolution; they are, in fact, indications of human possibility, a sign That points to the goal of evolution.
In his Essays on the Gita, Sri Aurobindo says about the Avatar: "He may, on the other hand, descend as an incarnation of divine life, the divine personality and power in its characteristic action, for a mission ostensibly social, ethical and political, as is represented in the story of Rama or Krishna; but always then this descent becomes in the soul of the race a permanent power for the inner living and the spiritual rebirth."[5]
"He comes as the divine power and love which calls men to itself, so That they may take refuge in That and no longer in the insufficiency of their human wills and the strife of their human fear, wrath and passion, and liberated from all this unquiet and suffering may live in the calm and bliss of the Divine."[6]
"The Avatar comes to reveal the divine nature in man above this lower nature and to show what are the divine works, free, unegoistic, disinterested, impersonal, universal, full of the divine light, the divine power and the divine love. He comes as the divine personality which shall fill the consciousness of the human being and replace the limited egoistic personality, so That it shall be liberated out of ego into infinity and universality, out of birth into immortality."[7]
It is clear That Sri Aurobindo interpreted the traditional idea of the Vibhuti and the Avatar in terms of the evolutionary possibilities of man. But more directly he has worked out the idea of the 'gnostic individual' in his masterpiece The Life Divine. He says: "A supramental gnostic individual will be a spiritual Person, but not a personality in the sense of a pattern of being marked out by a settled combination of fixed qualities, a determined character; he cannot be That since he is a conscious expression of the universal and the transcendent." Describing the gnostic individual he says: "We feel ourselves in the presence of a light of consciousness, a potency, a sea of energy, can distinguish and describe its free waves of action and quality, but not fix itself; and yet there is an impression of personality, the presence of a powerful being, a strong, high or beautiful recognisable Someone, a Person, not a limited creature of Nature but a Self or Soul, a Purusha."[8]
One feels That he was describing the feeling of some of us, his disciples, with regard to him in his inimitable way.
This transformation of the human personality into the Divine perhaps even the mere connection of the human with the Divine is probably regarded as a chimera by the modern mind. To the modern mind it would appear as the apotheosis of a human personality which is against its idea of equality of men. Its difficulty is partly due to the notion That the Divine is unlimited and illimitable while a 'personality', however high and grand, seems to demand imposition, or assumption, of limitation. In this connection Sri Aurobindo said during an evening talk That no human manifestation can be illimitable and unlimited, but the manifestation in the limited should reflect the unlimited, the Transcendent Beyond.
This possibility of the human touching and manifesting the Divine has been realised during the course of human history whenever a great spiritual Light has appeared on earth. One of the purposes of this book is to show how Sri Aurobindo himself reflected the unlimited Beyond in his own self.
Greatness is magnetic and in a sense contagious. Wherever manifested, greatness is claimed by humanity as something That reveals the possibility of the race. The highest utility of greatness is not merely to attract us but to inspire us to follow it and rise to our own highest spiritual stature. To the majority of men Truth remains abstract, impersonal and far unless it is seen and felt concretely in a human personality. A man never knows a truth actively except through a person and by embodying it in his own personality. Some glimpse of the Truth-Consciousness which Sri Aurobindo embodied may be caught in these Evening Talks.
***
0.01 - Letters from the Mother to Her Son, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
of the outer walls and outbuildings, so That I may walk freely in
our little realm without having to go out into the street - this is
rather nice. But I am busier than ever now, and I can say That at
the moment I am writing to you in a hurry.
--
It is true That for a long time I have not slept in the usual
sense of the word.1 That is to say, at no time do I fall into
Written in connection with a newspaper article in which it was stated That the Mother
had not slept for several months.
--
give my body the rest it needs, That is, two or three hours of
lying down in a condition of absolute immobility in which the
--
say, in all truth, That I never lose consciousness throughout the
twenty-four hours, which thus form an unbroken sequence, and
--
body the rest That it needs.
3 July 1927
--
I am also sending you conversations 14 and 15. I hope That
you have received, in several instalments, the complete series
--
to have fully grasped; but I suppose That a second reading later
These fifteen "conversations" are published in Questions and Answers 1929 - 1931,
--
true That in my answers many aspects of the question have been
neglected which could have been examined with interest - That
will be for another time.
--
you can see That it is no small affair. And as I am taking care of
all this, I can truly say That I am busy.
23 August 1930
--
mention. I found it rather dull, but apart from That not too bad.
But the Mukerjee quoted there must have lived for many years
--
is outside India That they are most popular; and for foreigners
these two men seem to be the only ones who represent Indian
--
Just a word about your remark That having children is the only
way to perpetuate the human race. I have never denied this, but
I wish to add That there is nothing to fear in this respect; if it is
Nature's plan to perpetuate the human race, she will always find
--
The things That are awaited... they alone can remedy the sorry
state of affairs you mention in your letter of October 9th; and
--
like things as they are. I do not believe, however, That they are
worse than they have been many times before. But I want them
--
ruling the world with its law of darkness! I believe That its reign
has lasted long enough; this is the master we must now refuse
--
ideal resting place. True, I think That it could provide a perfect
place of cure for the restless - even if one seeks diversions there
--
of dynamic and active peace, so much so That all those who come
from outside feel as if they were in another world. It is indeed
--
to the minimum That is indispensable to organise the existence
of 110 to 120 people and to avoid movements That would be
detrimental to the achievement of our yogic aim.
--
legal technicalities; but it goes without saying That I do not own
them. I think I have already explained the situation to you and
--
belongs to Sri Aurobindo, it is his money That enables me to
meet the almost formidable expenses That it entails (our annual
budget averages one "lakh" of rupees, which at the present rate
--
was beginning to set in. I must say That under the circumstances
the Governor (Solmiac) showed great kindness and resolve at
--
It may be That life on earth has always been a chaos - whatever the Bible may say, the Light has not yet made its appearance.
Let us hope That it will not be long in coming.
23 August 1936
--
Hitler was certainly bluffing, if That is what you call shouting
and making threats with the intention of intimidating those to
--
and those That are opposed to this fulfilment. The former have
few conscious instruments at their disposal. It is true That in
this matter quality compensates by far for quantity. As for the
--
want violence, upheaval and war, for they know That these things
retard and hamper the action of the divine forces. That is why
disaster was very close even though no human government consciously wanted it. But at any cost there was to be no war and
0.01 - Life and Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
HERE are two necessities of Nature's workings which seem always to intervene in the greater forms of human activity, whether these belong to our ordinary fields of movement or seek those exceptional spheres and fulfilments which appear to us high and divine. Every such form tends towards a harmonised complexity and totality which again breaks apart into various channels of special effort and tendency, only to unite once more in a larger and more puissant synthesis. Secondly, development into forms is an imperative rule of effective manifestation; yet all truth and practice too strictly formulated becomes old and loses much, if not all, of its virtue; it must be constantly renovated by fresh streams of the spirit revivifying the dead or dying vehicle and changing it, if it is to acquire a new life. To be perpetually reborn is the condition of a material immortality. We are in an age, full of the throes of travail, when all forms of thought and activity That have in themselves any strong power of utility or any secret virtue of persistence are being subjected to a supreme test and given their opportunity of rebirth. The world today presents the aspect of a huge cauldron of Medea in which all things are being cast, shredded into pieces, experimented on, combined and recombined either to perish and provide the scattered material of new forms or to emerge rejuvenated and changed for a fresh term of existence. Indian Yoga, in its essence a special action or formulation of certain great powers of Nature, itself specialised, divided and variously formulated, is potentially one of these dynamic elements of the future life of humanity. The child of immemorial ages, preserved by its vitality and truth into our modern times, it is now emerging from the secret schools and ascetic retreats in which it had taken refuge and is seeking its place in the future sum of living human powers and utilities. But it has first to rediscover itself, bring to the surface
The Conditions of the Synthesis
the profoundest reason of its being in That general truth and That unceasing aim of Nature which it represents, and find by virtue of this new self-knowledge and self-appreciation its own recovered and larger synthesis. Reorganising itself, it will enter more easily and powerfully into the reorganised life of the race which its processes claim to lead within into the most secret penetralia and upward to the highest altitudes of existence and personality.
In the right view both of life and of Yoga all life is either consciously or subconsciously a Yoga. For we mean by this term a methodised effort towards self-perfection by the expression of the secret potentialities latent in the being and - highest condition of victory in That effort - a union of the human individual with the universal and transcendent Existence we see partially expressed in man and in the Cosmos. But all life, when we look behind its appearances, is a vast Yoga of Nature who attempts in the conscious and the subconscious to realise her perfection in an ever-increasing expression of her yet unrealised potentialities and to unite herself with her own divine reality. In man, her thinker, she for the first time upon this Earth devises selfconscious means and willed arrangements of activity by which this great purpose may be more swiftly and puissantly attained.
Yoga, as Swami Vivekananda has said, may be regarded as a means of compressing one's evolution into a single life or a few years or even a few months of bodily existence. A given system of Yoga, then, can be no more than a selection or a compression, into narrower but more energetic forms of intensity, of the general methods which are already being used loosely, largely, in a leisurely movement, with a profuser apparent waste of material and energy but with a more complete combination by the great
Mother in her vast upward labour. It is this view of Yoga That can alone form the basis for a sound and rational synthesis of Yogic methods. For then Yoga ceases to appear something mystic and abnormal which has no relation to the ordinary processes of the World-Energy or the purpose she keeps in view in her two great movements of subjective and objective selffulfilment; it reveals itself rather as an intense and exceptional use of powers That she has already manifested or is progressively
Life and Yoga
--
Rajayoga, for instance, depends on this perception and experience That our inner elements, combinations, functions, forces, can be separated or dissolved, can be new-combined and set to novel and formerly impossible workings or can be transformed and resolved into a new general synthesis by fixed internal processes. Hathayoga similarly depends on this perception and experience That the vital forces and functions to which our life is normally subjected and whose ordinary operations seem set and indispensable, can be mastered and the operations changed or suspended with results That would otherwise be impossible and That seem miraculous to those who have not seized the rationale of their process. And if in some other of its forms this character of Yoga is less apparent, because they are more intuitive and less mechanical, nearer, like the Yoga of Devotion, to a supernal ecstasy or, like the Yoga of Knowledge, to a supernal infinity of consciousness and being, yet they too start from the use of some principal faculty in us by ways and for ends not contemplated in its everyday spontaneous workings. All methods grouped under the common name of Yoga are special psychological processes founded on a fixed truth of Nature and developing, out of normal functions, powers and results which were always latent but which her ordinary movements do not easily or do not often manifest.
But as in physical knowledge the multiplication of scientific processes has its disadvantages, as That tends, for instance, to develop a victorious artificiality which overwhelms our natural human life under a load of machinery and to purchase certain forms of freedom and mastery at the price of an increased servitude, so the preoccupation with Yogic processes and their exceptional results may have its disadvantages and losses. The
The Conditions of the Synthesis
--
God. Therefore we see in India That a sharp incompatibility has been created between life in the world and spiritual growth and perfection, and although the tradition and ideal of a victorious harmony between the inner attraction and the outer demand remains, it is little or else very imperfectly exemplified. In fact, when a man turns his vision and energy inward and enters on the path of Yoga, he is popularly supposed to be lost inevitably to the great stream of our collective existence and the secular effort of humanity. So strongly has the idea prevailed, so much has it been emphasised by prevalent philosophies and religions That to escape from life is now commonly considered as not only the necessary condition, but the general object of Yoga. No synthesis of Yoga can be satisfying which does not, in its aim, reunite God and Nature in a liberated and perfected human life or, in its method, not only permit but favour the harmony of our inner and outer activities and experiences in the divine consummation of both. For man is precisely That term and symbol of a higher Existence descended into the material world in which it is possible for the lower to transfigure itself and put on the nature of the higher and the higher to reveal itself in the forms of the lower. To avoid the life which is given him for the realisation of That possibility, can never be either the indispensable condition or the whole and ultimate object of his supreme endeavour or of his most powerful means of self-fulfilment. It can only be a temporary necessity under certain conditions or a specialised extreme effort imposed on the individual so as to prepare a greater general possibility for the race. The true and full object and utility of Yoga can only be accomplished when the conscious
Yoga in man becomes, like the subconscious Yoga in Nature, outwardly conterminous with life itself and we can once more, looking out both on the path and the achievement, say in a more perfect and luminous sense: "All life is Yoga."
0.02 - II - The Home of the Guru, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Guru-griha-vsa staying in the home of the Guru is a very old Indian ideal maintained by seekers through the ages. The Aranyakas the ancient teachings in the forest-groves are perhaps the oldest records of the institution. It was not for education in the modern sense of the term That men went to live with the Guru; for the Guru is not a 'teacher'. The Guru is one who is 'enlightened', who is a seer, a Rishi, one who has the vision of and has lived the Truth. He has, thus, the knowledge of the goal of human life and has learnt true values in life by living the Truth. He can impart both these to the willing seeker. In ancient times seekers went to the Guru with many questions, difficulties and doubts but also with earnestness. Their questions were preliminary to the quest.
The Master, the Guru, set at rest the puzzled human mind by his illuminating answers, perhaps even more by his silent consciousness, so That it might be able to pursue unhampered the path of realisation of the Truth. Those ancient discourses answer the mind of man today even across the ages. They have rightly acquired as everything of the past does a certain sanctity. But sometimes That very reverence prevents men from properly evaluating, and living in, the present. This happens when the mind instead of seeking the Spirit looks at the form. For instance, it is not necessary for such discourses That they take place in forest-groves in order to be highly spiritual. Wherever the Master is, there is Light. And guru-griha the house of the Master can be his private dwelling place. So much was this feeling a part of Sri Aurobindo's nature and so particular was he to maintain the personal character of his work That during the first few years after 1923 he did not like his house to be called an 'Ashram', as the word had acquired the sense of a public institution to the modern mind. But there was no doubt That the flower of Divinity had blossomed in him; and disciples, like bees seeking honey, came to him. It is no exaggeration to say That these Evening Talks were to the small company of disciples what the Aranyakas were to the ancient seekers. Seeking the Light, they came to the dwelling place of their Guru, the greatest seer of the age, and found it their spiritual home the home of their parents, for the Mother, his companion in the great mission, had come. And these spiritual parents bestowed upon the disciples freely of their Light, their Consciousness, their Power and their Grace. The modern reader may find That the form of these discourses differs from those of the past but it was bound to be so for the simple reason That the times have changed and the problems That puzzle the modern mind are so different. Even though the disciples may be very imperfect representations of what he aimed at in them, still they are his creations. It is in order to repay, in however infinitesimal a degree, the debt which we owe to him That the effort is made to partake of the joy of his company the Evening Talks with a larger public.
***
0.02 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
last 30 days. It is quite evident That your coolie is stealing the
soap, and I have no intention of providing him with washing
--
X has started a new notebook; but it seems to me That he had
not finished the previous one.
--
before I can sanction a new one. That is to say, each time That
a notebook is to be renewed the finished notebook must be sent
--
Y is complaining That cement dust falls in the cattle-feed when
it is prepared on the verandah.
--
How is it That you have not spoken to me about the bakery
kneading table for two days? If it is not repaired at once, we
--
merely saying: "nothing will happen" That an accident can be
avoided. Your mental formation may be strong, but the contrary
--
reminded Z That 1:30 to 3:30 P.M. on Thursdays is
Rahukal.1
--
suggestion That acts in these cases - most often a suggestion
in the subconscient mind; but it is made stronger by becoming
--
Solignum: a wood preservative That deters white ants (termites).
Precaution, much precaution should be taken so That such a
thing may not happen. Do you realise our responsibility and
--
I have noticed That even in cases where Mother knows
our needs, She waits to be asked before granting them.
--
It is not quite That. In each case there is, probably, a special
reason. What is constant is a difference of appreciation in the
--
The cause of reserve in asking is That a person is full
of desires. If he expresses all his demands - which he
--
fact That the "gris entretien" must be kept for the doors and windows in Sri Aurobindo's room only, told to those in charge?(!)
Why was my stool at all painted with gris entretien? I did
--
I still wonder why and I can find no answer except That stupidity
rules the world.
--
I was imagining That Mother will throw away this book
in disgust, or That Sri Aurobindo will write two pages
asking me to quit the Ashram or at least to stop work
--
By the way, I don't find That the Hostile Forces have much
imagination; they are always repeating the same old tricks! They
--
I trust That X is not truly provoking. I would not like it at
all. Each one has his faults and must never forget it when he
--
This evening when Y informed me That Z was ill, I exclaimed That she must have revolted against Mother. He
asked me whether it was my belief That the cause for
sickness is always a revolt or wrong attitude. I said Yes.
--
illness. He pointed to his fingers and said That he was
not conscious That any revolt or wrong attitude was the
cause of the pain in his fingers.
--
"Grant That we may effectuate Thy Victory"8 if the
time has come... but it is for You to answer, O Sweet
--
aspiration That we can hasten the day of victory.
13 August 1932
--
I mean That Mother in That room who is there in flesh
and blood. If you refer your prayer to some unknown
--
No true and constant control is established in That part as yet.
An experiment: This morning while supervising work,
I prayed with concentration That each workman might
become conscious That he was working for Mother and
feel the joy of it. After concentrating like this for about
--
The one That is done in the most perfect spirit of consecration.
20 August 1932
A reservation: Mother said this morning That it would
take one and a half months to finish the bathroom. I
--
my mind when I said Yes: (1) When Mother says That it
will take one and a half months, naturally That should be
correct; there may be some delays I cannot foresee. (2)
But why should I not say That according to my estimate,
it is 30 days' work?
--
It is good, it is indispensable That you should think That the work
will take only 30 days; otherwise it would extend over more than
--
I pray to Mother That there may be no unforeseen delays.
I hope so also - but I have seen That the work takes always
longer than your estimate and we are pushed on and on week
--
expecting you to be a prophet and That your thought should be
always right.
--
It needs a great vigilance to correct That - and a very firm resolution too. This incident may be meant to raise in you the
resolution.
--
I told you already That far from diminishing, your hold upon
the workmen can but increase by it.
--
found, with some discomfort, That not a single one is closing
properly. Unless you are a Hercules and a wrestler you have no
--
I told you already That if someone refuses to be conscientious
in his work, what can I do? It is true That the work suffers, but
he suffers still more, for no amount of meditation can replace
--
flat on your nose, plop! like That...
10 December 1932
--
help of the Divine Grace? Yet you know from experience That
the result is unfailing and marvellous!
--
didn't ask for anything, even on April 1st,10 and That is
another reason for my perplexity.
I am afraid That in trying too hard to stick to the "letter", you
have lost the "spirit". I was not referring to the things given at
the "stores", and I was most surprised to see That you did not
ask for anything on the first. You would do well to ask strictly
--
him That Mother approves neither of marriage - far less
of remarriage - nor of loans to encourage marriages.
--
The measuring tape: mere common sense shows That
the tape is not indispensable. But there is a dissatisfaction
--
spot. Is it my mind? Isn't it the mind That shows the
absurdity of this request?
--
formations are autonomous entities. That is why, once they are
made, the conscious will loses nearly all control over them unless
--
I earnestly hope That Mother will not disgrace me by giving
me one, for it would cover me with shame and embarrassment.
--
there any connection between the fact That I gave him
the job of making rods for X's embroidery frame without
first having spoken to You about it and the accident That
occurred later? When the blacksmith came to see me
--
connection, and when You said That You had doubts
about this type of long frame my uneasiness doubled.
--
by strong ropes from rings fixed to a bar above. The supporting posts are securely set in the ground. I was thinking That
something similar could be made for the sieve.
--
a critical eye and everything goes to prove That in reality I
know nothing, I can do nothing, I am good for nothing.
--
Simply welcome the fact That you have become aware of a lack
of thoroughness, since this awareness allows you to make further progress. Indeed, making progress, overcoming a difficulty,
learning something, seeing clearly into an element of unconsciousness - these are the things That make one truly happy.
22 September 1933
--
it That my features are lacking in vigour? Is it That I
am scornful of others and therefore others treat me
--
It may be That physical appearance has something to do with it,
but truly speaking it does not count for much. I believe rather
--
atmosphere made of the vibrations That come from his character,
his mood, his way of thinking, feeling, acting. These atmospheres
--
contagious; That is to say, we readily pick up the vibration of
someone we meet, especially if That vibration is at all strong. So
it is easy to understand That someone who carries in and around
himself peace and goodwill, will in a way impose on others
--
Now That is indeed an imprudent prayer! It is as if you were
deliberately attracting an unpleasant experience to yourself.
--
someone.) I regret having lost my temper while pronouncing these last sentences. I have noticed That even
when I am conscious, if I open my mouth I lose my selfcontrol. I get angrier and angrier from one sentence to
--
ground, so That the vessels can be raised and lowered without
danger.
--
An exercise: If you notice That your voice is rising,
stop speaking immediately; call upon Sweet Mother to
--
Mr. Z: I have heard That Sri Aurobindo can communicate at a distance. Is it true?
Sadhak: That is nothing. He isn't interested in occult
powers; it isn't His aim.
--
red pencil. This falls under the "powers" That it would be better
not to mention. Either the person you are speaking to does
--
Does this imply That the report of your conversation with Mr. Z
is inaccurate? This is very serious - you should not put words
--
I admit That I have much to learn from X. I bow to
Sweet Mother in X. Make our relationship one through
--
your aspiration. But I did not have That particular point in mind
- I was speaking in a much more general way. All of you, in
--
It seems That the notice about the holidays has been circulated
only in French. I don't think you should do this, for it would
--
For surely you must know That in France all the extra hours in
the evening are paid double, and this seems reasonable.
--
high time you learned this and I find That you give me very little
credit, less perhaps than you would give an ordinary building
--
All That you say is quite true and there are still many other
things you have not said, but which I know. The trouble might
--
of supervisors, provided, of course, That they are sincere and
honest, which would also be the remedy for No. 3. But perhaps
--
want to keep and tell them That the notice which is going to be
put up is not meant for them and That in any event we want
to retain their services, so they do not have to look for work
--
in bewilderment and explained That in mechanics the longer the
pendulum is, the slower the movement. (I knew That very well
- but this is not an ordinary pendulum since it works by rotary
--
yoga, are still convinced That "a cat is a cat", as we commonly
say in French, and That one can rely only on one's physical eyes
Series Two - To a Sadhak in the Building Department
--
for judging and deciding, and That the laws of Nature are laws -
in other words, any exception to them is a miracle. This is false.
--
remind you, That an experiment made in a spirit of reserve and
doubt is not an experiment, and That outer circumstances will
always conspire to justify these doubts, and this for a reason
--
about the result That one had anticipated by doubting.
I have nothing else to add except this. When the question
--
metal brush so That whatever is loose falls off and cover the rest
with a thick layer of distemper which by its very thickness will be
--
with the power of realisation, and I said That the work could
proceed, adding in a few words how it was to be done. (This was
--
was so living, so real, so active, That I made the mistake of
not reminding you about it before the work began. I have an
unfortunate tendency to believe That the consciousness of those
around me is, at least partially and in its limited working, similar
to mine. I shall explain. I know That each of you has a very small
and limited consciousness compared with mine, but within its
limits, I have the illusion That its nature is similar to mine, and
That is why there are many things I do not say, because to me they
are so obvious That it would be utterly pointless to mention them.
It is here That on your side a freedom of movement and speech
arising from an affectionate confidence must come in: if there is
--
one reason or another, That the working becomes defective.
Read this carefully, study it, and when you come today I will
--
ask you to translate it into English, to make sure That you have
fully understood.
--
This morning You said That when one has a feeling of
danger, it is because there is a hidden reason somewhere.
That is not exactly what I said. I said That a feeling of danger
should always be taken seriously when one is responsible for
--
the state of things, and That one should not say, "It is nothing"
unless one is ten times sure it is nothing.
--
While inspecting the stores I found That the principle
of keeping all materials without throwing anything away
--
not to go to the other extreme and throw away things That may
be useful.
--
X sent me a mason with a dismissal note this morning. Later, I learnt from X That the mason had laughed
when X told him he was not satisfied with the work he
--
I heard That one can know all the qualities of any
material by identification of consciousness. Is this true?
--
In theory, it is true That everything can be known by identification, but in practice it is rather difficult to apply. The whole
process is based on the power of concentration. One has to
--
for it is by calling me That the presence becomes effective.
15 December 1934
--
I know That I was not obliged to give Y an explanation for my decision. In his expression, the question was
there, but I could easily have ignored it. Why did I show
--
will see That there were good grounds for the first suggestion, whereas the second one was importunate. How can
one distinguish between these two types of suggestions?
--
by the vibration That accompanies them.
12 January 1935
--
from it. I suggest That for the time being you avoid contact with
X as far as possible. But if contact is established, beware of
--
must tell him That it is not right. I followed the second
suggestion.
--
listening to words That are pronounced? A ready-made
sentence, "Write down what is there in the estimate",
--
No, it is not correct - and I see That you have not understood the
implications of my remark the other day. If you see something
--
O Sweet Mother, I assure You, I promise You, That with
Your Grace I will be myself again within a short time.
--
It is precisely because your refusal had no real cause That it
did not have the power to dominate the other man's will.
--
Yes, I hoped That his will could be made to yield on this point,
because I thought it was absolutely true That removing the nails
would damage the wall. But it was only very relatively true,
--
I never said That you should be the judge. I agree to be the judge
in all cases, because I recognise That it is very difficult to know
whether a thing is right and good, unless one can see the law of
--
can. And on That information I base my decision.
18 July 1935
--
You wrote to me, "It is precisely because your refusal had no real cause That it did not have the power
to dominate the other man's will. So you should get the
nails removed." This is the sentence That upset me. Why
was there no real cause? Won't the holes spoil the wall?
--
from what you told me That it would cause extensive damage.
From what X wrote, I understood That the nails were loose
and That a little scraping and pulling would be enough to ease
them out. After averaging these two interpretations I saw That
the argument I gave X to make him accept the nails was not
--
Look into your heart, in all sincerity, and you will see That
if someone you liked had asked you to remove the nails, you
--
I thought That my refusal was ineffective because it was
not supported by Sweet Mother, and I firmly believe That
nothing whatever can hold true or be effective unless it
--
This is the argument, almost word for word, That upset
me, and I still haven't found the answer to this problem.
--
several times if necessary; ponder every word so That you understand exactly what I am saying and nothing else.
20 July 1935
--
Always the same mistake - you think That I judge by what
people tell me! Whenever I am confronted with a fact, either
--
me That he didn't want it painted I was surprised, and
I revealed That Z had asserted That it was he, Y, who
wanted it done.
--
X has just written That he has recognised his mistake in having
given up the work and That he will return to work this morning.
So you should behave as if nothing had happened and welcome
him back. I hope That Y too will not make any unnecessary
remarks.
--
You must shake all That off and return to a better state of
consciousness.
--
Once and for all, wash away the feeling That you are "superior" to others - for no one is superior or inferior before the
Divine.
--
with X, I have failed. I pray That you tell me in detail the
defects which prevent this achievement. I promise You
--
I had dreamed That X and I would discuss both the
work in hand and the work to be done and exchange
--
I am sorry to say That X keeps me at a distance and
remains aloof, and when he does speak I find him rather
--
the work, I am still not convinced of it. My impression is That
one always says far more than is necessary and That it is not with
words That good work gets done.
In any event, calm and patience are absolutely necessary -
--
The remedy: surrender all That to "Sweet Mother" completely and definitively.
With my loving solicitude and my blessings.
--
I am happy That you have seen the light, but it doesn't surprise
me; I was sure That one day you would understand.
Series Two - To a Sadhak in the Building Department
--
widen yourself into That vast consciousness so That every shadow
may disappear for ever.
--
It is very good, my child; I was quite sure That it would end this
way, for I know the goodness of your heart.
0.02 - The Three Steps of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But in order That we may be wisely guided in our effort, we must know, first, the general principle and purpose underlying this separative impulse and, next, the particular utilities upon which the method of each school of Yoga is founded. For the general principle we must interrogate the universal workings of Nature herself, recognising in her no merely specious and illusive activity of a distorting Maya, but the cosmic energy and working of God Himself in His universal being formulating and inspired by a vast, an infinite and yet a minutely selective
Wisdom, prajna prasr.ta puran. of the Upanishad, Wisdom That went forth from the Eternal since the beginning. For the particular utilities we must cast a penetrative eye on the different methods of Yoga and distinguish among the mass of their details the governing idea which they serve and the radical force which gives birth and energy to their processes of effectuation.
Afterwards we may more easily find the one common principle and the one common power from which all derive their being and tendency, towards which all subconsciously move and in which, therefore, it is possible for all consciously to unite.
The progressive self-manifestation of Nature in man, termed in modern language his evolution, must necessarily depend upon three successive elements. There is That which is already evolved; there is That which, still imperfect, still partly fluid, is persistently in the stage of conscious evolution; and there is That which is to be evolved and may perhaps be already
10
--
displayed, if not constantly, then occasionally or with some regularity of recurrence, in primary formations or in others more developed and, it may well be, even in some, however rare, That are near to the highest possible realisation of our present humanity. For the march of Nature is not drilled to a regular and mechanical forward stepping. She reaches constantly beyond herself even at the cost of subsequent deplorable retreats.
She has rushes; she has splendid and mighty outbursts; she has immense realisations. She storms sometimes passionately forward hoping to take the kingdom of heaven by violence.
And these self-exceedings are the revelation of That in her which is most divine or else most diabolical, but in either case the most puissant to bring her rapidly forward towards her goal.
That which Nature has evolved for us and has firmly founded is the bodily life. She has effected a certain combination and harmony of the two inferior but most fundamentally necessary elements of our action and progress upon earth, -
Matter, which, however the too ethereally spiritual may despise it, is our foundation and the first condition of all our energies and realisations, and the Life-Energy which is our means of existence in a material body and the basis there even of our mental and spiritual activities. She has successfully achieved a certain stability of her constant material movement which is at once sufficiently steady and durable and sufficiently pliable and mutable to provide a fit dwelling-place and instrument for the progressively manifesting god in humanity. This is what is meant by the fable in the Aitareya Upanishad which tells us That the gods rejected the animal forms successively offered to them by the Divine Self and only when man was produced, cried out, "This indeed is perfectly made," and consented to enter in. She has effected also a working compromise between the inertia of matter and the active Life That lives in and feeds on it, by which not only is vital existence sustained, but the fullest developments of mentality are rendered possible. This equilibrium constitutes the basic status of Nature in man and is termed in the language of Yoga his gross body composed
The Three Steps of Nature
--
If, then, this inferior equilibrium is the basis and first means of the higher movements which the universal Power contemplates and if it constitutes the vehicle in which the Divine here seeks to reveal Itself, if the Indian saying is true That the body is the instrument provided for the fulfilment of the right law of our nature, then any final recoil from the physical life must be a turning away from the completeness of the divine Wisdom and a renunciation of its aim in earthly manifestation. Such a refusal may be, owing to some secret law of their development, the right attitude for certain individuals, but never the aim intended for mankind. It can be, therefore, no integral Yoga which ignores the body or makes its annulment or its rejection indispensable to a perfect spirituality. Rather, the perfecting of the body also should be the last triumph of the Spirit and to make the bodily life also divine must be God's final seal upon His work in the universe. The obstacle which the physical presents to the spiritual is no argument for the rejection of the physical; for in the unseen providence of things our greatest difficulties are our best opportunities. A supreme difficulty is Nature's indication to us of a supreme conquest to be won and an ultimate problem to be solved; it is not a warning of an inextricable snare to be shunned or of an enemy too strong for us from whom we must flee.
Equally, the vital and nervous energies in us are there for a great utility; they too demand the divine realisation of their possibilities in our ultimate fulfilment. The great part assigned to this element in the universal scheme is powerfully emphasised by the catholic wisdom of the Upanishads. "As the spokes of a wheel in its nave, so in the Life-Energy is all established, the triple knowledge and the Sacrifice and the power of the strong and the purity of the wise. Under the control of the LifeEnergy is all this That is established in the triple heaven."2 It is therefore no integral Yoga That kills these vital energies, forces them into a nerveless quiescence or roots them out as the source
annakos.a and pran.akos.a.
--
If the bodily life is what Nature has firmly evolved for us as her base and first instrument, it is our mental life That she is evolving as her immediate next aim and superior instrument. This in her ordinary exaltations is the lofty preoccupying thought in her; this, except in her periods of exhaustion and recoil into a reposeful and recuperating obscurity, is her constant pursuit wherever she can get free from the trammels of her first vital and physical realisations. For here in man we have a distinction which is of the utmost importance. He has in him not a single mentality, but a double and a triple, the mind material and nervous, the pure intellectual mind which liberates itself from the illusions of the body and the senses, and a divine mind above intellect which in its turn liberates itself from the imperfect modes of the logically discriminative and imaginative reason. Mind in man is first emmeshed in the life of the body, where in the plant it is entirely involved and in animals always imprisoned. It accepts this life as not only the first but the whole condition of its activities and serves its needs as if they were the entire aim of existence. But the bodily life in man is a base, not the aim, his first condition and not his last determinant. In the just idea of the ancients man is essentially the thinker, the Manu, the mental being who leads the life and the body,3 not the animal who is led by them. The true human existence, therefore, only begins when the intellectual mentality emerges out of the material and we begin more and more to live in the mind independent of the nervous and physical obsession and in the measure of That liberty are able to accept rightly and rightly to use the life of the body. For freedom and not a skilful subjection is the true means of mastery. A free, not a compulsory acceptance of the conditions, the enlarged and sublimated conditions of our physical being, is the high human ideal. But beyond this intellectual mentality is the divine.
The mental life thus evolving in man is not, indeed, a
--
Certainly, the mental life is not a finished evolution of Nature; it is not yet firmly founded in the human animal. The sign is That the fine and full equilibrium of vitality and matter, the sane, robust, long-lived human body is ordinarily found only in races or classes of men who reject the effort of thought, its disturbances, its tensions, or think only with the material mind.
Civilised man has yet to establish an equilibrium between the fully active mind and the body; he does not normally possess it.
Indeed, the increasing effort towards a more intense mental life seems to create, frequently, an increasing disequilibrium of the human elements, so That it is possible for eminent scientists to describe genius as a form of insanity, a result of degeneration, a pathological morbidity of Nature. The phenomena which are used to justify this exaggeration, when taken not separately, but in connection with all other relevant data, point to a different truth. Genius is one attempt of the universal Energy to so quicken and intensify our intellectual powers That they shall be prepared for those more puissant, direct and rapid faculties which constitute the play of the supra-intellectual or divine mind. It is not, then, a freak, an inexplicable phenomenon, but a perfectly natural next step in the right line of her evolution.
She has harmonised the bodily life with the material mind, she is harmonising it with the play of the intellectual mentality; for That, although it tends to a depression of the full animal and vital vigour, need not produce active disturbances. And she is shooting yet beyond in the attempt to reach a still higher level.
Nor are the disturbances created by her process as great as is often represented. Some of them are the crude beginnings of new manifestations; others are an easily corrected movement of disintegration, often fruitful of fresh activities and always a small price to pay for the far-reaching results That she has in view.
We may perhaps, if we consider all the circumstances, come
--
to this conclusion That mental life, far from being a recent appearance in man, is the swift repetition in him of a previous achievement from which the Energy in the race had undergone one of her deplorable recoils. The savage is perhaps not so much the first forefa ther of civilised man as the degenerate descendant of a previous civilisation. For if the actuality of intellectual achievement is unevenly distributed, the capacity is spread everywhere. It has been seen That in individual cases even the racial type considered by us the lowest, the negro fresh from the perennial barbarism of Central Africa, is capable, without admixture of blood, without waiting for future generations, of the intellectual culture, if not yet of the intellectual accomplishment of the dominant European. Even in the mass men seem to need, in favourable circumstances, only a few generations to cover ground That ought apparently to be measured in the terms of millenniums. Either, then, man by his privilege as a mental being is exempt from the full burden of the tardy laws of evolution or else he already represents and with helpful conditions and in the right stimulating atmosphere can always display a high level of material capacity for the activities of the intellectual life.
It is not mental incapacity, but the long rejection or seclusion from opportunity and withdrawal of the awakening impulse That creates the savage. Barbarism is an intermediate sleep, not an original darkness.
Moreover the whole trend of modern thought and modern endeavour reveals itself to the observant eye as a large conscious effort of Nature in man to effect a general level of intellectual equipment, capacity and farther possibility by universalising the opportunities which modern civilisation affords for the mental life. Even the preoccupation of the European intellect, the protagonist of this tendency, with material Nature and the externalities of existence is a necessary part of the effort. It seeks to prepare a sufficient basis in man's physical being and vital energies and in his material environment for his full mental possibilities. By the spread of education, by the advance of the backward races, by the elevation of depressed classes, by the multiplication of labour-saving appliances, by the movement
--
towards ideal social and economic conditions, by the labour of Science towards an improved health, longevity and sound physique in civilised humanity, the sense and drift of this vast movement translates itself in easily intelligible signs. The right or at least the ultimate means may not always be employed, but their aim is the right preliminary aim, - a sound individual and social body and the satisfaction of the legitimate needs and demands of the material mind, sufficient ease, leisure, equal opportunity, so That the whole of mankind and no longer only the favoured race, class or individual may be free to develop the emotional and intellectual being to its full capacity. At present the material and economic aim may predominate, but always, behind, there works or there waits in reserve the higher and major impulse.
And when the preliminary conditions are satisfied, when the great endeavour has found its base, what will be the nature of That farther possibility which the activities of the intellectual life must serve? If Mind is indeed Nature's highest term, then the entire development of the rational and imaginative intellect and the harmonious satisfaction of the emotions and sensibilities must be to themselves sufficient. But if, on the contrary, man is more than a reasoning and emotional animal, if beyond That which is being evolved, there is something That has to be evolved, then it may well be That the fullness of the mental life, the suppleness, flexibility and wide capacity of the intellect, the ordered richness of emotion and sensibility may be only a passage towards the development of a higher life and of more powerful faculties which are yet to manifest and to take possession of the lower instrument, just as mind itself has so taken possession of the body That the physical being no longer lives only for its own satisfaction but provides the foundation and the materials for a superior activity.
The assertion of a higher than the mental life is the whole foundation of Indian philosophy and its acquisition and organisation is the veritable object served by the methods of Yoga.
--
Yoga, the inner instrument.4 And Indian tradition asserts That this which is to be manifested is not a new term in human experience, but has been developed before and has even governed humanity in certain periods of its development. In any case, in order to be known it must at one time have been partly developed.
And if since then Nature has sunk back from her achievement, the reason must always be found in some unrealised harmony, some insufficiency of the intellectual and material basis to which she has now returned, some over-specialisation of the higher to the detriment of the lower existence.
--
For, as is indicated by the name, causal body (karan.a), as opposed to the two others which are instruments (karan.a), this crowning manifestation is also the source and effective power of all That in the actual evolution has preceded it. Our mental activities are, indeed, a derivation, selection and, so long as they are divided from the truth That is secretly their source, a deformation of the divine knowledge. Our sensations and emotions have the same relation to the Bliss, our vital forces and actions to the aspect of Will or Force assumed by the divine consciousness, our physical being to the pure essence of That Bliss and
Consciousness. The evolution which we observe and of which
--
we are the terrestrial summit may be considered, in a sense, as an inverse manifestation, by which these supreme Powers in their unity and their diversity use, develop and perfect the imperfect substance and activities of Matter, of Life and of Mind so That they, the inferior modes, may express in mutable relativity an increasing harmony of the divine and eternal states from which they are born. If this be the truth of the universe, then the goal of evolution is also its cause, it is That which is immanent in its elements and out of them is liberated. But the liberation is surely imperfect if it is only an escape and there is no return upon the containing substance and activities to exalt and transform them.
The immanence itself would have no credible reason for being if it did not end in such a transfiguration. But if human mind can become capable of the glories of the divine Light, human emotion and sensibility can be transformed into the mould and assume the measure and movement of the supreme Bliss, human action not only represent but feel itself to be the motion of a divine and non-egoistic Force and the physical substance of our being sufficiently partake of the purity of the supernal essence, sufficiently unify plasticity and durable constancy to support and prolong these highest experiences and agencies, then all the long labour of Nature will end in a crowning justification and her evolutions reveal their profound significance.
So dazzling is even a glimpse of this supreme existence and so absorbing its attraction That, once seen, we feel readily justified in neglecting all else for its pursuit. Even, by an opposite exaggeration to That which sees all things in Mind and the mental life as an exclusive ideal, Mind comes to be regarded as an unworthy deformation and a supreme obstacle, the source of an illusory universe, a negation of the Truth and itself to be denied and all its works and results annulled if we desire the final liberation. But this is a half-truth which errs by regarding only the actual limitations of Mind and ignores its divine intention.
The ultimate knowledge is That which perceives and accepts God in the universe as well as beyond the universe; the integral Yoga is That which, having found the Transcendent, can return upon the universe and possess it, retaining the power freely to descend
The Three Steps of Nature
--
Wisdom exists at all, the faculty of Mind also must have some high use and destiny. That use must depend on its place in the ascent and in the return and That destiny must be a fulfilment and transfiguration, not a rooting out or an annulling.
We perceive, then, these three steps in Nature, a bodily life which is the basis of our existence here in the material world, a mental life into which we emerge and by which we raise the bodily to higher uses and enlarge it into a greater completeness, and a divine existence which is at once the goal of the other two and returns upon them to liberate them into their highest possibilities. Regarding none of them as either beyond our reach or below our nature and the destruction of none of them as essential to the ultimate attainment, we accept this liberation and fulfilment as part at least and a large and important part of the aim of Yoga.
0.03 - III - The Evening Sittings, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo was never a social man in the current sense of the term and definitely he was not a man of the crowd. This was due to his grave temperament, not to any feeling of superiority or to repulsion for men. At Baroda there was an Officers' Club which was patronised by the Maharajah and though Sri Aurobindo enrolled himself as a member he hardly went to the Club even on special occasions. He rather liked a small congenial circle of friends and spent most of his evenings with them whenever he was free and not occupied with his studies or other works. After Baroda when he went to Calcutta there was hardly any time in the storm and stress of revolutionary politics to permit him to lead a 'social life'. What little time he could spare from his incessant activities was spent in the house of Raja Subodh Mallick or at the Grey Street house. In the Karmayogin office he used to sit after the office hours till late chatting with a few persons or trying automatic writing. Strange dictations used to be received sometimes: one of them was the following: "Moni [Suresh Chakravarty] will bomb Sir Edward Grey when he will come as the Viceroy of India." In later years at Pondicherry there used to be a joke That Sir Edward took such a fright at the prospect of Moni's bombing him That he never came to India!
After Sri Aurobindo had come to Pondicherry from Chandernagore, he entered upon an intense period of Sadhana and for a few months he refused to receive anyone. After a time he used to sit down to talk in the evening and on some days tried automatic writing. Yogic Sadhan, a small book, was the result. In 1913 Sri Aurobindo moved to Rue Franois Martin No. 41 where he used to receive visitors at fixed times. This was generally in the morning between 9 and 10.30.
--
When Sri Aurobindo and the Mother moved to No. 9 Rue de la Marine in 1922 the same routine of informal evening sittings after meditation continued. I came to Pondicherry for Sadhana in the beginning of 1923. I kept notes of the important talks I had with the four or five disciples who were already there. Besides, I used to take detailed notes of the Evening Talks which we all had with the Master. They were not intended by him to be noted down. I took them down because of the importance I felt about everything connected with him, no matter how insignificant to the outer view. I also felt That everything he did would acquire for those who would come to know his mission a very great significance.
As years passed the evening sittings went on changing their time and often those disciples who came from outside for a temporary stay for Sadhana were allowed to join them. And, as the number of sadhaks practising the Yoga increased, the evening sittings also became more full, and the small verandah upstairs in the main building was found insufficient. Members of the household would gather every day at the fixed time with some sense of expectancy and start chatting in low tones. Sri Aurobindo used to come last and it was after his coming That the session would really commence.
He came dressed as usual in dhoti, part of which was used by him to cover the upper part of his body. Very rarely he came out with chaddar or shawl and then it was "in deference to the climate" as he sometimes put it. At times for minutes he would be gazing at the sky from a small opening at the top of the grass-curtains That covered the verandah upstairs in No. 9, Rue de la Marine. How much were these sittings dependent on him may be gathered from the fact That there were days when more than three-fourths of the time passed in complete silence without any outer suggestion from him, or there was only an abrupt "Yes" or "No" to all attempts at drawing him out in conversation. And even when he participated in the talk one always felt That his voice was That of one who does not let his whole being flow into his words; there was a reserve and what was left unsaid was perhaps more than what was spoken. What was spoken was what he felt necessary to speak.
Very often some news-item in the daily newspaper, town-gossip, or some interesting letter received either by him or by a disciple, or a question from one of the gathering, occasionally some remark or query from himself would set the ball rolling for the talk. The whole thing was so informal That one could never predict the turn the conversation would take. The whole house therefore was in a mood to enjoy the freshness and the delight of meeting the unexpected. There were peals of laughter and light talk, jokes and criticism which might be called personal, there was seriousness and earnestness in abundance.
These sittings, in fact, furnished Sri Aurobindo with an occasion to admit and feel the outer atmosphere and That of the group living with him. It brought to him the much-needed direct contact of the mental and vital make-up of the disciples, enabling him to act on the atmosphere in general and on the individual in particular. He could thus help to remould their mental make-up by removing the limitations of their minds and opinions, and correct temperamental tendencies and formations. Thus, these sittings contributed at least partly to the creation of an atmosphere amenable to the working of the Higher Consciousness. Far more important than the actual talk and its content was the personal contact, the influence of the Master, and the divine atmosphere he emanated; for through his outer personality it was the Divine Consciousness That he allowed to act. All along behind the outer manifestation That appeared human, there was the influence and presence of the Divine.
What was talked in the small group informally was not intended by Sri Aurobindo to be the independent expression of his views on the subjects, events or the persons discussed. Very often what he said was in answer to the spiritual need of the individual or of the collective atmosphere. It was like a spiritual remedy meant to produce certain spiritual results, not a philosophical or metaphysical pronouncement on questions, events or movements. The net result of some talks very often was to point out to the disciple the inherent incapacity of the human intellect and its secondary place in the search for the ultimate Reality.
--
From 1918 to 1922, we gathered at No. 41, Rue Franois Martin, called the Guest House, upstairs, on a broad verandah into which four rooms opened and whose main piece of furniture was a small table 3' x 1' covered with a blue cotton cloth. That is where Sri Aurobindo used to sit in a hard wooden chair behind the table with a few chairs in front for the visitors or for the disciples.
From 1922 to 1926, No. 9, Rue de la Marine, where he and the Mother had shifted, was the place where the sittings were held. There, also upstairs, was a less broad verandah than at the Guest House, a little bigger table in front of the central door out of three, and a broad Japanese chair, the table covered with a better cloth than the one in the Guest House, a small flower vase, an ash-tray, a block calendar indicating the date and an ordinary time-piece, and a number of chairs in front in a line. The evening sittings used to be after meditation at 4 or 4.30 p.m. After 24 November 1926, the sittings began to get later and later, till the limit of 1 o'clock at night was reached. Then the curtain fell. Sri Aurobindo retired completely after December 1926, and the evening sittings came to a close.
--
Then, on 23 November 1938, I got up at 2 o'clock to prepare hot water for the Mother's early bath because the 24th was Darshan day. Between 2.20 and 2.30 the Mother rang the bell. I ran up the staircase to be told about an accident That had happened to Sri Aurobindo's thigh and to be asked to fetch the doctor. This accident brought about a change in his complete retirement, and rendered him available to those who had to attend on him. This opened out a long period of 12 years during which his retirement was modified owing to circumstances, inner and outer, That made it possible for him to have direct physical contacts with the world outside.
The long period of the Second World War with all its vicissitudes passed through these years. It was a priceless experience to see how he devoted his energies to the task of saving humanity from the threatened reign of Nazism. It was a practical lesson of solid work done for humanity without any thought of return or reward, without even letting humanity know what he was doing for it! Thus he lived the Divine and showed us how the Divine cares for the world, how He comes down and works for man. I shall never forget how he who was at one time in his own words "not merely a non-co-operator but an enemy of British Imperialism" bestowed such anxious care on the health of Churchill, listening carefully to the health-bulletins! It was the work of the Divine, it was the Divine's work for the world.
0.03 - Letters to My little smile, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
can there be doubt That he will triumph!
With all my love.
--
I simply meant to say That you were happy and confident as a
child or an animal is confident and happy without knowing why.
--
is better to forget your anger quickly; and if That isn't possible,
then you must tell me very simply what has happened so That
I may remove the anger from the consciousness of my "little
--
I am very glad That you have written; I am sure That you are
feeling much better now.
--
small, and it is only by identification with the Divine Consciousness That one can attain and preserve the true unchanging
happiness.
--
Consecration is the wire That connects the individual battery to
the infinite reserve of forces.
--
2) The Infinite is the river That flows without cease; the
individual is the little pond That dries up slowly in the sun.
Consecration is the canal That connects the river to the pond
and prevents the pond from drying up.
--
Many times I have found That if I don't imagine
stories, as they are called, I feel a sort of dullness; then
--
I have noticed That in X's presence I dare not do certain things, such as talk in a loud voice or other impolite
things of this kind.
--
You know That the doctor asked me to look after Y.
At the Ashram, I heard Z asking him something about Y
--
for her." "Yes," the doctor said, "I understand That he
asked me about That just out of curiosity and I will say
nothing to him."
--
for doctors, the rule is That they should not talk about their
patients, and the doctor ought to know better. I hope you are
--
even at That moment, That it was a wrong feeling and I
didn't want it; but I don't know how to get rid of it.
Mother, I believe That if I stay all by myself, apart
from everyone else, I will be very happy. I am very bad;
--
I am quite sure That while you were listening to the music, you
could also feel the pure and simple joy of the music for its own
sake, and That when you are near me, you also feel the simple
and sincere joy of a child near to its mother.
--
only them, for That too would be one-sided. One should also
be aware of what is good and true in the nature and give it all
one's attention, so That this good and true side can grow and
ultimately absorb the rest and transform the nature.
--
to me That You were very serious.
I write to You whatever I think I ought to tell You,
--
is only That I work for You (Your sari): this is the only
thing I can call good.
--
own sadness That you saw reflected in my eyes. I know life too
well for your confessions to make me "serious". Besides, your
confessions are not so terrible as all That, no matter what you
may think of them. And as soon as you tell me all the things That
are troubling you, you will see That they have disappeared and
you will feel free and happy.
Keep your smile, little child; it is this That gives you your
strength.
--
feel That maybe I won't be able to do yoga, my mind
imagines: "Mother tells me That I cannot do yoga and
asks me to go away from here, I have no one to go to and
--
My Mother, today it seems to me That my mind is not
calm enough to write anything to You. Today I worked
--
suggestions, so stupid and false, That I could ask you to go away!
How can you dream of such a thing? You are at home here -
--
to me That I would have to write all this to Mother and
suddenly the conversation stopped.
--
always, and making up stories (even when one knows That these
stories are not true) is one of the most innocent pursuits of
--
won't tell Mother this or That, but rather say: I shall tell her
everything quite frankly.
--
My child, I am going to reveal something That you will try to
understand: you are dissatisfied not because I fail to give you all
--
giving yourself more, and you will see That all discontentment
will disappear.
--
discontented That you will be able to do so.
So many times I have resolved to work regularly and so
many times I have failed! So I thought That if I told You,
I would have Your help and become regular in my work,
--
and difficulties - it is your smile That will chase them away.
16 December 1932
--
I have often noticed That when I wake up from sleep,
there is a kind of noise in my head, as if many people
--
In your sleep you are becoming conscious of the noises That the
mechanical thoughts of the most material mind make in their
--
them remain, but if You don't want That, root them out.
Once again, do not worry; what should disappear will disappear;
--
I know That You will not like it, but I have to say That
it is better to put me aside. I am quite hopeless. Again for
--
You once said That to open myself to You is my work,
because Your help is always with me. But I do not know
--
If I had known before That these things are so difficult, I
should never have wished to come here. Mother, I wish
You would not tell me That I am rebelling, I do not like
to hear That.
I do not know, Mother, why I have written all these
--
Because I see That they have disappeared, at least for the
present.
--
Mother, I know That You will not like all these things
I have written, but what can I do? I have to write all this
--
- I pity you, That's all. Did I tell you That it would disappear
immediately, instantaneously, especially if you yourself are more
--
But I must tell You That I don't like people to
come and lecture me. Can't You tell me directly what
--
It is your self-esteem and vanity That are in an exasperated state
and prevent you from seeing affection where it is present.
--
and discontented That you will be able to do so."
And again You wrote to me (December 7th) in this
--
That are troubling you, you will see That they have disappeared and you will feel free and happy."
So I tell You That even this revolt and this bad temper
are troubling me.
--
I think I have told You all the things That are troubling
me.
--
turn your back on your soul, and That simply out of pride!
Mother, rid me of this discouragement and this revolt,
--
Am I not Your child? Yes, I know That I am a naughty
child, but what can I do? Naughty or not, in any case I
--
It seems to me That my mind (or rather myself)
doesn't want to become quiet. Because if I wanted to become quiet, I would naturally have tried to make myself
--
Yes, I know That You know That now I can hide
nothing from You and That it is impossible for me to live
without You, and this is why, Mother, You like to see me
--
seem to be saying That I like to see you suffer; but this is so
absurd That I cannot believe it is what you mean.
When with all my will I am working for the disappearance
--
sadness - so much That I think if it goes on for a few
days more, it may be very difficult for me to get rid of
--
help thinking That if I remain in this condition all the time
and if I can't ever be happy, it will soon be impossible
--
depressed That they are best able to rob you. You must not listen
to them - you must reject the wicked suggestions and become
yourself once again, That is to say, my "little smile".
9 January 1933
--
Mother, I believe That I am doing all I can and if I
still cannot be good, what is to be done? Yes, I know I
--
order to get an answer from you, for I think That I know it; it
is only so you may understand That I don't hold you responsible for this change which has come over you from outside.
Now there is only one way open, the way of progress - since
--
do That.
But when I have nothing to write to You, what can
--
to write and mould your style. It seems That at the moment
Series Three - To "My little smile"
--
I have noticed That X has not stopped his bad habit.
I hate him...
That is quite a big word! It is said That hate is the reverse of love;
at any rate it is a dangerous sentiment which leaves you always
at the mercy of the one you hate: to hate means That you are still
attached; the true attitude is one of complete indifference.
--
Mother, couldn't I have a big frame like That, to
embroider the saris really nicely?
--
proud of you and your work, which is so lovely. I see That you
have written without making a single mistake!
--
Do you know That this happens only once in eleven years?
Eleven years ago, in 1922, in the month of February, it was possible to write 2.2.22 and eleven years from now, in the month
--
No, all That is only the manifestation of a universal harmony
which lies, as it were, at the very heart of creation. But the
--
them as carefully as one keeps works of art, and That is why I
do not wear them very often.
--
If you put "Divine" instead of "supramental", does That make
it clearer to you?
It means the consciousness That is not filled with the activities and influences of ordinary life, but is concentrated in an
aspiration towards the divine light, force, knowledge, joy.
--
the original and which the copy, and it may very well be That
the copy is even more beautiful than the original. You saw That
I was wearing the gown this evening when I went for a walk on
--
rest? That is, either take a full day's rest or else work two hours
less each day.
--
Yes, X told me today That the frame would be completely ready this evening.
Today I worked nine hours on the blouse.
--
much as I can, hoping That I won't get tired. If I don't
work all day every day, how can I make so many big
--
large curtains for Your room? You told me once That
the Japanese cover the walls of their rooms with embroidered curtains.
--
do the ironing? It is good That you are learning.
21 June 1933
--
I am very pleased That you have learned to do this too. What do
you mean by "all day"? I hope it is not more than nine hours,
because That was already a long stretch and ought not to be
increased.
--
tell you and remember That your work depends almost entirely
on your eyes. If your eyes were to get spoiled in any way, it
--
You must not get into the habit of going to bed late like That.
It is not good - you will quickly spoil your eyesight, and That
would be the end of your beautiful embroideries. The nerves
--
but I saw That the sari was not quite straight. So now
I have only to undo this work - which took me three
--
I do not feel That I am working; I just play like a
child all day with the marvellous playthings my Mother
--
write in any other way and That is why I write to You "I
worked" instead of "I played".
--
promise That you will be delivered from all your difficulties and
That your mind will become luminously peaceful and your heart
--
At That moment X and Y came and, seeing That Z was
angry with me, they did not sit with me. I was very hurt
--
teach you That on these occasions, after having had the joy of
receiving Sri Aurobindo's blessing, it is better to remain concentrated and to keep one's joy locked inside oneself rather than to
--
as with others; That is to say, if she asks me something I
answer her and I show her the work to be done.
--
I have noticed That when I am concentrated, or
rather when I try to concentrate, I cannot smile at anyone and if I try to smile I feel as if I were smiling
--
It is very good to remain silent and concentrated in your aspiration; and I am sure That if you keep a deep affection for X in your
heart, she will feel it and will no longer be sad. But, of course,
--
words That I couldn't read. I asked X to read them;
then he said, "You are the Mother's child, not Sri Aurobindo's." (It was just a joke, because I can read Your
--
Don't you believe That when one is a child of the Mother,
one is at the same time a child of Sri Aurobindo, and viceversa?
--
That is enough; all I ask is That we exchange a little "bonjour"7
every day. When you have something special or important or
--
What can I say? - That I am always with you in your work and
your rest, your sleep and your waking.
--
I didn't notice it, so it can't be anything much. That is probably
why you looked so grave at Pranam this morning. You should
--
tell me about your sorrow so That I may remove it if possible?
You know That all my love is always with you as well as my best
will to help you out of your difficulties.
--
Not naughty, poor little one, only a little sad, and That distresses
me, for I would like to see you always full of light and joy.
--
I know That there are beautiful things in my little
heart. There are bad things too, as You know, Mother
--
Before seeing X's blouse I used to think That my
bird-of-paradise8 sari was very beautiful; but now That
The Mother's name for the Tiger-claw plant, Heliconia metallica.
I have seen this blouse, I find That the bird-of-paradise
sari is nothing compared to the one X is preparing.
--
the embroidered saris has its own beauty; but it is true That this
blouse is very beautiful.
--
I once told You That if someone made something
beautiful for You we ought to be happy, no matter who
made it, myself or someone else; I mean That upon seeing
a very beautiful thing someone has made for You, one
--
Do You know That when I saw X's blouse, I felt as
if another person had made something more beautiful
--
Mother, I know why I felt like That. Up to now I
have had in me a kind of pride in my work: "I make
finer things than anyone else here", something like That.
And That is why when I saw something very beautiful
made by someone else, my pride received a good hard
blow. Isn't That true? (Mother, here I recall a sentence I
once heard Y telling someone: "Mother knows how to
--
I assure you That I do not deliberately give blows.
Series Three - To "My little smile"
--
sure That you will triumph.
31 January 1934
--
I hope That this new month will bring you the realisation you
desire: a happy calm, an invariable peace, a luminous silence.
--
I mean That instead of living in the perceptions of the senseorgans, which are exclusively occupied with outward things,
you should concentrate in the inner being, which has a life
--
No, my dear child, I am sure I didn't tell you That you wanted
to hide something from me. When you started crying under the
pressure I was putting on you in meditation to calm the restlessness of your mind and vital, I thought That it might relieve you
to tell me the cause of your sorrow, and when you didn't reply,
--
yourself, and That is why I cannot help you as much as I would
like to.
--
My dear child, this is certainly a most unexpected way of interpreting this vision. I hadn't given it That meaning at all. The
images in these visions are always symbolic and should be taken
--
a promise That your difficulties would give way and That you
would soon be able to emerge into a luminous, free and happy
--
Ten yards of cloth cost 25 rupees, 15 annas - That
is, 2 rupees, 9 1/2 annas per yard. This evening X and
--
of trouble to dye it, and I tell you That I have found a way of
utilising the irregularities of the dyeing to make a sari far more
--
more, I will do another one." Naturally I thought That now I
would have to ask X to go to the trouble of making another
--
do this sari," and X will have worked for nothing. That is why I
told you to ask him for the drawing yourself. He has just today
--
And if you want my opinion, I suggest That you first take up the
crown - it will set you going on the sari itself; and you will
see That everything will be all right, completely all right. I am
sending you the design of the crown.
--
You must not be afraid. If you see something That frightens
you or you have an unpleasant feeling, you must call me and the
--
Put yourself in my arms without fear and be sure That nothing can harm you. My force and my protection are always with
you.
--
are so conscious of it, I feel That soon you will be able to master it.
It goes without saying That our help is always with you to
bring you peace and silence, and it is absolutely certain That
peace and silence will be established in you some day never to
--
You told me That there is something closed in me
which isn't open to You and this is why, even when I
--
already there) I do not feel it. What is it That is closed?
My heart? Or something else? I don't understand all this.
--
happy experiences That I feel so poor; I feel then That I
do not yet have in me what I should have.
--
told You the other day) because I know That if one can
always keep That silence and peace one never feels poor
for any reason.
--
I find That I have lost everything. All That was good
in me, all is lost. Previously I always felt That all I did
was for You; in all the work I did, this feeling of "doing
--
Now I find That I have lost this feeling.
My dear little child,
--
weren't you a little annoyed That I didn't wear your embroidered
saris all these days? It is certainly not because I dislike wearing
--
January - at That time there are many visitors because of the
vacations and I shall then wear the embroidered saris with the
--
It is true That you must get rid of these ignorant and petty
movements; but at the same time, you may be sure That I appreciate and love your work immensely. I have great admiration for
your embroidery, and for you, great love.
--
frankness, be absolutely frank; tell me fully all That is going
on in you, and soon the cure will come, a complete and happy
--
I know That you are too sensible and sensitive to ignore this
truth.
--
With my love and blessings That her aspiration may be
realised this year.
0.03 - The Threefold Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
For man, the head of terrestrial Nature, the sole earthly frame in which her full evolution is possible, is a triple birth. He has been given a living frame in which the body is the vessel and life the dynamic means of a divine manifestation. His activity is centred in a progressive mind which aims at perfecting itself as well as the house in which it dwells and the means of life That it uses, and is capable of awaking by a progressive self-realisation to its own true nature as a form of the Spirit. He culminates in what he always really was, the illumined and beatific spirit which is intended at last to irradiate life and mind with its now concealed splendours.
Since this is the plan of the divine Energy in humanity, the whole method and aim of our existence must work by the interaction of these three elements in the being. As a result of their separate formulation in Nature, man has open to him a choice between three kinds of life, the ordinary material existence, a life of mental activity and progress and the unchanging spiritual beatitude. But he can, as he progresses, combine these three forms, resolve their discords into a harmonious rhythm and so create in himself the whole godhead, the perfect Man.
--
The characteristic energy of bodily Life is not so much in progress as in persistence, not so much in individual selfenlargement as in self-repetition. There is, indeed, in physical Nature a progression from type to type, from the vegetable to the animal, from the animal to man; for even in inanimate Matter Mind is at work. But once a type is marked off physically, the chief immediate preoccupation of the terrestrial Mother seems to be to keep it in being by a constant reproduction. For Life always seeks immortality; but since individual form is impermanent and only the idea of a form is permanent in the consciousness That creates the universe, - for there it does not perish, - such constant reproduction is the only possible material immortality.
Self-preservation, self-repetition, self-multiplication are necessarily, then, the predominant instincts of all material existence.
--
The characteristic law of Spirit is self-existent perfection and immutable infinity. It possesses always and in its own right the immortality which is the aim of Life and the perfection which is the goal of Mind. The attainment of the eternal and the realisation of That which is the same in all things and beyond all things, equally blissful in universe and outside it, untouched by the imperfections and limitations of the forms and activities in which it dwells, are the glory of the spiritual life.
In each of these forms Nature acts both individually and collectively; for the Eternal affirms Himself equally in the single form and in the group-existence, whether family, clan and nation or groupings dependent on less physical principles or the supreme group of all, our collective humanity. Man also may seek his own individual good from any or all of these spheres of activity, or identify himself in them with the collectivity and live for it, or, rising to a truer perception of this complex universe, harmonise the individual realisation with the collective aim. For as it is the right relation of the soul with the Supreme, while it is in the universe, neither to assert egoistically its separate being nor to blot itself out in the Indefinable, but to realise its unity with the Divine and the world and unite them in the individual, so the right relation of the individual with the collectivity is neither to pursue egoistically his own material or mental progress or spiritual salvation without regard to his fellows, nor for the sake of the community to suppress or maim his proper development, but to sum up in himself all its best and completest possibilities and pour them out by thought, action and all other means on his surroundings so That the whole race may approach nearer to the attainment of its supreme personalities.
It follows That the object of the material life must be to fulfil, above all things, the vital aim of Nature. The whole aim of the material man is to live, to pass from birth to death with as much comfort or enjoyment as may be on the way, but anyhow to live.
He can subordinate this aim, but only to physical Nature's other instincts, the reproduction of the individual and the conservation of the type in the family, class or community. Self, domesticity, the accustomed order of the society and of the nation are the constituents of the material existence. Its immense importance in the economy of Nature is self-evident, and commensurate is the importance of the human type which represents it. He assures her of the safety of the framework she has made and of the orderly continuance and conservation of her past gains.
But by That very utility such men and the life they lead are condemned to be limited, irrationally conservative and earthbound. The customary routine, the customary institutions, the inherited or habitual forms of thought, - these things are the life-breath of their nostrils. They admit and jealously defend the changes compelled by the progressive mind in the past, but combat with equal zeal the changes That are being made by it in the present. For to the material man the living progressive thinker is an ideologue, dreamer or madman. The old Semites who stoned the living prophets and adored their memories when dead, were the very incarnation of this instinctive and unintelligent principle in Nature. In the ancient Indian distinction between the once born and the twice born, it is to this material man That the former description can be applied. He does Nature's inferior works; he assures the basis for her higher activities; but not to him easily are opened the glories of her second birth.
Yet he admits so much of spirituality as has been enforced on his customary ideas by the great religious outbursts of the past and he makes in his scheme of society a place, venerable though not often effective, for the priest or the learned theologian who can be trusted to provide him with a safe and ordinary spiritual pabulum. But to the man who would assert for himself the liberty of spiritual experience and the spiritual life, he assigns, if he admits him at all, not the vestment of the priest but the robe of the Sannyasin. Outside society let him exercise his dangerous freedom. So he may even serve as a human lightning-rod receiving the electricity of the Spirit and turning it away from the social edifice.
--
Its higher manifestations, even the most splendid and puissant, either merely increase the number of souls drawn out of social life and so impoverish it or disturb the society for a while by a momentary elevation. The truth is That neither the mental effort nor the spiritual impulse can suffice, divorced from each other, to overcome the immense resistance of material Nature.
She demands their alliance in a complete effort before she will suffer a complete change in humanity. But, usually, these two great agents are unwilling to make to each other the necessary concessions.
--
This mixing with life may, however, be pursued for the sake of the individual mind and with an entire indifference to the forms of the material existence or the uplifting of the race. This indifference is seen at its highest in the Epicurean discipline and is not entirely absent from the Stoic; and even altruism does the works of compassion more often for its own sake than for the sake of the world it helps. But this too is a limited fulfilment. The progressive mind is seen at its noblest when it strives to elevate the whole race to its own level whether by sowing broadcast the image of its own thought and fulfilment or by changing the material life of the race into fresh forms, religious, intellectual, social or political, intended to represent more nearly That ideal of truth, beauty, justice, righteousness with which the man's own soul is illumined. Failure in such a field matters little; for the mere attempt is dynamic and creative. The struggle of Mind to elevate life is the promise and condition of the conquest of life by That which is higher even than Mind.
That highest thing, the spiritual existence, is concerned with what is eternal but not therefore entirely aloof from the transient. For the spiritual man the mind's dream of perfect beauty is realised in an eternal love, beauty and delight That has no dependence and is equal behind all objective appearances; its dream of perfect Truth in the supreme, self-existent, self-apparent and eternal Verity which never varies, but explains and is the secret of all variations and the goal of all progress; its dream of perfect action in the omnipotent and self-guiding Law That is inherent for ever in all things and translates itself here in the rhythm of the worlds. What is fugitive vision or constant effort of creation in the brilliant Self is an eternally existing Reality in the Self That knows2 and is the Lord.
But if it is often difficult for the mental life to accommodate itself to the dully resistant material activity, how much more difficult must it seem for the spiritual existence to live on in a world That appears full not of the Truth but of every lie and illusion, not of Love and Beauty but of an encompassing discord and ugliness, not of the Law of Truth but of victorious selfishness and sin? Therefore the spiritual life tends easily in the saint and Sannyasin to withdraw from the material existence and reject it either wholly and physically or in the spirit. It sees this world as the kingdom of evil or of ignorance and the eternal and divine either in a far-off heaven or beyond where there is no world and no life. It separates itself inwardly, if not also physically, from the world's impurities; it asserts the spiritual reality in a spotless isolation. This withdrawal renders an invaluable service to the material life itself by forcing it to regard and even to bow down to something That is the direct negation of its own petty ideals, sordid cares and egoistic self-content.
But the work in the world of so supreme a power as spiritual force cannot be thus limited. The spiritual life also can return upon the material and use it as a means of its own greater fullness. Refusing to be blinded by the dualities, the appearances, it can seek in all appearances whatsoever the vision of the same Lord, the same eternal Truth, Beauty, Love, Delight. The
--
But the spiritual life, like the mental, may thus make use of this outward existence for the benefit of the individual with a perfect indifference to any collective uplifting of the merely symbolic world which it uses. Since the Eternal is for ever the same in all things and all things the same to the Eternal, since the exact mode of action and the result are of no importance compared with the working out in oneself of the one great realisation, this spiritual indifference accepts no matter what environment, no matter what action, dispassionately, prepared to retire as soon as its own supreme end is realised. It is so That many have understood the ideal of the Gita. Or else the inner love and bliss may pour itself out on the world in good deeds, in service, in compassion, the inner Truth in the giving of knowledge, without therefore attempting the transformation of a world which must by its inalienable nature remain a battlefield of the dualities, of sin and virtue, of truth and error, of joy and suffering.
But if Progress also is one of the chief terms of worldexistence and a progressive manifestation of the Divine the true sense of Nature, this limitation also is invalid. It is possible for the spiritual life in the world, and it is its real mission, to change the material life into its own image, the image of the Divine. Therefore, besides the great solitaries who have sought and attained their self-liberation, we have the great spiritual teachers who have also liberated others and, supreme of all, the great dynamic souls who, feeling themselves stronger in the might of the Spirit than all the forces of the material life banded together, have thrown themselves upon the world, grappled with it in a loving wrestle and striven to compel its consent to its own transfiguration. Ordinarily, the effort is concentrated on a mental and moral change in humanity, but it may extend itself also to the alteration of the forms of our life and its institutions so That they too may be a better mould for the inpourings of the Spirit. These attempts have been the supreme landmarks in the progressive development of human ideals and the divine preparation of the race. Every one of them, whatever its outward results, has left Earth more capable of Heaven and quickened in its tardy movements the evolutionary Yoga of Nature.
In India, for the last thousand years and more, the spiritual life and the material have existed side by side to the exclusion of the progressive mind. Spirituality has made terms for itself with Matter by renouncing the attempt at general progress. It has obtained from society the right of free spiritual development for all who assume some distinctive symbol, such as the garb of the Sannyasin, the recognition of That life as man's goal and those who live it as worthy of an absolute reverence, and the casting of society itself into such a religious mould That its most customary acts should be accompanied by a formal reminder of the spiritual symbolism of life and its ultimate destination. On the other hand, there was conceded to society the right of inertia and immobile self-conservation. The concession destroyed much of the value of the terms. The religious mould being fixed, the formal reminder tended to become a routine and to lose its living sense. The constant attempts to change the mould by new sects and religions ended only in a new routine or a modification of the old; for the saving element of the free and active mind had been exiled. The material life, handed over to the Ignorance, the purposeless and endless duality, became a leaden and dolorous yoke from which flight was the only escape.
The schools of Indian Yoga lent themselves to the compromise. Individual perfection or liberation was made the aim, seclusion of some kind from the ordinary activities the condition, the renunciation of life the culmination. The teacher gave his knowledge only to a small circle of disciples. Or if a wider movement was attempted, it was still the release of the individual soul That remained the aim. The pact with an immobile society was, for the most part, observed.
The utility of the compromise in the then actual state of the world cannot be doubted. It secured in India a society which lent itself to the preservation and the worship of spirituality, a country apart in which as in a fortress the highest spiritual ideal could maintain itself in its most absolute purity unoverpowered by the siege of the forces around it. But it was a compromise, not an absolute victory. The material life lost the divine impulse to growth, the spiritual preserved by isolation its height and purity, but sacrificed its full power and serviceableness to the world. Therefore, in the divine Providence the country of the Yogins and the Sannyasins has been forced into a strict and imperative contact with the very element it had rejected, the element of the progressive Mind, so That it might recover what was now wanting to it.
We have to recognise once more That the individual exists not in himself alone but in the collectivity and That individual perfection and liberation are not the whole sense of God's intention in the world. The free use of our liberty includes also the liberation of others and of mankind; the perfect utility of our perfection is, having realised in ourselves the divine symbol, to reproduce, multiply and ultimately universalise it in others.
Therefore from a concrete view of human life in its threefold potentialities we come to the same conclusion That we had drawn from an observation of Nature in her general workings and the three steps of her evolution. And we begin to perceive a complete aim for our synthesis of Yoga.
Spirit is the crown of universal existence; Matter is its basis; Mind is the link between the two. Spirit is That which is eternal; Mind and Matter are its workings. Spirit is That which is concealed and has to be revealed; mind and body are the means by which it seeks to reveal itself. Spirit is the image of the Lord of the Yoga; mind and body are the means He has provided for reproducing That image in phenomenal existence. All Nature is an attempt at a progressive revelation of the concealed Truth, a more and more successful reproduction of the divine image.
But what Nature aims at for the mass in a slow evolution, Yoga effects for the individual by a rapid revolution. It works by a quickening of all her energies, a sublimation of all her faculties. While she develops the spiritual life with difficulty and has constantly to fall back from it for the sake of her lower realisations, the sublimated force, the concentrated method of Yoga can attain directly and carry with it the perfection of the mind and even, if she will, the perfection of the body. Nature seeks the Divine in her own symbols: Yoga goes beyond Nature to the Lord of Nature, beyond universe to the Transcendent and can return with the transcendent light and power, with the fiat of the Omnipotent.
--
The ages when That is accomplished, are the legendary Satya or Krita3 Yugas, the ages of the Truth manifested in the symbol, of the great work done when Nature in mankind, illumined, satisfied and blissful, rests in the culmination of her endeavour.
It is for man to know her meaning, no longer misunderstanding, vilifying or misusing the universal Mother and to aspire always by her mightiest means to her highest ideal.
0.04 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
spoil the nose of the bullocks. There again it seems to me That it
is a matter of training.
--
How can you speak of That! Do you know how the cart-men
here kill their bullocks in a few months or in even less time?
--
No wonder That Ojas2 gave some trouble. These bullocks are
quite intelligent enough to feel the change of people. This new
--
If somebody twisted one of his limbs like That, what would he
say? And I am pretty sure That our bullocks are more sensitive
than he is.
--
other bullocks so closely). The truth is That they dislike and distrust the present driver, and not without reason. When they were
working under the previous one they were happy and cheerful
--
I can tell you this to finish with the subject, That from the
roof I concentrated the power on the bullocks ordering them to
--
steady, unwavering conscious will, That is the way, the only true
way really effective and worthy of an aspirant for Divine Life.
I hope That this time I have made myself clear.
14 September 1932
It seems to me That, at least for a time, it would be better not to
try to turn out much work every day, as Ojas may truly need rest.
--
I think That Chakki work3 is very disgusting for the bullocks;
it brings down their vitality because of That, and makes them
become old very soon. That is why I do not wish them to be
given That work.
11 January 1933
--
the places, many things are observed on That day. Horns
are painted in red and blue colour, no work is given and
--
to do like That for our cattle. But I am tempted to beg
you for your kind gracious permission to use this kind of
--
Ra4 on That day.
Yes, the necklace is nice, you can put it on; but no painting of
--
take out Ra in the street That day as usually children run after
the calves and frighten them very much; they even hurt them
--
Is not 19 trips too much for the bullocks? It seems to me That
they are not getting much rest.
--
tell me That he has beaten Ra like That with a sandal
before too and it seems he wants to control her like That.
If truly he does it, it is brutal and stupid; apart from spoiling
--
time, so That he may have air, sun and movement without doing
work. This question must be put clearly to the doctor asking for
--
a precise answer. It is well known now, That there is no better
cure for illnesses, whatever they are, than air and sun.
--
intend That it should never be renewed.
10 March 1934
0.04 - The Systems of Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
HESE relations between the different psychological divisions of the human being and these various utilities and objects of effort founded on them, such as we have seen them in our brief survey of the natural evolution, we shall find repeated in the fundamental principles and methods of the different schools of Yoga. And if we seek to combine and harmonise their central practices and their predominant aims, we shall find That the basis provided by Nature is still our natural basis and the condition of their synthesis.
In one respect Yoga exceeds the normal operation of cosmic
--
Therefore by some it is supposed That this is not only the highest but also the one true or exclusively preferable object of Yoga.
Yet it is always through something which she has formed in her evolution That Nature thus overpasses her evolution. It is the individual heart That by sublimating its highest and purest emotions attains to the transcendent Bliss or the ineffable Nirvana, the individual mind That by converting its ordinary functionings into a knowledge beyond mentality knows its oneness with the
Ineffable and merges its separate existence in That transcendent unity. And always it is the individual, the Self conditioned in its experience by Nature and working through her formations, That attains to the Self unconditioned, free and transcendent.
In practice three conceptions are necessary before there can be any possibility of Yoga; there must be, as it were, three consenting parties to the effort, - God, Nature and the human soul or, in more abstract language, the Transcendental, the Universal
--
It is this truth which makes necessary to every philosophy of Yoga the conception of the Ishwara, Lord, supreme Soul or supreme Self, towards whom the effort is directed and who gives the illuminating touch and the strength to attain. Equally true is the complementary idea so often enforced by the Yoga of devotion That as the Transcendent is necessary to the individual and sought after by him, so also the individual is necessary in a sense to the Transcendent and sought after by It. If the
Bhakta seeks and yearns after Bhagavan, Bhagavan also seeks and yearns after the Bhakta.1 There can be no Yoga of knowledge without a human seeker of the knowledge, the supreme subject of knowledge and the divine use by the individual of the universal faculties of knowledge; no Yoga of devotion without the human God-lover, the supreme object of love and delight and the divine use by the individual of the universal faculties of spiritual, emotional and aesthetic enjoyment; no Yoga of works without the human worker, the supreme Will, Master of all works and sacrifices, and the divine use by the individual of the universal faculties of power and action. However Monistic may be our intellectual conception of the highest truth of things, in practice we are compelled to accept this omnipresent Trinity.
For the contact of the human and individual consciousness with the divine is the very essence of Yoga. Yoga is the union of That which has become separated in the play of the universe with its own true self, origin and universality. The contact may take place at any point of the complex and intricately organised consciousness which we call our personality. It may be effected in the physical through the body; in the vital through the action of
Bhakta, the devotee or lover of God; Bhagavan, God, the Lord of Love and Delight.
--
Bliss by the conversion of the central ego in the mind. And according to the point of contact That we choose will be the type of the Yoga That we practise.
For if, leaving aside the complexities of their particular processes, we fix our regard on the central principle of the chief schools of Yoga still prevalent in India, we find That they arrange themselves in an ascending order which starts from the lowest rung of the ladder, the body, and ascends to the direct contact between the individual soul and the transcendent and universal
Self. Hathayoga selects the body and the vital functionings as its instruments of perfection and realisation; its concern is with the gross body. Rajayoga selects the mental being in its different parts as its lever-power; it concentrates on the subtle body. The triple Path of Works, of Love and of Knowledge uses some part of the mental being, will, heart or intellect as a starting-point and seeks by its conversion to arrive at the liberating Truth,
--
Nature the equilibrium is based upon the individualisation of a limited quantity and force of the Prana; more than That the individual is by personal and hereditary habit unable to bear, use or control. In Hathayoga, the equilibrium opens a door to the universalisation of the individual vitality by admitting into the body, containing, using and controlling a much less fixed and limited action of the universal energy.
The chief processes of Hathayoga are asana and pran.ayama.
By its numerous asanas or fixed postures it first cures the body of That restlessness which is a sign of its inability to contain without working them off in action and movement the vital forces poured into it from the universal Life-Ocean, gives to it an extraordinary health, force and suppleness and seeks to liberate it from the habits by which it is subjected to ordinary physical
Nature and kept within the narrow bounds of her normal operations. In the ancient tradition of Hathayoga it has always been supposed That this conquest could be pushed so far even as to conquer to a great extent the force of gravitation. By various subsidiary but elaborate processes the Hathayogin next contrives to keep the body free from all impurities and the nervous system unclogged for those exercises of respiration which are his most important instruments. These are called pran.ayama, the control of the breath or vital power; for breathing is the chief physical functioning of the vital forces. Pranayama, for the Hathayogin, serves a double purpose. First, it completes the perfection of the body. The vitality is liberated from many of the ordinary necessities of physical Nature; robust health, prolonged youth, often an extraordinary longevity are attained.
On the other hand, Pranayama awakens the coiled-up serpent of the Pranic dynamism in the vital sheath and opens to the Yogin fields of consciousness, ranges of experience, abnormal faculties denied to the ordinary human life while it puissantly intensifies such normal powers and faculties as he already possesses.
--
The results of Hathayoga are thus striking to the eye and impose easily on the vulgar or physical mind. And yet at the end we may ask what we have gained at the end of all this stupendous labour. The object of physical Nature, the preservation of the mere physical life, its highest perfection, even in a certain sense the capacity of a greater enjoyment of physical living have been carried out on an abnormal scale. But the weakness of Hathayoga is That its laborious and difficult processes make so great a demand on the time and energy and impose so complete a severance from the ordinary life of men That the utilisation of its results for the life of the world becomes either impracticable or is extraordinarily restricted. If in return for this loss we gain another life in another world within, the mental, the dynamic, these results could have been acquired through other systems, through Rajayoga, through Tantra, by much less laborious methods and held on much less exacting terms. On the other hand the physical results, increased vitality, prolonged youth, health, longevity are of small avail if they must be held by us as misers of ourselves, apart from the common life, for their own sake, not utilised, not thrown into the common sum of the world's activities. Hathayoga attains large results, but at an exorbitant price and to very little purpose.
Rajayoga takes a higher flight. It aims at the liberation and perfection not of the bodily, but of the mental being, the control of the emotional and sensational life, the mastery of the whole apparatus of thought and consciousness. It fixes its eyes on the citta, That stuff of mental consciousness in which all these activities arise, and it seeks, even as Hathayoga with its physical material, first to purify and to tranquillise. The normal state of man is a condition of trouble and disorder, a kingdom either at war with itself or badly governed; for the lord, the Purusha, is subjected to his ministers, the faculties, subjected even to his subjects, the instruments of sensation, emotion, action, enjoyment. Swarajya, self-rule, must be substituted for this subjection.
First, therefore, the powers of order must be helped to overcome
--
the powers of disorder. The preliminary movement of Rajayoga is a careful self-discipline by which good habits of mind are substituted for the lawless movements That indulge the lower nervous being. By the practice of truth, by renunciation of all forms of egoistic seeking, by abstention from injury to others, by purity, by constant meditation and inclination to the divine
Purusha who is the true lord of the mental kingdom, a pure, glad, clear state of mind and heart is established.
This is the first step only. Afterwards, the ordinary activities of the mind and sense must be entirely quieted in order That the soul may be free to ascend to higher states of consciousness and acquire the foundation for a perfect freedom and self-mastery.
But Rajayoga does not forget That the disabilities of the ordinary mind proceed largely from its subjection to the reactions of the nervous system and the body. It adopts therefore from the Hathayogic system its devices of asana and pran.ayama, but reduces their multiple and elaborate forms in each case to one simplest and most directly effective process sufficient for its own immediate object. Thus it gets rid of the Hathayogic complexity and cumbrousness while it utilises the swift and powerful efficacy of its methods for the control of the body and the vital functions and for the awakening of That internal dynamism, full of a latent supernormal faculty, typified in Yogic terminology by the kun.d.alin, the coiled and sleeping serpent of Energy within. This done, the system proceeds to the perfect quieting of the restless mind and its elevation to a higher plane through concentration of mental force by the successive stages which lead to the utmost inner concentration or ingathered state of the consciousness which is called Samadhi.
By Samadhi, in which the mind acquires the capacity of withdrawing from its limited waking activities into freer and higher states of consciousness, Rajayoga serves a double purpose. It compasses a pure mental action liberated from the confusions of the outer consciousness and passes thence to the higher supra-mental planes on which the individual soul enters into its true spiritual existence. But also it acquires the capacity of That free and concentrated energising of consciousness on
The Systems of Yoga
--
We perceive That as Hathayoga, dealing with the life and body, aims at the supernormal perfection of the physical life and its capacities and goes beyond it into the domain of the mental life, so Rajayoga, operating with the mind, aims at a supernormal perfection and enlargement of the capacities of the mental life and goes beyond it into the domain of the spiritual existence.
But the weakness of the system lies in its excessive reliance on abnormal states of trance. This limitation leads first to a certain aloofness from the physical life which is our foundation and the sphere into which we have to bring our mental and spiritual gains. Especially is the spiritual life, in this system, too much associated with the state of Samadhi. Our object is to make the spiritual life and its experiences fully active and fully utilisable in the waking state and even in the normal use of the functions.
--
Rajayoga in That it does not occupy itself with the elaborate training of the whole mental system as the condition of perfection, but seizes on certain central principles, the intellect, the heart, the will, and seeks to convert their normal operations by turning them away from their ordinary and external preoccupations and activities and concentrating them on the Divine. It
38
--
differs also in this, - and here from the point of view of an integral Yoga there seems to be a defect, - That it is indifferent to mental and bodily perfection and aims only at purity as a condition of the divine realisation. A second defect is That as actually practised it chooses one of the three parallel paths exclusively and almost in antagonism to the others instead of effecting a synthetic harmony of the intellect, the heart and the will in an integral divine realisation.
The Path of Knowledge aims at the realisation of the unique and supreme Self. It proceeds by the method of intellectual reflection, vicara, to right discrimination, viveka. It observes and distinguishes the different elements of our apparent or phenomenal being and rejecting identification with each of them arrives at their exclusion and separation in one common term as constituents of Prakriti, of phenomenal Nature, creations of
--
Lord, with our human life as its final stage, pursued through the different phases of self-concealment and self-revelation. The principle of Bhakti Yoga is to utilise all the normal relations of human life into which emotion enters and apply them no longer to transient worldly relations, but to the joy of the All-Loving, the All-Beautiful and the All-Blissful. Worship and meditation are used only for the preparation and increase of intensity of the divine relationship. And this Yoga is catholic in its use of all emotional relations, so That even enmity and opposition to God, considered as an intense, impatient and perverse form of Love, is conceived as a possible means of realisation and salvation.
This path, too, as ordinarily practised, leads away from worldexistence to an absorption, of another kind than the Monist's, in the Transcendent and Supra-cosmic.
--
purifies the mind and the will That we become easily conscious of the great universal Energy as the true doer of all our actions and the Lord of That Energy as their ruler and director with the individual as only a mask, an excuse, an instrument or, more positively, a conscious centre of action and phenomenal relation. The choice and direction of the act is more and more consciously left to this supreme Will and this universal Energy.
To That our works as well as the results of our works are finally abandoned. The object is the release of the soul from its bondage to appearances and to the reaction of phenomenal activities.
Karmayoga is used, like the other paths, to lead to liberation from phenomenal existence and a departure into the Supreme.
--
We can see also That in the integral view of things these three paths are one. Divine Love should normally lead to the perfect knowledge of the Beloved by perfect intimacy, thus becoming a path of Knowledge, and to divine service, thus becoming a path of Works. So also should perfect Knowledge lead to perfect
Love and Joy and a full acceptance of the works of That which is known; dedicated Works to the entire love of the Master of the Sacrifice and the deepest knowledge of His ways and His being. It is in this triple path That we come most readily to the absolute knowledge, love and service of the One in all beings and in the entire cosmic manifestation.
0.05 - Letters to a Child, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
master of food, it is the food That masters you.
22 August 1932
--
uneasy. I also felt That he is not very happy with me. I
had a sort of bad feeling at That time. Why did I feel
this uneasiness? After coming home I felt tired and had
no interest in doing anything. Now I feel That after the
music lesson, the good things That were developing in me
have been broken to pieces. Is it true?
--
because its desires and preferences are not satisfied. All That has
no true reality.
--
Yesterday I told you That "we" had painted an envelope. By "we" I mean That there is me and you. I feel
That it is not I who am working, so I say "we". I am
--
painting and music. Are you aware That you are making a great
deal of progress? I like the envelopes That both of us are painting
together very much, and That is one more proof That we are doing
them together, because they are nearly always just as I thought
--
so That you may have true happiness and unalloyed peace.
Love from your little mother who is always with you.
--
That it is your good and your good alone That I want. I want
to make you a strong and conscious man who is master of
himself - That is, in control of his lower nature and capable of
becoming a true Yogi if That be his aspiration. And the more this
man realises his true being, the more he will become my very
--
That is why, now, when the will That is expressing itself is
the will of the lower nature, I cannot satisfy all its whims, for
--
True love is the love That wants, to the exclusion of all else,
the highest good for the loved one. This is the love That I have
and want to have for you.
--
Consciousness That is constantly by your side, bringing you the
solicitude of my love.
--
reasons That he thinks are very profound?
But don't you still have your mother's friendship? And also
--
and contemplate the Sun That is rising in your heart!
28 April 1934
--
You don 't love me at all. Is this the way That one
loves one's child?
--
important point which should never be forgotten. All That leads
you away from me in thought and feeling is bad. All That brings
you closer to me and gives you the perception and joy of my
--
rule. You will see That it will help you to protect yourself from
many mistakes.
--
you. Never for a moment do I leave you and I am sure That if
you are a little attentive you will very clearly feel the warmth of
--
It seems to me That you are so often sad and depressed
because your nerves are not very strong. You should eat more,
--
You see, my child, the unfortunate thing is That you are too preoccupied with yourself. At your age I was exclusively occupied
with my studies - finding things out, learning, understanding,
knowing. That was my interest, even my passion. My mother,
who loved us very much - my brother and myself - never allowed us to be ill tempered or discontented or lazy. If we went
to complain to her about one thing or another, to tell her That
we were discontented, she would make fun of us or scold us and
--
a bad mood! That is of no interest at all."
My mother was perfectly right and I have always been very
--
from the fact That you are far too concerned about yourself. It
would be better for you to pay more attention to what you are
--
hope That you will understand them.
Your mother who loves you.
--
of my presence and receive and use the force That I am pouring
into you to enable you to overcome all difficulties.
--
I have no doubt That you will become aware of it if you forget the
Series Five - To a Child
--
It is by inner identification That the true closeness can come.
I am always with you in all love.
--
You will no longer revolt when you understand That it is the
most useless and foolish of all things; and when you give up this
bad habit of revolt, you will see That suffering too will go away
and be replaced by an unvarying happiness.
--
For you I want consciousness, knowledge, artistic capacity, selfmastery in peace and perfect equality, and the happiness That is
the result of spiritual realisation. Is this too grand and vast a
--
it is through a quiet and confident aspiration That you will receive
it. All my love is with you.
--
You know everything That I need. Take me into your
heart. Surround me.
--
I am in your heart That it may be happy, in your head That
it may be peaceful, and in your hand That it may be skilful.
With all my love.
--
A strong being is always quiet. It is weakness That causes restlessness. I am sending you (on my envelope, but in reality too)
the repose That comes from concentrated energy.
Be sure That you will become strong and quiet, have faith in
a perfect realisation and in the Divine's omnipotence to achieve
--
I have been informed from the dining-room That you did
not eat either yesterday evening or the whole day today. Why? If
--
You are a very nice child, and I am very pleased That you
had your meal yesterday evening and That all the clouds have
gone. Now you must not allow them to come back and for That
the best thing is to remain always cradled in my arms, protected
--
Have I done something That has displeased you?
My head hurts. I feel tired.
--
I want all That to go away and I want you to be perfectly
healthy. For That, you must follow a physical discipline: sleep
regularly, eat regularly, exercise regularly, etc., etc. And unfortunately you refuse all discipline. This makes my task very
--
You know That my love is always with you and my will is
That you should get well; my force is with you to give you health.
--
I fully agree with you That egoism, vanity and jealousy must
disappear; they are indeed ugly, mean and ignorant things That
stop all progress.
--
I am not unhappy. All That is a falsehood.
Mother, stay with your little child.
--
I am very happy to know That you want to be my instrument. To be able to be my instrument, you must be regular,
Series Five - To a Child
--
have no doubt That you can acquire these qualities.
With you always.
--
I want peace. I feel That everything is unquiet.
Mother, give me peace.
--
Yes, I know everything and That is why I know That my little child
is not always reasonable and That is why he has a headache and
a stomachache.
--
Do not forget That I am always with you and do only what
you could do in front of me without feeling ashamed. I mean
--
cured. It is your body That does not feel very strong and is sad
because it does not have a sound balance of health. The best
--
It is through work and self-mastery That one can find happiness and peace.
23 March 1935
--
if you didn't work it would be far worse. It is in work That one
finds balance and joy.
--
It is something in your vital That cannot bear any vexation, even
the slightest. This part of the vital must learn to become stronger
--
You told me That I am making progress. Did you
want to console me by telling me this? When I look
--
No, it is not to console you That I told you That you have
made progress. The progress is undeniable even though it may
--
or four years. It takes much longer than That. But you are young,
you have all of life before you; you need not be impatient.
You say That you are often depressed. It is the vital being
That gets depressed when its desires are not satisfied.
--
follows, success always comes to those who are strong, courageous, enduring. And you know That here our force and our help
are always available to you; you have only to learn to make use
--
was That to develop your artistic faculties you are much better
off here than anywhere else. I added That only if you wanted to
marry would you have to leave the Ashram.
But you know That I never advise anyone to marry; it is a
terrible bondage.
--
I have never thought That you really wanted to marry, but
now and then it is good That I remind you That you are free and
That it is for you to make the decision; That's all.
I don't feel That you are far from me; for me you are always
in my arms. So if you feel That you are far away, it is a false
feeling which does not conform to the truth.
--
You told me That you saw two things while I was
playing: "Garuda", and the palace and river. What do
--
What I meant yesterday is That all people very sensitive are
opened to many influences and That is why it is difficult for them
to be steady.
--
and effort and That always they go hand in hand with worry and
suffering.
--
These last few days I felt That I was going down step
by step - everything seemed to be gradually closing in
against me, against my heart. I feel, even now, That I am
suffocated.
--
and understand it so That you can realise it. In what way do
you feel yourself going down? Are desires becoming stronger in
--
a long time to disappear. You know, don't you, That our force,
our help and our blessings are always with you?
--
condition, That's all.
You are right to tell me, my dear child; it helps you to open
yourself. I know That it is troublesome to feel this resistance
in yourself; but persist in your will to overcome it and it will
--
Yes, I think in fact That your poetry has stopped so That you
can prepare yourself for a higher inspiration. You were going
--
Of course, if you feel That something wants to express itself,
you must try.
--
says That there is no doubt about your poetic capacity. Today's
poem is very good. But when you try to write every day, it
--
true inspiration. That is why you should write only when you
feel That the inspiration is there.
20 July 1938
--
cannot detain you either, or do anything That might deprive you
of the strength to leave. I am and will always be in your heart; so
--
would like to tell you something about this. To be sure That you
are meant for the Ashram life, it is necessary That the spiritual
life and all the discipline it entails - in short, the search for and
--
sure it is the Divine in me That you want? When you come back
here and cannot see me (for, since Sri Aurobindo's accident, I am
--
once again That you are giving up all the pleasures That ordinary
life can give, without getting anything much in exchange?
--
That is another thing. But in That case, you will have to rely on
the inner help, not on an outer and superficial help.
I am telling you all this so That you may not be disappointed
once again after returning here.
--
to study music for three years at Lucknow, since That is what
you want.
--
become troubled and uncertain, and That would arouse an
unnecessary conflict in you.
--
path. Give me the strength to reject everything That
comes from outside. May your will be done.
--
my making any progress. It seems That all the obscurities
and falsehoods are rising up on every side, inside and
--
weakly That all will be well; but this voice is so feeble
That I cannot rely on it.1
My faults are so numerous and so great That I think
I shall fail. On the other hand, I have neither the inclination nor the capacity for the ordinary life. And I
know That I shall never be able to leave this life. This is
my situation right now. The struggle is getting more and
--
Sincerity demands of each one That he express only the truth
of his being.
--
I feel That something is wrong and you are very
displeased with me.
It is the very first proposition That is wrong, I am not displeased
with you - so all That follows cannot be correct.
I will be very pleased to know the real cause of your
--
tell you how it pains me to know That you are displeased
with me on any account.
--
conscience, but you must learn once and for all That whatever
mistakes people commit, it cannot vex me nor displease me. If
--
is no reason to believe That you will not succeed in this life; on the
contrary, I see in you the signs of a vocation. And since you have
--
useless; it is the "inside" That must change. Keep your resolution
and my help will work.
--
sure That I shall do my best to help you in That. I am quite sure
That perseverance in study and the acceptance of a discipline of
--
perhaps, That you must not allow your superficial and somewhat
too light exterior being to interfere and spoil your endeavour, as
--
The most important [thing] is a steady, quiet endurance That
does not allow any upsetting or depression to interfere with your
--
It is a lack of energy That is preventing me from
painting. Give me a strong energy. I want the inner and
--
to pardon. I know That it is from lack of energy That you cannot
paint. But I can give you all the energy needed; you have only
to open yourself and receive and you will see That the source is
inexhaustible. It is the same thing for peace and for all the true
--
There is a depression. And most often I feel That my
mind is tired. I don't know why. Today, my vital too is
--
It is the same tiredness as That of the muscles when they do not
work enough. Inactivity is just as tiring as over-activity. Not to
--
bad rather than to go unnoticed. You must teach him That he is
not the master of the house.
--
I know That you want to do well, That you want to conquer,
and That you aspire to overcome the weaknesses. When they
come, you should not think That I am displeased, but on the
contrary That I am always with you, supporting you, protecting
you, encouraging you with an unvarying love and tenderness.
--
force, and the immutable joy That comes from a constant contact
with the Light.
--
I want a deep peace - a very deep peace. I feel That
I am always in your arms.
--
Light, more light. Enlighten me. Now I know That
you are the greatest power. My mother, take me into
--
Each time That you feel restless you ought to repeat, speaking
inside yourself without exterior sound and thinking of me at the
0.05 - The Synthesis of the Systems, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Y THE very nature of the principal Yogic schools, each covering in its operations a part of the complex human integer and attempting to bring out its highest possibilities, it will appear That a synthesis of all of them largely conceived and applied might well result in an integral Yoga. But they are so disparate in their tendencies, so highly specialised and elaborated in their forms, so long confirmed in the mutual opposition of their ideas and methods That we do not easily find how we can arrive at their right union.
An undiscriminating combination in block would not be a synthesis, but a confusion. Nor would a successive practice of each of them in turn be easy in the short span of our human life and with our limited energies, to say nothing of the waste of labour implied in so cumbrous a process. Sometimes, indeed,
Hathayoga and Rajayoga are thus successively practised. And in a recent unique example, in the life of Ramakrishna Paramhansa, we see a colossal spiritual capacity first driving straight to the divine realisation, taking, as it were, the kingdom of heaven by violence, and then seizing upon one Yogic method after another and extracting the substance out of it with an incredible rapidity, always to return to the heart of the whole matter, the realisation and possession of God by the power of love, by the extension of inborn spirituality into various experience and by the spontaneous play of an intuitive knowledge. Such an example cannot be generalised. Its object also was special and temporal, to exemplify in the great and decisive experience of a master-soul the truth, now most necessary to humanity, towards which a world long divided into jarring sects and schools is with difficulty labouring, That all sects are forms and fragments of a single integral truth and all disciplines labour in their different ways towards one supreme experience. To know, be and possess
42
--
the Divine is the one thing needful and it includes or leads up to all the rest; towards this sole good we have to drive and this attained, all the rest That the divine Will chooses for us, all necessary form and manifestation, will be added.
The synthesis we propose cannot, then, be arrived at either by combination in mass or by successive practice. It must therefore be effected by neglecting the forms and outsides of the
--
We observe, first, That there still exists in India a remarkable
Yogic system which is in its nature synthetical and starts from a great central principle of Nature, a great dynamic force of
--
If, however, we leave aside, here also, the actual methods and practices and seek for the central principle, we find, first, That Tantra expressly differentiates itself from the Vedic methods of Yoga. In a sense, all the schools we have hitherto examined are Vedantic in their principle; their force is in knowledge, their method is knowledge, though it is not always discernment by the intellect, but may be, instead, the knowledge of the heart expressed in love and faith or a knowledge in the will working out through action. In all of them the lord of the Yoga is the Purusha, the Conscious Soul That knows, observes, attracts, governs. But in Tantra it is rather Prakriti, the Nature-Soul, the Energy, the
Will-in-Power executive in the universe. It was by learning and applying the intimate secrets of this Will-in-Power, its method, its Tantra, That the Tantric Yogin pursued the aims of his discipline, - mastery, perfection, liberation, beatitude. Instead of drawing back from manifested Nature and its difficulties, he confronted them, seized and conquered. But in the end, as is the general tendency of Prakriti, Tantric Yoga largely lost its principle in its machinery and became a thing of formulae and occult mechanism still powerful when rightly used but fallen from the clarity of their original intention.
We have in this central Tantric conception one side of the truth, the worship of the Energy, the Shakti, as the sole effective force for all attainment. We get the other extreme in the Vedantic conception of the Shakti as a power of Illusion and in the search after the silent inactive Purusha as the means of liberation from the deceptions created by the active Energy. But in the integral conception the Conscious Soul is the Lord, the Nature-Soul is his executive Energy. Purusha is of the nature of Sat, the being of conscious self-existence pure and infinite; Shakti or Prakriti is of the nature of Chit, - it is power of the Purusha's self-conscious existence, pure and infinite. The relation of the two exists between the poles of rest and action. When the Energy is absorbed
--
Yoga. In man we render these terms by Will and Faith, - a will That is eventually self-effective because it is of the substance of
Knowledge and a faith That is the reflex in the lower consciousness of a Truth or real Idea yet unrealised in the manifestation.
It is this self-certainty of the Idea which is meant by the Gita when it says, yo yac-chraddhah. sa eva sah., "whatever is a man's faith or the sure Idea in him, That he becomes."
We see, then, what from the psychological point of view,
- and Yoga is nothing but practical psychology, - is the conception of Nature from which we have to start. It is the selffulfilment of the Purusha through his Energy. But the movement of Nature is twofold, higher and lower, or, as we may choose to term it, divine and undivine. The distinction exists indeed for practical purposes only; for there is nothing That is not divine, and in a larger view it is as meaningless, verbally, as the distinction between natural and supernatural, for all things That are are natural. All things are in Nature and all things are in God.
But, for practical purposes, there is a real distinction. The lower
Nature, That which we know and are and must remain so long as the faith in us is not changed, acts through limitation and division, is of the nature of Ignorance and culminates in the life of the ego; but the higher Nature, That to which we aspire, acts by unification and transcendence of limitation, is of the nature of Knowledge and culminates in the life divine. The passage from the lower to the higher is the aim of Yoga; and this passage
The Synthesis of the Systems
--
may effect itself by the rejection of the lower and escape into the higher, - the ordinary view-point, - or by the transformation of the lower and its elevation to the higher Nature. It is this, rather, That must be the aim of an integral Yoga.
But in either case it is always through something in the lower That we must rise into the higher existence, and the schools of
Yoga each select their own point of departure or their own gate of escape. They specialise certain activities of the lower
--
Yoga That we seek must also be an integral action of Nature, and the whole difference between the Yogin and the natural man will be this, That the Yogin seeks to substitute in himself for the integral action of the lower Nature working in and by ego and division the integral action of the higher Nature working in and by God and unity. If indeed our aim be only an escape from the world to God, synthesis is unnecessary and a waste of time; for then our sole practical aim must be to find out one path out of the thousand That lead to God, one shortest possible of short cuts, and not to linger exploring different paths That end in the same goal. But if our aim be a transformation of our integral being into the terms of God-existence, it is then That a synthesis becomes necessary.
The method we have to pursue, then, is to put our whole conscious being into relation and contact with the Divine and to call Him in to transform our entire being into His. Thus in a sense
--
Tapas, the force of consciousness in us dwelling in the Idea of the divine Nature upon That which we are in our entirety, produces
Sadhana, the practice by which perfection, siddhi, is attained; sadhaka, the Yogin who seeks by That practice the siddhi.
46
--
Strength, often unobserved and behind the veil, substitutes itself for our weakness and supports us through all our failings of faith, courage and patience. It "makes the blind to see and the lame to stride over the hills." The intellect becomes aware of a Law That beneficently insists and a succour That upholds; the heart speaks of a Master of all things and Friend of man or a universal Mother who upholds through all stumblings. Therefore this path is at once the most difficult imaginable and yet, in comparison with the magnitude of its effort and object, the most easy and sure of all.
There are three outstanding features of this action of the higher when it works integrally on the lower nature. In the first place it does not act according to a fixed system and succession as in the specialised methods of Yoga, but with a sort of free, scattered and yet gradually intensive and purposeful working determined by the temperament of the individual in whom it operates, the helpful materials which his nature offers and the obstacles which it presents to purification and perfection. In a sense, therefore, each man in this path has his own method of
--
Everything in us is seized by the hands of a mighty Artificer and transformed into a clear image of That which it now seeks confusedly to present. In That ever-progressive experience we begin to perceive how this lower manifestation is constituted and That everything in it, however seemingly deformed or petty or vile, is the more or less distorted or imperfect figure of some element or action in the harmony of the divine Nature. We begin to understand what the Vedic Rishis meant when they spoke of the human forefa thers fashioning the gods as a smith forges the crude material in his smithy.
Thirdly, the divine Power in us uses all life as the means of this integral Yoga. Every experience and outer contact with our world-environment, however trifling or however disastrous, is used for the work, and every inner experience, even to the most repellent suffering or the most humiliating fall, becomes a step on the path to perfection. And we recognise in ourselves with opened eyes the method of God in the world, His purpose of light in the obscure, of might in the weak and fallen, of delight in what is grievous and miserable. We see the divine method to be the same in the lower and in the higher working; only in the one it is pursued tardily and obscurely through the subconscious in
--
By this integral realisation and liberation, the perfect harmony of the results of Knowledge, Love and Works. For there is attained the complete release from ego and identification in being with the One in all and beyond all. But since the attaining consciousness is not limited by its attainment, we win also the unity in Beatitude and the harmonised diversity in Love, so That all relations of the play remain possible to us even while we retain on the heights of our being the eternal oneness with the
Beloved. And by a similar wideness, being capable of a freedom in spirit That embraces life and does not depend upon withdrawal from life, we are able to become without egoism, bondage or reaction the channel in our mind and body for a divine action poured out freely upon the world.
The divine existence is of the nature not only of freedom, but of purity, beatitude and perfection. An integral purity which shall enable on the one hand the perfect reflection of the divine
--
functioning of the complex instrument we are in our outer parts, is the condition of an integral liberty. Its result is an integral beatitude, in which there becomes possible at once the Ananda of all That is in the world seen as symbols of the Divine and the Ananda of That which is not-world. And it prepares the integral perfection of our humanity as a type of the Divine in the conditions of the human manifestation, a perfection founded on a certain free universality of being, of love and joy, of play of knowledge and of play of will in power and will in unegoistic action. This integrality also can be attained by the integral Yoga.
Perfection includes perfection of mind and body, so That the highest results of Rajayoga and Hathayoga should be contained in the widest formula of the synthesis finally to be effected by mankind. At any rate a full development of the general mental and physical faculties and experiences attainable by humanity through Yoga must be included in the scope of the integral method. Nor would these have any raison d'etre unless employed for an integral mental and physical life. Such a mental and physical life would be in its nature a translation of the spiritual existence into its right mental and physical values. Thus we would arrive at a synthesis of the three degrees of Nature and of the three modes of human existence which she has evolved or is evolving. We would include in the scope of our liberated being and perfected modes of activity the material life, our base, and the mental life, our intermediate instrument.
Nor would the integrality to which we aspire be real or even possible, if it were confined to the individual. Since our divine perfection embraces the realisation of ourselves in being, in life and in love through others as well as through ourselves, the extension of our liberty and of its results in others would be the inevitable outcome as well as the broadest utility of our liberation and perfection. And the constant and inherent attempt of such an extension would be towards its increasing and ultimately complete generalisation in mankind.
--
The widest synthesis of perfection possible to thought is the sole effort entirely worthy of those whose dedicated vision perceives That God dwells concealed in humanity.
0.06 - INTRODUCTION, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
follows That just quoted:
And the second night, or purification, pertains to those who are already
--
and faculties are purged and purified by God with a view to the same end That of
union. The combined description of the two nights completes the presentation of
--
treatises. The commentary upon the second, however, is very different from That
upon the first, for it assumes a much more advanced state of development. The
--
That by himself, and with the ordinary aid of grace, man cannot attain to That
degree of purgation which is essential to his transformation in God. He needs
--
Divine union of perfection of love, if God takes not its hand and purges it not in That
dark fire.'3
--
state of those That meditate on the spiritual road and begins to set them in
the state of progressiveswhich is That of those who are already
contemplativesto the end That, after passing through it, they may arrive at
the state of the perfect, which is That of the Divine union of the soul with
God. 4
--
Sense, we are told, is 'common' and 'comes to many,' whereas That of Spirit 'is the
portion of very few.'5 The one is 'bitter and terrible' but 'the second bears no
--
To judge by his language alone, one might suppose at times That he is speaking of
mathematical, rather than of spiritual operations.
--
Chapters xii and xiii detail with great exactness the benefits That the soul receives
from this aridity, while Chapter xiv briefly expounds the last line of the first stanza
--
which the Saint speaks in these words: 'The night which we have called That of
sense may and should be called a kind of correction and restraint of the desire
rather than purgation. The reason is That all the imperfections and disorders of the
sensual part have their strength and root in the spirit, where all habits, both good
--
must suffice to say That St. John of the Cross seldom again touches those same
heights of sublimity.
--
time enfolds the soul in the splendours of glory. When the effects of the light That
wounds and yet illumines are combined with those of the enkindlement That melts
the soul with its heat, the delights experienced are so great as to be ineffable.
--
It is difficult to express adequately the sense of loss That one feels at the
premature truncation of this eloquent treatise.13 We have already given our
--
further progress towards the Sun's full brightness. It is true, of course, That some
part of this great gap is filled by St. John of the Cross himself in his other treatises,
--
such gigantic proportions That he should have given us other and smaller buildings
of a somewhat similar kind. Admirable as are the Spiritual Canticle and the Living
--
theological truth That grace, far from destroying nature, ennobles and dignifies it,
and of the agreement always found between the natural and the supernatural
0.06 - Letters to a Young Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
is, and it is That which will triumph in time.
What we want to bring to the earth can hardly be called a revolution, although it will be the most marvellous change ever seen;
--
It is quite true. But it seems to me That even the outer forms,
the appearances are changing more than you say. Only, this is
--
world and the men living there That do not want it!
What does the Divine want of me?
He wants That you first find yourself; That with your true being,
your psychic being, you master and govern the lower being, and
--
Mother, what is it That will help me always remember
That I am living a spiritual life?
--
You have said in your Conversations That to prepare
oneself for the Yoga one must first of all be conscious.
--
"conscious"; That means one does not live in total ignorance of
what happens within oneself.
I cannot accept all That happens with a calm heart.
This is, however, indispensable for yoga; and he who has so great
--
I ask You once again, Mother, what is it That divides my
being?
The conflict is between That which aspires towards consciousness, the "sattwic" part of the being, and That which lets itself
be invaded and governed by the inconscience, the "tamasic"
part of the being, between That which pushes upwards and That
which pulls downwards and therefore is subject to all outer
--
My physical mind is not yet convinced That human life
is capable of overcoming all suffering and even death.
It may be That human life is indeed incapable of it; but for the
divine life nothing is impossible.
Is it strange That one should become disgusted with this
world? The repetition of the same round - That is death
itself.
--
one finds That no two things, no two moments are exactly alike
in the world and That everything is in perpetual change.
I do not understand a phrase in Your Prayers: "and That
all are equal - infinitesimal grains of dust or identical
--
All the stars (spiritually speaking) are the same. I mean That one
may call human beings grains of dust if one likes, or compare
--
be a true one, That is, based on union in the divine consciousness.
Open your heart yet wider, yet better, and the distance will
--
This prison That separates me from You and from the
Divine must be broken. O Mother, I don't know what I
--
It is in a calm and persevering will That this can be accomplished.
May my whole being be only That love which wants to
give itself, and which leads me to You.
--
realise That love which You have foreseen in your divine
vision.
--
My dear Mother, I do not say That I love You and belong
to You, I must prove it in my actions; without That these
would be worthless words behind which a man seeks
--
eternal consciousness and it is of this That one must become
aware.
--
It is precisely because of this That you lose the feeling of the
Presence.
--
Ask X, he will tell you That the Presence is not a matter of faith
or of mental imagination, it is a fact, absolutely concrete and
--
being That it is possible to find You in the centre of my
heart.
--
Beloved Mother, how shall I find the source of That
Love which will make me feel That the divine Presence is
always and everywhere?
--
It is quite incorrect That I wish to remain far from you; but
to be near me you must climb up close beside me, and not expect
--
My beloved Mother, one day You wrote to me That I
must climb to the plane where You are, to be able to
have You intimately, and That I must not expect You
to come down here. But Mother, You are so great and
remain so high up That it seems to me almost impossible
to climb up there. There is a world of difference between
--
joy in seeking; but it is true That my heart will always be
thirsty.
--
of truth, and when That reversal, That conversion takes place,
you will feel yourself always close to me.
--
To say That it is your body which separates you from me is sheer
stupidity. It seems to me That actually it is just the opposite, for
without the possibility of seeing me daily, what contact will you
--
know, on the contrary, That there is no separation and That in
the reality of your being we are always united.
To think That if you leave your body you will come closer to
me is a big mistake; for the vital being remains what it is, whether
--
And That other idea That if the body is changed the next
one will necessarily be better, is also a mistake. It is only when
--
progress which life in a physical body represents, That one may
hope to be reborn in a higher organism. All defection, on the
--
My one hope is to progress as much as I can, so That my
next birth may not be useless like this one.
--
very day; it is laziness. It is only with death That the possibility
of integral realisation ceases; so long as one is alive, nothing is
--
It is impossible to cease to be; nothing That belongs to the manifested universe can go out of it except through the door of
spiritual liberation, That is, transformation.
III
--
My sweet Mother, do You say That I ought to overcome
this desire to come to You physically?
--
yourself, purify yourself within, so That this approach may be
useful and profitable.
--
false; but if you think I am there for all my children, That I carry
them in my heart, That I want to lead them to the Divine and
That I am grieved when they move away from Him, - then this
--
wanted only to remind you That you are not alone in the Ashram
and That I have to divide my time among all those who have need
of me.
--
think That I was not with you. Wherever you work, physically
near or far, I am always with you in your work and in your
consciousness. You ought to know That.
Life will no longer have any attraction for me if I do not
feel That You are with me.
But I am always with you.
--
I have already told you That it is because the contact between
the outer consciousness and the psychic consciousness is not
--
The suffering we experience proves That the psychic being is far away from the Divine.
It is not the psychic being which suffers, it is the mind, the vital
--
was feeling quite lost. Suddenly I felt something That
rose from the depths of my being, through a crowd of
--
difficulties suddenly disappeared. Since That day I have
not had any difficulty which could bar my way.
--
If you are vexed by what I tell you, it proves That you do not
wish to progress, and consequently That it is not necessary for
me to make you aware of what is to be changed in you.
I feel, Mother, That I am a very frivolous fellow; won't
You change me?
--
corner, and if I had not the full assurance That you can overcome
all these difficulties, I would not even have mentioned them. It
--
That's very good, but if you were to add to this the idea That I
know you and love you better than you yourself do and That I
know better than you what is good for you - then That would
be perfect.
--
Mother of joy, I am surprised to find That there are people
who think That You call only those sadhaks who cannot
receive Your Grace from afar; and That it is a sign of
weakness on the part of those who see You from time to
--
I always wonder That people imagine they can know the
reasons for my actions! I act differently for each one, according
--
you may live in the peace of the certitude That you are accepted
by the Divine.
Beloved Mother, how to master this lethargy That overcomes me? I do not live, Mother, I just exist in some way.
Mother, I must find something which can divert me.
It is certainly not with such a state of mind That you can hope
to find the Divine Presence. Far from seeking to fill your heart
--
great and small, so That the power of That great emptiness may
attract the Marvellous Presence. One must know how to pay
--
soon discover That in the depths of this emptiness is the Divine.
If I find some solace in books, how can I say That nothing sustains me and That I am plunged in the divine life
through an absolute emptiness?
--
When I try to look within myself, I find there a being That
is detached from everything, a great indifference reigns
--
It is certainly not by becoming morose and melancholy That one
draws near the Divine. One must always keep in one's heart an
--
certitude That you can become conscious of my presence.
The sadder you are and the more you lament, the farther you
--
itself unhappy without any reason. I hope, indeed, That you will
soon become conscious of my presence always near you, and
--
It is in your soul That the calmness can be found and it is by contagion That it spreads through your being. It is not steady because
the sovereignty of your soul is not yet definitively established
--
and hard" an absence of sentimentality, That is, of a weak and
superficial emotionalism?
--
It is not this person or That who attracts you... it is the eternal
feminine in the lower nature which attracts the eternal masculine in the lower nature and creates an illusion in the mind; it
--
from its blind and violent whirlwind, one finds very quickly That
all desires and all attractions vanish; only the ardent aspiration
--
else except That red rose which signifies "Human passions changed into love for the Divine". I want to know
precisely what the human passions are.
--
love which human beings feel for one another That must be
changed into love for the Divine.
Sensations belong to the vital domain and to That part of it which
is expressed through the nerves of the body. It is sentiments
--
you make your little ego the centre of your preoccupation That
you are sad and unsatisfied. To forget oneself is the great remedy
--
useful only from the moment you resolve That it is no longer
going to be like this, and That you will strive to conquer your
two great enemies: jealousy and vanity. The more we advance
--
It is when one feels like a blind man That one begins to be ready
for the illumination.
--
child. I can scarcely hope That it will be transformed; and
after all, is it worth the trouble to try and transform it?
--
certainty, That by oneself one is nothing and can do nothing.
Only the Divine is the life of our life, the consciousness of our
consciousness, the Power and Capacity in us. It is to Him That
we must entrust ourselves, give ourselves without reserve, and it
--
outer activity. By concentration I mean That all the energy, all the
will, all the aspiration must be turned only towards the Divine
--
Perhaps I am mistaken in believing That I shall find myself close to you more rapidly by dissolving my being
than by mixing with many people and doing much work.
I have had the experience myself That one can be fully concentrated and be in union with the Divine even while working
physically with one's hands; but naturally this asks for a little
--
close to me. It is the spirit in which it is done That is important.
Mother, which is this being That receives happily any
work from You? Which is this being That loves You?
It is That part of your being which is under the influence of the
psychic and obeys the Divine impulsion.
--
It is not That there is a dearth of people without work in the
Ashram; but those who are without work are certainly so because they do not like to work; and for That disease it is very
difficult to find a remedy - it is called laziness...
--
Yesterday you were surprised That she had never broken anything, - naturally today she has broken something; this is how
mental formations work. That is why one must state only what
one wishes to see realised.
--
Because a thing is difficult it does not mean That one should give
it up; on the contrary, the more difficult a thing is, the greater
--
Yes, your mind gets too excited about things. It makes formations (it thinks forcefully: this must be like That, That must be
otherwise, etc.) and unknowingly it clings to its own formations
in such a way That when they are contradicted it gets a shock
and this gives it pain. It must become calm and develop the habit
--
It is absolutely false That anything human can heal a human evil.
Only the Divine can heal. It is in Him alone That one must
seek help and support, it is in Him alone That one must put all
one's hope.
--
Yes, it is in a calm and patient confidence That lies the certitude
of victory.
--
my ego which unceasingly says That I cannot accomplish
what the Divine wants of me.
--
disappears giving place to the calm assurance That nothing is
impossible.
--
remember That the conditions of our life are not quite ordinary
conditions, and keep your trust in the Divine Power to organise
--
keep a calm certitude That sooner or later all will be well.
To be pessimistic has never been of any use except to attract
--
adverse force - it is this That I want to learn to see in
myself and others.
--
recalcitrant part advises me to do so, telling me That this
is the best means of overcoming an attraction, whether
--
You will see That the nightmares will vanish.
It seemed to me That there was someone in my room
who wanted to suck my blood; I wanted to stretch my
left hand to him so That he could do so.
If you start feeding the adverse forces, they will exact more and
--
Y told me That very often he becomes an instrument of
the adverse forces.
--
I can be sure That the hostile force is far from me.
Yes, on condition That the "peace" is not That of a hardening but
of a conscious force.
--
You will admit That one can't live with others without
being influenced more or less by them.
--
What will be the result if I meditate on the thought That
there is no difference between a certain thing, no matter
which, and me; for the Divine is as much present in That
thing as in me?
Probably a disastrous result; That is, a passive opening to all
sorts of influences, most of which are hardly commendable.
--
Why? I don't see That this is necessary. The effort which would
be needed to become immune from the effects of dirt can be
--
It is to purify your own heart That you must work, instead of
passing your time in judging what others do or don't do.
--
It is just when one is innocent That one ought to be most indifferent to ill-treatment, because there is nothing to blame oneself
for and one has the approbation of one's conscience to console
--
I nearly got angry and it was with an effort That I
controlled myself.
--
disastrous, for falsehood is the very symbol of That which wants
to oppose the divine work of Truth.
--
Why imagine always That one is ill or is going to be ill and thus
open oneself to all kinds of bad suggestions? There is no reason
--
Beloved Mother, do You grant That it is possible to do
without food?
--
doesn't it show That my mind can govern the vital?
No, it only shows That in your consciousness the mind takes
a bigger place than the vital. What I call the domination of
--
from outside, it is enough That the mind intervenes for it to be
immediately controlled.
--
In Your Conversations You have said That the intellect is
like an intermediary between the true knowledge and its
realisation here below. Does it not follow That intellectual culture is indispensable for rising above the mind to
find there the true knowledge?
--
never lose sight of the fact That this is not a source of knowledge and That it is not in this way That one can draw close
to knowledge. Naturally, this does not hold good for The Life
--
I am trying to know this or That.
It is not the work That is of importance but the spirit in which
one does it. It is difficult to keep one's mind perfectly quiet; it
--
a great mistake to think That a little superficial and incomplete
knowledge of things can be of any use whatsoever; it is good for
--
style That it is remarkable.
When one reads a dirty book, an obscene novel, does
--
The students talk so much in the class That I have to
scold them often.
It is not with severity but with self-mastery That children are
controlled.
I must tell you That if a teacher wants to be respected, he must
be respectable. X is not the only one to say That you use violence
to make yourself obeyed; nothing is less respectable. You must
--
I have always thought That something in the teacher's character
was responsible for the indiscipline of his students.
--
various ways. It is only gradually That it enters their mind.
0.07 - DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
Exposition of the stanzas describing the method followed by the soul in its journey upon the spiritual road to the attainment of the perfect union of love with God, to the extent That is possible in this life. Likewise are described the properties belonging to the soul That has attained to the said perfection, according as they are contained in the same stanzas.
PROLOGUE
--
Nor I beheld aught, Without light or guide, save That which burned in my heart.
4. This light guided me More surely than the light of noonday
--
5. Oh, night That guided me, Oh, night more lovely than the dawn,
Oh, night That joined Beloved with lover, Lover transformed in the Beloved!
6. Upon my flowery breast, Kept wholly for himself alone,
--
Begins the exposition of the stanzas which treat of the way and manner which the soul follows upon the road of the union of love with God. Before we enter upon the exposition of these stanzas, it is well to understand here That the soul That utters them is now in the state of perfection, which is the union of love with God, having already passed through severe trials and straits, by means of spiritual exercise in the narrow way of eternal life whereof Our Saviour speaks in the Gospel, along which way the soul ordinarily passes in order to reach this high and happy union with God. Since this road (as the Lord Himself says likewise) is so strait, and since there are so few That enter by it,19 the soul considers it a great happiness and good chance to have passed along it to the said perfection of love, as it sings in this first stanza, calling this strait road with full propriety 'dark night,' as will be explained hereafter in the lines of the said stanza. The soul, then, rejoicing at having passed along this narrow road whence so many blessings have come to it, speaks after this manner.
BOOK THE FIRST
--
IN this first stanza the soul relates the way and manner which it followed in going forth, as to its affection, from itself and from all things, and in dying to them all and to itself, by means of true mortification, in order to attain to living the sweet and delectable life of love with God; and it says That this going forth from itself and from all things was a 'dark night,' by which, as will be explained hereafter, is here understood purgative contemplation, which causes passively in the soul the negation of itself and of all things referred to above.
2. And this going forth it says here That it was able to accomplish in the strength and ardour which love for its Spouse gave to it for That purpose in the dark contemplation aforementioned. Herein it extols the great happiness which it found in journeying to God through this night with such signal success That none of the three enemies, which are world, devil and flesh (who are they That ever impede this road), could hinder it; inasmuch as the aforementioned night of purgative20 contemplation lulled to sleep and mortified, in the house of its sensuality, all the passions and desires with respect to their mischievous desires and motions. The line, then, says:
On a dark night
0.07 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Nothing special to you. It is the same difficulty That exists for all
human beings: the pride and blindness of the physical mind.
--
There is an old Hindu belief That one should not lie down
or sleep with one's head towards the North. Has it got
--
experience goes, I do not attach much importance to That belief.
24 March 1936
--
"O Lord, awaken my entire being That it may be for Thee
the needed instrument, the perfect servant."
--
Yes, he spoke to me about it. But you must know That yoga frees
us from subjection to the horoscope; the horoscope expresses
--
the sadhana we get free from the slavery to That world.
14 September 1936
I know That the work I get nowadays is often very slight.
But I submit reports about it because once you expressed
a desire That I should do so.
Yes, I like to receive the book from you. It helps to keep the
--
Will you say to your cousin That I know only one way out of all
troubles and difficulties; it is entire self-giving and consecration
--
now intervene in a more overt form so That my earthly
eyes can see and understand somewhat of its working in
--
of my heart so That I may be blessed with a vision
of your soul-captivating Presence in the full glory of
--
That was never there before. It seems to me That soon you will
discover, behind the apparent dryness of the surface, the always
--
Z has told me That you have received complaints against
me for hurting people's feelings.
I know That it is only the weak who complain. The strong never
do because they can't be hurt. So I never attach much importance
--
be happy - nothing can please me more than That.
Most affectionately.
--
value for me except That through it I can serve your will,
except That through it I can grow to be a better and truer
child to you, O my beloved Mother.
Yes, you are my child and it is true That of all things it is the most
important.... Dear child, I am always with you and my love and
--
dear Mother, and in rare blessed moments I do sense That
we are always surrounded by your love. But as for a real
--
me to tell you That there are difficulties of my nature
which make it difficult for me to accept you and your
--
It is not as a Guru That I love and bless, it is as the Mother who
asks nothing in return for what she gives.
--
It was very sweet of you to tell me That yours was
the love of the Mother who does not ask for anything
in return. That is all right for you, for yours is a selffulfilled life. But I have yet to achieve everything, yet to
satisfy my human existence. I have yet to know my soul
--
Will That I should do so. But above all, I must have the
Darshan of the World-Mother, Adya Shakti Mahakali.
--
Last night, in silence, I told you, "To arrive at That to which
you aspire, the way is Love and the goal too is Love" - is it not
--
in her child, That only speaks of the goodness of the
Mother's heart.
--
me remain always there so That I may fill your whole being with
light and love and joy.
--
always been aware of an instinctive belief That you are an
Avatar of the Divine Mother whom I adore, but whom
I know not except by Her lotus-feet. That is the reason
why my eyes seek Her in your lotus-feet, and my heart
--
used so often and in such a variety of ways That I feel
frightened and would like to hear from you personally
--
I knew That it was a passing mood and That you would soon
come out of it - but let this love and this truth be your shield
--
the presence of the ocean which projected That wave.
With That pot in hand when you called me, do you
know of whom I was thinking? I was thinking of Kali
--
Indeed, That day I had heard you distinctly calling me and I
wanted to answer very concretely to your call... My love and
--
There is no contradiction That cannot be solved and harmonised
in a synthesis if you rise high enough in the intuitive mind and
yours is not at all irreducible. I am sure That one day you will
find this out.
--
state of pure openness to divine knowledge. There is no opposition there between these two kindred things; it is the mind That
makes them separate.
--
abode? I know That so long as She chooses to make her
abode here, sooner or later poor me will have to abdicate
in favour of Her Imperial Majesty and till That day comes
there will be no rest for poor me.
--
which I expect is psychic, I still do not feel That I want
this Yoga very badly. I still do not feel about this ideal
--
That which the Divine has destined for each of us - That will be.
My love and blessings to my dear child.
--
meant to reassure me, did not reassure me.2 Why is That
so, Mother? Perhaps you do not approve of my tone;
--
So please rest assured That I can drop this scheme if it
displeases you.
--
attach much importance to it. My sentence meant simply That
my love is capable of understanding and That my blessings do
not depend on such surface movements.
I can add today That I am not at all tired of the "problem
called me" and That I remain convinced That it will be solved
successfully....
--
give you That help under whatever form it can take.
With my love and blessings.
0.08 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The psychic change is the change That puts you in contact with
the immanent Divine, the Divine who is at the centre of each
--
It is through all the experiences of life That the psychic personality forms, grows, develops and finally becomes a complete,
conscious and free being.
--
one is not conscious of one's psychic being - for That is the
indispensable starting-point. Through interiorisation and concentration one has to enter into conscious contact with one's
--
outer being, but That influence is almost always occult, neither
seen nor perceived nor felt, save on truly exceptional occasions.
--
time That one receives an indication from it, to follow it very
scrupulously and sincerely. To live in a great aspiration, to take
--
and all That facilitates and improves respiration increases at the
same time the absorption of physical energy.
--
meditation, japa and concentration That one puts oneself in
contact with these various forms of Energy.
--
may classify them generally into vital energies, mental energies, spiritual energies. Modern science tells us That Matter is
ultimately nothing but energy condensed.
--
It means That the ghost one sees and wrongly takes for the
departed being itself, is only an image of it, an imprint (like
a photographic imprint) left in the subtle physical by the superficial mental form, an image That can become visible under
certain conditions. These images can move about (like cinema
--
emotion of those who see these images That sometimes gives
them the appearance of a power or an action they do not possess in themselves. Hence the necessity of never being afraid and
--
mind That aspires?
No; aspiration, as well as widening and intensity, comes from
--
by yoga That one can do it. There have been, throughout the spiritual history of humanity, many methods of yoga - which Sri
Aurobindo has described and explained for us in The Synthesis
--
For this, the first step is to understand That the Divine knows
better than we what is good for us and what we truly need, not
--
to convince it That its perception and understanding are too
limited for it truly to be able to know and That it judges only
according to its desires, which are blind, and not according to
--
First of all, one should know That the intellect, the mind, can
understand nothing of the Divine, neither what He does nor how
--
Those who have had the experience have always said That
the difficulties and sufferings of the path are not real, but a
creation of human ignorance, and That as soon as one gets out
of this ignorance one also gets out of the difficulties, to say
--
You have written That to enter into conscious contact
with one's psychic being, one must "aspire to know it
--
must choose the way That comes to him most naturally.
But each way has its demands in order to be truly effective.
--
For you must never forget That the outer person is only the
form and symbol of an eternal Reality, and through the physical
appearance, it is to this higher Reality That you must turn. The
physical being cannot become truly expressive of the eternal
--
manifestation. And until then, it is through it That you must find
the Truth.
--
sleeping consciousness, so That when you wake up you remember
what has happened.
It may be That you succeed immediately, but more often it
takes a certain time and you must persist in the effort.
--
The soul is That which comes from the Divine without ever
leaving Him, and returns to the Divine without ceasing to be
--
Thus it may be said That the role of the soul is to make a
true being of man.
--
it something That one creates for oneself?
There is nothing That can truly be called luck. What men call
luck are the effects of causes they do not know.
Nor is there anything That in itself is good or bad luck;
each one characterises circumstances as good or bad depending
--
within and without. So we may say with certainty That what we
carry in ourselves in all our states of being, mentally, vitally and
physically, is That which constitutes our life objectified in what
surrounds us.
--
body, but of all That surrounds us as well - all That we perceive
with our senses. It is a sort of apparatus for recording and transmission which is open to all the contacts and shocks coming
--
constant activity and noise That we are only partially aware of,
because we are so accustomed to them.
--
exhaustion arising from That internal over-activity and noise
which generally escape our control and cease neither by day nor
--
In the same way That one can share the emotions of another
person - by sympathy, spontaneously, by an affinity more or
--
identification. It is this latter process That we adopt when we
listen to music with an intense and concentrated attention, to
--
But since we usually give the name "dream" to a considerable number of activities That differ completely from one another,
the first point is to learn to distinguish between these various
activities - That is, to recognise what part of the being it is That
"dreams", what domain it is That one "dreams" in, and what the
nature of That activity is. In his letters, Sri Aurobindo has given
Series Eight - To a Young Captain
--
Aurobindo so That they may enter into our consciousness
instead of being understood only by the mind?
--
months later, one finds That the thought expressed has become
much clearer and closer and even at times quite familiar.
--
on the photo, one enters into relation with That special aspect or
different personality which the photo has captured and whose
--
Because the photo catches only the image of a moment, an instant of a person's appearance and of what That appearance
can reveal of a passing psychological condition and fragmentary soul-state. Even if the photograph is taken under the best
--
The inconscient is That part of Nature which is so obscure and
asleep That it seems to be wholly devoid of consciousness; at any
rate, as in the stone, the mineral kingdom, the consciousness
--
since the substance of our body is the same as That of the earth.
But by evolution, this sleeping and hidden consciousness
--
reacting or participating, then one can notice the effect That the
music produces on the feelings and emotions; and if it produces
a state of deep calm and semi-trance, That is very good.
15 November 1959
--
This question and the three That follow are based on terms used by Sri Aurobindo in
The Life Divine, especially in its final chapters.
--
are developed That one becomes conscious of those domains.
This consciousness is double, at first psychological and subjective, within oneself, expressing itself through thoughts, feelings,
--
freely in them - it is this That is called "mastery"; it is this That
I spoke of when I mentioned the mastery of the overmind.
It goes without saying That all this is not done in a day,
nor even in a year. This mastery, in whatever domain it may be,
--
Supernature is the Nature superior to material or physical Nature - what we usually call "Nature". But this Nature That we
see, feel and study, this Nature That has been our familiar environment since our birth upon earth, is not the only one. There
is a vital nature, a mental nature, and so on. It is this That, for
the ordinary consciousness, is Supernature.
--
descent of the Supermind,5 is it still like That?
SABCL, Vol. 19, p. 921.
--
What Sri Aurobindo means is That only a few exceptional beings
who do not belong to the ordinary humanity, have a conscious
--
are those who have an organised supramental being and supramental life, even admitting That there are any at all. Certainly
the very recent descent of the first elements of the Supermind
--
The yoga of knowledge is the path That leads to the Divine
through the exclusive pursuit of the pure and absolute Truth.
The yoga of devotion is the path That leads to union with
the Divine through perfect, total and eternal love.
--
the way to becoming superman, or those That the supramental
being will possess when he appears on earth?
In the first case, they are the faculties That develop in man as
he opens to the higher mind and overmind, and through those
--
knowledge by identity and certain powers such as That of healing
and, to an extent, of acting upon circumstances.
--
to constitute a definite basis for the various methods of selfdevelopment and self-discipline. That is why each philosophic,
educational or Yogic system has, as it were, its own division
--
It is only by experience That one can know Him, and the
experience cannot be translated into words.
0.09 - Letters to a Young Teacher, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo says: "In whatever form and with whatever spirit we approach him, in That form and with That
spirit he receives the sacrifice."2 What does this mean?
It means That all we offer, we necessarily offer to the Supreme,
because He is the sole Reality behind everything.
--
want us? I believe That in truth the Divine has chosen us
all; but what does this sentence mean, then?
--
You have said That I do not think well. How can one
develop one's thought?
--
novels or dramas, but books That make you think. You must
meditate on what you have read, reflect on a thought until you
--
instead of with words".4 You have also said That later on
you will ask them to think with experiences. Will you
--
into the great hall That forms the base of the tower and is the
storeroom of words. Here, more or less excited, we select, reject,
--
reach, in an attempt to portray this or That visitor who has come
to us. But most often, the picture we succeed in making of our
--
what needs to be changed. You can be sure That my force will
always be with you so That you can make all the progress you
want to make.
--
open, That we should give you everything, even our defects and vices and all the dirt in us. Is this the only way
to get rid of them, and how can one do it?
--
hurts as much as pulling out a tooth. That is why one does
not progress.
--
It happens That when we love You deeply and are
intimately in contact with You, we have the impression
That the Divine belongs to us exclusively (and not That
we belong to Him). Why?
--
than to give. This is where That impression comes from.
3 July 1960
--
approach Sri Aurobindo. Why? You are all That Sri Aurobindo is for us, as well as a divine and loving Mother. So
is it necessary to try to establish the same relation with
--
you; That is why it is easy for you to approach me with a loving
confidence, without fear and without hesitation. Sri Aurobindo
is always there to help you and guide you; but it is natural That
you should approach Him with the reverence due to the Master
--
The soul is the divine spark That dwells at the centre of each
being; it is identical with its Divine Origin; it is the divine in
--
You have said That once we have found our psychic
being, we can never lose it. Isn't That so? But can we
come into contact with it from time to time when we are
--
It would be more correct to say That the soul puts on a progressive individual form which becomes the psychic being. For since
the soul is itself a portion of the Supreme, it is immutable and
--
All the methods of self-knowledge, self-control and selfmastery are good. You have to choose the one That comes to you
spontaneously and best corresponds to your nature. And once
--
to apply it with an unfailing perseverance That does not shrink
from any obstacle, any difficulty. It is a long and minute work
--
The soul's influence is a kind of radiance That penetrates through
the most opaque substances and acts even in the unconsciousness.
--
Sri Aurobindo says That the voice of the ordinary
conscience is not the voice of the soul. What is it then?
--
You have said That to be allowed to sit in Sri
Aurobindo's room and meditate there, "one must have
done much for Him".5 What do You mean by That,
Mother? What can one do for the Lord which will be
--
give ourselves to Him totally and unreservedly so That He can
take possession of our nature in order to transform and divinise
--
How are the messages That You give us on Blessings
days chosen? How should we read them and what new
--
the need of the moment, so That each person may be able to find
in them either the force or the knowledge That will help him to
make progress.
In each one the will to progress is the needed thing - That
is what opens us to the divine influence and makes us capable
--
Sri Aurobindo means That one should not mistake a mental
ambition or a vital caprice for the spiritual call - for That alone
is a sure sign That one should take up Yoga. The spiritual call is
heard only when the time has come, and then the soul responds
--
knowing That to start out too soon is useless, to say the least,
and may be harmful.
--
Aurobindo says That it is extremely difficult for us to be in a
condition to receive it, keep it and make use of what it gives us.
Sri Aurobindo even says That it is more difficult than to
drink from the cup of the gods who are immortal.
--
It is utterly certain That if you were truly in contact with "your
personal divine", you would know perfectly well "how to approach the Transcendent Divine". For the two are identical; it is
only the mode of approach That differs: one is through the heart,
the other through the mind.
--
wanted to say is That in our best moments of receptivity,
we are in contact with a Presence to whom we feel an
--
You. I know That it is not possible to have a complete
conception of the Divine at this stage.
--
My reply contained the answer to your question, for I understood very well That you were not claiming anything, but had
expressed yourself poorly.
--
It should be understood clearly That there is no question here
of any physical embracing, as practical jokers with the tastes
--
widening That enables you to understand everything and love
everything, without preference or exclusiveness.
--
We are told That before the children came to the
Ashram, the conditions were a lot stricter and the discipline more rigorous. How and why have these conditions
--
tolerated were those That were useful for the practice of sadhana.
But as it would be unreasonable to demand That children
should do sadhana, this rigidity had to disappear the moment
--
In terrestrial man, it is only the psychic being That knows true
love. As for perfect love, it exists only in the Divine.
--
It is not the world of delight That has come down, but only the
supramental Light, Consciousness and Force.
--
And if you are telling me That the photos are damaged, this
will make you understand how necessary it is to take care of the
things we use. That is what I mean when I speak of living with
respect.
--
The only way That can be rapid is to think only of That and to
want only That.
It is effective, but not very practical for the work!
01.01 - A Yoga of the Art of Life, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When Sri Aurobindo said, Our Yoga is not for ourselves but for humanity, many heaved a sigh of relief and thought That the great soul was after all not entirely lost to the world, his was not one more name added to the long list of Sannyasins That India has been producing age after age without much profit either to herself or to the human society (or even perhaps to their own selves). People understood his Yoga to be a modern one, dedicated to the service of humanity. If service to humanity was not the very sum and substance of his spirituality, it was, at least, the fruitful end and consummation. His Yoga was a sort of art to explore and harness certain unseen powers That can better and ameliorate human life in a more successful way than mere rational scientific methods can hope to do.
Sri Aurobindo saw That the very core of his teaching was being missed by this common interpretation of his saying. So he changed his words and said, Our Yoga is not for humanity but for the Divine. But I am afraid this change of front, this volte-face, as it seemed, was not welcomed in many quarters; for thereby all hope of having him back for the work of the country or the world appeared to be totally lost and he came to be looked upon again as an irrevocable metaphysical dreamer, aloof from physical things and barren, even like the Immutable Brahman.
II
In order to get a nearer approach to the ideal for which Sri Aurobindo has been labouring, we may combine with advantage the two mottoes he has given us and say That his mission is to find and express the Divine in humanity. This is the service he means to render to humanity, viz, to manifest and embody in it the Divine: his goal is not merely an amelioration, but a total change and transformation, the divinisation of human life.
Here also one must guard against certain misconceptions That are likely to occur. The transformation of human life does not necessarily mean That the entire humanity will be changed into a race of gods or divine beings; it means the evolution or appearance on earth of a superior type of humanity, even as man evolved out of animality as a superior type of animality, not That the entire animal kingdom was changed into humanity.
As regards the possibility of such a consummation,Sri Aurobindo says it is not a possibility but an inevitabilityone must remember That the force That will bring about the result and is already at work is not any individual human power, however great it may be, but the Divine himself, it is the Divine's own Shakti That is labouring for the destined end.
Here is the very heart of the mystery, the master-key to the problem. The advent of the superhuman or divine race, however stupendous or miraculous the phenomenon may appear to be, can become a thing of practical actuality, precisely because it is no human agency That has undertaken it but the Divine himself in his supreme potency and wisdom and love. The descent of the Divine into the ordinary human nature in order to purify and transform it and be lodged there is the whole secret of the sadhana in Sri Aurobindo's Yoga. The sadhaka has only to be quiet and silent, calmly aspiring, open and acquiescent and receptive to the one Force; he need not and should not try to do things by his independent personal effort, but get them done or let them be done for him in the dedicated consciousness by the Divine Master and Guide. All other Yogas or spiritual disciplines in the past envisaged an ascent of the consciousness, its sublimation into the consciousness of the Spirit and its fusion and dissolution there in the end. The descent of the Divine Consciousness to prepare its definitive home in the dynamic and pragmatic human nature, if considered at all, was not the main theme of the past efforts and achievements. Furthermore, the descent spoken of here is the descent, not of a divine consciousness for there are many varieties of divine consciousness but of the Divine's own consciousness, of the Divine himself with his Shakti. For it is That That is directly working out this evolutionary transformation of the age.
It is not my purpose here to enter into details as to the exact meaning of the descent, how it happens and what are its lines of activity and the results brought about. For it is indeed an actual descent That happens: the Divine Light leans down first into the mind and begins its purificatory work therealthough it is always the inner heart which first recognises the Divine Presence and gives its assent to the Divine action for the mind, the higher mind That is to say, is the summit of the ordinary human consciousness and receives more easily and readily the Radiances That descend. From the Mind the Light filters into the denser regions of the emotions and desires, of life activity and vital dynamism; finally, it gets into brute Matter itself, the hard and obscure rock of the physical body, for That too has to be illumined and made the very form and figure of the Light supernal. The Divine in his descending Grace is the Master-Architect who is building slowly and surely the many-chambered and many-storeyed edifice That is human nature and human life into the mould of the Divine Truth in its perfect play and supreme expression. But this is a matter which can be closely considered when one is already well within the mystery of the path and has acquired the elementary essentials of an initiate.
Another question That troubles and perplexes the ordinary human mind is as to the time when the thing will be done. Is it now or a millennium hence or at some astronomical distance in future, like the cooling of the sun, as someone has suggested for an analogy. In view of the magnitude of the work one might with reason say That the whole eternity is there before us, and a century or even a millennium should not be grudged to such a labour for it is nothing less than an undoing of untold millenniums in the past and the building of a far-flung futurity. However, as we have said, since it is the Divine's own work and since Yoga means a concentrated and involved process of action, effectuating in a minute what would perhaps take years to accomplish in the natural course, one can expect the work to be done sooner rather than later. Indeed, the ideal is one of here and nowhere upon this earth of material existence and now in this life, in this very bodynot hereafter or elsewhere. How long exactly That will mean, depends on many factors, but a few decades on this side or the other do not matter very much.
As to the extent of realisation, we say again That That is not a matter of primary consideration. It is not the quantity but the substance That counts. Even if it were a small nucleus it would be sufficient, at least for the beginning, provided it is the real, the genuine thing
Swalpamapyasya dharmasya tryate mahato bhayt1
Now, if it is asked what is the proof of it all, how can one be sure That one is not running after a mirage, a chimera? We can only answer with the adage; the proof of the pudding is in the eating thereof
III
--
From a certain point of view, from the point of view of essentials and inner realities, it would appear That spirituality is, at least, the basis of the arts, if not the highest art. If art is meant to express the soul of things, and since the true soul of things is the divine element in them, then certainly spirituality, the discipline of coming in conscious contact with the Spirit, the Divine, must be accorded the regal seat in the hierarchy of the arts. Also, spirituality is the greatest and the most difficult of the arts; for it is the art of life. To make of life a perfect work of beauty, pure in its lines, faultless in its rhythm, replete with strength, iridescent: with light, vibrant with delightan embodiment of the Divine, in a wordis the highest ideal of spirituality; viewed the spirituality That Sri Aurobindo practisesis the ne plus ultra of artistic creation
The Gita, II. 40
01.01 - Sri Aurobindo - The Age of Sri Aurobindo, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Someone has written to this effect: "This is not the age of Sri Aurobindo. His ideal of a divine life upon earth mayor may not be true; at any rate it is not of today or even of tomorrow. Humanity will take some time before it reaches That stage or its possibility. What we are concerned with here and now is something perhaps less great, less spiritual, but more urgent and more practical. The problem is not to run away with one's soul, but to maintain its earthly tenement, to keep body and soul together: one has to live first, live materially before one can hope to live spiritually."
Well, the view expressed in these words is not a new revelation. It has been the cry of suffering humanity through the ages. Man has borne his cross since the beginning of his creation through want and privation, through disease and bereavement, through all manner of turmoil and tribulation, and yetmirabile dictuat the same time, in the very midst of those conditions, he has been aspiring and yearning for something else, ignoring the present, looking into the beyond. It is not the prosperous and the more happily placed in life who find it more easy to turn to the higher life, it is not the wealthiest who has the greatest opportunity to pursue a spiritual idea. On the contrary, spiritual leaders have thought and experienced otherwise.
Apart from the well-recognised fact That only in distress does the normal man think of God and non-worldly things, the real matter, however, is That the inner life is a thing apart and follows its own line of movement, does not depend upon, is not subservient to, the kind of outer life That one may happen to live under. The Bible says indeed, "Blessed are the poor, blessed are they That mourn"... But the Upanishad declares, on the other hand, That even as one lies happily on a royal couch, bathes and anoints himself with all the perfumes of the world, has attendants all around and always to serve him, even so, one can be full of the divine consciousness from the crown of the head to the tip of his toe-nail. In fact, a poor or a prosperous life is in no direct or even indirect ratio to a spiritual life. All the miseries and immediate needs of a physical life do not and cannot detain or delay one from following the path of the ideal; nor can all your riches be a burden to your soul and overwhelm it, if it chooses to walk onit can not only walk, but soar and fly with all That knapsack on its back.
If one were to be busy about reforming the world and when That was done then alone to turn to other-worldly things, in That case, one would never take the turn, for the world will never be reformed totally or even considerably in That way. It is not That reformers have for the first time appeared on the earth in the present age. Men have attempted social, political, economic and moral reforms from times immemorial. But That has not barred the spiritual attempt or minimised its importance. To say That because an ideal is apparently too high or too great for the present age, it must be kept in cold storage is to set a premium on the present nature of humanity arid eternise it: That would bind the world to its old moorings and never give it the opportunity to be free and go out into the high seas of larger and greater realisations.
The ideal or perhaps one should say the policy of Real-politick is the thing needed in this world. To achieve something actually in the physical and material field, even a lesser something, is worth much more than speculating on high flaunting chimeras and indulging in day-dreams. Yes, but what is this something That has to be achieved in the material world? It is always an ideal. Even procuring food for each and every person, clothing and housing all is not less an ideal for all its concern about actuality. Only there are ideals and ideals; some are nearer to the earth, some seem to be in the background. But the mystery is That it is not always the ideal nearest to the earth which is the easiest to achieve or the first thing to be done first. Do we not see before our very eye show some very simple innocent social and economic changes are difficult to carry outthey bring in their train quite disproportionately gestures and movements of violence and revolution? That is because we seek to cure the symptoms and not touch the root of the disease. For even the most innocent-looking social, economic or political abuse has at its base far-reaching attitudes and life-urgeseven a spiritual outlook That have to be sought out and tackled first, if the attempt at reform is to be permanently and wholly successful. Even in mundane matters we do not dig deep enough, or rise high enough.
Indeed, looking from a standpoint That views the working of the forces That act and achieve and not the external facts and events and arrangements aloneone finds That things That are achieved on the material plane are first developed and matured and made ready behind the veil and at a given moment burst out and manifest themselves often unexpectedly and suddenly like a chick out of the shell or the young butterfly out of the cocoon. The Gita points to That truth of Nature when it says: "These beings have already been killed by Me." It is not That a long or strenuous physical planning and preparation alone or in the largest measure brings about a physical realisation. The deeper we go within, the farther we are away from the surface, the nearer we come to the roots and sources of things even most superficial. The spiritual view sees and declares That it is the Brahmic consciousness That holds, inspires, builds up Matter, the physical body and form of Brahman.
The highest ideal, the very highest which God and Nature and Man have in view, is not and cannot be kept in cold storage: it is being worked out even here and now, and it has to be worked out here and now. The ideal of the Life Divine embodies a central truth of existence, and however difficult or chimerical it may appear to be to the normal mind, it is the preoccupation of the inner being of manall other ways or attempts of curing human ills are faint echoes, masks, diversions of this secret urge at the source and heart of things. That ideal is a norm and a force That is ever dynamic and has become doubly so since it has entered the earth atmosphere and the waking human consciousness and is labouring there. It is always safer and wiser to recognise That fact, to help in the realisation of That truth and be profited by it.
***
01.01 - The New Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The world is in the throes of a new creation and the pangs of That new birth have made mother Earth restless. It is no longer a far-off ideal That our imagination struggles to visualise, nor a prophecy That yet remains to be fulfilled. It is Here and Now.
Although we may not know it, the New Man the divine race of humanity is already among us. It may be in our next neighbour, in our nearest brother, even in myself. Only a thin veil covers it. It marches just behind the line. It waits for an occasion to throw off the veil and place itself in the forefront. We are living in strenuous times in which age-long institutions are going down and new-forces rearing their heads, old habits are being cast off and new impulsions acquired. In every sphere of life, we see the urgent demand for a recasting, a fresh valuation of things. From the base to the summit, from the economic and political life to the artistic and spiritual, humanity is being shaken to bring out a new expression and articulation. There is the hidden surge of a Power, the secret stress of a Spirit That can no longer suffer to remain in the shade and behind the mask, but wills to come out in the broad daylight and be recognised in its plenary virtues.
That Power, That Spirit has been growing and gathering its strength during all the millenniums That humanity has lived through. On the momentous day when man appeared on earth, the Higher Man also took his birth. Since the hour the Spirit refused to be imprisoned in its animal sheath and came out as man, it approached by That very uplift a greater freedom and a vaster movement. It was the crest of That underground wave which peered over the surface from age to age, from clime to clime through the experiences of poets and prophets and sages the Head of the Sacrificial Horse galloping towards the Dawn.
And now the days of captivity or rather of inner preparation are at an end. The voice in the wilderness was necessary, for it was a call and a communion in the silence of the soul. Today the silence seeks utterance. Today the shell is ripe enough to break and to bring out the mature and full-grown being. The king That was in hiding comes in glory and triumph, in his complete regalia.
Another humanity is rising out of the present human species. The beings of the new order are everywhere and it is they who will soon hold sway over earth, be the head and front of the terrestrial evolution in the cycle That is approaching as it was with man in the cycle That is passing away. What will this new order of being be like? It will be what man is not, also what man is. It will not be man, because it will overstep the limitations and incapacities inherent in man; and it will be man by the realisation of those fundamental aspirations and yearnings That have troubled and consoled the deeper strata the soulin him throughout the varied experiences of his terrestrial life.
The New Man will be Master and not slave. He will be master, first, of himself and then of the world. Man as he actually is, is but a slave. He has no personal voice or choice; the determining soul, the Ishwara, in him is sleep-bound and hushed. He is a mere plaything in the hands of nature and circumstances. Therefore it is That Science has become his supreme Dharmashastra; for science seeks to teach us the moods of Nature and the methods of propitiating her. Our actual ideal of man is That of the cleverest slave. But the New Man will have found himself and by and according to his inner will, mould and create his world. He will not be in awe of Nature and in an attitude of perpetual apprehension and hesitation, but will ground himself on a secret harmony and union That will declare him as the lord. We will recognise the New Man by his very gait and manner, by a certain kingly ease and dominion in every shade of his expression.
Not That this sovereign power will have anything to do with aggression or over-bearingness. It will not be a power That feels itself only by creating an eternal opponentErbfeindby coming in constant clash with a rival That seeks to gain victory by subjugating. It will not be Nietzschean "will to power," which is, at best, a supreme Asuric power. It will rather be a Divine Power, for the strength it will exert and the victory it will achieve will not come from the egoit is the ego which requires an object outside and against to feel and affirm itself but it will come from a higher personal self which is one with the cosmic soul and therefore with other personal souls. The Asura, in spite of, or rather, because of his aggressive vehemence betrays a lack of the sovereign power That is calm and at ease and self-sufficient. The Devic power does not assert hut simply accomplishes; the forces of the world act not as its opponent but as its instrument. Thus the New Man shall affirm his individual sovereignty and do so to perfection by expressing through it his unity with the cosmic powers, with the infinite godhead. And by being Swarat, Self-Master, he will become Samrat, world-master.
This mastery will be effected not merely in will, but in mind and heart also. For the New Man will know not by the intellect which is egocentric and therefore limited, not by ratiocination which is an indirect and doubtful process, but by direct vision, an inner communion, a soul revelation. The new knowledge will be vast and profound and creative, based as it will be upon the reality of things and not upon their shadows. Truth will shine through every experience and every utterance"a truth shall have its seat on our speech and mind and hearing", so have the Vedas said. The mind and intellect will not be active and constructive agents but the luminous channel of a self-luminous knowledge. And the heart too which is now the field of passion and egoism will be cleared of its noise and obscurity; a serener sky will shed its pure warmth and translucent glow. The knot will be rent asunderbhidyate hridaya granthih and the vast and mighty streams of another ocean will flow through. We will love not merely those to whom we are akin but God's creatures, one and all; we will love not with the yearning and hunger of a mortal but with the wide and intense Rasa That lies in the divine identity of souls.
And the new society will be based not upon competition, nor even upon co-operation. It will not be an open conflict, neither will it be a convenient compromise of rival individual interests. It will be the organic expression of the collective soul of humanity, working and achieving through each and every individual soul its most wide-winging freedom, manifesting the godhead That is, proper to each and every one. It will be an organisation, most delicate and subtle and supple, the members of which will have no need to live upon one another but in and through one another. It will be, if you like, a henotheistic hierarchy in which everyone will be the greatest, since everyone is all and all everyone simultaneously.
The New Humanity will be something in the mould That we give to the gods. It will supply the link That we see missing between gods and men; it will be the race of embodied gods. Man will attain That thing which has been his first desire and earliest dream, for which he coveted the gods Immortality, amritatwam. The mortalities That cut and divide, limit and bind man make him the sorrowful being he is. These are due to his ignorance and weakness and egoism. These are due to his soul itself. It is the soul That requires change, a new birth, as Christ demanded. Ours is a little soul That has severed itself from the larger and mightier self That it is. And therefore does it die every moment and even while living is afraid to live and so lives poorly and miserably. But the age is now upon us when the god-like soul anointed with its immortal royalties is ready to emerge and claim our salutation.
The breath and the surge of the new creation cannot be mistaken. The question That confronts us today is no longer whether the New Man, the Super-humanity, will come or if at all, when; but the question we have to answer is who among us are ready to be its receptacle, its instrument and embodiment.
***
01.01 - The One Thing Needful, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is the lesson of life That always in this world everything fails a man - only the Divine does not fail him, if he turns entirely towards the Divine. It is not because there is something bad in you That blows fall on you - blows fall on all human beings because they are full of desire for things That cannot last and they lose them or, even if they get, it brings disappointment and cannot satisfy them. To turn to the Divine is the only truth in life.
To find the Divine is indeed the first reason for seeking the spiritual Truth and the spiritual life; it is the one thing indispensable and all the resit is nothing without it. The Divine once found, to manifest Him, - That is, first of all to transform one's own limited consciousness into the Divine Consciousness, to live in the infinite Peace, Light, Love, Strength, Bliss, to become That in one's essential nature and, as a consequence, to be its vessel, channel, instrument in one's active nature. To bring into activity the principle of oneness on the material plane or to work for humanity is a mental mistranslation of the Truth - these things cannot be the first true object of spiritual seeking. We must find the Self, the Divine, then only can we know what is the work the Self or the Divine demands from us. Until then our life and action can only be a help or a means towards finding the Divine and it ought not to have any other purpose. As we grow in inner consciousness, or as the spiritual Truth of the Divine grows in us, our life and action must indeed more and more flow from That, be one with That. But to decide beforeh and by our limited mental conceptions what they must be is to hamper the growth of the spiritual Truth within. As That grows we shall feel the Divine Light and Truth, the Divine Power and Force, the Divine Purity and Peace working within us, dealing with our actions as well as our consciousness, making use of them to reshape us into the Divine Image, removing the dross, substituting the pure Gold of the Spirit. Only when the Divine Presence is there in us always and the consciousness transformed, can we have the right to say That we are ready to manifest the Divine on the material plane. To hold up a mental ideal or principle and impose That on the inner working brings the danger of limiting ourselves to a mental realisation or of impeding or even falsifying by a halfway formation the truth growth into the full communion and union with the Divine and the free and intimate outflowing of His will in our life. This is a mistake of orientation to which the mind of today is especially prone. It is far better to approach the Divine for the Peace or Light or Bliss That the realisation of Him gives than to bring in these minor things which can divert us from the one thing needful. The divinisation of the material life also as well as the inner life is part of what we see as the Divine Plan, but it can only be fulfilled by an ourflowing of the inner realisation, something That grows from within outwards, not by the working out of a mental principle.
The realisation of the Divine is the one thing needful and the rest is desirable only in so far as it helps or leads towards That or when it is realised, extends and manifests the realisation. Manifestation and organisation of the whole life for the divine work, - first, the sadhana personal and collective necessary for the realisation and a common life of God-realised men, secondly, for help to the world to move towards That, and to live in the Light - is the whole meaning and purpose of my Yoga. But the realisation is the first need and it is That round which all the rest moves, for apart from it all the rest would have no meaning.
Yoga is directed towards God, not towards man. If a divine supramental consciousness and power can be brought down and established in the material world, That obviously would mean an immense change for the earth including humanity and its life. But the effect on humanity would only be one result of the change; it cannot be the object of the sadhana. The object of the sadhana can only be to live in the divine consciousness and to manifest it in life.
Sadhana must be the main thing and sadhana means the purification of the nature, the consecration of the being, the opening of the psychic and the inner mind and vital, the contact and presence of the Divine, the realisation of the Divine in all things, surrender, devotion, the widening of the consciousness into the cosmic Consciousness, the Self one in all, the psychic and the spiritual transformation of the nature.
--
This is a slow and difficult process; the road is long and it is hard to establish even the necessary basis. The old existing nature resists and obstructs and difficulties rise one after another and repeatedly till they are overcome. It is therefore necessary to be sure That this is the path to which one is called before one finally decides to tread it.
01.01 - The Symbol Dawn, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Something That wished but knew not how to be,
Teased the Inconscient to wake Ignorance.
--
A throe That came and left a quivering trace,
Gave room for an old tired want unfilled,
--
But the oblivion That succeeds the fall,
Had blotted the crowded tablets of the past,
And all That was destroyed must be rebuilt
And old experience laboured out once more.
--
A hope stole in That hardly dared to be
Amid the Night's forlorn indifference.
--
Then through the pallid rift That seemed at first
Hardly enough for a trickle from the suns,
--
Almost That day the epiphany was disclosed
Of which our thoughts and hopes are signal flares;
--
Parted the eternal lids That open heaven;
A Form from far beatitudes seemed to near.
--
The call That wakes the leap of human mind,
Its chequered eager motion of pursuit,
--
The calm delight That weds one soul to all,
The key to the flaming doors of ecstasy.
--
Earth's grain That needs the sap of pleasure and tears
Rejected the undying rapture's boon:
--
Of That assault of ether and of fire;
It murmurs at its sorrowless happiness,
--
Bringing a noon That seemed like every noon.
2.21
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The Power That kindles mind was still withdrawn:
Heavy, unwilling were life's servitors
01.02 - Natures Own Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This process of a developing consciousness in Nature is precisely what is known as Evolution. It is the bringing out and fixing of a higher and higher principle of consciousness, hitherto involved and concealed behind the veil, in the earth consciousness as a dynamic factor in Nature's manifest working. Thus, the first stage of evolution is the status of inconscient Matter, of the lifeless physical elements; the second stage is That of the semi-conscious life in the plant, the third That of the conscious life in the animal, and finally the fourth stage, where we stand at present, is That of the embodied self-conscious life in man.
The course of evolution has not come to a stop with man and the next stage, Sri Aurobindo says, which Nature envisages and is labouring to bring out and establish is the life now superconscious to us, embodied in a still higher type of created being, That of the superman or god-man. The principle of consciousness which will determine the nature and build of this new, being is a spiritual principle beyond the mental principle which man now incarnates: it may be called the Supermind or Gnosis.
For, till now Mind has been the last term of the evolutionary consciousness Mind as developed in man is the highest instrument built up and organised by Nature through which the self-conscious being can express itself. That is why the Buddha said: Mind is the first of all principles, Mind is the highest of all principles: indeed Mind is the constituent of all principlesmana puvvangam dhamm1. The consciousness beyond mind has not yet been made a patent and dynamic element in the life upon earth; it has been glimpsed or entered into in varying degrees and modes by saints and seers; it has cast its derivative illuminations in the creative activities of poets and artists, in the finer and nobler urges of heroes and great men of action. But the utmost That has been achieved, the summit reached in That direction, as exampled in spiritual disciplines, involves a withdrawal from the evolutionary cycle, a merging and an absorption into the static status That is altogether beyond it, That lies, as it were, at the other extreme the Spirit in itself, Atman, Brahman, Sachchidananda, Nirvana, the One without a second, the Zero without a first.
The first contact That one has with this static supra-reality is through the higher ranges of the mind: a direct and closer communion is established through a plane which is just above the mind the Overmind, as Sri Aurobindo calls it. The Overmind dissolves or transcends the ego-consciousness which limits the being to its individualised formation bounded by an outward and narrow frame or sheath of mind, life and body; it reveals the universal Self and Spirit, the cosmic godhead and its myriad forces throwing up myriad forms; the world-existence there appears as a play of ever-shifting veils upon the face of one ineffable reality, as a mysterious cycle of perpetual creation and destructionit is the overwhelming vision given by Sri Krishna to Arjuna in the Gita. At the same time, the initial and most intense experience which this cosmic consciousness brings is the extreme relativity, contingency and transitoriness of the whole flux, and a necessity seems logically and psychologically imperative to escape into the abiding substratum, the ineffable Absoluteness.
This has been the highest consummation, the supreme goal which the purest spiritual experience and the deepest aspiration of the human consciousness generally sought to attain. But in this view, the world or creation or Nature came in the end to be looked upon as fundamentally a product of Ignorance: ignorance and suffering and incapacity and death were declared to be the very hallmark of things terrestrial. The Light That dwells above and beyond can be made to shed for a while some kind of lustre upon the mortal darkness but never altogether to remove or change itto live in the full light, to be in and of the Light means to pass beyond. Not That there have not been other strands and types of spiritual experiences and aspirations, but the one we are considering has always struck the major chord and dominated and drowned all the rest.
But the initial illusory consciousness of the Overmind need not at all lead to the static Brahmic consciousness or Sunyam alone. As a matter of fact, there is in this particular processes of consciousness a hiatus between the two, between Maya and Brahman, as though one has to leap from the one into the other somehow. This hiatus is filled up in Sri Aurobindo's Yoga by the principle of Supermind, not synthetic-analytic2 in knowledge like Overmind and the highest mental intelligence, but inescapably unitarian even in the utmost diversity. Supermind is the Truth-consciousness at once static and dynamic, self-existent and creative: in Supermind the Brahmic consciousness Sachchidanandais ever self-aware and ever manifested and embodied in fundamental truth-powers and truth-forms for the play of creation; it is the plane where the One breaks out into the Many and the Many still remain one, being and knowing themselves to be but various self-expressions of the One; it develops the spiritual archetypes, the divine names and forms of all individualisations of an evolving existence.
--
The Upanishads speak of a solar and a lunar Path in the spiritual consciousness. Perhaps they have some reference to these two linesone through the Mayic consciousness of the Overmind enters into the static Bliss, ecstatic Nihil, and the other mounts still farther to the solar status which is a mass, a sea, an infinity of That light and ecstasy but which can at the same time express and embody itself as the creative Truth-consciousness (srya svitr ).
In the Supermind things exist in their perfect spiritual reality; each is consciously the divine reality in its transcendent essence, its cosmic extension, its, spiritual individuality; the diversity of a manifested existence is there, but the mutually exclusive separativeness has not yet arisen. The ego, the knot of separativity, appears at a later and lower stage of involution; what is here is indivisible nexus of individualising centres of the one eternal truth of being. Where Supermind and Overmind meet, one can see the multiple godheads, each distinct in his own truth and beauty and power and yet all together forming the one supreme consciousness infinitely composite and inalienably integral. But stepping back into Supermind one sees something moreOneness gathering into itself all diversity, not destroying it, but annulling and forbidding the separative consciousness That is the beginning of Ignorance. The first shadow of the Illusory Consciousness, the initial possibility of the movement of Ignorance comes in when the supramental light enters the penumbra of the mental sphere. The movement of Supermind is the movement of light without obscurity, straight, unwavering, unswerving, absolute. The Force here contains and holds in their oneness of Reality the manifold but not separated lines of essential and unalloyed truth: its march is the inevitable progression of each one assured truth entering into and upholding every other and therefore its creation, play or action admits of no trial or stumble or groping or deviation; for each truth rests on all others and on That which harmonises them all and does not act as a Power diverging from and even competing with other Powers of being. In the Overmind commences the play of divergent possibilities the simple, direct, united and absolute certainties of the supramental consciousness retire, as it were, a step behind and begin to work themselves out through the interaction first of separately individualised and then of contrary and contradictory forces. In the Overmind there is a conscious underlying Unity but yet each Power, Truth, Aspect of That Unity is encouraged to work out its possibilities as if it were sufficient to itself and the others are used by it for its own enhancement until in the denser and darker reaches below Overmind this turns out a thing of blind conflict and battle and, as it would appear, of chance survival. Creation or manifestation originally means the concretisation or devolution of the powers of Conscious Being into a play of united diversity; but on the line which ends in Matter it enters into more and more obscure forms and forces and finally the virtual eclipse of the supreme light of the Divine Consciousness. Creation as it descends' towards the Ignorance becomes an involution of the Spirit through Mind and Life into Matter; evolution is a movement backward, a return journey from Matter towards the Spirit: it is the unravelling, the gradual disclosure and deliverance of the Spirit, the ascension and revelation of the involved consciousness through a series of awakeningsMatter awakening into Life, Life awakening into Mind and Mind now seeking to awaken into something beyond the Mind, into a power of conscious Spirit.
The apparent or actual result of the movement of Nescienceof Involutionhas been an increasing negation of the Spirit, but its hidden purpose is ultimately to embody the Spirit in Matter, to express here below in cosmic Time-Space the splendours of the timeless Reality. The material body came into existence bringing with it inevitably, as it seemed, mortality; it appeared even to be fashioned out of mortality, in order That in this very frame and field of mortality, Immortality, the eternal Spirit Consciousness which is the secret truth and reality in Time itself as well as behind it, might be established and That the Divine might be possessed, or rather, possess itself not in one unvarying mode of the static consciousness, as it does even now behind the cosmic play, but in the play itself and in the multiple mode of the terrestrial existence.
II
--
An organ in the human being has been especially developed to become the effective instrument of this accelerated Yogic process the self-consciousness which I referred to as being the distinctive characteristic of man is a function of this organ. It is his soul, his psychic being; originally it is the spark of the Divine Consciousness which came down and became involved in Matter and has been endeavouring ever since to release itself through the upward march of evolution. It is this which presses on continually as the stimulus to the evolutionary movement; and in man it has attained sufficient growth and power and has come so far to the front from behind the veil That it can now lead and mould his external consciousness. It is also the channel through which the Divine Consciousness can flow down into the inferior levels of human nature. It is the being no bigger than the thumb ever seated within the heart, spoken of in the Upanishads. It is likewise the basis of true individuality and personal identity. It is again the reflection or expression in evolutionary Nature of one's essential selfjivtman That is above, an eternal portion of the Divine, one with the Divine and yet not dissolved and lost in it. The psychic being is thus on the one hand in direct contact with the Divine and the higher consciousness, and on the other it is the secret upholder and controller' (bhart, antarymin) of the inferior consciousness, the hidden nucleus round which the body and the life and the mind of the individual are built up and organised.
The first decisive step in Yoga is taken when one becomes conscious of the psychic being, or, looked at from the other side, when the psychic being comes forward and takes possession of the external being, begins to initiate and influence the movements of the mind and life and body and gradually free them from the ordinary round of ignorant nature. The awakening of the psychic being means, as I have said, not only a deepening and heightening of the consciousness and its release from the obscurity and limitation of the inferior Prakriti, confined to the lower threefold status, into what is behind and beyond; it means also a return of the deeper and higher consciousness upon the lower hemisphere and a consequent purification and illumination and regeneration of the latter. Finally, when the psychic being is in full self-possession and power, it can be the vehicle of the direct supramental consciousness which will then be able to act freely and absolutely for the entire transformation of the external nature, its transfiguration into a perfect body of the Truth-consciousness in a word, its divinisation.
This then is the supreme secret, not the renunciation and annulment, but the transformation of the ordinary human nature : first of all, its psychicisation, That is to say, making it move and live and be in communion and identification with the light of the psychic being, and, secondly, through the soul and the ensouled mind and life and body, to open out into the supramental consciousness and let it come down here below and work and achieve.
The soul or the true being in man uplifted in the supramental consciousness and at the same time coming forward to possess a divinised mind and life and body as an instrument and channel of its self-expression and an embodiment of the Divine Will and Purposesuch is the goal That Nature is seeking to realise at present through her evolutionary lan. It is to this labour That man has been called so That in and through him the destined transcendence and transformation can take place.
It is not easy, however, nor is it necessary for the moment to envisage in detail what this divinised man would be like, externallyhis mode of outward being and living, kimsita vrajeta kim, as Arjuna queriedor how the collective life of the new humanity would function or what would be the composition of its social fabric. For what is happening is a living process, an organic growth; it is being elaborated through the actions and reactions of multitudinous forces and conditions, known and unknown; the precise configuration of the final outcome cannot be predicted with exactitude. But the Power That is at work is omniscient; it is selecting, rejecting, correcting, fashioning, creating, co-ordinating elements in accordance with and by the drive of the inviolable law of Truth and Harmony That reigns in Light's own homeswe dame the Supermind.
It is also to be noted That as mind is not the last limit of the march of evolution, even so the progress of evolution will not stop with the manifestation and embodiment of the Supermind. There are other still higher principles beyond and they too presumably await manifestation and embodiment on earth. Creation has no beginning in time (andi) nor has it an end (ananta). It is an eternal process of the unravelling of the mysteries of the Infinite. Only, it may be said That with the Supermind the creation here enters into a different order of existence. Before it there was the domain of Ignorance, after it will come the reign of Light and Knowledge. Mortality has been the governing principle of life on earth till now; it will be replaced by the consciousness of immortality. Evolution has proceeded through struggle and pain; hereafter it will be a spontaneous, harmonious and happy flowering.
Now, with regard to the time That the present stage of evolution is likely to take for its fulfilment, one can presume That since or if the specific urge and stress has manifested and come up to the front, this very fact would show That the problem has become a problem of actuality, and even That it can be dealt with as if it had to be solved now or never. We have said That in man, with man's self-consciousness or the consciousness of the psychic being as the instrument, evolution has attained the capacity of a swift and concentrated process, which is the process of Yoga; the process will become swifter and more concentrated, the more That instrument grows and gathers power and is infused with the divine afflatus. In fact, evolution has been such a process of gradual acceleration in tempo from the very beginning. The earliest stage, for example, the stage of dead Matter, of the play of the mere chemical forces was a very, very long one; it took millions and millions of years to come to the point when the manifestation of life became possible. But the period of elementary life, as manifested in the plant world That followed, although it too lasted a good many millions of years, was much briefer than the preceding periodit ended with the advent of the first animal form. The age of animal life, again, has been very much shorter than That of the plant life before man came upon earth. And man is already more than a million or two years oldit is fully time That a higher order of being should be created out of him.
The Dhammapada, I. 1
01.02 - Sri Aurobindo - Ahana and Other Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
What is the world That Sri Aurobindo sees and creates? Poetry is after all passion. By passion I do not mean the fury of emotion nor the fume of sentimentalism, but what lies behind at their source, what lends them the force they have the sense of the "grandly real," the vivid and pulsating truth. What then is the thing That Sri Aurobindo has visualised, has endowed with a throbbing life and made a poignant reality? Victor Hugo said: Attachez Dieu au gibet, vous avez la croixTie God to the gibbet, you have the cross. Even so, infuse passion into a thing most prosaic, you create sublime poetry out of it. What is the dead matter That has found life and glows and vibrates in Sri Aurobindo's passion? It is something which appears to many poetically intractable, not amenable to aesthetic treatment, not usually, That is to say, nor in the supreme manner. Sri Aurobindo has thrown such a material into his poetic fervour and created a sheer beauty, a stupendous reality out of it. Herein lies the greatness of his achievement. Philosophy, however divine, and in spite of Milton, has been regarded by poets as "harsh and crabbed" and as such unfit for poetic delineation. Not a few poets indeed foundered upon this rock. A poet in his own way is a philosopher, but a philosopher chanting out his philosophy in sheer poetry has been one of the rarest spectacles.1 I can think of only one instance just now where a philosopher has almost succeeded being a great poet I am referring to Lucretius and his De Rerum Natura. Neither Shakespeare nor Homer had anything like philosophy in their poetic creation. And in spite of some inclination to philosophy and philosophical ideas Virgil and Milton were not philosophers either. Dante sought perhaps consciously and deliberately to philosophise in his Paradiso I Did he? The less Dante then is he. For it is his Inferno, where he is a passionate visionary, and not his Paradiso (where he has put in more thought-power) That marks the nee plus ultra of his poetic achievement.
And yet what can be more poetic in essence than philosophy, if by philosophy we mean, as it should mean, spiritual truth and spiritual realisation? What else can give the full breath, the integral force to poetic inspiration if it is not the problem of existence itself, of God, Soul and Immortality, things That touch, That are at the very root of life and reality? What can most concern man, what can strike the deepest fount in him, unless it is the mystery of his own being, the why and the whither of it all? But mankind has been taught and trained to live merely or mostly on earth, and poetry has been treated as the expression of human joys and sorrows the tears in mortal things of which Virgil spoke. The savour of earth, the thrill of the flesh has been too sweet for us and we have forgotten other sweetnesses. It is always the human element That we seek in poetry, but we fail to recognise That what we obtain in this way is humanity in its lower degrees, its surface formulations, at its minimum magnitude.
We do not say That poets have never sung of God and Soul and things transcendent. Poets have always done That. But what I say is this That presentation of spiritual truths, as they are in their own home, in other words, treated philosophically and yet in a supreme poetic manner, has always been a rarity. We have, indeed, in India the Gita and the Upanishads, great philosophical poems, if there were any. But for one thing they are on dizzy heights out of the reach of common man and for another they are idolised more as philosophy than as poetry. Doubtless, our Vaishnava poets sang of God and Love Divine; and Rabindranath, in one sense, a typical modern Vaishnava, did the same. And their songs are masterpieces. But are they not all human, too human, as the mad prophet would say? In them it is the human significance, the human manner That touches and moves us the spiritual significance remains esoteric, is suggested, is a matter of deduction. Sri Aurobindo has dealt with spiritual experiences in a different way. He has not clothed them in human symbols and allegories, in images and figures of the mere earthly and secular life: he presents them in their nakedness, just as they are seen and realised. He has not sought to tone down the rigour of truth with contrivances That easily charm and captivate the common human mind and heart. Nor has he indulged like so many poet philosophers in vague generalisations and colourless or too colourful truisms That do not embody a clear thought or rounded idea, a radiant judgment. Sri Aurobindo has given us in his poetry thoughts That are clear-cut, ideas beautifully chiselledhe is always luminously forceful.
Take these Vedantic lines That in their limpidity and harmonious flow beat anything found in the fine French poet Lamartine:
It is He in the sun who is ageless and deathless,
--
or these That contain the metaphysics of a spiritual life:
King, not in vain. I knew the tedious bars
That I had fled,
To be His arms whom I have sought; I saw
--
That forth was cast
Into the unformed potency of things
--
That now so moans
And falters, we upon this greenness meet,
That measure tread.3
or take again such daring lines as:
--
Aught That is.5
It is the bare truth, "truth in its own home", as I have said already using a phrase of the ancient sages, That is formulated here without the prop of any external symbolism. There is no veil, no mist, no uncertainty or ambiguity. It is clarity itself, an almost scientific exactness and precision. In all this there is something of the straightness and fullness of vision That characterised the Vedic Rishis, something of their supernal genius which could mould speech into the very expression of what is beyond speech, which could sublimate the small and the finite into forms of the Vast and the Infinite. Mark how in these aphoristic lines embodying a deep spiritual experience, the inexpressible has been expressed with a luminous felicity:
Delight That labours in its opposite,
Faints in the rose and on the rack is curled.6
--
To humanise the Divine, That is what we all wish to do; for the Divine is too lofty for us and we cannot look full into his face. We cry and supplicate to Rudra, "O dire Lord, show us That other form of thine That is benign and humane". All earthly imageries we lavish upon the Divine so That he may appear to us not as something far and distant and foreign, but, quite near, among us, as one of us. We take recourse to human symbolism often, because we wish to palliate or hide the rigours of a supreme experience, not because we have no adequate terms for it. The same human or earthly terms could be used differently if we had a different consciousness. Thus the Vedic Rishis sought not to humanise the Divine, their purpose was rather to divinise the human. And their allegorical language, although rich in terrestrial figures, does not carry the impress and atmosphere of mere humanity and earthliness. For in reality the symbol is not merely the symbol. It is mere symbol in regard to the truth so long as we take our stand on the lower plane when we have to look at the truth through the symbol; but if we view it from the higher plane, from truth itself, it is no longer mere symbol but the very truth bodied forth. Whatever there is of symbolism on earth and its beauties, in sense and its enjoyments, is then transfigured into the expression of the truth, of the divinity itself. We then no longer speak in human language but in the language of the gods.
We have been speaking of philosophy and the philosophic manner. But what are the exact implications of the words, let us ask again. They mean nothing more and nothing lessthan the force of thought and the mass of thought content. After all, That seems to be almost the whole difference between the past and the present human consciousness in so far at least as it has found expression in poetry. That element, we wish to point out, is precisely what the old-world poets lacked or did not care to possess or express or stress. A poet meant above all, if not all in all, emotion, passion, sensuousness, sensibility, nervous enthusiasm and imagination and fancy: remember the classic definition given by Shakespeare of the poet
Of imagination all compact.. . .
--
The heart and its urges, the vital and its surges, the physical impulsesit is these of which the poets sang in their infinite variations. But the mind proper, That is to say, the higher reflective ideative mind, was not given the right of citizenship in the domain of poetry. I am not forgetting the so-called Metaphysicals. The element of metaphysics among the Metaphysicals has already been called into question. There is here, no doubt, some theology, a good dose of mental cleverness or conceit, but a modern intellectual or rather rational intelligence is something other, something more than That. Even the metaphysics That was commandeered here had more or less a decorative value, it could not be taken into the pith and substance of poetic truth and beauty. It was a decoration, but not unoften a drag. I referred to the Upanishads, but these strike quite a different, almost an opposite line in this connection. They are in a sense truly metaphysical: they bypass the mind and the mental powers, get hold of a higher mode of consciousness, make a direct contact with truth and beauty and reality. It was Buddha's credit to have forged this missing link in man's spiritual consciousness, to have brought into play the power of the rational intellect and used it in support of the spiritual experience. That is not to say That he was the very first person, the originator who initiated the movement; but at least this seems to be true That in him and his au thentic followers the movement came to the forefront of human consciousness and attained the proportions of a major member of man's psychological constitution. We may remember here That Socrates, who started a similar movement of rationalisation in his own way in Europe, was almost a contemporary of the Buddha.
Poetry as an expression of thought-power, poetry weighted with intelligence and rationalised knowledge That seems to me to be the end and drive, the secret sense of all the mystery of modern technique. The combination is risky, but not impossible. In the spiritual domain the Gita achieved this miracle to a considerable degree. Still, the power of intelligence and reason shown by Vyasa is of a special order: it is a sublimated function of the faculty, something aloof and other-worldly"introvert", a modern mind would term it That is to say, something a priori, standing in its own au thenticity and self-sufficiency. A modern intelligence would be more scientific, let us use the word, more matter-of-fact and sense-based: the mental light should not be confined in its ivory tower, however high That may be, but brought down and placed at the service of our perception and appreciation and explanation of things human and terrestrial; made immanent in the mundane and the ephemeral, as they are commonly called. This is not an impossibility. Sri Aurobindo seems to have done the thing. In him we find the three terms of human consciousness arriving at an absolute fusion and his poetry is a wonderful example of That fusion. The three terms are the spiritual, the intellectual or philosophical and the physical or sensational. The intellectual, or more generally, the mental, is the intermediary, the Paraclete, as he himself will call it later on in a poem9 magnificently exemplifying the point we are trying to make out the agent who negotiates, bridges and harmonises the two other firmaments usually supposed to be antagonistic and incompatible.
Indeed it would be wrong to associate any cold ascetic nudity to the spiritual body of Sri Aurobindo. His poetry is philosophic, abstract, no doubt, but every philosophy has its practice, every abstract thing its concrete application,even as the soul has its body; and the fusion, not mere union, of the two is very characteristic in him. The deepest and unseizable flights of thought he knows how to clo the with a Kalidasian richness of imagery, or a Keatsean gusto of sensuousness:
--
And it would be wrong too to suppose That there is want of sympathy in Sri Aurobindo for ordinary humanity, That he is not susceptible to sentiments, to the weaknesses, That stir the natural man. Take for example this line so instinct with a haunting melancholy strain:
Cold are your rivers of peace and their banks are leafless and lonely.
--
Son of man, thou hast crowned the life with the flowers That are scentless,
And the whole aspiration of striving mortality finds its echo in:
--
That persevered into eternity.11
And what an amount of tenderness he has poured into his little poem on childhood, a perfect piece of chiselled crystal, pure and translucent and gleaming with the clear lines of a summer sky:
--
And yet, I should say, in all this it is not mere the human That is of supreme interest, but something which even in being human yet transcends it.
And here, let me point out, the capital difference between the European or rather the Hellenic spirit and the Indian spirit. It is the Indian spirit to take stand upon divinity and thence to embrace and mould what is earthly and human. The Greek spirit took its stand pre-eminently on earth and what belongs to earth. In Europe Dante's was a soul spiritualised more than perhaps any other and yet his is not a Hindu soul. The utmost That he could say after all the experience of the tragedy of mortality was:
Io no piangeva, sidentro impietrai13
--
The Greek sings of the humanity of man, the Indian the divinity of man. It is the Hellenic spirit That has very largely moulded our taste and we have forgotten That an equally poetic world exists in the domain of spiritual life, even in its very severity, as in That of earthly life and its sweetness. And as we are passionate about the earthly life, even so Sri Aurobindo has made a passion of the spiritual life. Poetry after all has a mission; the phrase "Art for Art's sake" may be made to mean anything. Poetry is not merely what is pleasing, not even what is merely touching and moving but what is at the same time, inspiring, invigorating, elevating. Truth is indeed beauty but it is not always the beauty That captivates the eye or the mere aesthetic sense.
And because our Vedic poets always looked beyond humanity, beyond earth, therefore could they make divine poetry of humanity and what is of earth. Therefore it was That they were pervadingly so grandiose and sublime and puissant. The heroic, the epic was their natural element and they could not but express themselves in the grand manner Sri Aurobindo has the same outlook and it is why we find in him the ring of the old-world manner.
Mark the stately march, the fullness of voice, the wealth of imagery, the vigour of movement of these lines:
What though it's true That the river of Life
through the Valley of Peril
--
In the due measure That they chose of old.. . .
The superb and the right imperial tone instinct with a concentrated force of
--
This is poetry salutary indeed if there were any. We are so often and so much enamoured of the feminine languidness of poetry; the clear, the sane, the virile, That is a type of poetry That our nerves cannot always or for long stand. But there is poetry That is agrable and there is poetry That is grand, as Sainte Beuve said. There are the pleasures of poetry and there are the "ardours of poetry". And the great poets are always grand rather than agrable, full of the ardours of poetry rat her than the pleasures of poetry.
And if there is something in the creative spirit of Sri Aurobindo which tends more towards the strenuous than the genial, the arduous than the mellifluous, and which has more of the austerity of Vyasa than the easy felicity of Valmiki, however it might have affected the ultimate value of his creation, according to certain standards,14 it has illustrated once more That poetry is not merely beauty but power, it is not merely sweet imagination but creative visionit is even the Rik, the mantra That impels the gods to manifest upon earth, That fashions divinity in man.
James H. Cousins in his New Ways in English Literature describes Sri Aurobindo as "the philosopher as poet."
--
it cannot be said That Aurobindo shows any organic adaptation to music and melody. His thought is profound; his technical devices are commendable; but the music That enchants or disturbs is not there. Aurobindo is not another Tagore or Iqbal, or even Sarojini Naidu."The Times Literary Supplement, July 8, 1944.
***
01.02 - The Creative Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The difference between living organism and dead matter is That while the former is endowed with creative activity, the latter has only passive receptivity. Life adds, synthetises, new-createsgives more than what it receives; matter only sums up, gathers, reflects, gives just what it receives. Life is living, glad and green through its creative genius. Creation in some form or other must be the core of everything That seeks vitality and growth, vigour and delight. Not only so, but a thing in order to be real must possess a creative function. We consider a shadow or an echo unreal precisely because they do not create but merely image or repeat, they do not bring out anything new but simply reflect what is given. The whole of existence is real because it is eternally creative.
So the problem That concerns man, the riddle That humanity has to solve is how to find out and follow the path of creativity. If we are not to be dead matter nor mere shadowy illusions we must be creative. A misconception That has vitiated our outlook in general and has been the most potent cause of a sterilising atavism in the moral evolution of humanity is That creativity is an aristocratic virtue, That it belongs only to the chosen few. A great poet or a mighty man of action creates indeed, but such a creator does not appear very frequently. A Shakespeare or a Napoleon is a rare phenomenon; they are, in reality, an exception to the general run of mankind. It is enough if we others can understand and follow themMahajano yena gatahlet the great souls initiate and create, the common souls have only to repeat and imitate.
But this is not as it should be, nor is it the truth of the matter. Every individual soul, however placed it may be, is by nature creative; every individual being lives to discover and to create.
The inmost reality of man is not a passive receptacle, a mere responsive medium but it is a dynamoa power-station generating and throwing out energy That produces and creates.
Now the centre of this energy, the matrix of creativity is the soul itself, one's own soul. If you want to createlive, grow and be real-find yourself, be yourself. The simple old wisdom still remains the eternal wisdom. It is because we fall off from our soul That we wander into side-paths, paths That do not belong to our real nature and hence That lead to imitation and repetition, decay and death. This is what happens to what we call common souls. The force of circumstances, the pressure of environment or simply the momentum of custom or habit compel them to choose the easiest and the readiest way That may lie before them. They do not consult the demand of the inner being but the requirement of the moment. Our bodily needs, our vital hungers and our mental prejudices obsess and obscure the impulsions That thrill the hidden spirit. We hasten to gratify the immediate and forget the eternal, we clutch at the shadow and let go the substance. We are carried away in the flux and tumult of life. It is a mixed and collective whirla Weltgeist That moves and governs us. We are helpless straws drifting in the current. But manhood demands That we stop and pause, pull ourselves out of the Maelstrom and be what we are. We must shape things as we want and not allow things to shape us as they want.
Let each take cognisance of the godhead That is within him for self is Godand in the strength of the soul-divinity create his universe. It does not matter what sort of universe he- creates, so long as he creates it. The world created by a Buddha is not the same as That created by a Napoleon, nor should they be the same. It does not prove anything That I cannot become a Kalidasa; for That matter Kalidasa cannot become what I am. If you have not the genius of a Shankara it does not mean That you have no genius at all. Be and become yourselfma gridhah kasyachit dhanam, says the Upanishad. The fountain-head of creative genius lies there, in the free choice and the particular delight the self-determination of the spirit within you and not in the desire for your neighbours riches. The world has become dull and uniform and mechanical, since everybody endeavours to become not himself, but always somebody else. Imitation is servitude and servitude brings in grief.
In one's own soul lies the very height and profundity of a god-head. Each soul by bringing out the note That is his, makes for the most wondrous symphony. Once a man knows what he is and holds fast to it, refusing to be drawn away by any necessity or temptation, he begins to uncover himself, to do what his inmost nature demands and takes joy in, That is to say, begins to create. Indeed there may be much difference in the forms That different souls take. But because each is itself, therefore each is grounded upon the fundamental equality of things. All our valuations are in reference to some standard or other set up with a particular end in view, but That is a question of the practical world which in no way takes away from the intrinsic value of the greatness of the soul. So long as the thing is there, the how of it does not matter. Infinite are the ways of manifestation and all of them the very highest and the most sublime, provided they are a manifestation of the soul itself, provided they rise and flow from the same level. Whether it is Agni or Indra, Varuna, Mitra or the Aswins, it is the same supreme and divine inflatus.
The cosmic soul is true. But That truth is borne out, effectuated only by the truth of the individual soul. When the individual soul becomes itself fully and integrally, by That very fact it becomes also the cosmic soul. The individuals are the channels through which flows the Universal and the Infinite in its multiple emphasis. Each is a particular figure, aspectBhava, a particular angle of vision of All. The vision is entire and the figure perfect if it is not refracted by the lower and denser parts of our being. And for That the individual must first come to itself and shine in its opal clarity and translucency.
Not to do what others do, but what your soul impels you to do. Not to be others but your own self. Not to be anything but the very cosmic and infinite divinity of your soul. Therein lies your highest freedom and perfect delight. And there you are supremely creative. Each soul has a consortPrakriti, Naturewhich it creates out of its own rib. And in this field of infinite creativity the soul lives, moves and has its being.
01.02 - The Issue, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And the subtle images of things That were,
Her witness spirit stood reviewing Time.
--
All That she once had hoped and dreamed and been,
Flew past her eagle-winged through memory's skies.
--
Only the Self That builds this figure of self
Can rase the fixed interminable line
--
Were the spectators of That mighty strife.
3.20
--
Enveloped with its greatness all That came
And gave a sense as of a greatened world:
--
Spiritual That can make all things divine.
3.39
--
Earth's breath had failed to stain That brilliant glass:
Unsmeared with the dust of our mortal atmosphere
--
Years like gold raiment of the gods That pass;
Her youth sat throned in calm felicity.
--
And dug more deep the gulf That all must cross.
4.12
--
Arraigned by the dark Power That hates all bliss
In the dire court where life must pay for joy,
--
A force in her That toiled since earth was made,
Accomplishing in life the great world-plan,
--
It bore the stroke of That which kills and saves.
4.37
01.02 - The Object of the Integral Yoga, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
... the object of the Yoga is to enter into and be possessed by the Divine Presence and Consciousness, to love the Divine for the Divine's sake alone, to be turned in our nature into nature of the Divine and in our will and works and life to be the instrument of the Divine. Its object is not to be a great Yogi or a superman (although That may come) or to grab at the Divine for the sake of the ego's power, pride or pleasure.
It is not for salvation though liberation comes by it and all else may come; but these must not be our objects. The Divine alone is our object.
--
Matter. Our object is not to remove all "limitations" on the expansion of the ego or to give a free field and make unlimited room for the fulfilment of the ideas of the human mind or the desires of the ego-centred life-force. None of us are here to "do as we like", or to create a world in which we shall at last be able to do as we like; we are here to do what the Divine wills and to create a world in which the Divine Will can manifest its truth no longer deformed by human ignorance or perverted and mistranslated by vital desire. The work which the sadhak of the supramental Yoga has to do is not his own work for which he can lay down his own conditions, but the work of the Divine which he has to do according to the conditions laid down by the Divine. Our Yoga is not for our own sake but for the sake of the Divine. It is not our own personal manifestation That we are to seek, the manifestation of the individual ego freed from all bounds and from all bonds, but the manifestation of the Divine. Of That manifestation our own spiritual liberation, perfection, fullness is to be a result and a part, but not in any egoistic sense or for any ego-centred or self-seeking purpose.
This liberation, perfection, fullness too must not be pursued for our own sake, but for the sake of the Divine.
This Yoga demands a total dedication of the life to the aspiration for the discovery and embodiment of the Divine Truth and to nothing else whatever. To divide your life between the Divine and some outward aim and activity That has nothing to do with the search for the Truth is inadmissible. The least thing of That kind would make success in the Yoga impossible.
You must go inside yourself and enter into a complete dedication to the spiritual life. All clinging to mental preferences must fall away from you, all insistence on vital aims and interests and attachments must be put away, all egoistic clinging to family, friends, country must disappear if you want to succeed in Yoga. Whatever has to come as outgoing energy or action, must proceed from the Truth once discovered and not from the lower mental or vital motives, from the Divine Will and not from personal choice or the preferences of the ego.
01.03 - Mystic Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
He heard the secret Voice, the Word That knows,
And saw the secret face That is our own...||6.20||
Is there not a fundamental difference, difference not merely with regard to the poetic personality, but with regard to the very stuff of consciousness? There is direct vision here, the fullness of light, the native rhythm and substance of revelation, as if
--
When the Spirit speaks its own language in its own name, we have spiritual poetry. If, however, the Spirit speaksfrom choice or necessity-an alien language and manner, e.g., That of a profane consciousness, or of the consciousness of another domain, idealistic or philosophical or even occult, puts on or imitates spirit's language and manner, we have what we propose to call mystic poetry proper. When Samain sings of the body of the dancer:
Et Pannyre deviant fleur, flamme, papillon! ...
--
both so idealise, etherealize, almost spiritualise the earth and the flesh That they seem ostensibly only a vesture of something else behind, something mysterious and other-worldly, something other than, even just opposite to what they actually are or appear to be. That is the mystique of the senses which is a very characteristic feature of some of the best poetic inspirations of France. Baudelaire too, the Satanic poet, by the sheer intensity of sympathy and sincerity, pierces as it were into the soul of things and makes the ugly, the unclean, the diseased, the sordid throb and glow with an almost celestial light. Here is the Baudelairean manner:
Tout casss
--
It is not merely by addressing the beloved as your goddess That you can attain this mysticism; the Elizabethan did That in merry abundance,ad nauseam.A finer temper, a more delicate touch, a more subtle sensitiveness and a kind of artistic wizardry are necessary to tune the body into a rhythm of the spirit. The other line of mysticism is common enough, viz., to express the spirit in terms and rhythms of the flesh. Tagore did That liberally, the Vaishnava poets did nothing but That, the Song of Solomon is an exquisite example of That procedure. There is here, however, a difference in degrees which is an interesting feature worth noting. Thus in Tagore the reference to the spirit is evident, That is the major or central chord; the earthly and the sensuous are meant as the name and form, as the body to render concrete, living and vibrant, near and intimate what otherwise would perhaps be vague and abstract, afar, aloof. But this mundane or human appearance has a value in so far as it is a support, a pointer or symbol of the spiritual import. And the mysticism lies precisely in the play of the two, a hide-and-seek between them. On the other hand, as I said, the greater portion of Vaishnava poetry, like a precious and beautiful casket, no doubt, hides the spiritual import: not the pure significance but the sign and symbol are luxuriously elaborated, they are placed in the foreground in all magnificence: as if it was their very purpose to conceal the real meaning. When the Vaishnava poet says,
O love, what more shall I, shall Radha speak,
--
one can explain That it is the Christ calling the Church or God appealing to the human soul or one can simply find in it nothing more than a man pining for his woman. Anyhow I would not call it spiritual poetry or even mystic poetry. For in itself it does not carry any double or oblique meaning, there is no suggestion That it is applicable to other fields or domains of consciousness: it is, as it were, monovalent. An allegory is never mysticism. There is more mysticism in Wordsworth, even in Shelley and Keats, than in Spenser, for example, who stands in this respect on the same ground as Bunyan in his The Pilgrim's Progress. Take Wordsworth as a Nature-worshipper,
Breaking the silence of the seas
--
That is bright is but the shadow of His brightness
and by His shining all this shineth.14
--
This is spiritual matter and spiritual manner That can never be improved upon. This is spiritual poetry in its quintessence. I am referring naturally here to the original and not to the translation which can never do full justice, even at its very best, to the poetic value in question. For apart from the individual genius of the poet, the greatness of the language, the instrument used by the poet, is also involved. It may well be what is comparatively easy and natural in the language of the gods (devabhasha) would mean a tour de force, if not altogether an impossibility, in a human language. The Sanskrit language was moulded and fashioned in the hands of the Rishis, That is to say, those who lived and moved and had their being in the spiritual consciousness. The Hebrew or even the Zend does not seem to have reached That peak, That absoluteness of the spiritual tone which seems inherent in the Indian tongue, although those too breathed and grew in a spiritual atmosphere. The later languages, however, Greek or Latin or their modern descendants, have gone still farther from the source, they are much nearer to the earth and are suffused with the smell and effluvia of this vale of tears.
Among the ancients, strictly speaking, the later classical Lucretius was a remarkable phenomenon. By nature he was a poet, but his mental interest lay in metaphysical speculation, in philosophy, and unpoetical business. He turned away from arms and heroes, wrath and love and, like Seneca and Aurelius, gave himself up to moralising and philosophising, delving 'into the mystery, the why and the how and the whither of it all. He chose a dangerous subject for his poetic inspiration and yet it cannot be said That his attempt was a failure. Lucretius was not a religious or spiritual poet; he was rather Marxian,atheistic, materialistic. The dialectical materialism of today could find in him a lot of nourishment and support. But whatever the content, the manner has made a whole difference. There was an idealism, a clarity of vision and an intensity of perception, which however scientific apparently, gave his creation a note, an accent, an atmosphere high, tense, aloof, ascetic, at times bordering on the supra-sensual. It was a high light, a force of consciousness That at its highest pitch had the ring and vibration of something almost spiritual. For the basic principle of Lucretius' inspiration is a large thought-force, a tense perception, a taut nervous reactionit is not, of course, the identity in being with the inner realities which is the hallmark of a spiritual consciousness, yet it is something on the way towards That.
There have been other philosophical poets, a good number of them since thennot merely rationally philosophical, as was the vogue in the eighteenth century, but metaphysically philosophical, That is to say, inquiring not merely into the phenomenal but also into the labyrinths of the noumenal, investigating not only what meets the senses, but also things That are behind or beyond. Amidst the earlier efflorescence of this movement the most outstanding philosopher poet is of course Dante, the Dante of Paradiso, a philosopher in the mediaeval manner and to the extent a lesser poet, according to some. Goe the is another, almost in the grand modern manner. Wordsworth is full of metaphysics from the crown of his head to the tip of his toe although his poetry, perhaps the major portion of it, had to undergo some kind of martyrdom because of it. And Shelley, the supremely lyric singer, has had a very rich undertone of thought-content genuinely metaphysical. And Browning and Arnold and Hardyindeed, if we come to the more moderns, we have to cite the whole host of them, none can be excepted.
We left out the Metaphysicals, for they can be grouped as a set apart. They are not so much metaphysical as theological, religious. They have a brain-content stirring with theological problems and speculations, replete with scintillating conceits and intricate fancies. Perhaps it is because of this philosophical burden, this intellectual bias That the Metaphysicals went into obscurity for about two centuries and it is precisely because of That That they are slowly coming out to the forefront and assuming a special value with the moderns. For the modern mind is characteristically thoughtful, introspective"introvert"and philosophical; even the exact physical sciences of today are rounded off in the end with metaphysics.
The growth of a philosophical thought-content in poetry has been inevitable. For man's consciousness in its evolutionary march is driving towards a consummation which includes and presupposes a development along That line. The mot d'ordre in old-world poetry was "fancy", imaginationremember the famous lines of Shakespeare characterising a poet; in modern times it is Thought, even or perhaps particularly abstract metaphysical thought. Perceptions, experiences, realisationsof whatever order or world they may beexpressed in sensitive and aesthetic terms and figures, That is poetry known and appreciated familiarly. But a new turn has been coming on with an increasing insistencea definite time has been given to That, since the Renaissance, it is said: it is the growing importance of Thought or brain-power as a medium or atmosphere in which poetic experiences find a sober and clear articulation, a definite and strong formulation. Rationalisation of all experiences and realisations is the keynote of the modern mentality. Even when it is said That reason and rationality are not ultimate or final or significant realities, That the irrational or the submental plays a greater role in our consciousness and That art and poetry likewise should be the expression of such a mentality, even then, all this is said and done in and through a strong rational and intellectual stress and frame the like of which cannot be found in the old-world frankly non-intellectual creations.
The religious, the mystic or the spiritual man was, in the past, more or Jess methodically and absolutely non-intellectual and anti-intellectual: but the modern age, the age of scientific culture, is tending to make him as strongly intellectual: he has to explain, not only present the object but show up its mechanism alsoexplain to himself so That he may have a total understanding and a firmer grasp of the thing which he presents and explains to others as well who demand a similar approach. He feels the necessity of explaining, giving the rationality the rationale the science, of his art; for without That, it appears to him, a solid ground is not given to the structure of his experience: analytic power, preoccupation with methodology seems inherent in the modern creative consciousness.
The philosophical trend in poetry has an interesting history with a significant role: it has acted as a force of purification, of sublimation, of katharsis. As man has risen from his exclusively or predominantly vital nature into an increasing mental poise, in the same way his creative activities too have taken this new turn and status. In the earlier stages of evolution the mental life is secondary, subordinate to the physico-vital life; it is only subsequently That the mental finds an independent and self-sufficient reality. A similar movement is reflected in poetic and artistic creation too: the thinker, the philosopher remains in the background at the outset, he looks out; peers through chinks and holes from time to time; later he comes to the forefront, assumes a major role in man's creative activity.
Man's consciousness is further to rise from the mental to over-mental regions. Accordingly, his life and activities and along with That his artistic creations too will take on a new tone and rhythm, a new mould and constitution even. For this transition, the higher mentalwhich is normally the field of philosophical and idealistic activitiesserves as the Paraclete, the Intercessor; it takes up the lower functionings of the consciousness, which are intense in their own way, but narrow and turbid, and gives, by purifying and enlarging, a wider frame, a more luminous pattern, a more subtly articulated , form for the higher, vaster and deeper realities, truths and harmonies to express and manifest. In the old-world spiritual and mystic poets, this intervening medium was overlooked for evident reasons, for human reason or even intelligence is a double-edged instrument, it can make as well as mar, it has a light That most often and naturally shuts off other higher lights beyond it. So it was bypassed, some kind of direct and immediate contact was sought to be established between the normal and the transcendental. The result was, as I have pointed out, a pure spiritual poetry, on the one hand, as in the Upanishads, or, on the other, religious poetry of various grades and denominations That spoke of the spiritual but in the terms and in the manner of the mundane, at least very much coloured and dominated by the latter. Vyasa was the great legendary figure in India who, as is shown in his Mahabharata, seems to have been one of the pioneers, if not the pioneer, to forge and build the missing link of Thought Power. The exemplar of the manner is the Gita. Valmiki's represented a more ancient and primary inspiration, of a vast vital sensibility, something of the kind That was at the basis of Homer's genius. In Greece it was Socrates who initiated the movement of speculative philosophy and the emphasis of intellectual power slowly began to find expression in the later poets, Sophocles and Euripides. But all these were very simple beginnings. The moderns go in for something more radical and totalitarian. The rationalising element instead of being an additional or subordinate or contri buting factor, must itself give its norm and form, its own substance and manner to the creative activity. Such is the present-day demand.
The earliest preoccupation of man was religious; even when he concerned himself with the world and worldly things, he referred all That to the other world, thought of gods and goddesses, of after-death and other where. That also will be his last and ultimate preoccupation though in a somewhat different way, when he has passed through a process of purification and growth, a "sea-change". For although religion is an aspiration towards the truth and reality beyond or behind the world, it is married too much to man's actual worldly nature and carries always with it the shadow of profanity.
The religious poet seeks to tone down or cover up the mundane taint, since he does not know how to transcend it totally, in two ways: (1) by a strong thought-element, the metaphysical way, as it may be called and (2) by a strong symbolism, the occult way. Donne takes to the first course, Blake the second. And it is the alchemy brought to bear in either of these processes That transforms the merely religious into the mystic poet. The truly spiritual, as I have said, is still a higher grade of consciousness: what I call Spirit's own poetry has its own matter and mannerswabhava and swadharma. A nearest approach to it is echoed in those famous lines of Blake:
To see a World in a grain of Sand,
--
This, I say, is something different from the religious and even from the mystic. It is away from the merely religious, because it is naked of the vesture of humanity (in spite of a human face That masks it at times) ; it is something more than the merely mystic, for it does not stop being a signpost or an indication to the Beyond, but is itself the presence and embodiment of the Beyond. The mystic gives us, we can say, the magic of the Infinite; what I term the spiritual, the spiritual proper, gives in addition the logic of the Infinite. At least this is what distinguishes modern spiritual consciousness from the ancient, That is, Upanishadic spiritual consciousness. The Upanishad gives expression to the spiritual consciousness in its original and pristine purity and perfection, in its essential simplicity. It did not buttress itself with any logic. It is the record of fundamental experiences and there was no question of any logical exposition. But, as I have said, the modern mind requires and demands a logical element in its perceptions and presentations. Also it must needs be a different kind of logic That can satisfy and satisfy wholly the deeper and subtler movements of a modern consciousness. For the philosophical poet of an earlier age, when he had recourse to logic, it was the logic of the finite That always gave him the frame, unless he threw the whole thing overboard and leaped straight into the occult, the illogical and the a logical, like Blake, for instance. Let me illustrate and compare a little. When the older poet explains indriyani hayan ahuh, it is an allegory he resorts to, it is the logic of the finite he marshals to point to the infinite and the beyond. The stress of reason is apparent and effective too, but the pattern is what we are normally familiar with the movement, we can say, is almost Aristotelian in its rigour. Now let us turn to the following:
Our life is a holocaust of the Supreme. ||26.15||
--
Here we have a pattern of thought-movement That does not seem to follow the lineaments of the normal brain-mind consciousness, although it too has a basis there: our customary line of reasoning receives a sudden shock, as it were, and then is shaken, moved, lifted up, transportedgradually or suddenly, according to the temperament of the listener. Besides, we have here the peculiar modern tone, which, for want of a better term, may be described as scientific. The impressimprimaturof Science is its rational coherence, justifying or justified by sense data, by physical experience, which gives us the pattern or model of an inexorable natural law. Here too we feel we are in the domain of such natural law but lifted on to a higher level.
This is what I was trying to make out as the distinguishing trait of the real spiritual consciousness That seems to be developing in the poetic creation of tomorrow, e.g., it has the same rationality, clarity, concreteness of perception as the scientific spirit has in its own domain and still it is rounded off with a halo of magic and miracle. That is the nature of the logic of the infinite proper to the spiritual consciousness. We can have a Science of the Spirit as well as a Science of Matter. This is the Thought element or what corresponds to it, of which I was speaking, the philosophical factor, That which gives form to the formless or definition to That which is vague, a nearness and familiarity to That which is far and alien. The fullness of the spiritual consciousness means such a thing, the presentation of a divine name and form. And this distinguishes it from the mystic consciousness which is not the supreme solar consciousness but the nearest approach to it. Or, perhaps, the mystic dwells in the domain of the Divine, he may even be suffused with a sense of unity but would not like to acquire the Divine's nature and function. Normally and generally he embodies all the aspiration and yearning moved by intimations and suggestions belonging to the human mentality, the divine urge retaining still the human flavour. We can say also, using a Vedantic terminology, That the mystic consciousness gives us the tatastha lakshana, the nearest approximative attribute of the attri buteless; or otherwise, it is the hiranyagarbha consciousness which englobes the multiple play, the coruscated possibilities of the Reality: while the spiritual proper may be considered as prajghana, the solid mass, the essential lineaments of revelatory knowledge, the typal "wave-particles" of the Reality. In the former there is a play of imagination, even of fancy, a decorative aesthesis, while in the latter it is vision pure and simple. If the spiritual poetry is solar in its nature, we can say, by extending the analogy, That mystic poetry is characteristically lunarMoon representing the delight and the magic That Mind and mental imagination, suffused, no doubt, with a light or a reflection of some light from beyond, is capable of (the Upanishad speaks of the Moon being born of the Mind).
To sum up and recapitulate. The evolution of the poetic expression in man has ever been an attempt at a return and a progressive approach to the spiritual source of poetic inspiration, which was also the original, though somewhat veiled, source from the very beginning. The movement has followed devious waysstrongly negative at timeseven like man's life and consciousness in general of which it is an organic member; but the ultimate end and drift seems to have been always That ideal and principle even when fallen on evil days and evil tongues. The poet's ideal in the dawn of the world was, as the Vedic Rishi sang, to raise things of beauty in heaven by his poetic power,kavi kavitv divi rpam sajat. Even a Satanic poet, the inaugurator, in a way, of modernism and modernistic consciousness, Charles Baudelaire, thus admonishes his spirit:
"Flyaway, far from these morbid miasmas, go and purify yourself in the higher air and drink, like a pure and divine liquor, the clear fire That fills the limpid spaces."18
That angelic poets should be inspired by the same ideal is, of course, quite natural: for they sing:
Not a senseless, trancd thing,
--
Poetry, actually however, has been, by and large, a profane and mundane affair: for it expresses the normal man's perceptions and feelings and experiences, human loves and hates and desires and ambitions. True. And yet there has also always been an attempt, a tendency to deal with them in such a way as can bring calm and puritykatharsisnot trouble and confusion. That has been the purpose of all Art from the ancient days. Besides, there has been a growth and development in the historic process of this katharsis. As by the sublimation of his bodily and vital instincts and impulses., man is gradually growing into the mental, moral and finally spiritual consciousness, even so the artistic expression of his creative activity has followed a similar line of transformation. The first and original transformation happened with religious poetry. The religious, one may say, is the profane inside out; That is to say, the religious man has almost the same tone and temper, the same urges and passions, only turned Godward. Religious poetry too marks a new turn and development of human speech, in taking the name of God human tongue acquires a new plasticity and flavour That transform or give a new modulation even to things profane and mundane it speaks of. Religious means at bottom the colouring of mental and moral idealism. A parallel process of katharsis is found in another class of poetic creation, viz., the allegory. Allegory or parable is the stage when the higher and inner realities are expressed wholly in the modes and manner, in the form and character of the normal and external, when moral, religious or spiritual truths are expressed in the terms and figures of the profane life. The higher or the inner ideal is like a loose clothing upon the ordinary consciousness, it does not fit closely or fuse. In the religious, however, the first step is taken for a mingling and fusion. The mystic is the beginning of a real fusion and a considerable ascension of the lower into the higher. The philosopher poet follows another line for the same katharsisinstead of uplifting emotions and sensibility, he proceeds by thought-power, by the ideas and principles That lie behind all movements and give a pattern to all things existing. The mystic can be of either type, the religious mystic or the philosopher mystic, although often the two are welded together and cannot be very well separated. Let us illustrate a little:
The spacious firmament on high,
--
This is religious poetry, pure and simple, expressing man's earliest and most elementary feeling, marked by a broad candour, a rather shallow monotone. But That feeling is raised to a pitch of fervour and scintillating sensibility in Vaughan's
They are all gone into the world of light
--
All vicious tinctures, That new fashioned
I may rise up from death, before ram dead.22
--
That All, which always is All every where,
Which cannot sinne, and yet all sinnes must beare,
--
But all That is left far behind, when we hear a new voice announcing an altogether new manner, revelatory of the truly and supremely spiritual consciousness, not simply mystic or religious but magically occult and carved out of the highest if recondite philosophia:
A finite movement of the Infinite
--
"Quite broken they are, yet they have eyes That pierce like a drill, shine like those holes in which the water sleeps at night: they have the divine eyes of a little girl."Baudelaire, "Les petites vieilles"
Sri Aurobindo: Radhas Appeal in Songs to Mytrilla.
01.03 - Rationalism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
What is Reason, the faculty That is said to be the proud privilege of man, the sovereign instrument he alone possesses for the purpose of knowing? What is the value of knowledge That Reason gives? For it is the manner of knowing, the particular faculty or instrument by which we know, That determines the nature and content of knowledge. Reason is the collecting of available sense-perceptions and a certain mode of working upon them. It has three component elements That have been defined as observation, classification and deduction. Now, the very composition of Reason shows That it cannot be a perfect instrument of knowledge; the limitations are the inherent limitations of the component elements. As regards observation there is a two-fold limitation. First, observation is a relative term and variable quantity. One observes through the prism of one's own observing faculty, through the bias of one's own personality and no two persons can have absolutely the same manner of observation. So Science has recognised the necessity of personal equation and has created an imaginary observer, a "mean man" as the standard of reference. And this already takes us far away from the truth, from the reality. Secondly, observation is limited by its scope. All the facts of the world, all sense-perceptions possible and actual cannot be included within any observation however large, however collective it may be. We have to go always upon a limited amount of data, we are able to construct only a partial and sketchy view of the surface of existence. And then it is these few and doubtful facts That Reason seeks to arrange and classify. That classification may hold good for certain immediate ends, for a temporary understanding of the world and its forces, either in order to satisfy our curiosity or to gain some practical utility. For when we want to consider the world only in its immediate relation to us, a few and even doubtful facts are sufficient the more immediate the relation, the more immaterial the doubtfulness and insufficiency of facts. We may quite confidently go a step in darkness, but to walk a mile we do require light and certainty. Our scientific classification has a background of uncertainty, if not, of falsity; and our deduction also, even while correct within a very narrow range of space and time, cannot escape the fundamental vices of observation and classification upon which it is based.
It might be said, however, That the guarantee or sanction of Reason does not lie in the extent of its application, nor can its subjective nature (or ego-centric predication, as philosophers would term it) vitiate the validity of its conclusions. There is, in fact, an inherent unity and harmony between Reason and Reality. If we know a little of Reality, we know the whole; if we know the subjective, we know also the objective. As in the part, so in the whole; as it is within, so it is without. If you say That I will die, you need not wait for my actual death to have the proof of your statement. The generalising power inherent in Reason is the guarantee of the certitude to which it leads. Reason is valid, as it does not betray us. If it were such as anti-intellectuals make it out to be, we would be making nothing but false steps, would always remain entangled in contradictions. The very success of Reason is proof of its being a reliable and perfect instrument for the knowledge of Truth and Reality. It is beside the mark to prove otherwise, simply by analysing the nature of Reason and showing the fundamental deficiencies of That nature. It is rather to the credit of Reason That being as it is, it is none the less a successful and trustworthy agent.
Now the question is, does Reason never fail? Is it such a perfect instrument as intellectualists think it to be? There is ground for serious misgivings. Reason says, for example, That the earth revolves round the sun: and reason, it is argued, is right, for we see That all the facts are conformableto it, even facts That were hitherto unknown and are now coming into our ken. But the difficulty is That Reason did not say That always in the past and may not say That always in the future. The old astronomers could explain the universe by holding quite a contrary theory and could fit into it all their astronomical data. A future scientist may come and explain the matter in quite a different way from either. It is only a choice of workable theories That Reason seems to offer; we do not know the fact itself, apart perhaps from exactly the amount That immediate sense-perception gives to each of us. Or again, if we take an example of another category, we may ask, does God exist? A candid Rationalist would say That he does not know although he has his own opinion about the matter. Evidently, Reason cannot solve all the problems That it meets; it can judge only truths That are of a certain type.
It may be answered That Reason is a faculty which gives us progressive knowledge of the reality, but as a knowing instrument it is perfect, at least it is the only instrument at our disposal; even if it gives a false, incomplete or blurred image of the reality, it has the means and capacity of correcting and completing itself. It offers theories, no doubt; but what are theories? They are simply the gradually increasing adaptation of the knowing subject to the object to be known, the evolving revelation of reality to our perception of it. Reason is the power which carries on That process of adaptation and revelation; we can safely rely upon Reason and trust It to carry on its work with increasing success.
But in knowledge it is precisely finality That we seek for and no mere progressive, asymptotic, rapprochement ad infinitum. No less than the Practical Reason, the Theoretical Reason also demands a categorical imperative, a clean affirmation or denial. If Reason cannot do That, it must be regarded as inefficient. It is poor consolation to man That Reason is gradually finding out the truth or That it is trying to grapple with the problems of God, Soul and Immortality and will one day pronounce its verdict. Whether we have or have not any other instrument of knowledge is a different question altogether. But in the meanwhile Reason stands condemned by the evidence of its own limitation.
It may be retorted That if Reason is condemned, it is condemned by itself and by no other authority. All argumentation against Reason is a function of Reason itself. The deficiencies of Reason we find out by the rational faculty alone. If Reason was to die, it is because it consents to commit suicide; there is no other power That kills it. But to this our answer is That Reason has this miraculous power of self-destruction; or, to put it philosophically, Reason is, at best, an organ of self-criticism and perhaps the organ par excellence for That purpose. But criticism is one thing and creation another. And whether we know or act, it is fundamentally a process of creation; at least, without this element of creation there can be no knowledge, no act. In knowledge there is a luminous creativity, Revelation or Categorical Imperative which Reason does not and cannot supply but vaguely strains to seize. For That element we have to search elsewhere, not in Reason.
Does this mean That real knowledge is irrational or against Reason? Not so necessarily. There is a super-rational power for knowledge and Reason may either be a channel or an obstacle. If we take our stand upon Reason and then proceed to know, if we take the forms and categories of Reason as the inviolable schemata of knowledge, then indeed Reason becomes an obstacle to That super-rational power. If, on the other hand, Reason does not offer any set-form from beforehand, does not insist upon its own conditions, is passive and simply receives and reflects what is given to it, then it becomes a luminous and sure channel for That higher and real knowledge.
The fact is That Reason is a lower manifestation of knowledge, it is an attempt to express on the mental level a power That exceeds it. It is the section of a vast and unitarian Consciousness-Power; the section may be necessary under certain conditions and circumstances, but unless it is viewed in its relation to the ensemble, unless it gives up its exclusive absolutism, it will be perforce arbitrary and misleading. It would still remain helpful and useful, but its help and use would be always limited in scope and temporary in effectivity.
***
01.03 - Sri Aurobindo and his School, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A considerable amount of vague misunderstanding and misapprehension seems to exist in the minds of a certain section of our people as to what Sri Aurobindo is doing in his retirement at Pondicherry. On the other hand, a very precise exposition, an exact formula of what he is not doing has been curiously furnished by a well-known patriot in his indictment of what he chooses to call the Pondicherry School of contemplation. But he has arrived at this formula by openly and fearlessly affirming what does not exist; for the things That Sri Aurobindo is accused of doing are just the things That he is not doing. In the first place, Sri Aurobindo is not doing peaceful contemplation; in the second place, he is not doing active propaganda either; in the third place, he is not doing prnyma or even dhyna in the ordinary sense of the word; and, lastly, he is not proclaiming or following the maxim That although action may be tolerated as good, his particular brand of Yoga is something higher and better.
Evidently the eminent politician and his school of activism are labouring under a Himalayan confusion: when they speak of Sri Aurobindo, they really have in their mind some of the old schools of spiritual discipline. But one of the marked aspects of Sri Aurobindo's teaching and practice has been precisely his insistence on putting aside the inert and life-shunning quietism, illusionism, asceticism and monasticism of a latter-day and decadent India. These ideals are perhaps as much obstacles in his way as in the way of the activistic school. Only Sri Aurobindo has not had the temerity to say That it is a weakness to seek refuge in contemplation or to suggest That a Buddha was a weakling or a Shankara a poltroon.
This much as regards what Sri Aurobindo is not doing; let us now turn and try to understand what he is doing. The distinguished man of action speaks of conquering Nature and fighting her. Adopting this war-like imagery, we can affirm That Sri Aurobindo's work is just such a battle and conquest. But the question is, what is nature and what is the kind of conquest That is sought, how are we to fight and what are the required arms and implements? A good general should foresee all this, frame his plan of campaign accordingly and then only take the field. The above-mentioned leader proposes ceaseless and unselfish action as the way to fight and conquer Nature. He who speaks thus does not know and cannot mean what he says.
European science is conquering Nature in a way. It has attained to a certain kind and measure, in some fields a great measure, of control and conquest; but however great or striking it may be in its own province, it does not touch man in his more intimate reality and does not bring about any true change in his destiny or his being. For the most vital part of nature is the region of the life-forces, the powers of disease and age and death, of strife and greed and lustall the instincts of the brute in man, all the dark aboriginal forces, the forces of ignorance That form the very groundwork of man's nature and his society. And then, as we rise next to the world of the mind, we find a twilight region where falsehood masquerades as truth, where prejudices move as realities, where notions rule as ideals.
This is the present nature of man, with its threefold nexus of mind and life and body, That stands there to be fought and conquered. This is the inferior nature, of which the ancients spoke, That holds man down inexorably to a lower dharma, imperfect mode of life the life That is and has been the human order till today. No amount of ceaseless action, however selflessly done, can move this wheel of Nature even by a hair's breadth away from the path That it has carved out from of old. Human nature and human society have been built up and are run by the forces of this inferior nature, and whatever shuffling and reshuffling we may make in its apparent factors and elements, the general scheme and fundamental form of life will never change. To displace earth (and to conquer nature means nothing less than That) and give it another orbit, one must find a fulcrum outside earth.
Sri Aurobindo does not preach flight from life and a retreat into the silent and passive Infinite; the goal of life is not, in his view, the extinction of life. Neither is he satisfied on That account to hold That life is best lived in the ordinary round of its unregenerate dharma. If the first is a blind alley, the second is a vicious circle,both lead nowhere.
Sri Aurobindo's sadhana starts from the perception of a Power That is beyond the ordinary nature yet is its inevitable master, a fulcrum, as we have said, outside the earth. For what is required first is the discovery and manifestation of a new soul-consciousness in man which will bring about by the very pressure and working out of its self-rule an absolute reversal of man's nature. It is the Asuras who are now holding sway over humanity, for man has allowed himself so long to be built in the image of the Asura; to dislodge the Asuras, the Gods in their sovereign might have to be forged in the human being and brought into play. It is a stupendous task, some would say impossible; but it is very far removed from quietism or passivism. Sri Aurobindo is in retirement, but it is a retirement only from the outward field of present physical activities and their apparent actualities, not from the true forces and action of life. It is the retreat necessary to one who has to go back into himself to conquer a new plane of creative power,an entrance right into the world of basic forces, of fundamental realities, into the flaming heart of things where all actualities are born and take their first shape. It is the discovery of a power-house of tremendous energism and of the means of putting it at the service of earthly life.
And, properly speaking, it is not at all a school, least of all a mere school of thought, That is growing round Sri Aurobindo. It is rather the nucleus of a new life That is to come. Quite naturally it has almost insignificant proportions at present to the outward eye, for the work is still of the nature of experiment and trial in very restricted limits, something in the nature of what is done in a laboratory when a new power has been discovered, but has still to be perfectly formulated in its process. And it is quite a mistake to suppose That there is a vigorous propaganda carried on in its behalf or That there is a large demand for recruits. Only the few, who possess the call within and are impelled by the spirit of the future, have a chance of serving this high attempt and great realisation and standing among its first instruments and pioneer workers.
***
01.03 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Souls Release, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
His was a spirit That stooped from larger spheres
Into our province of ephemeral sight,
--
A spirit That is a flame of God abides,
A fiery portion of the Wonderful,
--
His life is oceaned by That superlife.
He has drunk from the breasts of the Mother of the worlds;
--
His soul and body take That splendid stamp.
A long dim preparation is man's life,
--
This now was witnessed in That son of Force;
In him That high transition laid its base.
Original and supernal Immanence
--
The lines of safety Reason draws That bar
Mind's soar, soul's dive into the Infinite.
--
The powers That sleep unused in man within.
He made of miracle a normal act
--
Efforts That would shatter the strength of mortal hearts,
Pursued in a royalty of mighty ease
--
And all That the life longs for is drawn close.
He saw the Perfect in their starry homes
--
He heard the secret Voice, the Word That knows,
And saw the secret face That is our own.
The inner planes uncovered their crystal doors;
--
And joys That never flowed through mortal limbs,
And lovelier scenes than earth's and happier lives.
--
And all That hides in an omnipotent Sleep.
In the unceasing drama carried by Time
On its long listening flood That bears the world's
Insoluble doubt on a pilgrimage without goal,
--
And murmurings of desire That cannot die:
A cry came of the world's delight to be,
--
Of all That suffers to be still unknown
And all That labours vainly to be born
And all the sweetness none will ever taste
And all the beauty That will never be.
Inaudible to our deaf mortal ears
--
Answer to That inarticulate questioning,
There stooped with lightning neck and thunder's wings
--
Into a vision That surpasses forms,
Into a living That surpasses life,
He neared the still consciousness sustaining all.
The voice That only by speech can move the mind
Became a silent knowledge in the soul;
The strength That only in action feels its truth
Was lodged now in a mute omnipotent peace.
--
The war of thoughts That fathers the universe,
The clash of forces struggling to prevail
In the tremendous shock That lights a star
As in the building of a grain of dust,
The grooves That turn their dumb ellipse in space
Ploughed by the seeking of the world's desire,
--
The fate That punishes virtue with defeat,
The tragedy That destroys long happiness,
The weeping of Love, the quarrel of the Gods,
--
Illumined That which never yet was made.
Thought lay down in a mighty voicelessness;
--
Out of That stillness mind new-born arose
And woke to truths once inexpressible,
--
Calm and apart supported all That is:
His spirit's stillness helped the toiling world.
--
Already in him was seen That task of Power:
Life made its home on the high tops of self;
--
The voices That an inner listening hears
Conveyed to him their prophet utterances,
--
The ways That lead to endless happiness
Ran like dream-smiles through meditating vasts:
--
The points That run through the closed heart of things
Shadowed the indeterminable line
--
The trail of the Ideas That made the world,
And, sown in the black earth of Nature's trance,
--
The bodiless Namelessness That saw God born
And tries to gain from the mortal's mind and soul
--
The eyes with their closed lids That see all things,
Appeared of the Architect who builds in trance.
--
Peered out; he saw the hope That never sleeps,
The feet That run behind a fleeting fate,
The ineffable meaning of the endless dream.
--
The smile of love That sanctions the long game,
The calm indulgence and maternal breasts
--
A secret sense awoke That could perceive
A Presence and a Greatness everywhere.
--
Awakened to the lines That Nature hides,
Attuned to her movements That exceed our ken,
He grew one with a covert universe.
--
He drew the energies That transmute an age.
Immeasurable by the common look,
01.03 - Yoga and the Ordinary Life, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In the Yoga practised here the aim is to rise to a higher consciousness and to live out of the higher consciousness alone, not with the ordinary motives. This means a change of life as well as a change of consciousness. But all are not so circumstanced That they can cut loose from the ordinary life; they accept it therefore as a field of experience and self-training in the earlier stages of the sadhana. But they must take care to look at it as a field of experience only and to get free from the ordinary desires, attachments and ideas which usually go with it; otherwise it becomes a drag and hindrance on their sadhana. When one is not compelled by circumstances there is no necessity to continue the ordinary life.
It is not helpful to abandon the ordinary life before the being is ready for the full spiritual life. To do so means to precipitate a struggle between the different elements and exasperate it to a point of intensity which the nature is not ready to bear. The vital elements in you have partly to be met by the discipline and experience of life, while keeping the spiritual aim in view and trying to govern life by it progressively in the spirit of Karmayoga.
The best way to prepare oneself for the spiritual life when one has to live in the ordinary occupations and surroundings is to cultivate an entire equality and detachment and the samata of the Gita with the faith That the Divine is there and the Divine Will at work in all things even though at present under the conditions of a world of Ignorance. Beyond this are the Light and Ananda towards which life is working, but the best way for their advent and foundation in the individual being and nature is to grow in this spiritual equality. That would also solve your difficulty about things unpleasant and disagreeable. All unpleasantness should be faced with this spirit of samata.
I may say briefly That there are two states of consciousness in either of which one can live. One is a higher consciousness which stands above the play of life and governs it; this is variously called the Self, the Spirit or the Divine. The other is the normal consciousness in which men live; it is something quite superficial, an instrument of the Spirit for the play of life. Those who live and act in the normal consciousness are governed entirely by the common movements of the mind and are naturally subject to grief and joy and anxiety and desire or to everything else That makes up the ordinary stuff of life.
Mental quiet and happiness they can get, but it can never be permanent or secure. But the spiritual consciousness is all light, peace, power and bliss. If one can live entirely in it, there is no question; these things become naturally and securely his.
But even if he can live partly in it or keep himself constantly open to it, he receives enough of this spiritual light and peace and strength and happiness to carry him securely through all the shocks of life. What one gains by opening to this spiritual consciousness, depends on what one seeks from it; if it is peace, one gets peace; if it is light or knowledge, one lives in a great light and receives a knowledge deeper and truer than any the normal mind of man can acquire; if it [is] strength or power, one gets a spiritual strength for the inner life or Yogic power to govern the outer work and action; if it is happiness, one enters into a beatitude far greater than any joy or happiness That the ordinary human life can give.
There are many ways of opening to this Divine consciousness or entering into it. My way which I show to others is by a constant practice to go inward into oneself, to open by aspiration to the Divine and once one is conscious of it and its action to give oneself to It entirely. This self-giving means not to ask for anything but the constant contact or union with the Divine Consciousness, to aspire for its peace, power, light and felicity, but to ask nothing else and in life and action to be its instrument only for whatever work it gives one to do in the world. If one can once open and feel the Divine Force, the
Power of the Spirit working in the mind and heart and body, the rest is a matter of remaining faithful to It, calling for it always, allowing it to do its work when it comes and rejecting every other and inferior Force That belongs to the lower consciousness and the lower nature.
Apart from external things there are two possible inner ideals which a man can follow. The first is the highest ideal of ordinary human life and the other the divine ideal of Yoga.
I must say in view of something you seem to have said to your father That it is not the object of the one to be a great man or the object of the other to be a great Yogin. The ideal of human life is to establish over the whole being the control of a clear, strong and rational mind and a right and rational will, to master the emotional, vital and physical being, create a harmony of the whole and develop the capacities whatever they are and fulfil them in life. In the terms of Hindu thought, it is to enthrone the rule of the purified and sattwic buddhi, follow the dharma, fulfilling one's own svadharma and doing the work proper to one's capacities, and satisfy kama and artha under the control of the buddhi and the dharma. The object of the divine life, on the other hand, is to realise one's highest self or to realise
God and to put the whole being into harmony with the truth of the highest self or the law of the divine nature, to find one's own divine capacities great or small and fulfil them in life as a sacrifice to the highest or as a true instrument of the divine
--
The spiritual life (adhyatma jvana), the religious life (dharma jvana) and the ordinary human life of which morality is a part are three quite different things and one must know which one desires and not confuse the three together. The ordinary life is That of the average human consciousness separated from its own true self and from the Divine and led by the common habits of the mind, life and body which are the laws of the Ignorance.
The religious life is a movement of the same ignorant human consciousness, turning or trying to turn away from the earth towards the Divine but as yet without knowledge and led by the dogmatic tenets and rules of some sect or creed which claims to have found the way out of the bonds of the earth-consciousness into some beatific Beyond. The religious life may be the first approach to the spiritual, but very often it is only a turning about in a round of rites, ceremonies and practices or set ideas and forms without any issue. The spiritual life, on the contrary, proceeds directly by a change of consciousness, a change from the ordinary consciousness, ignorant and separated from its true self and from God, to a greater consciousness in which one finds one's true being and comes first into direct and living contact and then into union with the Divine. For the spiritual seeker this change of consciousness is the one thing he seeks and nothing else matters.
--
Morality is a question of man's mind and vital, it belongs to a lower plane of consciousness. A spiritual life therefore cannot be founded on a moral basis, it must be founded on a spiritual basis. This does not mean That the spiritual man must be immoral - as if there were no other law of conduct than the moral. The law of action of the spiritual consciousness is higher, not lower than the moral - it is founded on union with the Divine and living in the Divine Consciousness and its action is founded on obedience to the Divine Will.
01.04 - Motives for Seeking the Divine, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Him is not the proper attitude; but if it were absolutely forbidden to seek Him for these things, most people in the world would not turn towards Him at all. I suppose therefore it is allowed so That they may make a beginning - if they have faith, they may get what they ask for and think it a good thing to go on and then one day they may suddenly stumble upon the idea That this is after all not quite the one thing to do and That there are better ways and a better spirit in which one can approach the
Divine. If they do not get what they want and still come to the
Divine and trust in Him, well, That shows they are getting ready.
Let us look on it as a sort of infants' school for the unready.
But of course That is not the spiritual life, it is only a sort of elementary religious approach. For the spiritual life to give and not to demand is the rule. The sadhak however can ask for the
Divine Force to aid him in keeping his health or recovering it if he does That as part of his sadhana so That his body may be able and fit for the spiritual life and a capable instrument for the
Divine Work.
--
- one may regard the Supreme not as the Divine but as one's highest Self and seek fulfilment of one's being in That highest Self; but one need not envisage it as a self of bliss, ecstasy, Ananda - one may envisage it as a self of freedom, vastness, knowledge, tranquillity, strength, calm, perfection - perhaps too calm for a ripple of anything so disturbing as joy to enter. So even if it is for something to be gained That one approaches the Divine, it is not a fact That one can approach Him or seek union only for the sake of Ananda and nothing else.
That involves something which throws all your reasoning out of gear. For these are aspects of the Divine Nature, powers of it, states of his being, - but the Divine Himself is something absolute, someone self-existent, not limited by his aspects, - wonderful and ineffable, not existing by them, but they existing because of him. It follows That if he attracts by his aspects, all the more he can attract by his very absolute selfness which is sweeter, mightier, profounder than any aspect. His peace, rapture, light, freedom, beauty are marvellous and ineffable, because he is himself magically, mysteriously, transcendently marvellous and ineffable. He can then be sought after for his wonderful and ineffable self and not only for the sake of one aspect or another of him. The only thing needed for That is, first, to arrive at a point when the psychic being feels this pull of the Divine in himself and, secondly, to arrive at the point when the mind, vital and each thing else begins to feel too That That was what it was wanting and the surface hunt after Ananda or what else was only an excuse for drawing the nature towards That supreme magnet.
Your argument That because we know the union with the
Divine will bring Ananda, therefore it must be for the Ananda That we seek the union, is not true and has no force. One who loves a queen may know That if she returns his love it will bring him power, position, riches and yet it need not be for the power, position, riches That he seeks her love. He may love her for herself and could love her equally if she were not a queen; he might have no hope of any return whatever and yet love her, adore her, live for her, die for her simply because she is she. That has happened and men have loved women without any hope of enjoyment or result, loved steadily, passionately after age has come and beauty has gone. Patriots do not love their country only when she is rich, powerful, great and has much to give them; their love for country has been most ardent, passionate, absolute when the country was poor, degraded, miserable, having nothing to give but loss, wounds, torture, imprisonment, death as the wages of her service; yet even knowing That they would never see her free, men have lived, served and died for her - for her own sake, not for what she could give. Men have loved Truth for her own sake and for what they could seek or find of her, accepted poverty, persecution, death itself; they have been content even to seek for her always, not finding, and yet never given up the search.
That means what? That men, country, Truth and other things besides can be loved for their own sake and not for anything else, not for any circumstance or attendant quality or resulting enjoyment, but for something absolute That is either in them or behind their appearance and circumstance. The Divine is more than a man or woman, a stretch of land or a creed, opinion, discovery or principle. He is the Person beyond all persons, the
Home and Country of all souls, the Truth of which truths are only imperfect figures. And can He then not be loved and sought for his own sake, as and more than these have been by men even in their lesser selves and nature?
What your reasoning ignores is That which is absolute or tends towards the absolute in man and his seeking as well as in the Divine - something not to be explained by mental reasoning or vital motive. A motive, but a motive of the soul, not of vital desire; a reason not of the mind, but of the self and spirit. An asking too, but the asking That is the soul's inherent aspiration, not a vital longing. That is what comes up when there is the sheer self-giving, when "I seek you for this, I seek you for That" changes to a sheer "I seek you for you." It is That marvellous and ineffable absolute in the Divine That Krishnaprem means when he says, "Not knowledge nor this nor That, but Krishna."
The pull of That is indeed a categorical imperative, the self in us drawn to the Divine because of the imperative call of its greater Self, the soul ineffably drawn towards the object of its adoration, because it cannot be otherwise, because it is it and
He is He. That is all about it.
I have written all That only to explain what we mean when we speak of seeking the Divine for himself and not for anything else - so far as it is explicable. Explicable or not, it is one of the most dominant facts of spiritual experience. The call to selfgiving is only an expression of this fact. But this does not mean That I object to your asking for Ananda. Ask for That by all means, so long as to ask for it is a need of any part of your being
- for these are the things That lead on towards the Divine so long as the absolute inner call That is there all the time does not push itself to the surface. But it is really That That has drawn from the beginning and is there behind - it is the categorical spiritual imperative, the absolute need of the soul for the Divine.
I am not saying That there is to be no Ananda. The selfgiving itself is a profound Ananda and what it brings, carries in its wake an inexpressible Ananda - and it is brought by this method sooner than by any other, so That one can say almost,
"A self-less self-giving is the best policy." Only one does not do it out of policy. Ananda is the result, but it is done not for the result, but for the self-giving itself and for the Divine himself - a subtle distinction, it may seem to the mind, but very real.
01.04 - Sri Aurobindos Gita, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The supreme secret of the Gita, rahasyam uttamam, has presented itself to diverse minds in diverse forms. All these however fall, roughly speaking, into two broad groups of which one may be termed the orthodox school and the other the modem school. The orthodox school as represented, for example, by Shankara or Sridhara, viewed the Gita in the light of the spiritual discipline more or less current in those ages, when the purpose of life was held out to be emancipation from life, whether through desireless work or knowledge or devotion or even a combination of the three. The Modern School, on the other hand, represented by Bankim in Bengal and more thoroughly developed and systematised in recent times by Tilak, is inspired by its own Time-Spirit and finds in the Gita a gospel of life-fulfilment. The older interpretation laid stress upon a spiritual and religious, which meant therefore in the end an other-worldly discipline; the newer interpretation seeks to dynamise the more or less quietistic spirituality which held the ground in India of later ages, to set a premium upon action, upon duty That is to be done in our workaday life, though with a spiritual intent and motive.
This neo-spirituality which might claim its sanction and authority from the real old-world Indian disciplinesay, of Janaka and Yajnavalkyalabours, however, in reality, under the influence of European activism and ethicism. It was this which served as the immediate incentive to our spiritual revival and revaluation and its impress has not been thoroughly obliterated even in the best of our modern exponents. The bias of the vital urge and of the moral imperative is apparent enough in the modernist conception of a dynamic spirituality. Fundamentally the dynamism is made to reside in the lan of the ethical man,the spiritual element, as a consciousness of supreme unity in the Absolute (Brahman) or of love and delight in God, serving only as an atmosphere for the mortal activity.
01.04 - The Intuition of the Age, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
All movementswhe ther of thought or of life, whether in the individual or in the massproceed from a fundamental intuition which lies in the background as the logical presupposition, the psychological motive and the spiritual force. A certain attitude of the soul, a certain angle of vision is what is posited first; all other thingsall thoughts and feelings and activities are but necessary attempts to express, to demonstrate, to realise on the conscious and dynamic levels, in the outer world, the truth which has thus already been seized in some secret core of our being. The intuition may not, of course, be present to the conscious mind, it may not be ostensibly sought for, one may even deny the existence of such a preconceived notion and proceed to establish truth on a tabula rasa; none the less it is this hidden bias That judges, this secret consciousness That formulates, this unknown power That fashions.
Now, what is the intuition That lies behind the movements of the new age? What is the intimate realisation, the underlying view-point which is guiding and modelling all our efforts and achievementsour science and art, our poetry and philosophy, our religion and society? For, there is such a common and fundamental note which is being voiced forth by the human spirit through all the multitude of its present-day activities.
A new impulse is there, no one can deny, and it has vast possibilities before it, That also one need not hesitate to accept. But in order That we may best fructuate what has been spontaneously sown, we must first recognise it, be luminously conscious of it and develop it along its proper line of growth. For, also certain it is That this new impulse or intuition, however true and strong in itself, is still groping and erring and miscarrying; it is still wasting much of its energy in tentative things, in mere experiments, in even clear failures. The fact is That the intuition has not yet become an enlightened one, it is still moving, as we shall presently explain, in the dark vital regions of man. And vitalism is naturally and closely affianced to pragmatism, That is to say, the mere vital impulse seeks immediately to execute itself, it looks for external effects, for changes in the form, in the machinery only. Thus it is That we see in art and literature discussions centred upon the scheme of composition, as whether the new poetry should be lyrical or dramatic, popular or aristocratic, metrical or free of metre, and in practical life we talk of remodelling the state by new methods of representation and governance, of purging society by bills and legislation, of reforming humanity by a business pact.
All this may be good and necessary, but there is the danger of leaving altogether out of account the one thing needful. We must then pause and turn back, look behind the apparent impulsion That effectuates to the Will That drives, behind the ideas and ideals of the mind to the soul That informs and inspires; we must carry ourselves up the stream and concentrate upon the original source, the creative intuition That lies hidden somewhere. And then only all the new stirrings That we feel in our heartour urges and ideals and visions will attain an effective clarity, an unshaken purpose and an inevitable achievement.
That is to say, the change has been in the soul of man himself, the being has veered round and taken a new orientation. It is this which one must envisage, recognise and consciously possess, in order That one may best fulfil the call of the age. But what we are doing instead is to observe the mere external signs and symbols and symptoms, to fix upon the distant quiverings, the echoes on the outermost rim, which are not always faithful representations, but very often distorted images of the truth and life at the centre and source and matrix. We must know That if there has been going on a redistribution and new-marshalling of forces, it is because the fiat has come from the Etat Major.
Now, in order to understand the new orientation of the spirit of the present age, we may profitably ask what was the inspiration of the past age, the characteristic note which has failed to satisfy us and which we are endeavouring to transform. We know That That age was the Scientific age or the age of Reason. Its great prophets were Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists or if you mount further up in time, we may begin from Bacon and the humanists. Its motto was first, "The proper study of mankind is man" and secondly, Reason is the supreme organon of knowledge, the highest deity in manla Desse Raison. And it is precisely against these two basic principles That the new age has entered its protest. In face of Humanism, Nietzsche has posited the Superman and in face of Reason Bergson has posited Intuition.
The worship of man as something essentially and exclusively human necessitates as a corollary, the other doctrine, viz the deification of Reason; and vice versa. Humanism and Scientism go together and the whole spirit and mentality of the age That is passing may be summed up in those two words. So Nietzsche says, "All our modern world is captured in the net of the Alexandrine culture and has, for its ideal, the theoretical man, armed with the most powerful instruments of knowledge, toiling in the service of science and whose prototype and original ancestor is Socrates." Indeed, it may be generally asserted That the nation whose prophet and sage claimed to have brought down Philosophia from heaven to dwell upon earth among men was precisely the nation, endowed with a clear and logical intellect, That was the very embodiment of rationality and reasonableness. As a matter of fact, it would not be far, wrong to say That it is the Hellenic culture which has been moulding humanity for ages; at least, it is this which has been the predominating factor, the vital and dynamic element in man's nature. Greece when it died was reborn in Rome; Rome, in its return, found new life in France; and France means Europe. What Europe has been and still is for the world and humanity one knows only too much. And yet, the Hellenic genius has not been the sole motive power and constituent element; there has been another leaven which worked constantly within, if intermittently without. If Europe represented mind and man and this side of existence, Asia always reflected That which transcends the mind the spirit, the Gods and the Beyonds.
However, we are concerned more with the immediate past, the mentality That laid its supreme stress upon the human rationality. What That epoch did not understand was That Reason could be overstepped, That there was something higher, something greater than Reason; Reason being the sovereign faculty, it was thought there could be nothing beyond, unless it were draison. The human attribute par excellence is Reason. Exactly so. But the fact is That man is not bound by his humanity and That reason can be transformed and sublimated into other more powerful faculties.
Now, the question is, what is the insufficiency of Reason? How does it limit man? And what is the Superman into which man is asked or is being impelled to grow?
Reason is insufficient and unsatisfactory because, as Bergson explains, it does not and cannot embrace life as a whole, seize man and the world in an integral realisation. The greater part of the vast mystery of existence escapes its envergure. Reason is That faculty which is for analysing, defining, classifying and fixing things. It is a power That has grown in man in order That he may best manipulate the things of the world. It is utilitarian, practical in its nature and outlook. And as practical dealing requires That things should be stable and separate entities, therefore Reason cannot but see things in solid and in the fragments of a solid. It cuts up existence into distinct parts and diverse elements; and these again it seeks to relate and aggregate, in accordance with what it calls "laws". Such a process has been necessary for man in conducting life and action successfully. Originally a bye-product of active life, Reason gradually separated itself and came finally to have an independent status and function, became or sought to become the instrument of knowledge, of Truth.
But although Reason has been and is useful for the practical, we may say almost, the manual aspect of life, life itself it leaves unexplained and uncomprehended. For life is mobility, a continuous flow That has nowhere any gap or stop and things have in reality no isolated or separate existence, they merge and mingle into one another and form an indissoluble whole. Therefore the forms and categories That Reason imposes upon existence are more or less arbitrary; they are shackles That seek to bind up and limit life, but are often rent asunder in the very effort. So the civilisation That has its origin in Reason and progresses with discoveries and inventionsdevices for artfully manipulating naturehas been essentially and pre-eminently mechanical in its structure and outlook. It has become more and more efficient perhaps, but less and less soul-inspired, less and less-endowed with the free-flowing sap of organic growth and vitality.
So instead of the rational principle, the new age wants the principle of Nature or Life. Even as regards knowledge Reason is not the only, nor the best instrument. For animals have properly no reason; the nature-principle of knowledge in the animal is Instinct the faculty That acts so faultlessly, so marvellously where Reason can only pause and be perplexed. This is not to say That man is to or can go back to this primitive and animal function; but certainly he can replace it by something akin which is as natural and yet purified and self-consciousillumined instinct, we may say or Intuition, as Bergson terms it. And Nietzsche's definition of the Superman has also a similar orientation and significance; for, according to him, the Superman is man who has outgrown his Reason, who is not bound by the standards and the conventions determined by Reason for a special purpose. The Superman is one who has gone beyond "good and evil," who has shaken off from his nature and character elements That are "human, all too human"who is the embodiment of life-force in its absolute purity and strength and freedom.
This then is the mantra of the new ageLife with Intuition as its guide and not Reason and mechanical efficiency, not Man but Superman. The right mantra has been found, the principle itself is irreproachable. But the interpretation, the application, does not seem to have been always happy. For, Nietzsche's conception of the Superman is full of obvious lacunae. If we have so long been adoring the intellectual man, Nietzsche asks us, on the other hand, to deify the vital man. According to him the superman is he who has (1) the supreme sense of the ego, (2) the sovereign will to power and (3) who lives dangerously. All this means an Asura, That is to say, one who has, it may be, dominion over his animal and vital impulsions in order, of course, That he may best gratify them but who has not purified them. Purification does not necessarily mean, annihilation but it does mean sublimation and transformation. So if you have to transcend man, you have to transcend egoism also. For a conscious egoism is the very characteristic of man and by increasing your sense of egoism you do not supersede man but simply aggrandise your humanity, fashion it on a larger, a titanic scale. And then the will to power is not the only will That requires fulfilment, there is also the will to knowledge and the will to love. In man these three fundamental constitutive elements coexist, although they do it, more often than not, at the expense of each other and in a state of continual disharmony. The superman, if he is to be the man "who has surmounted himself", must embody a poise of being in which all the three find a fusion and harmonya perfect synthesis. Again, to live dangerously may be heroic, but it is not divine. To live dangerously means to have eternal opponents, That is to say, to live ever on the same level with the forces you want to dominate. To have the sense That one has to fight and control means That one is not as yet the sovereign lord, for one has to strive and strain and attain. The supreme lord is he who is perfectly equanimous with himself and with the world. He has not to batter things into a shape in order to create. He creates means, he manifests. He wills and he achieves"God said 'let there be light' and there was light."
As a matter of fact, the superman is not, as Nietzsche thinks him to be, the highest embodiment of the biological force of Nature, not even as modified and refined by the aesthetic and aristocratic virtues of which the higher reaches of humanity seem capable. For That is after all humanity only accentuated in certain other fundamentally human modes of existence. It does not carry far enough the process of surmounting. In reality it is not a surmounting but a new channelling. Instead of the ethical and intellectual man, we get the vital and aesthetic man. It may be a change but not a transfiguration.
And the faculty of Intuition said to be the characteristic of the New Man does not mean all That it should, if we confine ourselves to Bergson's definition of it. Bergson says That Intuition is a sort of sympathy, a community of feeling or sensibility with the urge of the life-reality. The difference between the sympathy of Instinct and the sympathy of Intuition being That while the former is an unconscious or semi-conscious power, the latter is illumined and self-conscious. Now this view emphasises only the feeling-tone of Intuition, the vital sensibility That attends the direct communion with the life movement. But Intuition is not only purified feeling and sensibility, it is also purified vision and knowledge. It unites us not only with the movement of life, but also opens out to our sight the Truths, the fundamental realities behind That movement. Bergson does not, of course, point to any existence behind the continuous flux of life-power the elan vital. He seems to deny any static truth or truths to be seen and seized in any scheme of knowledge. To him the dynamic flow the Heraclitian panta reei is the ultimate reality. It is precisely to this view of things That Bergson owes his conception of Intuition. Since existence is a continuum of Mind-Energy, the only way to know it is to be in harmony or unison with it, to move along its current. The conception of knowledge as a fixing and delimiting of things is necessarily an anomaly in this scheme. But the question is, is matter the only static and separative reality? Is the flux of vital Mind-Energy the ultimate truth?
Matter forms the lowest level of reality. Above it is the elan vital. Above the elan vital there is yet the domain of the Spirit. And the Spirit is a static substance and at the same a dynamic creative power. It is Being (Sat) That realises or expresses itself through certain typal nuclei or nodi of consciousness (chit) in a continuous becoming, in a flow of creative activity (ananda). The dynamism of the vital energy is only a refraction or precipitation of the dynamism of the spirit; and so also static matter is only the substance of the spirit concretised and solidified. It is in an uplift both of matter and vital force to their prototypesswarupa and swabhavain the Spirit That lies the real transformation and transfiguration of the humanity of man.
This is the truth That is trying to dawn upon the new age. Not matter but That which forms the substance of matter, not intellect but a vaster consciousness That informs the intellect, not man as he is, an aberration in the cosmic order, but as he may and shall be the embodiment and fulfilment of That orderthis is the secret Intuition which, as yet dimly envisaged, nevertheless secretly inspires all the human activities of today. Only, the truth is being interpreted, as we have said, in terms of vital life. The intellectual and physical man gave us one aspect of the reality, but neither is the vital and psychical man the complete reality. The one acquisition of this shifting of the viewpoint has been That we are now in touch with the natural and deeper movement of humanity and not as before merely with its artificial scaffolding. The Alexandrine civilisation of humanity, in Nietzsche's phrase, was a sort of divagation from nature, it was following a loop away from the direct path of natural evolution. And the new Renaissance of today has precisely corrected this aberration of humanity and brought it again in a line with the natural cosmic order.
Certainly this does not go far enough into the motive of the change. The cosmic order does not mean mentalised vitalism which is also in its turn a section of the integral reality. It means the order of the spirit, it means the transfiguration of the physical, the vital and the intellectual into the supernal Substance, Power and Light of That Spirit. The real transcendence of humanity is not the transcendence of one or other of its levels but the total transcendence to an altogether different status and the transmutation of humanity in the mould of That statusnot a Nietzschean Titan nor a Bergsonian Dionysus but the tranquil vision and delight and dynamism of the Spirit the incarnation of a god-head.
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01.04 - The Poetry in the Making, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Is the artist the supreme artist, when he is a genius, That is to sayconscious in his creation or is he unconscious? Two quite opposite views have been taken of the problem by the best of intelligences. On the one hand, it is said That genius is genius precisely because it acts unconsciously, and on the other it is asserted with equal emphasis That genius is the capacity of taking infinite pains, which means it is absolutely a self conscious activity.
We take a third view of the matter and say That genius is neither unconscious or conscious but superconscious. And when one is superconscious, one can be in appearance either conscious or unconscious. Let us at the outset try to explain a little this psychological riddle.
When we say one is conscious, we usually mean That one is conscious with the mental consciousness, with the rational intelligence, with the light of the brain. But this need not be always so. For one can be conscious with other forms of consciousness or in other planes of consciousness. In the average or normal man the consciousness is linked to or identified with the brain function, the rational intelligence and so we conclude That without this wakeful brain activity there can be no consciousness. But the fact is otherwise. The experiences of the mystic prove the point. The mystic is conscious on a level which we describe as higher than the mind and reason, he has what may be called the overhead consciousness. (Apart from the normal consciousness, which is named jagrat, waking, the Upanishad speaks of three other increasingly subtler states of consciousness, swapna, sushupti and turiya.)And then one can be quite unconscious, as in samadhi That can be sushupti or turiyaorpartially consciousin swapna, for example, the external behaviour may be like That of a child or a lunatic or even a goblin. One can also remain normally conscious and still be in the superconscience. Not only so, the mystic the Yogican be conscious on infraconscious levels also; That is to say, he can enter into and identify with the consciousness involved in life and even in Matter; he can feel and realise his oneness with the animal world, the plant world and finally the world of dead earth, of "stocks and stones" too. For all these strands of existence have each its own type of consciousness and all different from the mode of mind which is normally known as consciousness. When St. Francis addresses himself to the brother Sun or the sister Moon, or when the Upanishad speaks of the tree silhouetted against the sky, as if stilled in trance, we feel there is something of this fusion and identification of consciousness with an infra-conscient existence.
I said That the supreme artist is superconscious: his consciousness withdraws from the normal mental consciousness and becomes awake and alive in another order of consciousness. To That superior consciousness the artist's mentalityhis ideas and dispositions, his judgments and valuations and acquisitions, in other words, his normal psychological make-upserves as a channel, an instrument, a medium for transcription. Now, there are two stages, or rather two lines of activity in the processus, for they may be overlapping and practically simultaneous. First, there is the withdrawal and the in-gathering of consciousness and then its reappearance into expression. The consciousness retires into a secret or subtle worldWords-worth's "recollected in tranquillity"and comes back with the riches gathered or transmuted there. But the purity of the gold thus garnered and stalled in the artistry of words and sounds or lines and colours depends altogether upon the purity of the channel through which it has to pass. The mental vehicle receives and records and it can do so to perfection if it is perfectly in tune with what it has to receive and record; otherwise the transcription becomes mixed and blurred, a faint or confused echo, a poor show. The supreme creators are precisely those in whom the receptacle, the instrumental faculties offer the least resistance and record with absolute fidelity the experiences of the over or inner consciousness. In Shakespeare, in Homer, in Valmiki the inflatus of the secret consciousness, the inspiration, as it is usually termed, bears down, sweeps away all obscurity or contrariety in the recording mentality, suffuses it with its own glow and puissance, indeed resolves it into its own substance, as it were. And the difference between the two, the secret norm and the recording form, determines the scale of the artist's creative value. It happens often That the obstruction of a too critically observant and self-conscious brain-mind successfully blocks up the flow of something supremely beautiful That wanted to come down and waited for an opportunity.
Artists themselves, almost invariably, speak of their inspiration: they look upon themselves more or less as mere instruments of something or some Power That is beyond them, beyond their normal consciousness attached to the brain-mind, That controls them and which they cannot control. This perception has been given shape in myths and legends. Goddess Saraswati or the Muses are, however, for them not a mere metaphor but concrete realities. To what extent a poet may feel himself to be a mere passive, almost inanimate, instrumentnothing more than a mirror or a sensitive photographic plateis illustrated in the famous case of Coleridge. His Kubla Khan, as is well known, he heard in sleep and it was a long poem very distinctly recited to him, but when he woke up and wanted to write it down he could remember only the opening lines, the rest having gone completely out of his memory; in other words, the poem was ready-composed somewhere else, but the transmitting or recording instrument was faulty and failed him. Indeed, it is a common experience to hear in sleep verses or musical tunes and what seem then to be very beautiful things, but which leave no trace on the brain and are not recalled in memory.
Still, it must be noted That Coleridge is a rare example, for the recording apparatus is not usually so faithful but puts up its own formations That disturb and alter the perfection of the original. The passivity or neutrality of the intermediary is relative, and there are infinite grades of it. Even when the larger waves That play in it in the normal waking state are quieted down, smaller ripples of unconscious or half-conscious habitual formations are thrown up and they are sufficient to cause the scattering and dispersal of the pure light from above.
The absolute passivity is attainable, perhaps, only by the Yogi. And in this sense the supreme poet is a Yogi, for in his consciousness the higher, deeper, subtler or other modes of experiences pass through and are recorded with the minimum aberration or diffraction.
But the Yogi is a wholly conscious being; a perfect Yogi is he who possesses a conscious and willed control over his instruments, he silences them, as and when he likes, and makes them convey and express with as little deviation as possible truths and realities from the Beyond. Now the question is, is it possible for the poet also to do something like That, to consciously create and not to be a mere unconscious or helpless channel? Conscious artistry, as we have said, means to be conscious on two levels of consciousness at the same time, to be at home in both equally and simultaneously. The general experience, however, is That of "one at a time": if the artist dwells more in the one, the other retires into the background to the same measure. If he is in the over-consciousness, he is only half-conscious in his brain consciousness, or even not conscious at allhe does not know how he has created, the sources or process of his creative activity, he is quite oblivious of them" gone through them all as if per saltum. Such seems to have been the case with the primitives, as they are called, the elemental poetsShakespeare and Homer and Valmiki. In some others, who come very near to them in poetic genius, yet not quite on a par, the instrumental intelligence is strong and active, it helps in its own way but in helping circumscribes and limits the original impulsion. The art here becomes consciously artistic, but loses something of the initial freshness and spontaneity: it gains in correctness, polish and elegance and has now a style in lieu of Nature's own naturalness. I am thinking of Virgil and Milton and Kalidasa. Dante's place is perhaps somewhere in between. Lower in the rung where the mental medium occupies a still more preponderant place we have intellectual poetry, poetry of the later classical age whose representatives are Pope and Dryden. We can go farther down and land in the domain of versificationalthough here, too, there can be a good amount of beauty in shape of ingenuity, cleverness and conceit: Voltaire and Delille are of this order in French poetry.
The three or four major orders I speak of in reference to conscious artistry are exampled characteristically in the history of the evolution of Greek poetry. It must be remembered, however, at the very outset That the Greeks as a race were nothing if not rational and intellectual. It was an element of strong self-consciousness That they brought into human culture That was their special gift. Leaving out of account Homer who was, as I said, a primitive, their classical age began with Aeschylus who was the first and the most spontaneous and intuitive of the Great Three. Sophocles, who comes next, is more balanced and self-controlled and pregnant with a reasoned thought-content clothed in polished phrasing. We feel here That the artist knew what he was about and was exercising a conscious control over his instruments and materials, unlike his predecessor who seemed to be completely carried away by the onrush of the poetic enthousiasmos. Sophocles, in spite of his artistic perfection or perhaps because of it, appears to be just a little, one remove, away from the purity of the central inspiration there is a veil, although a thin transparent veil, yet a veil between which intervenes. With the third of the Brotherhood, Euripides, we slide lower downwe arrive at a predominantly mental transcription of an experience or inner conception; but something of the major breath continues, an aura, a rhythm That maintains the inner contact and thus saves the poetry. In a subsequent age, in Theocritus, for example, poetry became truly very much 'sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought', so much of virtuosity and precocity entered into it; in other words, the poet then was an excessively self-conscious artist. That seems to be the general trend of all literature.
But should there be an inherent incompatibility between spontaneous creation and self-consciousness? As we have seen, a harmony and fusion can and do happen of the superconscious and the normally conscious in the Yogi. Likewise, an artist also can be wakeful and transparent enough so That he is conscious on both the levels simultaneouslyabove, he is conscious of the source and origin of his inspiration, and on the level plain he is conscious of the working of the instrument, how the vehicle transcribes and embodies what comes from elsewhere. The poet's consciousness becomes then divalent as it werethere is a sense of absolute passivity in respect of the receiving apparatus and coupled and immisced with it there is also the sense of dynamism, of conscious agency as in his secret being he is the master of his apparatus and one with the Inspirerin other words, the poet is both a seer (kavih) and a creator or doer (poits).
Not only so, the future development of the poetic consciousness seems inevitably to lead to such a consummation in which the creative and the critical faculties will not be separate but form part of one and indivisible movement. Historically, human consciousness has grown from unconsciousness to consciousness and from consciousness to self-consciousness; man's creative and artistic genius too has moved pari passu in the same direction. The earliest and primitive poets were mostly unconscious, That is to say, they wrote or said things as they came to them spontaneously, without effort, without reflection, they do not seem to know the whence and wherefore and whither of it all, they know only That the wind bloweth as it listeth. That was when man had not yet eaten the fruit of knowledge, was still in the innocence of childhood. But as he grew up and progressed, he became more and more conscious, capable of exerting and exercising a deliberate will and initiating a purposive action, not only in the external practical field but also in the psychological domain. If the earlier group is called "primitives", the later one, That of conscious artists, usually goes by the name of "classicists." Modern creators have gone one step farther in the direction of self-consciousness, a return upon oneself, an inlook of full awareness and a free and alert activity of the critical faculties. An unconscious artist in the sense of the "primitives" is almost an impossible phenomenon in the modern world. All are scientists: an artist cannot but be consciously critical, deliberate, purposive in what he creates and how he creates. Evidently, this has cost something of the old-world spontaneity and supremacy of utterance; but it cannot be helped, we cannot comm and the tide to roll back, Canute-like. The feature has to be accepted and a remedy and new orientation discovered.
The modern critical self-consciousness in the artist originated with the Romantics. The very essence of Romanticism is curiosity the scientist's pleasure in analysing, observing, experimenting, changing the conditions of our reactions, mental or sentimental or even nervous and physical by way of discovery of new and unforeseen or unexpected modes of "psychoses" or psychological states. Goethe, Wordsworth, Stendhal represented a mentality and initiated a movement which led logically to the age of Hardy, Housman and Bridges and in the end to That of Lawrence and Joyce, Ezra Pound and Eliot and Auden. On the Continent we can consider Flaubert as the last of the classicists married to the very quintessence of Romanticism. A hard, self-regarding, self-critical mentality, a cold scalpel-like gaze That penetrates and upturns the reverse side of things is intimately associated with the poetic genius of Mallarm and constitutes almost the whole of Valry's. The impassioned lines of a very modern poet like Aragon are also characterised by a consummate virtuosity in chiselled artistry, conscious and deliberate and willed at every step and turn.
The consciously purposive activity of the poetic consciousness in fact, of all artistic consciousness has shown itself with a clear and unambiguous emphasis in two directions. First of all with regard to the subject-matter: the old-world poets took things as they were, as they were obvious to the eye, things of human nature and things of physical Nature, and without questioning dealt with them in the beauty of their normal form and function. The modern mentality has turned away from the normal and the obvious: it does not accept and admit the "given" as the final and definitive norm of things. It wishes to discover and establish other norms, it strives to bring about changes in the nature and condition of things, envisage the shape of things to come, work for a brave new world. The poet of today, in spite of all his effort to remain a pure poet, in spite of Housman's advocacy of nonsense and not-sense being the essence of true Art, is almost invariably at heart an incorrigible prophet. In revolt against the old and established order of truths and customs, against all That is normally considered as beautiful,ideals and emotions and activities of man or aspects and scenes and movements of Natureagainst God or spiritual life, the modern poet turns deliberately to the ugly and the macabre, the meaningless, the insignificant and the triflingtins and teas, bone and dust and dustbin, hammer and sicklehe is still a prophet, a violent one, an iconoclast, but one who has his own icon, a terribly jealous being, That seeks to pull down the past, erase it, to break and batter and knead the elements in order to fashion out of them something conforming to his heart's desire. There is also the class who have the vision and found the truth and its solace, who are prophets, angelic and divine, messengers and harbingers of a new beauty That is to dawn upon earth. And yet there are others in whom the two strains mingle or approach in a strange way. All this means That the artist is far from being a mere receiver, a mechanical executor, a passive unconscious instrument, but That he is supremely' conscious and master of his faculties and implements. This fact is doubly reinforced when we find how much he is preoccupied with the technical aspect of his craft. The richness and variety of patterns That can be given to the poetic form know no bounds today. A few major rhythms were sufficient for the ancients to give full expression to their poetic inflatus. For they cared more for some major virtues, the basic and fundamental qualitiessuch as truth, sublimity, nobility, forcefulness, purity, simplicity, clarity, straightforwardness; they were more preoccupied with what they had to say and they wanted, no doubt, to say it beautifully and powerfully; but the modus operandi was not such a passion or obsession with them, it had not attained That almost absolute value for itself which modern craftsmanship gives it. As technology in practical life has become a thing of overwhelming importance to man today, become, in the Shakespearean phrase, his "be-all and end-all", even so the same spirit has invaded and pervaded his aesthetics too. The subtleties, variations and refinements, the revolutions, reversals and inventions which the modern poet has ushered and takes delight in, for their own sake, I repeat, for their intrinsic interest, not for the sake of the subject which they have to embody and clothe, have never been dream by Aristotle, the supreme legislator among the ancients, nor by Horace, the almost incomparable craftsman among the ancients in the domain of poetry. Man has become, to be sure, a self-conscious creator to the pith of his bone.
Such a stage in human evolution, the advent of Homo Faber, has been a necessity; it has to serve a purpose and it has done admirably its work. Only we have to put it in its proper place. The salvation of an extremely self-conscious age lies in an exceeding and not in a further enhancement or an exclusive concentration of the self-consciousness, nor, of course, in a falling back into the original unconsciousness. It is this shift in the poise of consciousness That has been presaged and prepared by the conscious, the scientific artists of today. Their task is to forge an instrument for a type of poetic or artistic creation completely new, unfamiliar, almost revolutionary which the older mould would find it impossible to render adequately. The yearning of the human consciousness was not to rest satisfied with the familiar and the ordinary, the pressure was for the discovery of other strands, secret stores of truth and reality and beauty. The first discovery was That of the great Unconscious, the dark and mysterious and all-powerful subconscient. Many of our poets and artists have been influenced by this power, some even sought to enter into That region and become its denizens. But artistic inspiration is an emanation of Light; whatever may be the field of its play, it can have its origin only in the higher spheres, if it is to be truly beautiful and not merely curious and scientific.
That is what is wanted at present in the artistic world the true inspiration, the breath from higher altitudes. And here comes the role of the mystic, the Yogi. The sense of evolution, the march of human consciousness demands and prophesies That the future poet has to be a mysticin him will be fulfilled the travail of man's conscious working. The self-conscious craftsman, the tireless experimenter with his adventurous analytic mind has sharpened his instrument, made it supple and elastic, tempered, refined and enriched it; That is comparable to what we call the aspiration or call from below. Now the Grace must descend and fulfil. And when one rises into this higher consciousness beyond the brain and mind, when one lives there habitually, one knows the why and the how of things, one becomes a perfectly conscious operator and still retains all spontaneity and freshness and wonder and magic That are usually associated with inconscience and irreflection. As there is a spontaneity of instinct, there is likewise also a spontaneity of vision: a child is spontaneous in its movements, even so a seer. Not only so, the higher spontaneity is more spontaneous, for the higher consciousness means not only awareness but the free and untrammelled activity and expression of the truth and reality it is.
Genius had to be generally more or less unconscious in the past, because the instrument was not ready, was clogged as it were with its own lower grade movements; the higher inspiration had very often to bypass it, or rob it of its serviceable materials without its knowledge, in an almost clandestine way. Wherever it was awake and vigilant, we have seen it causing a diminution in the poetic potential. And yet even so, it was being prepared for a greater role, a higher destiny it is to fulfil in the future. A conscious and full participation of a refined and transparent and enriched instrument in the delivery of superconscious truth and beauty will surely mean not only a new but the very acme of aesthetic creation. We thus foresee the age of spiritual art in which the sense of creative beauty in man will find its culmination. Such an art was only an exception, something secondary or even tertiary, kept in the background, suggested here and there as a novel strain, called "mystic" to express its unfamiliar nature-unless, of course, it was openly and obviously scriptural and religious.
I have spoken of the source of inspiration as essentially and originally being a super-consciousness or over-consciousness. But to be more precise and accurate I should add another source, an inner consciousness. As the super-consciousness is imaged as lying above the normal consciousness, so the inner consciousness may be described as lying behind or within it. The movement of the inner consciousness has found expression more often and more largely than That of over-consciousness in the artistic creation of the past : and That was in keeping with the nature of the old-world inspiration, for the inspiration That comes from the inner consciousness, which can be considered as the lyrical inspiration, tends to be naturally more "spontaneous", less conscious, since it does not at all go by the path of the head, it evades That as much as possible and goes by the path of the heart.
But the evolutionary urge, as I have said, has always been to bring down or instil more and more light and self-consciousness into the depths of the heart too: and the first result has been an intellectualisation, a rationalisation of the consciousness, a movement of scientific observation and criticism which very naturally leads to a desiccation of the poetic enthusiasm and fervour. But a period of transcendence is in gestation. All efforts of modern poets and craftsmen, even those That seem apparently queer, bizarre and futile, are at bottom a travail for this transcendence, including those That seem contradictory to it.
Whether the original and true source of the poet's inspiration lies deep within or high above, all depends upon the mediating instrument the mind (in its most general sense) and speech for a successful transcription. Man's ever-growing consciousness demanded also a conscious development and remoulding of these two factors. A growth, a heightening and deepening of the consciousness meant inevitably a movement towards the spiritual element in things. And That means, we have said, a twofold change in the future poet's make-up. First as regards the substance. The revolutionary shift That we notice in modern poets towards a completely new domain of subject-matter is a signpost That more is meant than what is expressed. The superficialities and futilities That are dealt with do not in their outward form give the real trend of things. In and through all these major and constant preoccupation of our poets is "the pain of the present and the passion for the future": they are, as already stated, more prophets than poets, but prophets for the moment crying in the wildernessalthough some have chosen the path of denial and revolt. They are all looking ahead or beyond or deep down, always yearning for another truth and reality which will explain, justify and transmute the present calvary of human living. Such an acute tension of consciousness has necessitated an overhauling of the vehicle of expression too, the creation of a mode of expressing the inexpressible. For That is indeed what human consciousness and craft are aiming at in the present stage of man's evolution. For everything, almost everything That can be normally expressed has been expressed and in a variety of ways as much as is possible: That is the history of man's aesthetic creativity. Now the eye probes into the unexpressed world; for the artist too the Upanishadic problem has cropped up:
By whom impelled does the mind fall to its target, what is the agent That is behind the eye and sees through the eyes, what is the hearing and what the speech That their respective sense organs do not and cannot convey and record adequately or at all?
Like the modern scientist the artist or craftsman too of today has become a philosopher, even a mystic philosopher. The subtler and higher ranges of consciousness are now the object of inquiry and investigation and expression and revelation for the scientist as well as for the artist. The external sense-objects, the phenomenal movements are symbols and signposts, graphs and pointer-readings of facts and realities That lie hidden, behind or beyond. The artist and the scientist are occult alchemists. What to make of this, for example:
Beyond the shapes of empire, the capes of Carbonek, over
--
That wrecks the pirates in the Narrow Seas,.. . .
multiple without dimension, indivisible without uniformity,
--
Well, it is sheer incantation. It is word-weaving, rhythm plaiting, thought-wringing in order to pass beyond these frail materials, to get into contact with, to give some sense of the mystery of existence That passeth understanding. We are very far indeed from the "natural" poets, Homer or Shakespeare, Milton, or Virgil. And this is from a profane, a mundane poet, not an ostensibly religious or spiritual poet. The level of the poetic inspiration, at least of the poetic view and aspiration has evidently shifted to a higher, a deeper degree. We may be speaking of tins and tinsel, bones and dust, filth and misery, of the underworld of ignorance and ugliness,
All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,
and the imaginative idealist, the romantically spiritual poet says That these or
The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart,
--
Are wronging your image That blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.
and he cries out:
--
For my dreams of your image That blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.2
But the more truly modern mind looks at the thing in a slightly different way. The good and the evil are not, to it, contrary to each other: one does not deny or negate the other. They are intermixed, fused in a mysterious identity. The best and the worst are but two conditions, two potentials of the same entity. Baudelaire, who can be considered as the first of the real moderns in many ways, saw and experienced this intimate polarity or identity of opposites in human nature and consciousness. What is Evil, who is the Evil One:
--
I And therefore it is not so irremediable as it appears to be. For the miracle happens and is an inevitable natural phenomenon, and That is why
Par l'opration d'un mystrevengeur
--
In other words, the tension in the human consciousness has been raised to the nth power, the heat of a brooding consciousness is about to lead it to an outburst of new creationsah tapastaptva. Human self-consciousness, the turning of oneself upon oneself, the probing and projecting of oneself into oneselfself-consciousness raised so often to the degree of self-torture, marks the acute travail of the spirit. The thousand "isms" and "logies" That pullulate in all fields of life, from the political to the artistic or even the religious and the spiritual indicate how the human laboratory is working at white heat. They are breaches in the circuit of the consciousness, volcanic eruptions from below or cosmic-ray irruptions from above, tearing open the normal limit and boundaryBaudelaire's couvercle or the "golden lid" of the Upanishads-disclosing and bringing into the light of common day realities beyond and unseen till now.
Ifso long the poet was more or less a passive, a half-conscious or unconscious intermediary between the higher and the lower lights and delights, his role in the future will be better fulfilled when he becomes fully aware of it and consciously moulds and directs his creative energies. The poet is and has to be the harbinger and minstrel of unheard-of melodies: he is the fashioner of the creative word That brings down and embodies the deepest aspirations and experiences of the human consciousness. The poet is a missionary: he is missioned by Divine Beauty to radiate upon earth something of her charm and wizardry. The fullness of his role he can only play up when he is fully conscious for it is under That condition That all obstructing and obscuring elements lying across the path of inspiration can be completely and wholly eradicated: the instrument purified and tempered and transmuted can hold and express golden truths and beauties and puissances That otherwise escape the too human mould.
"The Last Voyage" by Charles Williams-A Little Book of Modern Verse, (Faber and Faber).
01.04 - The Secret Knowledge, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
On a height he stood That looked towards greater heights.
Our early approaches to the Infinite
--
Still have we parts That grow towards the light,
Yet are there luminous tracts and heavens serene
--
A Thought That can conceive but hardly knows
Arises slowly in her and creates
The idea, the speech That labels more than it lights;
A trembling gladness That is less than bliss
Invades from all this beauty That must die.
Alarmed by the sorrow dragging at her feet
--
An inward urge That takes from her rest and peace.
Ignorant and weary and invincible,
--
A faith she craves That can survive defeat,
The sweetness of a love That knows not death,
The radiance of a truth for ever sure.
--
The truth That she has missed looks out on her
As if far off and yet within her soul.
A change comes near That flees from her surmise
And, ever postponed, compels attempt and hope,
--
Then is she moved to all That she is not
And stretches arms to what was never hers.
--
A Joy That drags not sorrow as its shade.
For these she yearns and feels them destined hers:
--
All That transpires on earth and all beyond
Are parts of an illimitable plan
--
And even this random Fate That imitates Chance,
This mass of unintelligible results,
Are the dumb graph of truths That work unseen:
The laws of the Unknown create the known.
The events That shape the appearance of our lives
Are a cipher of subliminal quiverings
--
Can see the Idea, the Might That change Time's course,
Come maned with light from undiscovered worlds,
--
Unmarked by the eye That sees effect and cause,
Unheard mid the clamour of the human plane.
--
Mutterings That brood in the core of Matter's sleep.
In the heart's profound audition they can catch
--
Above the illusion of the hopes That pass,
Behind the appearance and the overt act,
--
A Consciousness That knows not its own truth,
A vagrant hunter of misleading dawns,
--
Moves here in a half-light That seems the whole:
An interregnum in Reality
--
Or runs upon a road That has no end;
Far from the original Dusk, the final Flame
--
Missing its aim is all That it can speak
Or a fragment of the universal word.
--
Wasting itself That it may last awhile,
A river That can never find its sea,
It runs through life and death on an edge of Time;
--
Remote in sovereign spheres That never meet
Or fronting like far poles of Night and Day.
--
Denied to the Idea That looks at grief,
Remote from the Force That cries out in its pain,
In his inalienable bliss they live.
--
They bend not to the voices That implore,
They hold no traffic with error and its reign;
--
Acquiescing in the wisdom That made hell
And the harsh utility of death and tears,
--
Careless they seem of the grief That stings the world's heart,
Careless of the pain That rends its body and life;
Above joy and sorrow is That grandeur's walk:
They have no portion in the good That dies,
Mute, pure, they share not in the evil done;
--
Alive to the truth That dwells in God's extremes,
Awake to a motion of all-seeing Force,
--
All will come near That now is naught or far.
These calm and distant Mights shall act at last.
--
And fill the abyss That is the universe.
Here meanwhile at the Spirit's opposite pole
In the mystery of the deeps That God has built
For his abode below the Thinker's sight,
--
With the Light That dwells near the dark end of things,
In this tragi-comedy of divine disguise,
--
The conscious Force That acts in Nature's breast,
A dark-robed labourer in the cosmic scheme
--
Answers to a will That sees upon the heights,
And the evolving Word's first syllable
--
Of all the marvel and beauty That are hers,
Only a darkened little we can feel.
--
He makes the most of the little That she gives
And all she does drapes with his own delight.
--
This is the knot That ties together the stars:
The Two who are one are the secret of all power,
--
Where all is deep and strange to the eyes That see
And Nature's common forms are marvel-wefts,
--
Her happenings That exalt and smite the soul,
Her force That moves, her powers That save and slay,
Her Word That in the silence speaks to our hearts,
Her silence That transcends the summit Word,
Her heights and depths to which our spirit moves,
Her events That weave the texture of our lives
And all by which we find or lose ourselves,
--
And chance That wears the rigid face of fate
And her sport of death and pain and Nescience,
--
He seems the thing That she would have him seem,
He is whatever her artist will can make.
--
For any blow or boon That she may choose:
Even in what is suffering to our sense,
--
And gives consent to all That she can wish;
Whatever she desires he wills to be:
--
To find a wisdom That on high is his.
As one forgetting he searches for himself;
--
Firm lands appear That tempt and stay awhile,
Then new horizons lure the mind's advance.
--
He plunges through a bright haze That hides the stars,
Steering on the trade-routes of Ignorance.
--
Into Eyes That look upon eternity.
A greater world Time's traveller must explore.
--
For this is sure That he and she are one;
Even when he sleeps, he keeps her on his breast:
01.05 - Rabindranath Tagore: A Great Poet, a Great Man, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In an age when Reason was considered as the highest light given to man, Tagore pointed to the Vision of the mystics as always the still greater light; when man was elated with undreamt-of worldly success, puffed up with incomparable material possessions and powers, Tagore's voice rang clear and emphatic in tune with the cry of the ancients: "What shall I do with all this mass of things, if I am not made immortal by That?" When men, in their individual as well as collective egoism, were scrambling for earthly gains and hoards, he held before them vaster and cleaner horizons, higher and deeper ways of being and living, maintained the sacred sense of human solidarity, the living consciousness of the Divine, one and indivisible. When the Gospel of Power had all but hypnotised men's minds, and Superman or God-man came to be equated with the Titan, Tagore saw through the falsehood and placed in front and above all the old-world eternal verities of love and self-giving, harmony and mutuality, sweetness and light. When pessimism, cynicism, agnosticism struck the major chord of human temperament, and grief and frustration and death and decay were taken as a matter of course to be the inevitable order of earthlylifebhasmantam idam shariramhe continued to sing the song of the Rishis That Ananda and Immortality are the breath of things, the birth right of human beings. When Modernism declared with a certitude never tobe contested That Matter is Brahman, Tagore said with the voice of one who knows That Spirit is Brahman.
Tagore is in direct line with those bards who have sung of the Spirit, who always soared high above the falsehoods and uglinesses of a merely mundane life and lived in the undecaying delights and beauties of a diviner consciousness. Spiritual reality was the central theme of his poetic creation: only and naturally he viewed it in a special way and endowed it with a special grace. We know of another God-intoxicated man, the Jewish philosopher Spinoza, who saw things sub specie aeternitatis, under the figure or mode of eternity. Well, Tagore can be said to see things, in their essential spiritual reality, under the figure or mode of beauty. Keats indeed spoke of truth being beauty and beauty truth. But there is a great difference in the outlook and inner experience. A worshipper of beauty, unless he rises to the Upanishadic norm, is prone to become sensuous and pagan. Keats was That, Kalidasa was That, even Shelley was not far different. The spiritual vein in all these poets remains secondary. In the old Indian master, it is part of his intellectual equipment, no doubt, but nothing much more than That. In the other two it comes in as strange flashes from an unknown country, as a sort of irruption or on the peak of the poetic afflatus or enthousiasmos.
The world being nothing but Spirit made visible is, according to Tagore, fundamentally a thing of beauty. The scars and spots That are on the surface have to be removed and mankind has to repossess and clo the itself with That mantle of beauty. The world is beautiful, because it is the image of the Beautiful, because it harbours, expresses and embodies the Divine who is Beauty supreme. Now by a strange alchemy, a wonderful effect of polarisation, the very spiritual element in Tagore has made him almost a pagan and even a profane. For what are these glories of Nature and the still more exquisite glories That the human body has captured? They are but vibrations and modulations of beauty the delightful names and forms of the supreme Lover and Beloved.
Socrates is said to have brought down Philosophy from Heaven to live among men upon earth. A similar exploit can be ascribed to Tagore. The Spirit, the bare transcendental Reality contemplated by the orthodox Vedantins, has been brought nearer to our planet, close to human consciousness in Tagore's vision, being clothed in earth and flesh and blood, made vivid with the colours and contours of the physical existence. The Spirit, yes and by all means, but not necessarily asceticism and monasticism. So Tagore boldly declared in those famous lines of his:
Mine is not the deliverance achieved through mere renunciation. Mine rather the freedom That tastes itself in a thousand associations.1
The spirit of the age demands this new gospel. Mankind needs and awaits a fresh revelation. The world and life are not an illusion or a lesser reality: they are, if taken rightly, as real as the pure Spirit itself. Indeed, Spirit and Flesh, Consciousness and Matter are not antinomies; to consider them as such is itself an illusion. In fact, they are only two poles or modes or aspects of the same reality. To separate or divide them is a one-sided concentration or abstraction on the part of the human mind. The fulfilment of the Spirit is in its expression through Matter; human life too reaches its highest term, its summum bonum, in embodying the spiritual consciousness here on earth and not dissolving itself in the Transcendence. That is the new Dispensation which answers to the deepest aspiration in man and towards which he has been travelling through the ages in the course of the evolution of his consciousness. Many, however, are the prophets and sages who have set this ideal before humanity and more and more insistently and clearly as we come nearer to the age we live in. But none or very few have expressed it with such beauty and charm and compelling persuasion. It would be carping criticism to point out-as some, purists one may call them, have done- That in poetising and aesthetising the spiritual truth and reality, in trying to make it human and terrestrial, he has diminished and diluted the original substance, in endeavouring to render the diamond iridescent, he has turned it into a baser alloy. Tagore's is a poetic soul, it must be admitted; and it is not necessary That one should find in his ideas and experiences and utterances the cent per cent accuracy and inevitability of a Yogic consciousness. Still his major perceptions, those That count, stand and are borne out by the highest spiritual realisation.
Tagore is no inventor or innovator when he posits Spirit as Beauty, the spiritual consciousness as the ardent rhythm of ecstasy. This experience is the very core of Vaishnavism and for which Tagore is sometimes called a Neo-Vaishnava. The Vaishnava sees the world pulsating in glamorous beauty as the Lila (Play) of the Lord, and the Lord, God himself, is nothing but Love and Beauty. Still Tagore is not all Vaishnava or merely a Vaishnava; he is in addition a modern (the carping voice will say, there comes the dilution and adulteration)in the sense That problems exist for himsocial, political, economic, national, humanitarianwhich have to be faced and solved: these are not merely mundane, but woven into the texture of the fundamental problem of human destiny, of Soul and Spirit and God. A Vaishnava was, in spite of his acceptance of the world, an introvert, to use a modern psychological phrase, not necessarily in the pejorative sense, but in the neutral scientific sense. He looks upon the universe' and human life as the play of the Lord, as an actuality and not mere illusion indeed; but he does not participate or even take interest in the dynamic working out of the world process, he does not care to know, has no need of knowing That there is a terrestrial purpose and a diviner fulfilment of the mortal life upon earth. The Vaishnava dwells more or less absorbed in the Vaikuntha of his inner consciousness; the outer world, although real, is only a symbolic shadowplay to which he can but be a witness-real, is only a nothing more.
A modern idealist of the type of a reformer would not be satisfied with That role. If he is merely a moralist reformer, he will revolt against the "witness business", calling it a laissez-faire mentality of bygone days. A spiritual reformer would ask for morea dynamic union with the Divine Will and Consciousness, not merely a passive enjoyment in the Bliss, so That he may be a luminous power or agent for the expression of divine values in things mundane.
Not the acceptance of the world as it is, not even a joyous acceptance, viewing it as an inexplicable and mysterious and magic play of, God, but the asp ration and endeavour to change it, mould it in the pattern of its inner divine realities for there are such realities which seek expression and embodiment in earthly life That is the great mission and labour of humanity and That is all the meaning of man's existence here below. And Tagore is one of the great prophets and labourers who had the vision of the shape of things to come and worked for it. Only it must be noted, as I have already said, That unlike mere moral reformists or scientific planners, Tagore grounded himself upon the eternal ancient truths That "age cannot wither nor custom stale"the divine truths of the Spirit.
Tagore was a poet; this poetic power of his he put in the service of the great cause for the divine uplift of humanity. Naturally, it goes without saying, his poetry did not preach or propagandize the truths for which he stoodhe had a fine and powerful weapon in his prose to do the work, even then in a poetic way but to sing them. And he sang them not in their philosophical bareness, like a Lucretius, or in their sheer transcendental austerity like some of the Upanishadic Rishis, but in and through human values and earthly norms. The especial aroma of Tagore's poetry lies exactly here, as he himself says, in the note of unboundedness in things bounded That it describes. A mundane, profane sensuousness, Kalidasian in richness and sweetness, is matched or counterpointed by a simple haunting note imbedded or trailing somewhere behind, a lyric cry persevering into eternity, the nostalgic cry of the still small voice.2
Thus, on the one hand, the Eternity, the Infinity, the Spirit is brought nearer home to us in its embodied symbols and living vehicles and vivid formulations, it becomes easily available to mortals, even like the father to his son, to use a Vedic phrase; on the other hand, earthly things, mere humanities are uplifted and suffused with a "light That never was, on sea or land."
Another great poet of the spirit says also, almost like Tagore:
--
Tagore the poet reminds one often and anon of Kalidasa. He was so much in love, had such kinship with the great old master That many of his poems, many passages and lines are reminiscences, echoes, modulations or a paraphrase of the original classic. Tagore himself refers in his memoirs to one Kalidasian line That haunted his juvenile brain because of its exquisite music and enchanting imagery:
Mandki nirjharikarm vodh muhuh-kamPita-deva-druh
01.05 - The Nietzschean Antichrist, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Nietzsche as the apostle of force is a name now familiar to all the world. The hero, the warrior who never tamely accepts suffering and submission and defeat under any condition but fights always and fights to conquersuch is the ideal man, according to Nietzsche,the champion of strength, of greatness, of mightiness. The dominating personality infused with the supreme "will to power"he is Ubermensch, the Superman. Sentiment does not move the mountains, emotion diffuses itself only in vague aspiration. The motive power, the creative fiat does not dwell in the heart but somewhere higher. The way of the Cross, the path of love and charity and pity does not lead to the kingdom of Heaven. The world has tried it for the last twenty centuries of its Christian civilisation and the result is That we are still living in a luxuriant abundance of misery and sordidness and littleness. This is how Nietzsche thinks and feels. He finds no virtue in the old rgimes and he revolts from them. He wants a speedy and radical remedy and teaches That by violence only the Kingdom of Heaven can be seized. For, to Nietzsche the world is only a clash of forces and the Superman therefore is one who is the embodiment of the greatest force. Nietzsche does not care for the good, it is the great That moves him. The good, the moral is of man, conventional and has only a fictitious value. The great, the non-moral is, on the other hand, divine. That only has a value of its own. The good is nothing but a sort of makeshift arrangement which man makes for himself in order to live commodiously and which changes according to his temperament. But the great is one with the Supreme Wisdom and is absolute and imperative. The good cannot create the great; it is the great That makes for the good. This is what he really means when he says, "They say That a good cause sanctifies war but I tell thee it is a good war That sanctifies all cause." For the goodness of your cause you judge by your personal predilections, by your false conventionalities, by a standard That you set up in your ignoranceBut a good war, the output of strength in any cause is in itself a cause of salvation. For thereby you are the champion of That ultimate verity which conduces to the ultimate good. Do not shrink, he would say, to be even like the cyclone and the avalanche, destructive, indeed, but grand and puissant and therefore truer emblems of the BeyondJenseitsthan the weak, the little, the pitiful That do not dare to destroy and by That very fact cannot hope to create.
This is the Nietzsche we all know. But there is another aspect of his which the world has yet been slow to recognise. For, at bottom, Nietzsche is not all storm and fury. If his Superman is a Destroying Angel, he is none the less an angel. If he is endowed with a supreme sense of strength and power, there is also secreted in the core of his heart a sense of the beautiful That illumines his somewhat sombre aspect. For although Nietzsche is by birth a Slavo-Teuton, by culture and education he is pre-eminently Hellenic. His earliest works are on the subject of Greek tragedy and form what he describes as an "Apollonian dream." And to this dream, to this Greek aesthetic sense more than to any thing else he sacrifices justice and pity and charity. To him the weak and the miserable, the sick and the maimed are a sort of blot, a kind of ulcer on the beautiful face of humanity. The herd That wallow in suffering and relish suffering disfigure the aspect of the world and should therefore be relentlessly mowed out of existence. By being pitiful to them we give our tacit assent to their persistence. And it is precisely because of this That Nietzsche has a horror of Christianity. For compassion gives indulgence to all the ugliness of the world and thus renders That ugliness a necessary and indispensable element of existence. To protect the weak, to sympathise with the lowly brings about more of weakness and more of lowliness. Nietzsche has an aristocratic taste par excellencewhat he aims at is health and vigour and beauty. But above all it is an aristocracy of the spirit, an aristocracy endowed with all the richness and beauty of the soul That Nietzsche wants to establish. The beggar of the street is the symbol of ugliness, of the poverty of the spirit. And the so-called aristocrat, die millionaire of today is as poor and ugly as any helpless leper. The soul of either of them is made of the same dirty, sickly stuff. The tattered rags, the crouching heart, the effeminate nerve, the unenlightened soul are the standing ugliness of the world and they have no place in the ideal, the perfect humanity. Humanity, according to Nietzsche, is made in order to be beautiful, to conceive the beautiful, to create the beautiful. Nietzsche's Superman has its perfect image in a Grecian statue of Zeus cut out in white marble-Olympian grandeur shedding in every lineament Apollonian beauty and Dionysian vigour.
The real secret of Nietzsche's philosophy is not an adoration of brute force, of blind irrational joy in fighting and killing. Far from it, Nietzsche has no kinship with Treitschke or Bernhard. What Nietzsche wanted was a world purged of littleness and ugliness, a humanity, not of saints, perhaps, but of heroes, lofty in their ideal, great in their achievement, majestic in their empirea race of titanic gods breathing the glory of heaven itself.
01.05 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Spirits Freedom and Greatness, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
He shore the cord of mind That ties the earth-heart
And cast away the yoke of Matter's law.
--
Thus could he step into That magic place
Which few can even glimpse with hurried glance
--
All That the Gods have learned is there self-known.
There in a hidden chamber closed and mute
--
The heart and mind feel one with all That is,
A conscious soul live in a conscious world.
--
There are blind voiceless doors That have no key;
Thought climbs in vain and brings a borrowed light,
--
A wounded happiness That cannot live,
A brief felicity of mind or sense
--
\tHis soul retired from all That he had done.
Hushed was the futile din of human toil,
--
Opponent of That glory of escape,
The black Inconscient swung its dragon tail
--
To a few is given That godlike rare release.
One among many thousands never touched,
--
A mystic Form That could contain the worlds,
Yet make one human breast its passionate shrine,
--
All That represses our fallen consciousness
Was taken from him like a forgotten load:
A fire That seemed the body of a god
Consumed the limiting figures of the past
--
Atomic looked the things That loomed so large.
The little ego's ring could join no more;
--
Burst open the narrow dams That keep us safe
Against the forces of the universe.
--
This is That secret Nature's edge of might.
On the margin of great immaterial planes,
--
On the unseen links That join the parted spheres.
Thence to the initiate who observes her laws
--
Thoughts That were born in the immortals' world,
Oracles That break out from behind the shrine,
Warnings from the daemonic inner voice
--
Each lifted tops to That from which it came,
Origin of all That it had ever been
And home of all That it could still become.
An organ scale of the Eternal's acts,
--
Rending the night That had concealed the Unknown,
Giving to her her lost forgotten soul.
--
It grouped the golden links That they had lost
And showed to them their divine unity,
--
The deep spiritual cry in all That is.
All the great Words That toiled to express the One
Were lifted into an absoluteness of light,
01.06 - On Communism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Communism is the synthesis of collectivism and individualism. The past ages of society were characterised more or less by a severe collectivism. In ancient Greece, more so in Sparta and in Rome, the individual had, properly speaking, no separate existence of his own; he was merged in the State or Nation. The individual was considered only as a limb of the collective being, had to live and labour for the common weal. The value attached to each person was strictly in reference to the output That the group to which he belonged received from him. Apart from this service for the general unit the body politicany personal endeavour and achievement, if not absolutely discouraged and repressed, was given a very secondary place of merit. The summum bonum of the individual was to sacrifice at the altar of the res publica, the bonum publicum. In India, the position and function of the State or Nation was taken up by the society. Here too social institutions were so constituted and men were so bred and brought up That individuality had neither the occasion nor the incentive to express itself, it was a thing That remained, in the Kalidasian phrase, an object for the ear onlysrutau sthita. Those who sought at all an individual aim and purpose, as perhaps the Sannyasins, were put outside the gate of law and society. Within the society, in actual life and action, it was a sin and a crime or at least a gross imperfection to have any self-regarding motive or impulse; personal preference was the last thing to be considered, virtue consisted precisely in sacrificing one's own taste and inclination for the sake of That which the society exacts and sanctions.
Against this tyranny of the group, this absolute rule of the collective will, the human mind rose in revolt and the result was Individualism. For whatever may be the truth and necessity of the Collective, the Individual is no less true and necessary. The individual has his own law and urge of being and his own secret godhead. The collective godhead derides the individual godhead at its peril. The first movement of the reaction, however, was a run to the other extremity; a stern collectivism gave birth to an intransigent individualism. The individual is sacred and inviolable, cost what it may. It does not matter what sort of individuality one seeks, it is enough if the thing is there. So the doctrine of individualism has come to set a premium on egoism and on forces That are disruptive of all social bonds. Each and every individual has the inherent right, which is also a duty, to follow his own impetus and impulse. Society is nothing but the battle ground for competing individualities the strongest survive and the weakest go to the wall. Association and co-operation are instruments That the individual may use and utilise for his own growth and development but in the main they act as deterrents rather than as aids to the expression and expansion of his characteristic being. In reality, however, if we probe sufficiently deep into the matter we find That there is no such thing as corporate life and activity; what appears as such is only a camouflage for rigorous competition; at the best, there maybe only an offensive and defensive alliancehumanity fights against nature, and within humanity itself group fights against group and in the last analysis, within the group, the individual fights against the individual. This is the ultimate Law-the Dharma of creation.
Now, what such an uncompromising individualism fails to recognise is That individuality and ego are not the same thing, That the individual may have his individuality intact and entire and yet sacrifice his ego, That the soul of man is a much greater thing than his vital being. It is simply ignoring the fact and denying the truth to say That man is only a fighting animal and not a loving god, That the self within the individual realises itself only through competition and not co-operation. It is an error to conceive of society as a mere parallelogram of forces, to suppose That it has risen simply out of the struggle of individual interests and continues to remain by That struggle. Struggle is only one aspect of the thing, a particular form at a particular stage, a temporary manifestation due to a particular system and a particular habit and training. It would be nearer the truth to say That society came into being with the demand of the individual soul to unite with the individual soul, with the stress of an Over-soul to express itself in a multitude of forms, diverse yet linked together and organised in perfect harmony. Only, the stress for union manifested itself first on the material plane as struggle: but this is meant to be corrected and transcended and is being continually corrected and transcended by a secret harmony, a real commonality and brotherhood and unity. The individual is not so self-centred as the individualists make him to be, his individuality has a much vaster orbit and fulfils itself only by fulfilling others. The scientists have begun to discover other instincts in man than those of struggle and competition; they now place at the origin of social grouping an instinct which they name the herd-instinct: but this is only a formulation in lower terms, a translation on the vital plane of a higher truth and reality the fundamental oneness and accord of individuals and their spiritual impulsion to unite.
However, individualism has given us a truth and a formula which collectivism ignored. Self-determination is a thing which has come to stay. Each and every individual is free, absolutely free and shall freely follow his own line of growth and development and fulfilment. No extraneous power shall choose and fix what is good or evil for him, nor coerce and exploit him for its own benefit. But That does not necessarily mean That collectivism has no truth in it; collectivism also, as much as individualism, has a lesson for us and we should see whether we can harmonise the two. Collectivism signifies That the individual should not look to himself alone, should not be shut up in his freedom but expand himself and envelop others in a wider freedom, see other creatures in himself and himself in other creatures, as the Gita says. Collectivism demands That the individual need not and should not exhaust himself entirely in securing and enjoying his personal freedom, but That he can and should work for the salvation of others; the truth it upholds is this That the individual is from a certain point of view only a part of the group and by ignoring the latter it ignores itself in the end.
Now, a spiritual communism embraces individualism and collectivism, fuses them in a higher truth, establishes them in an intimate and absolute harmony. The individual is the centre, the group is the circumference and the two form one whore circle. The individual by fulfilling the truth of his real individuality fulfils also the truth of a commonality. There are no different laws for the two. The individuals do not stand apart from and against one another, the dharma of one does not clash with the dharma of the other. The ripples in the bosom of the sea, however distinct and discrete in appearance, form but a single mass, all follow the same law of hydrodynamics That the mother sea incarnates. Stars and planets and nebulae, each separate heavenly body has its characteristic form and nature and function and yet all fulfil the same law of gravitation and beat the measure of the silent symphony of spaces. Individualities are the freedoms of the collective being and collectivity the concentration of individual beings. The same soul looking inward appears as the individual being and looking outward appears as the collective being.
Communism takes man not as ego or the vital creature; it turns him upside downurdhomulo' vaksakhah and establishes him upon his soul, his inner godhead. Thus established the individual soul finds and fulfils the divine law That by increasing itself it increases others and by increasing others it increases itself and thus by increasing one another they attain the supreme good. Unless man goes beyond himself and reaches this self, this godhead above, he will not find any real poise, will always swing between individualism and collectivism, he will remain always boundbound either in his freedom or in his bondage.
A commune is a group of individuals having a common self and a common life-intuition. A common self presupposes the realisation by each individual of his deepest being the self which is at once distinct from and instinct with other selves; a common life-intuition presupposes the awakening of each individual to his inmost creative urge, which, pure and true and vast as it is, fulfils itself in and through other creative urges.
--
If society, That is to say, community, be the fieldkshetra for the individual to live, move and have its being, then we must begin at the very outset with the community itself, at least, with a nucleus That will go to form such a thing. The fear That the untimely grouping together of immature souls may crush out individuality and dig its own grave has, no doubt, sufficient justification behind it to deter one from the attempt; but neither can we be certain That souls nursed and nourished in solitary cells, absolutely apart from any mellowing and broadening influence of the outside world will ever reach to That stage of perfect maturity when they will suddenly and spontaneously break open their cells and recognise in one another the communal brother-self.
As a matter of fact, the individual is not and cannot be such an isolated thing as our egoistic sense would like to have it. The sharp angularities of the individual are being, at every moment, chastened by the very primary conditions of life; and to fail to recognise this is the blindest form of ignorance. It is no easy task to draw exactly the line of distinction between our individual being and our social or communal being. In actual life they are so blended together That in trying to extricate them from each other, we but tear and lacerate them both. The highest wisdom is to take the two together as they are, and by a gradual purifying processboth internal and external, internal in thought and knowledge and will, external in life and actionrestore them to their respective truth and lawSatyam and Ritam.
The individual who leads a severely individual life from the very beginning, whose outlook of the world has been fashioned by That conception, can hardly, if at all, enter at the end the communal life. He must perforce be either a vagabond or a recluse: But the recluse is not an integral man, nor the vagabond an ideal personality. The individual need not be too chaste and shy to associate with others and to give and take as freely and fully as he can. Individuality is not necessarily curtailed or mutilated in this process, but there is this other greater possibility of its getting enlarged and enhanced. Rather it is when you shut yourself up in your own self, That you stick to only one line of your personality, to a single phase of your self and thus limit and diminish yourself; the breadth and height and depth of your self, the cubic completeness of your personality you can attain only through a multiple and variegated stress by which you come in contact with the world and things.
So first the individual and then the commune is not the natural nor the ideal principle. On the other hand, first the commune and then the individual would appear to be an equally defective principle. For first a commune means an organisation, its laws and rules and regulations, its injunctions and prohibitions; all which signifies or comes to signify That every individual is not free to enter its fold and That whoever enters must know how to dovetail himself therein and thus crush down the very life-power whose enhancement and efflorescence is sought. First a commune means necessarily a creed, a dogma, a set form of being and living indelibly marked out from beforehand. The individual has there no choice of finding and developing the particular creed or dogma or mode of being and living, from out of his own self, along his particular line of natural growth; all That is imposed upon him and he has to accept and make it his own by trial and effort and self-torture. Even if the commune be a contractual association, the members having joined together in a common cause to a common end, by voluntarily sacrificing a portion of their personal choice and freedom, even then it is not the ideal thing; the collective soul will be diminished in exact proportion as each individual soul has had to be diminished, be That voluntary or otherwise. That commune is plenary and entire which ensures plenitude and entirety to each of its individuals.
Now how to escape the dilemma? Only if we take the commune and the individual togetheren bloc, as has already been suggested. This means That the commune should be at the beginning a subtle and supple thing, without form and even without name, it should be no more than the circumambient aura the sukshma deha That plays around a group of individuals who meet and unite and move together by a secret affinity, along a common path towards a common goal. As each individual develops and defines himself, the commune also takes a more and more concrete shape; and when at the last stage the individual rises to the full height of his godhead, takes possession of his integral divinity, the commune also establishes its solid empire, vivid and vibrant in form and name.
***
01.06 - Vivekananda, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The gospel of strength That Vivekananda spread was very characteristic of the man. For it is not mere physical or nervous bravery, although That too is indispensable, and it is something more than moral courage. In the speeches referred to, the subject-matter (as well as the manner to a large extent) is philosophical, metaphysical, even abstract in outlook and treatment: they are not a call to arms, like the French National Anthem, for example; they are not merely an ethical exhortation, a moral lesson either. They speak of the inner spirit, the divine in man, the supreme realities That lie beyond. And yet the words are permeated through and through with a vibration life-giving and heroic-not so much in the explicit and apparent meaning as in the style and manner and atmosphere: it is catching, even or precisely when he refers, for example, to these passages in the Vedas and the Upanishads, magnificent in their poetic beauty, sublime in their spiritual truth,nec plus ultra, one can say, in the grand style supreme:
Yasyaite himavanto mahitv
--
The consciousness That breathed out these mighty words, these heavenly sounds was in itself mighty and heavenly and it is That That touches you, penetrates you, vibrates in you a kindred chord, "awakening in you someone dead" till thenmrtam kcana bodhayant. More than the matter, the thing That was said, was the personality, the being who embodied the truth expressed, the living consciousness behind the words and the speech That set fire to your soul. Indeed it was the soul That Vivekananda could awaken and stir in you. Any orator, any speaker with some kind of belief, even if it is for the moment, in what he says, by the sheer force of assertion, can convince your mind and draw your acquiescence and adhesion. A leader of men, self-confident and bold and fiery, can carry you off your feet and make you do brave things. But That is a lower degree of character and nature, ephemeral and superficial, That is touched in you thereby. The spiritual leader, the Guide, goes straight to the spirit in youit is the call of the deep unto the deep. That was what Vivekananda meant when he said That Brahman is asleep in you, awaken it, you are the Brahman, awaken it, you are free and almighty. It is the spirit consciousness Sachchidananda That is the real man in you and That is supremely mighty and invincible and free absolutely. The courage and fearlessness That Vivekananda gave you was the natural attribute of the lordship of your spiritual reality. Vivekananda spoke and roused the Atman in man.
Vivekananda spoke to the Atman in man, he spoke to the Atman of the world, and he spoke specially to the Atman of India. India had a large place in Vivekananda's consciousness: for the future of humanity and the world is wedded to India's future. India has a great mission, it has a spiritual, rather the spiritual work to do. Here is India's work as Vivekananda conceived it in a nutshell:
--
The answer is as old as That of Nachiketas: "These horses and these songs and dances of yours, let them remain yours, man is not appeased with riches"; or That of Maitreyi, "What am I to do with That which will not bring me immortality?" This is then man's mission upon earth:
"Man is higher than all animals, than all angels: none is greater than man. Even the Devas will have to come down again and attain to salvation though a human body. Man alone attains to perfection, not even the Devas." Indeed, men are gods upon earth, come down here below to perfect themselves and perfect the worldonly, they have to be conscious of themselves. They do not know what they are, they have to be actually and sovereignly what they are really and potentially. This then is the life-work of everyone:
--
That is indeed the only way of securing a harmonious and
perfected humanity:
--
The path to this higher harmonious divine life is That of
hard labour, of scrupulously untiring, conscientious work:
--
and not conformity to nature That makes man what he is."
Work and not abstention from work is the way, but not work for ignorant enjoyment:
01.07 - Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
"The zeal for the Lord hath eaten me up." Such has indeed been the case with Pascal, almost literally. The fire That burned in him was too ardent and vehement for the vehicle, the material instrument, which was very soon used up and reduced to ashes. At twenty-four he was already a broken man, being struck with paralysis and neuras thenia; he died at the comparatively early age of 39, emulating, as it were, the life career of his Lord the Christ who died at 33. The Fire martyrised the body, but kindled and brought forth experiences and realisations That save and truths That abide. It was the Divine Fire whose vision and experience he had on the famous night of 23 November 1654 which brought about his final and definitive conversion. It was the same fire That had blazed up in his brain, while yet a boy, and made him a precocious genius, a marvel of intellectual power in the exact sciences. At 12 this prodigy discovered by himself the 32nd proposition of Euclid, Book I. At sixteen he wrote a treatise on conic sections. At nineteen he invented a calculating machine which, without the help of any mathematical rule or process, gave absolutely accurate results. At twenty-three he published his experiments with vacuum. At twenty-five he conducted the well-known experiment from the tower of St. Jacques, proving the existence of atmospheric pressure. His studies in infinitesimal calculus were remarkably creative and original. And it might be said he was a pioneer in quite a new branch of mathematics, viz., the mathematical theory of probability. We shall see presently how his preoccupation with the mathematics of chance and probability coloured and reinforced his metaphysics and theology.
But the pressure upon his dynamic and heated brain the fiery zeal in his mindwas already proving too much and he was advised medically to take complete rest. Thereupon followed what was known as Pascal's mundane lifea period of distraction and dissipation; but this did not last long nor was it of a serious nature. The inner fire could brook no delay, it was eager and impatient to englobe other fields and domains. Indeed, it turned to its own field the heart. Pascal became initiated into the mystery of Faith and Grace. Still he had to pass through a terrible period of dejection and despair: the life of the world had given him no rest or relaxation, it served only to fill his cup of misery to the brim. But the hour of final relief was not long postponed: the Grace came to him, even as it came to Moses or St. Paul as a sudden flare of fire which burnt up the Dark Night and opened out the portals of Morning Glory.
Pascal's place in the evolution of European culture and consciousness is of considerable significance and importance. He came at a critical time, on the mounting tide of rationalism and scepticism, in an age when the tone and temper of human mentality were influenced and fashioned by Montaigne and Rochefoucauld, by Bacon and Hobbes. Pascal himself, born in such an atmosphere of doubt and disbelief and disillusionment, had sucked in a full dose of That poison; yet he survived and found the Rock of Ages, became the clarion of Faith against Denial. What a spectacle it was! This is what one wrote just a quarter of a century after the death of Pascal:
"They can no longer tell us That it is only small minds That have piety. They are shown how it has grown best in one of the the greatest geometricians, one of the subtlest metaphysicians, one of the most penetrating minds That ever existed on earth. The piety of such a philosopher should make the unbeliever and the libertine declare what a certain Diocles said one day on seeing Epicurus in a temple: 'What a feast, what a spectacle for me to see Epicurus in a temple! All my doubts vainsh, piety takes its place again. I never saw Jupiter's greatness so well as now when I behold Epicurus kneeling down!"1
What characterises Pascal is the way in which he has bent his brainnot rejected it but truly bent and forced even the dry "geometrical brain" to the service of Faith.
In his inquiry into truth and certitude Pascal takes his stand upon what he calls the geometrical method, the only valid method, according to him, in the sphere of reason. The characteristic of this method is That it takes for granted certain fundamental principles and realitiescalled axioms and postulates or definitionsand proceeds to other truths That are infallibly and inevitably deduced from them, That are inherent and implied in them. There is no use or necessity in trying to demonstrate these fundamentals also; That will only land us into confusion and muddle. They have to be simply accepted, they do not require demonstration, it is they That demonstrate others. Such, for instance, are space, time, number, the reality of which it is foolishness and pedantry to I seek to prove. There is then an order of truths That do not i require to be proved. We are referring only to the order of I physical truths. But there is another order, Pascal says, equally I valid and veritable, the order of the Spirit. Here we have another set of fundamentals That have to be accepted and taken for granted, matrix of other truths and realities. It can also be called the order of the Heart. Reason posits physical fundamentals; it does not know of the fundamentals of the Heart which are beyond its reach; such are God, Soul, Immortality which are evident only to Faith.
But Faith and Reason, according to Pascal, are not contraries nor irreconcilables. Because the things of faith are beyond reason, it is not That they are irrational. Here is what Pascal says about the function and limitation of reason:
"The last movement of reason is to know That there is an infinity of things That are beyond it. It must be a very weak reason if it does not arrive there."2
"One must know where one should doubt, where one should submit."3
--
"We know truth not by reason alone, but by the heart also: it is in the latter way That we know the first principles, and in vain does reasoning, That has no part in it, attempt to combat them... The heart feels... and the reason demon strates afterwards... Principles are felt, propositions are deduced. . . . "5
About doubt, Pascal says That the perfect doubter, the Pyrrhonian as he is called, is a fiction. Pascal asks:
"What will men do in such a state? Will he doubt everything?... Will he doubt whether he doubts ? Will he doubt whether he exists?. . . In fact there has never been a perfectly effective Pyrrhonian."6
The process of conversion of the doubting mind, of the dry intellectual reason as propounded and perhaps practised by Pascal is also a characteristic mark of his nature and genius. It is explained in his famous letter on "bet" or "game of chance" (Le Pari). Here is how he puts the issue to the doubting mind (I am giving the substance, not his words): let us say then That in the world we are playing a game of chance. How do the chances stand? What are the gains and losses if God does not exist? What 'are the gains and losses if God does exist? If God exists, by accepting and reaching him what do we gain? All That man cares forhappiness, felicity. And what do we lose? We lose the world of misery. If, on the other 'hand, God does not exist, by believing him to exist, we lose nothing, we are not more miserable than what we are. If, however, God exists and we do not believe him, we gain this world of misery but we lose all That is worth having. Thus Pascal concludes That even from the standpoint of mere gain and loss, belief in God is more advantageous than unbelief. This is how he applied to metaphysics the mathematics of probability.
One is not sure if such reasoning is convincing to the intellect; but perhaps it is a necessary stage in conversion. At least we can conclude That Pascal had to pass through such a stage; and it indicates the difficulty his brain had to undergo, the tension or even the torture he made it pass through. It is true, from Reason Pascal went over to Faith, even while giving Reason its due. Still it seems the two were not perfectly synthetised or fused in him. There was a gap between That was not thoroughly bridged. Pascal did not possess the higher, intuitive, luminous mind That mediates successfully between the physical discursive ratiocinative brain-mind and the vision of faith: it is because deep in his consciousness there lay this chasm. Indeed,Pascal's abyss (l' abme de Pascal) is a well-known legend. Pascal, it appears, used to have very often the vision of an abyss about to open before him and he shuddered at the prospect of falling into it. It seems to us to be an experience of the Infinity the Infinity to which he was so much attracted and of which he wrote so beautifully (L'infiniment grand et l'infiniment petit)but into which he could not evidently jump overboard unreservedly. This produced a dichotomy, a lack of integration of personality, Jung would say. Pascal's brain was cold, firm, almost rigid; his heart was volcanic, the faith he had was a fire: it lacked something of the pure light and burned with a lurid glare.
And the reason is his metaphysics. It is the Jansenist conception of God and human nature That inspired and coloured all his experience and consciousness. According to it, as according to the Calvinist conception, man is a corrupt being, corroded to the core, original sin has branded his very soul. Only Grace saves him and releases him. The order of sin and the order of Grace are distinct and disparate worlds and yet they complement each other and need each other. Greatness and misery are intertwined, united, unified with each other in him. Here is an echo of the Manichean position which also involves an abyss. But even then God's grace is not a free agent, as Jesuits declare; there is a predestination That guides and controls it. This was one of the main subjects he treated in his famous open letters (Les Provinciales) That brought him renown almost overnight. Eternal hell is a possible prospect That faces the Jansenist. That was why a Night always over-shadowed the Day in Pascal's soul.
Man then, according to Pascal, is by nature a sinful thing. He can lay no claim to noble virtue as his own: all in him is vile, he is a lump of dirt and filth. Even the greatest has his full share of this taint. The greatest, the saintliest, and the meanest, the most sinful, all meet, all are equal on this common platform; all have the same feet of clay. Man is as miserable a creature as a beast, as much a part and product of Nature as a plant. Only there is this difference That an animal or a tree is unconscious, while man knows That he is miserable. This knowledge or perception makes him more miserable, but That is his real and only greatness there is no other. His thought, his self-consciousness, and his sorrow and repentance and contrition for what he is That is the only good partMary's part That has been given to him. Here are Pascal's own words on the subject:
"The greatness of man is great in this That he knows he is miserable. A tree does not know That it is miserable.
It is misery indeed to know oneself miserable. But one is great when one knows thus That he is miserable.
Thought is man's greatness.
--
Pascal's faith had not the calm, tranquil, serene, luminous and happy self-possession of an Indian Rishi. It was ardent and impatient, fiery and vehement. It had to be so perhaps, since it was to stand against his steely brain (and a gloomy vital or life force) as a counterpoise, even as an antidote. This tension and schism brought about, at least contri buted to his neuras thenia and physical infirmity. But whatever the effect upon his inner consciousness and spiritual achievement, his power of expression, his literary style acquired by That a special quality which is his great gift to the French language. If one speaks of Pascal, one has to speak of his language also; for he was one of the great masters who created the French prose. His prose was a wonderful blend of clarity, precision, serried logic and warmth, colour, life, movement, plasticity.
A translation cannot give any idea of the Pascalian style; but an inner echo of the same can perhaps be caught from the thought movement of these characteristic sayings of his with which we conclude:
--
"The heart has its reasons which Reason knows not... I say, the heart loves the universal being naturally, and itself also naturally, according to which so ever it gives itself. And it hardens itself against the one or the other according to its choice. You have rejected one and preserved the other. Is it by the reason That you love ?"10
"Know then, a you proud one, what a paradox you are to yourself. Humble yourself, impotent Reason. Learn, man surpasses man infinitely. Hear from your Master your true state which you do not know. Listen to God."11
01.07 - The Bases of Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Any real reconstruction of society, any permanent reformation of the world presupposes a real reconstruction, a permanent reformation of human nature. Otherwise any amount of casting and recasting the mere machineries would not bring about any appreciable result, but leave the thing as it is. Change the laws as much as you like, but if you do not change the nature of man, the world will not change. For it is man That makes laws and not laws That make man. Laws express at best the demand which man feels within himself. A truth must realise itself in human nature before it can be codified. You may certainly legalise an ideal, but That does not necessarily mean realising it. The realisation must come first in nature and character, then it is naturally translated into laws and institutions. A man lives the laws of his soul and being and not the law given him by the shastras. He violates the shastras, modifies them, utilises them according to the greater imperative of his Swabhava.
The French Revolution wanted to remould human society and its ideal was liberty, equality and fraternity. It pulled down the old machinery and set up a new one in its stead. And the result? "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" remained always in effect a cry in the wilderness. Another wave of idealism is now running over the earth and the Bolshevists are its most fiercely practical exponents. Instead of dealing merely with the political machinery, the Socialistic Revolution tries to break and remake, above all, the social machinery. But judged from the results as yet attained and the tendencies at work, few are the reasons to hope but many to fear the worst. Even education does not seem to promise us anything better. Which nation was better educatedin the sense we understood and still commonly understand the wordthan Germany?
And yet we have no hesitation today to call them Huns and Barbarians. That education is not giving us the right thing is proved further by the fact That we are constantly changing our programmes and curriculums, everyday remodelling old institutions and founding new ones. Even a revolution in the educational system will not bring about the desired millennium, so long as we lay so much stress upon the system and not upon man himself. And finally, look to all the religions of the worldwe have enough of creeds and dogmas, of sermons and mantras, of churches and templesand yet human life and society do not seem to be any the more worthy for it.
Are we then to say That human nature is irrevocably vitiated by an original sin and That all our efforts at reformation and regeneration are, as the Indian saying goes, like trying to straighten out the crooked tail of a dog?
It is this persuasion which, has led many spiritual souls, siddhas, to declare That theirs is not the kingdom upon this earth, but That the kingdom of Heaven is within. And it is why great lovers of humanity have sought not to eradicate but only to mitigate, as far as possible, the ills of life. Earth and life, it is said, contain in their last analysis certain ugly and loathsome realities which are an inevitable and inexorable part of their substance and to eliminate one means to annihilate the other. What can be done is to throw a veil over the nether regions in human nature, to put a ban on their urges and velleities and to create opportunities to make social arrangements so That the higher impulses only find free play while the lower impulses, for want of scope and indulgence, may fall down to a harmless level. This is what the Reformists hope and want and no more. Life is based upon animality, the soul is encased in an earth-sheathman needs must procreate, man needs must seek food. But what human effort can achieve is to set up barriers and limitations and form channels and openings, which will restrain these impulses, allow them a necessary modicum of play and which for the greater part will serve to encourage and enhance the nobler urges in man. Of course, there will remain always the possibility of the whole scaffolding coming down with a crash and the aboriginal in man running riot in his nudity. But we have to accept the chance and make the best of what materials we have in hand.
No doubt this is a most dismal kind of pessimism. But it is the logical conclusion of all optimism That bases itself upon a particular view of human nature. If we question That pessimism, we have to question the very grounds of our optimism also. As a matter of fact, all our idealism has been so long infructuous and will be so in the future, if we do not shift our foundation and start from a different IntuitionWeltanschauung.
Our ideals have been mental constructions, rather than spiritual realitiesrealities of the deepest and highest being. And the power by which we sought to realise those ideals was mainly the insistence of our emotional urges, rather than Nature's Truth-Power. For this must be understood That the mental, the vital and the physical form a nexus of reality which works in its own inexorable law and so long as we are within them we cannot but obey the laws That guide them. Of these three strata which form the human adhara, it is the vital which holds the key to man's nature. It is the executive power, the force That fashions the realities on the physical plane; it is what creates the character. The power of thought and sentiment is often much too exaggerated, even so the power of the body, That of physical and external rules and regulations. The mental or the physical or both together can mould the vital only to a limited extent, to the extent which is allowed by the inherent law of the vital. If the demands of the mental and the physical are stretched too far and are not suffered by the vital, a crash and catastrophe is bound to come in the end.
This is the meaning of the Reformist's pessimism. So long as we remain within the domain of the triple nexus, we must always take account of an original sin, an aboriginal irredeemability in human nature. And it, is this fact which a too hasty optimistic idealism is apt to ignore. The point, however, is That man need not be necessarily bound to this triple chord of life. He can go beyond, transcend himself and find a reality which is the basis of even this lower poise of the mental and vital and physical. Only in order to get into That higher poise we must really transcend the lower, That is to say, we must not be satisfied with experiencing or envisaging it through the mind and heart but must directly commune with it, be it. There is a higher law That rules there, a power That is the truth-substance of even the vital and hence can remould it with a sovereign inevitability, according to a pattern which may not and is not the pattern of mental and emotional idealism, but the pattern of a supreme spiritual realism.
What then is required is a complete spiritual regeneration in man, a new structure of his soul and substancenot merely the realisation of the highest and supreme Truth in mental and emotional consciousness, but the translation and application of the law of That truth in the power of the vital. It is here That failed all the great spiritual or rather religious movements of the past. They were content with evoking the divine in the mental being, but left the vital becoming to be governed by the habitual un-divine or at the most to be just illumined by a distant and faint glow which served, however, more to distort than express the Divine.
The Divine Nature only can permanently reform the vital nature That is ours. Neither laws and institutions, which are the results of That vital nature, nor ideas and ideals which are often a mere revolt from and more often an auxiliary to it, can comm and the power to regenerate society. If it is thought improbable for any group of men to attain to That God Nature, then there is hardly any hope for mankind. But improbable or probable, That is the only way which man has to try and test, and there is none other.
***
01.08 - A Theory of Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The recent science of Psycho-analysis has brought to light certain hidden springs and undercurrents of the mind; it has familiarised us with a mode of viewing the entire psychical life of man which will be fruitful for our present enquiry. Mind, it has been found, is a house divided, against itself, That is to say it is an arena where different and divergent forces continually battle against one another. There must be, however, at the same time, some sort of a resolution of these forces, some equation That holds them in balance, otherwise the mind the human being itselfwould cease to exist as an entity. What is the mechanism of this balance of power in the human mind? In order to ascertain That we must first of all know the fundamental nature of the struggle and also the character of the more elemental forces That are engaged in it.
There are some primary desires That seek satisfaction in man. They are the vital urges of life, the most prominent among them being the instinct of self-preservation and That of self-reproduction or the desire to preserve one's body by defensive as well as by offensive means and the desire to multiply oneself by mating. These are the two biological necessities That are inevitable to man's existence as a physical being. They give the minimum conditions required to be fulfilled by man in order That he may live and hence they are the strongest and the most fundamental elements That enter into his structure and composition.
It would have been an easy matter if these vital urges could flow on unhindered in their way. There would have been no problem at all, if they met satisfaction easily and smoothly, without having to look to other factors and forces. As a matter of fact, man does not and cannot gratify his instincts whenever and wherever he chooses and in an open and direct manner. Even in his most primitive and barbarous condition, he has often to check himself and throw a veil, in so many ways, over his sheer animality. In the civilised society the check is manifold and is frankly recognised. We do not go straight as our sexual impulsion leads, but seek to hide and camouflage it under the institution of marriage; we do not pounce upon the food directly we happen to meet it and snatch and appropriate whatever portion we get but we secure it through an elaborate process, which is known as the economic system. The machinery of the state, the cult of the kshatriya are roundabout ways to meet our fighting instincts.
What is the reason of this elaboration, this check and constraint upon the natural and direct outflow of the animal instincts in man? It has been said That the social life of man, the fact That he has to live and move as member of a group or aggregate has imposed upon him these restrictions. The free and unbridled indulgence of one's bare aboriginal impulses may be possible to creatures That live a separate, solitary and individual life but is disruptive of all bonds necessary for a corporate and group life. It is even a biological necessity again which has evolved in man a third and collateral primary instinct That of the herd. And it is this herd-instinct which naturally and spontaneously restrains, diverts and even metamorphoses the other instincts of the mere animal life. However, leaving aside for the moment the question whether man's ethical and spiritual ideals are a mere dissimulation of his animal instincts or whether they correspond to certain actual realities apart from and co-existent with these latter, we will recognise the simple fact of control and try to have a glimpse into its mechanism.
There are three lines, as the Psycho-analysts point out along which this control or censuring of the primary instincts acts. First, there is the line of Defence Reaction. That is to say, the mind automatically takes up an attitude directly contrary to the impulse, tries to shut it out and deny altogether its existence and the measure of the insistence of the impulse is also the measure of the vehemence of the denial. It is the case of the lady protesting too much. So it happens That where subconsciously there is a strong current of a particular impulse, consciously the mind is obliged to take up a counteracting opposite impulse. Thus in presence of a strong sexual craving the mind as if to guard and save itself engenders by a reflex movement an ascetic and puritanic mood. Similarly a strong unthinking physical attraction translates itself on the conscious plane as an equally strong repulsion.
Secondly, there is the line of Substitution. Here the mind does not stand in an antagonistic and protestant mood to combat and repress the impulse, but seeks to divert it into other channels, use it to other purposes which do not demand equal sacrifice, may even, on the other hand, be considered by the conscious mind as worthy of human pursuit. Thus the energy That normally would seek sexual gratification might find its outlet in the cultivation of art and literature. It is a common thing in novels to find the heroine disappointed in love taking finally to works of charity and beneficence and thus forgetting her disappointment. Another variety of this is what is known as "drowning one's sorrow in drinking."
Thirdly, there is the line of Sublimationit is when the natural impulse is neither repressed nor diverted but lifted up into a higher modality. The thing is given a new sense and a new value which serve to remove the stigma usually attached to it and thus allow its free indulgence. Instances of carnal love sublimated into spiritual union, of passion transmuted into devotion (Bhakti) are common enough to illustrate the point.
The human mind naturally, without any effort on its part, takes to one or more of these devices to control and conceal the aboriginal impulses. But this spontaneous process can be organised and consciously regulated and made to serve better the purpose and urge of Nature. And this is the beginning of yoga the conscious fulfilment of Nature. The Psycho-analysts have given us the first and elementary stage of this process of yoga. It is, we may say, the fourth line of control. With this man enters a new level of being, develops a new mode of life. It is when the automatism of Nature is replaced by the power of Conscious Control. Man is not here, a blind instrument of forces, his activities (both indulging and controlling) are not guided according to an ignorant submission to the laws of almost subconscious impulsions. Conscious control means That the mind does not fight shy of or seek to elude the aboriginal insistences, but allows them to come up freely, meets them squarely, recognises them and establishes an easy mastery over them.
The method of unconscious or subconscious nature is fundamentally That of repression. Apart from Defence Reaction which is a thing of pure coercion, even in Substitution and Sublimation there always remains in the background a large amount of repressed complexes in all their primitive strength. The system is never entirely purified but remains secretly pregnant with those urges; a part only is deflected and camouflaged, the surface only assumes a transformed appearance. And there is always the danger of the superstructure coming down helplessly by a sudden upheaval of the nether forces. The whole system feels, although not in a conscious manner, the tension of the repression and suffers from something That is unhealthy and ill-balanced. Dante's spiritualised passion is a supreme instance of control by Sublimation, but the Divina Comedia hardly bears the impress of a serene and tranquil soul, sovereignly above the turmoils of the tragedy of life and absolutely at peace with itself.
In conscious control, the mind is for the first time aware of the presence of the repressed impulses, it seeks to release them from the pressure to which they are habitually and normally subjected. It knows and recognises them, however ugly and revolting they might appear to be when they present themselves in their natural nakedness. Then it becomes easy for the conscious determination to eliminate or regulate or transform them and thus to establish a healthy harmony in the human vehicle. The very recognition itself, as implied in conscious control, means purification.
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Yoga, then, comes at this stage and offers the solution in its power of what we may call Transubstantiation. That is to say, here the mere form is not changed, nor the functions restrained, regulated and purified, but the very substance of the instincts is transmuted. The power of conscious control is a power of the human will, i.e. of an individual personal will and therefore necessarily limited both in intent and extent. It is a power complementary to the power of Nature, it may guide and fashion the latter according to a new pattern, but cannot change the basic substance, the stuff of Nature. To That end yoga seeks a power That transcends the human will, brings into play the supernal puissance of a Divine Will.
This is the real meaning and sense of the moral struggle in man, the continuous endeavour towards a transvaluation of the primary and aboriginal instincts and impulses. Looked at from one end, from below up the ascending line, man's ethical and spiritual ideals are a dissimulation and sublimation of the animal impulsions. But this is becauseas we see, if we look from the other end, from above down the descending lineman is not all instinct, he is not a mere blind instrument in the hands of Nature forces. He has in him another source, an opposite pole of being from which other impulsions flow and continually modify the structure of the lower levels. If the animal is the foundation of his nature, the divine is its summit. If the bodily demands form his manifest reality, the demands of the spirit enshrine his higher reality. And if as regards the former he is a slave, as regards the latter he is the Master. It is by the interaction of these double forces That his whole nature has been and is being fashioned. Man does not and cannot give carte blanche to his vital, inclinations, since there is a pressure upon them of higher forces coming down from his mental and spiritual levels. It is these latter which have deviated him from the direct line of the pure animal life.
Thus then we may distinguish three types of control on three levels. First, the natural control, secondly the conscious, i.e. to say the mental the ethical and religious control, and thirdly the spiritual or divine control. Now the spirit is the ultimate truth and reality, behind the forces That act in the mind and in the body, so That the natural control and the ethical control are mere attempts to establish and realise the spiritual control. The animal impulses feel the hidden stress of the divine urges That are their real essence and thus there rises first an unconscious conflict in the natural life and then a conscious conflict in the higher ethical life. But when both of these are transcended and the conflict is carried on to a still higher level, then do we find their real significance and arrive at the consummation to which they move. Yoga is the ultimate transvaluation of physical (and of moral) values, it is the trans-substantiation of life-power into its spiritual substance.
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01.08 - Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
From the twentieth century back to the fourteenth is a far cry: a far cry indeed from the modern scientific illumination to mediaeval superstition, from logical positivists and mathematical rationalists to visionary mystics, from Russell and Huxley to Ruysbroeck and Hilton. The mystic lore, the Holy Writ, the mediaeval sage says, echoing almost the very words of the Eastern Masters, "may not be got by study nor through man's travail only, but principally by the grace of the Holy Ghost." As for the men living and moving in the worldly way, there are "so mickle din and crying in their heart and vain thoughts and fleshly desires" That it is impossible for them to listen or understand the still small voice. It is the pure soul touched by the Grace That alone "seeth soothfastness of Holy Writ wonderly shewed and opened, above study and travail and reason of man's kindly (i.e. natural) wit."
What is day to us is night to the mystics and what is day to the mystics is night for us. The first thing the mystic asks is to close precisely those doors and windows which we, on the contrary, feel obliged to keep always open in order to know and to live and move. The Gita says: "The sage is wakeful when it is night for all creatures and when all creatures are wakeful, That is night for the sage." Even so this sage from the West says: "The more I sleep from outward things, the more wakeful am I in knowing of Jhesu and of inward things. I may not wake to Jhesu, but if I sleep to the world."
Close the senses. Turn within. And then go forward, That is to say, more and more inward. In That direction lies your itinerary, the journey of your consciousness. The sense-ridden secular man, who goes by his physical eye, has marked in his own way the steps of his forward march and progress. His knowledge and his power grew as he proceeded in his survey from larger masses of physical objects to their component molecules and from molecules to their component atoms and from atoms once more into electrons and protons or energy-points pure and simple, or otherwise as, in another direction, he extended his gaze from earth to the solar system, from the solar system to other starry systems, to far-off galaxies and I from galaxies to spaces beyond. The record of this double-track march to infinityas perceived or conceived by the physical sensesis marvellous, no doubt. The mystic offers the spectacle of a still more marvellous march to another kind of infinity.
Here is the Augustinian mantra taken as the motto of The Scale of Perfection: We ascend the ascending grades in our heart and we sing the song of ascension1. The journey's end is heavenly Jerusalem, the House of the Lord. The steps of this inner ascension are easily visible, not surely to the outer eye of the sense-burdened man, but to the "ghostly seeing" of the aspirant which is hazy in the beginning but slowly clears as he advances. The first step is the withdrawal from the outer senses and looking and seeing within. "Turn home again in thyself, and hold thee within and beg no more without." The immediate result is a darkness and a restless darknessit is a painful night. The outer objects of attraction and interest have been discarded, but the inner attachments and passions surge there still. If, however, one continues and persists, refuses to be drawn out, the turmoil settles down and the darkness begins to thin and wear away. One must not lose heart, one must have patience and perseverance. So when the outward world is no more-there and its call also no longer awakes any echo in us, then comes the stage of "restful darkness" or "light-some darkness". But it is still the dark Night of the soul. The outer light is gone and the inner light is not yet visible: the night, the desert, the great Nought, stretches between these two lights. But the true seeker goes through and comes out of the tunnel. And there is happiness at the end. "The seeking is travaillous, but the finding is blissful." When one steps out of the Night, enters into the deepest layer of the being, one stands face to face to one's soul, the very image of God, the perfect God-man, the Christ within. That is the third degree of our inner ascension, the entry into the deepest, purest and happiest statein which one becomes what he truly is; one finds the Christ there and dwells in love and union with him. But there is still a further step to take, and That is real ascension. For till now it has been a going within, from the outward to the inner and the inmost; now one has to go upward, transcend. Within the body, in life, however deep you may go, even if you find your soul and your union with Jesus whose tabernacle is your soul, still there is bound to remain a shadow of the sinful prison-house; the perfect bliss and purity without any earthly taint, the completeness and the crowning of the purgation and transfiguration can come only when you go beyond, leaving altogether the earthly form and worldly vesture and soar into Heaven itself and be in the company of the Trinity. "Into myself, and after... above myself by overpassing only into Him." At the same time it is pointed out, this mediaeval mystic has the common sense to see That the going in and going above of which one speaks must not be understood in a literal way, it is a figure of speech. The movement of the mystic is psychological"ghostly", it is saidnot physical or carnal.
This spiritual march or progress can also be described as a growing into the likeness of the Lord. His true self, his own image is implanted within us; he is there in the profoundest depth of our being as Jesus, our beloved and our soul rests in him in utmost bliss. We are aware neither of Jesus nor of his spouse, our soul, because of the obsession of the flesh, the turmoil raised by the senses, the blindness of pride and egoism. All That constitutes the first or old Adam, the image of Nought, the body of death which means at bottom the "false misruled love in to thyself." This self-love is the mother of sin, is sin itself. What it has to be replaced by is charity That is the true meaning of Christian charity, forgetfulness of self. "What is sin but a wanting and a forbearing of God." And the whole task, the discipline consists in "the shaping of Christ in you, the casting of sin through Christ." Who then is Christ, what is he? This knowledge you get as you advance from your sense-bound perception towards the inner and inmost seeing. As your outer nature gets purified, you approach gradually your soul, the scales fall off from your eyes too and you have the knowledge and "ghostly vision." Here too there are three degrees; first, you start with faith the senses can do nothing better than have faith; next, you rise to imagination which gives a sort of indirect touch or inkling of the truth; finally, you have the "understanding", the direct vision. "If he first trow it, he shall afterwards through grace feel it, and finally understand it."
It is never possible for man, weak and bound as he is, to reject the thraldom of his flesh, he can never purify himself wholly by his own unaided strength. God in his infinite mercy sent his own son, an emanation created out of his substancehis embodied loveas a human being to suffer along with men and take upon himself the burden of their sins. God the Son lived upon earth as man and died as man. Sin therefore has no longer its final or definitive hold upon mankind. Man has been made potentially free, pure and worthy of salvation. This is the mystery of Christ, of God the Son. But there is a further mystery. Christ not only lived for all men for all time, whether they know him, recognise him or not; but he still lives, he still chooses his beloved and his beloved chooses him, there is a conscious acceptance on either side. This is the function of the Holy Ghost, the redeeming power of Love active in him who accepts it and who is accepted by it, the dynamic Christ-Consciousness in the true Christian.
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The characteristic then of the path is a one-pointed concentration. Great stress is laid upon "oneliness", "onedness": That is to say, a perfect and complete withdrawal from the outside and the world; an unmixed solitude is required for the true experience and realisation to come. "A full forsaking in will of the soul for the love of Him, and a living of the heart to Him. This asks He, for this gave He." The rigorous exclusion, the uncompromising asceticism, the voluntary self-torture, the cruel dark night and the arid desert are necessary conditions That lead to the "onlyness of soul", what another prophet (Isaiah, XXIV, 16) describes as "My privity to me". In That secreted solitude, the "onlistead"the graphic language of the author calls itis found " That dignity and That ghostly fairness which a soul had by kind and shall have by grace." The utter beauty of the soul and its absolute love for her deity within her (which has the fair name of Jhesu), the exclusive concentration of the whole of the being upon one point, the divine core, the manifest Grace of God, justifies the annihilation of the world and life's manifold existence. Indeed, the image of the Beloved is always within, from the beginning to the end. It is That That keeps one up in the terrible struggle with one's nature and the world. The image depends upon the consciousness which we have at the moment, That is to say, upon the stage or the degree we have ascended to. At the outset, when we can only look through the senses, when the flesh is our master, we give the image a crude form and character; but even That helps. Gradually, as we rise, with the clearing of our nature, the image too slowly regains its original and true shape. Finally, in the inmost soul we find Jesus as he truly is: "an unchangeable being, a sovereign might, a sovereign soothfastness, sovereign goodness, a blessed life and endless bliss." Does not the Gita too say: "As one approaches Me, so do I appear to him."Ye yath mm prapadyante.
Indeed, it would be interesting to compare and contrast the Eastern and Western approach to Divine Love, the Christian and the Vaishnava, for example. Indian spirituality, whatever its outer form or credal formulation, has always a background of utter unity. This unity, again, is threefold or triune and is expressed in those great Upanishadic phrases,mahvkyas,(1) the transcendental unity: the One alone exists, there is nothing else than theOneekamevdvityam; (2) the cosmic unity: all existence is one, whatever exists is That One, thereare no separate existences:sarvam khalvidam brahma neha nnsti kincaa; (3) That One is I, you too are That One:so' ham, tattvamasi; this may be called the individual unity. As I have said, all spiritual experiences in India, of whatever school or line, take for granted or are fundamentally based upon this sense of absolute unity or identity. Schools of dualism or pluralism, who do not apparently admit in their tenets this extreme monism, are still permeated in many ways with That sense and in some form or other take cognizance of the truth of it. The Christian doctrine too says indeed, 'I and my Father in Heaven are one', but this is not identity, but union; besides, the human soul is not admitted into this identity, nor the world soul. The world, we have seen, according to the Christian discipline has to be altogether abandoned, negatived, as we go inward and upward towards our spiritual status reflecting the divine image in the divine company. It is a complete rejection, a cutting off and casting away of world and life. One extreme Vedantic path seems to follow a similar line, but there it is not really rejection, but a resolution, not the rejection of what is totally foreign and extraneous, but a resolution of the external into its inner and inmost substance, of the effect into its original cause. Brahman is in the world, Brahman is the world: the world has unrolled itself out of the Brahmansi, pravttiit has to be rolled back into its, cause and substance if it is to regain its pure nature ( That is the process of nivitti). Likewise, the individual being in the world, "I", is the transcendent being itself and when it withdraws, it withdraws itself and the whole world with it and merges into the Absolute. Even the Maya of the Mayavadin, although it is viewed as something not inherent in Brahman but superimposed upon Brahman, still, has been accepted as a peculiar power of Brahman itself. The Christian doctrine keeps the individual being separate practically, as an associate or at the most as an image of God. The love for one's neighbour, charity, which the Christian discipline enjoins is one's love for one's kind, because of affinity of nature and quality: it does not dissolve the two into an integral unity and absolute identity, where we love because we are one, because we are the One. The highest culmination of love, the very basis of love, according to the Indian conception, is a transcendence of love, love trans-muted into Bliss. The Upanishad says, where one has become the utter unity, who loves whom? To explain further our point, we take two examples referred to in the book we are considering. The true Christian, it is said, loves the sinner too, he is permitted to dislike sin, for he has to reject it, but he must separate from sin the sinner and love him. Why? Because the sinner too can change and become his brother in spirit, one loves the sinner because there is the possibility of his changing and becoming a true Christian. It is why the orthodox Christian, even such an enlightened and holy person as this mediaeval Canon, considers the non-Christian, the non-baptised as impure and potentially and fundamentally sinners. That is also why the Church, the physical organisation, is worshipped as Christ's very body and outside the Church lies the pagan world which has neither religion nor true spirituality nor salvation. Of course, all this may be symbolic and it is symbolic in a sense. If Christianity is taken to mean true spirituality, and the Church is equated with the collective embodiment of That spirituality, all That is claimed on their behalf stands justified. But That is an ideal, a hypothetical standpoint and can hardly be borne out by facts. However, to come back to our subject, let us ow take the second example. Of Christ himself, it is said, he not only did not dislike or had any aversion for Judas, but That he positively loved the traitor with a true and sincere love. He knew That the man would betray him and even when he was betraying and had betrayed, the Son of Man continued to love him. It was no make-believe or sham or pretence. It was genuine, as genuine as anything can be. Now, why did he love his enemy? Because, it is said, the enemy is suffered by God to do the misdeed: he has been allowed to test the faith of the faithful, he too has his utility, he too is God's servant. And who knows even a Judas would not change in the end? Many who come to scoff do remain to pray. But it can be asked, 'Does God love Satan too in the same way?' The Indian conception which is basically Vedantic is different. There is only one reality, one truth which is viewed differently. Whether a thing is considered good or evil or neutral, essentially and truly, it is That One and nothing else. God's own self is everywhere and the sage makes no difference between the Brahmin and the cow and the elephant. It is his own self he finds in every person and every objectsarvabhtsthitam yo mm bhajati ekatvamsthitah"he has taken his stand upon oneness and loves Me in all beings."2
This will elucidate another point of difference between the Christian's and the Vaishnava's love of God, for both are characterised by an extreme intensity and sweetness and exquisiteness of That divine feeling. This Christian's, however, is the union of the soul in its absolute purity and simplicity and "privacy" with her lord and master; the soul is shred here of all earthly vesture and goes innocent and naked into the embrace of her Beloved. The Vaishnava feeling is richer and seems to possess more amplitude; it is more concrete and less ethereal. The Vaishnava in his passionate yearning seeks to carry as it were the whole world with him to his Lord: for he sees and feels Him not only in the inmost chamber of his soul, but meets Him also in and I through his senses and in and through the world and its objects around. In psychological terms one can say That the Christian realisation, at its very source, is That of the inmost soul, what we call the "psychic being" pure and simple, referred to in the book we are considering; as: "His sweet privy voice... stirreth thine heart full stilly." Whereas the Vaishnava reaches out to his Lord with his outer heart too aflame with passion; not only his inmost being but his vital being also seeks the Divine. This bears upon the occult story of man's spiritual evolution upon earth. The Divine Grace descends from the highest into the deepest and from the deepest to the outer ranges of human nature, so That the whole of it may be illumined and transformed and one day man can embody in his earthly life the integral manifestation of God, the perfect Epiphany. Each religion, each line of spiritual discipline takes up one limb of manone level or mode of his being and consciousness purifies it and suffuses it with the spiritual and divine consciousness, so That in the end the whole of man, in his integral living, is recast and remoulded: each discipline is in charge of one thread as it were, all together weave the warp and woof in the evolution of the perfect pattern of a spiritualised and divinised humanity.
The conception of original sin is a cardinal factor in Christian discipline. The conception, of sinfulness is the very motive-power That drives the aspirant. "Seek tensely," it is said, "sorrow and sigh deep, mourn still, and stoop low till thine eye water for anguish and for pain." Remorse and grief are necessary attendants; the way of the cross is naturally the calvary strewn with pain and sorrow. It is the very opposite of what is termed the "sunlit path" in spiritual ascension. Christian mystics have made a glorious spectacle of the process of "dying to the world." Evidently, all do not go the whole length. There are less gloomy and happier temperaments, like the present one, for example, who show an unusual balance, a sturdy common sense even in the midst of their darkest nights, who have chalked out as much of the sunlit path as is possible in this line. Thus this old-world mystic says: it is true one must see and admit one's sinfulness, the grosser and apparent and more violent ones as well as all the subtle varieties of it That are in you or rise up in you or come from the Enemy. They pursue you till the very end of your journey. Still you need not feel overwhelmed or completely desperate. Once you recognise the sin in you, even the bare fact of recognition means for you half the victory. The mystic says, "It is no sin as thou feelest them." The day Jesus gave himself away on the Cross, since That very day you are free, potentially free from the bondage of sin. Once you give your adherence to Him, the Enemies are rendered powerless. "They tease the soul, but they harm not the soul". Or again, as the mystic graphically phrases it: "This soul is not borne in this image of sin as a sick man, though he feel it; but he beareth it." The best way of dealing with one's enemies is not to struggle and "strive with them." The aspirant, the lover of Jesus, must remember: "He is through grace reformed to the likeness of God ('in the privy substance of his soul within') though he neither feel it nor see it."
If you are told you are still full of sins and you are not worthy to follow the path, That you must go and work out your sins first, here is your answer: "Go shrive thee better: trow not this saying, for it is false, for thou art shriven. Trust securely That thou art on the way, and thee needeth no ransacking of shrift for That That is passed, hold forth thy way and think on Jerusalem." That is to say, do not be too busy with the difficulties of the moment, but look ahead, as far as possible, fix your attention upon the goal, the intermediate steps will become easy. Jerusalem is another name of the Love of Jesus or the Bliss in Heaven. Grow in this love, your sins will fade away of themselves. "Though thou be thrust in an house with thy body, nevertheless in thine heart, where the stead of love is, thou shouldst be able to have part of That love... " What exquisite utterance, what a deep truth!
Indeed, there are one or two points, notes for the guidance of the aspirant, which I would like to mention here for their striking appositeness and simple "soothfastness." First of all with regard to the restless enthusiasm and eagerness of a novice, here is the advice given: "The fervour is so mickle in outward showing, is not only for mickleness of love That they have; but it is for littleness and weakness of their souls, That they may not bear a little touching of God.. afterward when love hath boiled out all the uncleanliness, then is the love clear and standeth still, and then is both the body and the soul mickle more in peace, and yet hath the self soul mickle more love than it had before, though it shew less outward." And again: "without any fervour outward shewed, and the less it thinketh That it loveth or seeth God, the nearer it nigheth" ('it' naturally refers to the soul). The statement is beautifully self-luminous, no explanation is required. Another hurdle That an aspirant has to face often in the passage through the Dark Night is That you are left all alone, That you are deserted by your God, That the Grace no longer favours you. Here is however the truth of the matter; "when I fall down to my frailty, then Grace withdraweth: for my falling is cause there-of, and not his fleeing." In fact, the Grace never withdraws, it is we who withdraw and think otherwise. One more difficulty That troubles the beginner especially is with regard to the false light. The being of darkness comes in the form of the angel of light, imitates the tone of the still small voice; how to recognise, how to distinguish the two? The false light, the "feigned sun" is always found "atwixt two black rainy clouds" : they are "highing" of oneself and "lowing" of others. When you feel flattered and elated, beware it is the siren voice tempting you. The true light brings you soothing peace and meekness: the other light brings always a trail of darknessf you are soothfast and sincere you will discover it if not near you, somewhere at a distance lurking.
The ultimate truth is That God is the sole doer and the best we can do is to let him do freely without let or hindrance. "He That through Grace may see Jhesu, how That He doth all and himself doth right nought but suffereth Jhesu work in him what him liketh, he is meek." And yet one does not arrive at That condition from the beginning or all at once. "The work is not of the hour nor of a day, but of many days and years." And for a long time one has to take up one's burden and work, co-operate with the Divine working. In the process there is this double movement necessary for the full achievement. "Neither Grace only without full working of a soul That in it is nor working done without grace bringeth a soul to reforming but That one joined to That other." Mysticism is not all eccentricity and irrationality: on the contrary, sanity seems to be the very character of the higher mysticism. And it is this sanity, and even a happy sense of humour accompanying it, That makes the genuine mystic teacher say: "It is no mastery to me for to say it, but for to do it there is mastery." Amen.
Ascendimus ascensiones in corde et cantamus canticum graduum." Confessions of St. Augustine XIII. 9.
01.09 - The Parting of the Way, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
To be divine or to remain humanthis is the one choice That is now before Nature in her upward march of evolution. What is the exact significance of this choice?
To remain human means to continue the fundamental nature of man. In what consists the humanity of man? We can ascertain it by distinguishing what forms the animality of the animal, since That will give us the differentia That nature has evolved to raise man over the animal. The animal, again, has a characteristic differentiating it from the vegetable world, which latter, in its turn, has something to mark it off from the inorganic world. The inorganic, the vegetable, the animal and finally manthese are the four great steps of Nature's evolutionary course.
The differentia, in each case, lies in the degree and nature of consciousness, since it is consciousness That forms the substance and determines the mode of being. Now, the inorganic is characterised by un-consciousness, the vegetable by sub-consciousness, the animal by consciousness and man by self-consciousness. Man knows That he knows, an animal only knows; a plant does not even know, it merely feels or senses; matter cannot do That even, it simply acts or rather is acted upon. We are not concerned here, however, with the last two forms of being; we will speak of the first two only.
We say, then, That man is distinguished from the animal by his having consciousness as it has, but added to it the consciousness of self. Man acts and feels and knows as much as the animal does; but also he knows That he acts, he knows That he feels, he knows That he knowsand this is a thing the animal cannot do. It is the awakening of the sense of self in every mode of being That characterises man, and it is owing to this consciousness of an ego behind, of a permanent unit of reference, which has modified even the functions of knowing and feeling and acting, has refashioned them in a mould which is not quite That of the animal, in spite of a general similarity.
So the humanity of man consists in his consciousness of the self or ego. Is there no other higher mode of consciousness? Or is self-consciousness the acme, the utmost limit to which consciousness can raise itself? If it is so, then we are bound to conclude That humanity will remain eternally human in its fundamental nature; the only progress, if progress at all we choose to call it, will consist perhaps in accentuating this consciousness of the self and in expressing it through a greater variety of stresses, through a richer combination of its colour and light and shade and rhythm. But also, this may not be sothere may be the possibility of a further step, a transcending of the consciousness of the self. It seems unnatural and improbable That having risen from un-consciousness to self-consciousness through a series of continuous marches, Nature should suddenly stop and consider what she had achieved to be her final end. Has Nature become bankrupt of her creative genius, exhausted of her upward drive? Has she to remain content with only a clever manipulation, a mere shuffling and re-arranging of the materials already produced?
As a matter of fact it is not so. The glimpses of a higher form of consciousness we can see even now present in self-consciousness. We have spoken of the different stages of evolution as if they were separate and distinct and incommensurate entities. They may be described as such for the purpose of a logical understanding, but in reality they form a single progressive continuum in which one level gradually fuses into another. And as the higher level takes up the law of the lower and evolves out of it a characteristic function, even so the law of the higher level with its characteristic function is already involved and envisaged in the law of the lower level and its characteristic function. It cannot be asserted positively That because man's special virtue is self-consciousness, animals cannot have That quality on any account. We do see, if we care to observe closely and dispassionately, That animals of the higher order, as they approach the level of humanity, show more and more evident signs of something which is very much akin to, if not identical with the human characteristic of self-consciousness.
So, in man also, especially of That order which forms the crown of humanityin poets and artists and seers and great men of actioncan be observed a certain characteristic form of consciousness, which is something other than, greater than the consciousness of the mere self. It is difficult as yet to characterise definitely what That thing is. It is the awakening of the self to something which is beyond itselfit is the cosmic self, the oversoul, the universal being; it is God, it is Turiya, it is sachchidanandain so many ways the thing has been sought to be envisaged and expressed. The consciousness of That level has also a great variety of names given to it Intuition, Revelation, cosmic consciousness, God-consciousness. It is to be noted here, however, That the thing we are referring to, is not the Absolute, the Infinite, the One without a second. It is not, That is to say, the supreme Reality the Brahmanin its static being, in its undivided and indivisible unity; it is the dynamic Brahman, That status of the supreme Reality where creation, the diversity of Becoming takes rise, it is the Truth-worldRitam the domain of typal realities. The distinction is necessary, as there does seem to be such a level of consciousness intermediary, again, between man and the Absolute, between self-consciousness and the supreme consciousness. The simplest thing would be to give That intermediate level of consciousness a negative namesince being as yet human we cannot foresee exactly its composition and function the super-consciousness.
The inflatus of something vast and transcendent, something which escapes all our familiar schemes of cognisance and yet is insistent with a translucent reality of its own, we do feel sometimes within us invading and enveloping our individuality, lifting up our sense of self and transmuting our personality into a reality which can hardly be called merely human. All this life of ego-bound rationality then melts away and opens out the passage for a life of vision and power. Thus it is the poet has felt when he says, "there is this incalculable element in human life influencing us from the mystery which envelops our being, and when reason is satisfied, there is something deeper than Reason which makes us still uncertain of truth. Above the human reason there is a transcendental sphere to which the spirit of men sometimes rises, and the will may be forged there at a lordly smithy and made the unbreakable pivot."(A.E.)
This passage from the self-conscient to the super-conscient does not imply merely a shifting of the focus of consciousness. The transmutation of consciousness involves a purer illumination, a surer power and a wider compass; it involves also a fundamental change in the very mode of being and living. It gives quite a different life-intuition and a different life-power. The change in the motif brings about a new form altogether, a re-casting and re-shaping and re-energising of the external materials as well. As the lift from mere consciousness to self-consciousness meant all the difference between an animal and a man, so the lift again from self-consciousness to super-consciousness will mean the difference of a whole world between man and the divine creature That is to be.
Indeed it is a divine creature That should be envisaged on the next level of evolution. The mental and the moral, the psychical and the physical transfigurations which must follow the change in the basic substratum do imply such a mutation, the birth of a new species, as it were, fashioned in the nature of the gods. The vision of angels and Siddhas, which man is having ceaselessly since his birth, may be but a prophecy of the future actuality.
This then, it seems to us, is the immediate problem That Nature has set before herself. She is now at the parting of the ways. She has done with man as an essentially human being, she has brought out the fundamental possibilities of humanity and perfected it, so far as perfection may be attained within the cadre by which she chose to limit herself; she is now looking forward to another kind of experiment the evolving of another life, another being out of her entrails, That will be greater than the humanity we know today, That will be superior even to the supreme That has yet been actualised.
Nature has marched from the unconscious to the sub-conscious, from the sub-conscious to the conscious and from the conscious to the self-conscious; she has to rise yet again from the self-conscious to the super-conscious. The mineral gave place to the plant, the plant gave place to the animal and the animal gave place to man; let man give place to and bring out the divine.
01.09 - William Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The ideal was Blake's. It will not sound so revolting if we understand what the poet meant by Hell. Hell, he explains, is simply the body, the Energy of Lifehell, because body and life on earth were so considered by the orthodox Christianity. The Christian ideal demands an absolute denial and rejection of life. Fulfilment is elsewhere, in heaven alone. That is, as we know, the ideal of the ascetic. The life of the spirit (in heaven) is a thing away from and stands against the life of the flesh (on earth). In the face of this discipline, countering it, Blake posited a union, a marriage of the two, considered incompatibles and incommensurables. Enfant terrible That he was, he took an infinite delight in a spirit of contradiction and went on expatiating on the glory of the misalliance. He declared a new apocalypse and said That Lucifer, the one called Satan, was the real God, the so-called Messiah the fake one: the apparent Milton spoke in praise of God and in dispraise of Satan, but the real, the esoteric Milton glorified Satan, who is the true God and minimised or caricatured the counterfeit or shadow God. Here is Blakean Bible in a nutshell:
But first the notion That man has a body distinct from his soul is to be expunged.. . . If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.
The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, the mouth of water, the beard of earth.
Such is to be the ideal, the perfect, the spiritual man. Have we here the progenitor of the Nietzschean Superman? Both smell almost the same sulphurous atmosphere. But That also seems to lie in the direction to which the whole world is galloping in its evolutionary course. Humanity in its agelong travail has passed through the agony, one might say, of two extreme and opposite experiences, which are epitomised in the classic phrasing of Sri Aurobindo as: (1) the Denial of the Materialist and (2) the Refusal of the Ascetic.1 Neither, however, the Spirit alone nor the body alone is man's reality; neither only the earth here nor only the heaven there embodies man's destiny. Both have to be claimed, both have to belivedubhayameva samrt, as the old sage, Yajnavalkya, declared.
The earliest dream of humanity is also the last fulfilment. The Vedic Rishis sang of the marriage of heaven and earthHeaven is my father and this Earth my mother. And Blake and Nietzsche are fiery apostles of That dream and ideal in an age crippled with doubt, falsehood, smallness, crookedness, impotence, colossal ignorance.
We welcome voices That speak of this ancient tradition, this occult Knowledge of a high Future. Recently we have come across one aspirant in the line, and being a contemporary, his views and reviews in the matter will be all the more interesting to us.2 He is Gustave Thibon, a Frenchman-not a priest or even a religious man in the orthodox sense in any way, but a country farmer, a wholly self-educated laque. Of late he has attracted a good deal of attention from intellectuals as well as religious people, especially the Catholics, because of his remarkable conceptions which are so often unorthodox and yet so often ringing true with an old-world au thenticity.
Touching the very core of the malady of our age he says That our modern enlightenment seeks to cancel altogether the higher values and install instead the lower alone as true. Thus, for example, Marx and Freud, its twin arch priests, are brothers. Both declare That it is the lower, the under layer alone That matters: to one "the masses", to the other "the instincts". Their wild imperative roars: "Sweep away this pseudo-higher; let the instincts rule, let the pro-letariat dictate!" But more characteristic, Monsieur Thibon has made another discovery which gives the whole value and speciality to his outlook. He says the moderns stress the lower, no doubt; but the old world stressed only the higher and neglected the lower. Therefore the revolt and wrath of the lower, the rage of Revanche in the heart of the dispossessed in the modern world. Enlightenment meant till now the cultivation and embellishment of the Mind, the conscious Mind, the rational and nobler faculties, the height and the depth: and mankind meant the princes and the great ones. In the individual, in the scheme of his culture and education, the senses were neglected, left to go their own way as they pleased; and in the collective field, the toiling masses in the same way lived and moved as best as they could under the economics of laissez-faire. So Monsieur Thibon concludes: "Salvation has never come from below. To look for it from above only is equally vain. No doubt salvation must come from the higher, but on condition That the higher completely adopts and protects the lower." Here is a vision luminous and revealing, full of great import, if we follow the right track, prophetic of man's true destiny. It is through this infiltration of the higher into the lower and the integration of the lower into the higher That mankind will reach the goal of its evolution, both individually and collectively.
But the process, Monsieur Thibon rightly asserts, must begin with the individual and within the individual. Man must "turn within, feel alive within himself", re-establish his living contact with God, the source and origin from which he has cut himself off. Man must learn to subordinate having to being. Each individual must be himself, a free and spontaneous expression. Upon such individual , upon individuals grouped naturally in smaller collectivities and not upon unformed or ill-formed wholesale masses can a perfect human society be raised and will be raised. Monsieur Thibon insistsand very rightlyupon the variety and diversity of individual and local growths in a unified humanity and not a dead uniformity of regimented oneness. He declares, as the reviewer of the London Times succinctly puts it: "Let us abolish our insensate worship of number. Let us repeal the law of majorities. Let us work for the unity That draws together instead of idolizing the multiplicity That disintegrates. Let us understand That it is not enough for each to have a place; what matters is That each should be in his right place. For the atomized society let us substitute an organic society, one in which every man will be free to do what he alone is qualified and able to do."
So far so good. For it is not far enough. The being or becoming That is demanded in fulfilment of the divine advent in humanity must go to the very roots of life and nature, must seize God in his highest and sovereign status. No prejudice of the past, no notion of our mental habits must seek to impose its law. Thus, for example, in the matter of redeeming the senses by the influx of the higher light, our author seems to consider That the senses will remain more or less as they are, only they will be controlled, guided, used by the higher light. And he seems to think That even the sex relation (even the institution of marriage) may continue to remain, but sublimated, submitted to the laws of the Higher Order. This, according to us, is a dangerous compromise and is simply the imposition of the lower law upon the higher. Our view of the total transformation and divinisation of the Lower is altogether different. The Highest must come down wholly and inhabit in the Lowest, the Lowest must give up altogether its own norms and lift itself into the substance and form too of the Highest.
Viewed in this light, Blake's memorable mantra attains a deeper and more momentous significance. For it is not merely Earth the senses and life and Matter That are to be uplifted and affianced to Heaven, but all That remains hidden within the bowels of the Earth, the subterranean regions of man's consciousness, the slimy viscous undergrowths, the darkest horrors and monstrosities That man and nature hide in their subconscient and inconscient dungeons of material existence, all these have to be laid bare to the solar gaze of Heaven, burnt or transmuted as demanded by the law of That Supreme Will. That is the Hell That has to be recognised, not rejected and thrown away, but taken up purified and transubstantiated into the body of Heaven itself. The hand of the Highest Heaven must extend and touch the Lowest of the lowest elements, transmute it and set it in its rightful place of honour. A mortal body reconstituted into an immemorial fossil, a lump of coal revivified into a flashing carat of diamond- That shows something of the process underlying the nuptials of which we are speaking.
The Life Divine
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
attack That can manifest as an illness. But, as you clearly experienced in your dream, if you are not frightened and go on your
way unperturbed, nothing bad will happen to you.
--
Here our activities are so varied That it is difficult to
stick to one thing till the end. Perhaps That is why we
are not able to go beyond a mediocre average. Or is it
--
One must learn to concentrate and do all That one does with
full concentration.
--
rest is simply an excuse That our laziness gives to itself.
15 July 1961
--
have That feeling?
There must still be some insincerity in your being, hidden in
a dark corner, something That does not want to change and is
afraid of the Light.
--
Today I did not have That feeling of apprehension
about coming to You, but I was in a passive state. I
--
so self-centred." It is quite true That we are taking life
very lightly, and it has become so natural That we believe
it to be the right attitude. And we are self-centred. How
--
action at the centre of the universe so That it exists only in terms
of oneself - one is part of the universe. One can unite with it,
--
In Aphorism 95, Sri Aurobindo says That it is only
by renunciation or by perfect satisfaction of desire That
one can have the total experience of God.2 But isn't
--
Elsewhere he says explicitly That it is useless to try to satisfy
desire, for desire is insatiable and can never be satisfied.
--
incense-stick. But how is it That I wake up early because
of That? There is no relation between these two things!
On the contrary, there is a very concrete relation. When you
--
explain to me what exactly it is That you enjoy in detective
stories.
--
finish one of his books, I feel That I have gained nothing,
learned nothing new - That it was a waste of time.
It is not absolutely useless. You probably had a great deal of
--
it is That we take part in as many items as possible in the
2nd December programme.3 Would it not be better to
--
Each one acts according to his nature and if he (or she) courageously and sincerely follows the law of That nature, he or she
acts according to truth. Thus, it is impossible to judge and decide
--
In Aphorism 133, Sri Aurobindo says That "the gods
were able to accept only the pleasant burden of His love
--
For a long time I have noticed That I am rather shy.
I always have an inferiority complex. I think I am afraid
--
Behind all That and this famous inferiority complex, there is the
ego and its vanity which wants to cut a good figure and be
--
You have often told us That our activities should be
an offering to the Divine. What does this mean exactly,
--
It means That what you do should not be done with a personal,
egoistic aim, for success, for glory, for gain, for material profit or
--
and to feel That it is the Divine who acts in you, His force That
impels you and His will That supports you - not just a mental
knowledge, but the sincerity of a state of consciousness and the
--
For That to be possible, all egoistic motives and all egoistic
reactions must disappear.
--
I pray to You, on behalf of everyone, That this
evening's demonstration may be a success. Everyone
thinks it will be the opposite. It is true That our performance is not up to the mark. I hope and I pray to You
That the performance this evening may be at its best.
--
as was done before. That is my opinion.
The ceremony in itself is only of secondary importance. It is
--
Sri Aurobindo says That five thousand years have
passed since the great battle of Kurukshetra was fought.
--
ended only yesterday with Rani Lakshmibai.6 After That,
to protect India and the world anew, there had to be a
--
which is dormant. Sri Aurobindo also says That it is only
in the Kaliyuga9 That the Divine manifests fully because
man is in great danger in this age. And here he is! He
himself reveals the great secret: the Divine has fully manifested in India. But he has the modesty not to say That
he himself is this manifestation!
--
establish a programme That will satisfy everyone and
be as effective as possible for all the members? Are the
--
I heard this morning That X was very severely beaten
by Y. I don't think it is fair at all.
--
and even then... What knowledge do you possess That gives you
the right to judge? Only the Lord sees and knows - He alone is
--
Sometimes I have the impression That our leaders do not
seem to have the sort of backbone displayed by Kennedy
--
dispute That in the same circumstances one can do better than he.
Do you feel capable of being an unequalled Prime Minister
--
Do not forget - all of you who are here - That we want to
realise something which does not yet exist upon earth; so it is
--
He also told me this: "Mother says That there is full
freedom and every facility for those who are gifted in
--
Remember That all these individual virtues and faults are only the
deceptive appearance of a great play of universal forces which
--
you will one day realise That it is the Divine in her That you love
and That the outer person is merely a pretext.
27 January 1963
--
Meditate where you meditate best - That is to say, wherever you
are most silent and calm.
--
I call That mental fermentation. As soon as your waking consciousness falls asleep or leaves your body, the brain-cells you
have not taken the trouble to quiet down begin to fidget restlessly
--
in That way You can decide what is necessary or best for
me. But I am advised to keep as much as I want for my
--
people will say That I ask for anything I want just because
I have given You a little money. Mother, what do You
--
Do as you feel - and you may be sure That whatever you do,
people will always have something to say.
--
It all depends on one's point of view. It is quite possible That
one will obtain the thing one has prayed for. But for spiritual
--
immediately to dispel my psychological pain. For something tells me: "All That happens is done for your own
good and is done by the Divine Grace." Is it good, is it
--
without which one cannot advance at all. That is why I always
say: "Whatever you do, do the best you can, and leave the result
--
I have often noticed That the work we do is done
much better and more quickly than if it were done by
--
having lost both legs in an accident, he vowed That he
would continue his career as a pilot. He is a man of
--
opposite idea, then look for the synthesis of both - That is, find
a third idea which harmonises the other two.
--
Man is so weak That he is influenced even by the
wind That blows about him, by a book he reads or a
picture he sees. He is most vulnerable.
--
Before criticising others, it is better to be sure That one is perfectly
sincere oneself.
--
idea That woman is a dangerous being who entices you into sin.
In children, all this is still subconscious, but it influences their
--
like That.
How frivolous and superficial people must be to attach importance to such things!! Even so, if you wore those clothes in
--
upon earth to fulfil a mission? That is not my conception
- what are beggars and people like That doing?
Who said That? And what "mission" are you referring to? The
creation is a single whole advancing as a totality towards its
--
I have heard That You have written somewhere That
each person here in the Ashram represents a particular
human difficulty, and That this difficulty will be mastered
and transformed in him in his lifetime.10
--
You have explained That this separation of girls and
boys is atavistic, but it remains to ask You what we captains should do about it. Personally, I think it is better to
--
give advice or even to scold. I think That by closing one's
eyes to it, one minimises the importance of the problem
--
thought) against the very little discipline That is demanded when
it is utterly indispensable, as in physical education, for example.
--
I think That in order to progress one should be a little
bolder.
--
they asked the sculptor: "How did you know That this
figure was there in the stone?"
--
nothing - is That it is "the Divine's play". It is incomprehensible.
That is an easy answer which one gives when one will not or
--
at least know what yoga means - as for practising it, That is
another matter!...
--
In this case, I said That you should be given some incense, but
I am not sure if it has been done. It is X who keeps it and you
--
I told her That blaming oneself was perhaps not always
saintly or healthy.
--
That it is not due to any fault of hers That he is inconstant and
fickle - it is his nature to be like That and he acts according to
his nature - but if she suffers and is unhappy because of what
he does, then it is her own fault, for it means That her own feeling
is tainted with egoism. It is this egoism That she must conquer,
and as soon as she does she will no longer suffer.
--
Yes, That is what Sri Aurobindo has written many times; man
clings to his misery, his pettiness, his weakness, his ignorance
and his limits - That is why he does not change.
24 September 1963
--
released into freedom is the liberator."12 What does That
mean? How can law be released into freedom? By law we
--
flexibility That is required, as opposed to rigidity: law That
will be free to mould itself according to circumstances?
I regret to have to tell you That you have understood absolutely
nothing of what Sri Aurobindo has written - for you have tried
--
on the right track, is That behind law there is a spirit of order
and organisation. But law itself is something fixed and therefore
--
means of attaining liberation, That is to say, union with the Truth.
29 September 1963
--
My child, That is exactly what I have been trying to do for quite
"Law cannot save the world, therefore Moses' ordinances are dead for humanity
--
It is with That disciplinary aim That I asked you to write one
single sentence a day - it did not have to be long, but it ought
--
One would think That even if you read your notebook when
I return it to you, you do not study it and try to use it as a means
--
There is no habit That cannot be changed.
14 October 1963
--
It seems That a list of books (English classics) was
sent to You for Your approval, but That You wish only
the works of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo to be read.
You have even remarked That to read these old classics
is to lower the level of one's consciousness.
--
Some extracts from Savitri, That marvellous prophetic poem
which will be humanity's guide towards its future realisation.
--
contented. But time passes so quickly That one feels one
has not made the most out of what is given to us.
That proves That life is too easy here and That for the most part
you are all too tamasic to make an effort unless goaded by the
--
I hope That this new year will see the reawakening of your soul
and the awakening in your consciousness of a will to progress.
--
correct it. But the weeks go by and I see That it is impossible. I
am therefore returning it to you without having read it, and I ask
--
You blessed me That I may be born to the true life,
but what are the conditions needed to be born to That
life and how can they be fulfilled?
--
To live for the Divine means to offer all That one does to the
Divine without desiring a personal result from what one does.
--
day the experience comes and one feels That the offering made is
made to something real, tangible, concrete and beneficent. The
--
it, you may do so, knowing That it will not help you in any way
to make progress - That it will only give your body the illusion
of being more comfortable.
--
rajas, activity. That is why, as a general rule, the intrusion of the
vital in the form of ambition, emulation and vanity, compels the
--
are diminutions, limitations and deformations of That Love. Even
the love of the bhakta for his God is a diminution and often is
--
It would seem That in your situation, the best solution would
be to use your mutual attachment to unite your efforts in a
--
what the other needs to attain That goal.
10 June 1964
--
Is it because we have defects in ourselves That we
cannot tolerate them in others? What is the origin of the
--
Later on, you come to understand That others are a mirror
reflecting the image of what you are.
--
its own discipline in all its details. All That can be studied, learned
and practised. But according to Sri Aurobindo's teaching, each
--
result. That is why he advised those who want to follow the
integral yoga to find their own discipline, based on the ancient
--
I thought That illness came from some impurity or
weakness in the being, but what does this epidemic in
--
only result is That I get a headache, a kind of dizziness,
but as soon as I open my eyes everything becomes normal
--
This means That you are not yet ready for a spiritual discipline
and That you must wait until life has moulded you a little more
and your psychic consciousness awakens from the slumber in
--
should I do, apart from aspiring That the Mother may
pull me out of the slumber and awaken my psychic
--
Ashram is, how can we give him a reply That is both
short and correct?
--
People often say That our food does not contain
enough vitamins and protein. The doctors claim That this
is why we have so much physical and bodily suffering.14
--
truth begins and ends with the body, it is evident That food is of
capital importance since they live to eat.
Beside this sentence, the Mother wrote: "So much as That???"
Series Ten - To a Young Captain
--
to find such a body That we need not speak of it.
Apart from That, one must act for the best and not attach
too much importance to it.
--
both these methods is That you deceive yourself, you delude
yourself That you have overcome your desires, whereas at best
you are merely sitting on them - they remain repressed in the
--
It is from within That you must become master of your lower
nature by establishing your consciousness firmly in a domain
--
Why do you say That sensitivity is the sign of a strong ego? It
does not seem to be evident at all. Moreover, there are many
--
himself That the individual arrives at That state of divinisation
which liberates him from the ego.
--
progress still remaining to be made is so considerable That there
is no reason to stop on the way to assess the ground one has
--
The perception That some progress has been made should
come spontaneously, by the sudden and unexpected awareness
--
before. That is all - but That in itself requires a fairly high degree
of development of the consciousness.
--
the progress one has made, That is to say, the results of
the past, but the state one is in. I do not want to assess
--
consciousness grows enough to have an overall view That one
can see exactly what is happening. But in order to be sure of
--
I heard That an astrologer has predicted That in six
months' time Lal Bahadur Shastri will no longer be
Prime Minister and That he will be replaced by Indira
Gandhi, but only for a fortnight. Then a period of chaos
in the Government will follow. After That, a young man
will appear on the scene who will be guided by a divine
--
That what one is doing is right and That one is sincere?
How can one know That one is mistaken?
The very fact of being mistaken proves That one is not sincere
in some part of the being. For the psychic being knows and is
--
the physical life and you understand and appreciate only That.
The two extremes always alternate in experience until one has
--
with Him so That He may be your enemy"16 (implying That you
are sure to be conquered by Him). It is a humorous remark, but
it means That of all conditions, inertia is the worst.
Aspiration is the only remedy - an aspiration That rises
constantly like a clear flame burning up all the impurities of
--
be sure That nothing is forgotten or neglected in the haste to
reach the goal. Few are ready for a total consecration. Many
--
before they can be ready for the divine work, and That is why
they leave to undergo the test of ordinary life.
--
rather than a virtue, for I feel That I take them upon
myself in order to end the matter as quickly as possible
--
Mother, I also feel That I have a very strong inferiority complex.
Where does all this come from and how can I get
--
strange That he is not yet recognised, at least as a supreme
creator, a pure artist, a poet par excellence! So I tell myself That my judgments, my appreciations are influenced
by my devotion for the Master - and not everyone is
--
sincerely and give oneself unreservedly to his work. In That
way, each one does his best and contributes as much as he can
--
one tries during meditation, the thought That one must
not think of anything is always there.
It is not during meditation That one must learn to be silent,
because the very fact of trying makes a noise.
--
- then, when one succeeds in That, silence comes automatically.
9 December 1964
--
Sri Aurobindo has said somewhere That if we surrender to the Divine Grace, it will do everything for us.
Then what is the value of tapasya?
--
subject, you must at least read all he has written on That subject.
You will then see That he seems to have said the most contradictory things. But when one has read everything and understood
a little, one sees That all the contradictions complement one
another and are organised and unified in an integral synthesis.
--
you That your question is an ignorant one. There are many others
which you could read to advantage and which will make your
--
possible in the beginning, it follows That personal effort is necessary."17
16 December 1964
--
one's movements - those That come from the light of truth and
those That come from the old inertia and falsehood - in order
to accept the first and to refuse or reject the others.
--
clearly, but one can establish as a general rule That all That
tends towards disharmony, disorder and inertia comes from
the falsehood and all That favours union, harmony, order and
consciousness comes from the Truth.
--
and men so That the new creation may take place, and if we
On the evening of February 11, many Ashram buildings were stoned, burned or
--
I am surprised That after having lived in the Ashram for
so long, you can still think in this way and be open to this
--
the nobility of the human character or an idea That we are here
to establish mental and moral and social Truth and justice on
--
of ego. So long as That basis is not established, a sadhak is only
an ignorant and imperfect human being struggling with the evils
--
It is true That man is essentially divine, but at present, apart
from a few very rare exceptions, man is quite unconscious of the
--
I have already written to you That our gratitude should go
to the Divine and That as for men what is required is an attitude
of goodwill, understanding and mutual help.
--
When can one say with certitude That one has started
Sri Aurobindo's yoga? What is the sure sign of it?
--
It depends on the part of one's being That awakens first and
responds to Sri Aurobindo's influence.
--
divine. But I feel That I am in a virgin forest in which I
have lost my sense of direction. Where exactly am I?
--
The real landmarks on the way are the spontaneous experiences, not those That come from a mental formation and are
always unreliable.
--
The experience must come first and the explanation afterwards. That is why Sri Aurobindo has said: Never distrust your
experience; but you may distrust your explanation, which is a
--
from bias and preference) That one gradually learns to discern
the one from the other.
--
you: (1) That on getting up, before starting the day, it is good
to make an offering of this day to the Divine, an offering of all
That one thinks, all That one is, all That one will do; (2) and at
night, before going to sleep, it is good to review the day, taking
--
offering of one's self or one's action, and to aspire or pray That
these lapses do not recur.
--
do you mean by this? Does it suggest That good habits
are not necessary in the yoga?
--
well That they would not?21
The Divine often advises or tries to guide man,
knowing very well That His help will be refused. Why
then does He do it?
--
You say That to hope to partake of the new realisation, "you must feel That this world is ugly, stupid, brutal
and full of intolerable suffering".22 But what would be
the state of one who feels That everything here is the play
Sri Aurobindo sent a special messenger to Delhi advising Indian leaders to accept,
--
for India. Sri Aurobindo held That this proposal conferred essential independence on
India by putting her on a par with the various Dominions already associated with the
--
It is in the depths of the consciousness, beyond the mind, That one
can in all sincerity have the experience That all is the Divine and
That only the Divine exists. But the manifestation is progressive,
--
is not indispensable That he should have opinions, and still less
That he should air them.
It is ignorance That has opinions.
Knowledge knows.
--
Is this dynamis That of aspiration? If so, could one
say That aspiration is a purified desire?
One can say whatever one likes, provided one knows what one
--
the sincerity of the experience That count.
23 June 1965
--
the body is complete, That means no subjection to
death.... One creates a new body for oneself when
--
What he means is That when one will have the power to withdraw the physical body from the influence of death, the power of
transformation will be such That one will also be able to change
the form of That body at will.
14 July 1965
--
What do You mean by "to change the form of That
body at will"? For example, will a hundred-year old man
--
the nerve That conveys this sensation to the brain. How
can this be done?
I did not say "cut the nerve" - That would be a surgical operation! I said, cut the conscious connection with the brain.
It is an occult operation, certainly more difficult than the
--
better, their admiration begins to wane and they find That
Ashram people are far more egoistic than people from
--
Sometimes it is like That, as a matter of fact, and sometimes it is
the opposite: at first a total incomprehension, but later, little by
--
sees and feels That which corresponds to his own nature.
To tell the truth, it doesn't matter at all.
--
I really feel That there is a great lack of harmony
and cooperation here among us and among the various departments. This results in a great waste of money
--
debt That must be paid to Rudra?
Here is the whole quotation which I had prepared in advance for
--
am sending it to you so That your question becomes unnecessary.
"No real peace can be till the heart of man deserves peace;
--
oneness there must be, for by That way must come the ultimate
salvation. But not till the Time-Spirit in man is ready, can the
--
the powers That are profiteers of egoistic force and their servants
On September 1, Pakistan invaded India's border at Jammu-Kashmir.
--
Government's acceptance of the cease-fire the best That
could be done under the circumstances?27
--
I often feel, and very concretely too, That You are
constantly protecting me from all the misfortunes of life.
--
One sees That the world as a whole is presently in
a sort of disequilibrium and chaos. Does this mean That
it is preparing for the manifestation of a new force, for
--
of Truth That India is fighting and must fight until India and Pakistan have become One
because That is the truth of their being."
Series Ten - To a Young Captain
--
We know That we should not do certain things and
we do not really want to do them, but still we do them.
--
can be done only through division of labour, and That
necessitates the formation of a group, hierarchicised, if
--
Every group, if it is a real one - That is, one made up according to the ability of the individuals who compose it - must
necessarily be hierarchical.
--
(1) First, when the group is incomplete - That is, when
it does not have all the members necessary to constitute the
--
Those who are pure - That is to say, exclusively under the
Divine influence - have no fear.
--
You write in Your Conversations: "Each time That
something of the Divine Truth and the Divine Force
--
It is an ironic way of saying That the most difficult cases, from
the standpoint of transformation, are gathered here to concretise
--
If most people here think and feel like That, it is an obvious proof
That most are not at all ready for the new life, nor even ready to
--
By the very fact That you are living on earth, you are doing a
yoga, even if you do not know it; and by the very fact That you
are living here, you are helped in your yoga to the utmost of
--
You say That "by the very fact That you are living
on earth, you are doing a yoga" and You also told me
--
(1) "By the very fact That you are living on earth,
you are doing a yoga" - do You mean That it is the yoga
of the natural and inevitable progress of evolution?
--
to practise the yoga" - That is to say, only for those who
are practising consciously?
--
(3) "Not everyone here is meant for yoga" - That
is, they are incapable of doing it consciously?
--
We are supposed to be attempting something That
no one has ever tried before. But, Mother, isn't it true
--
life? In That case, aren't we straying from the true path?
You are still in the old rut That separates spirituality from life.
Whereas Sri Aurobindo has declared, "All life is Yoga" and
affirmed That it is in life That one must do Yoga. You seem to
have forgotten this.
--
most important thing, the thing you feel That you couldn't do
without.
--
Anger is a violent reaction of the vital to some shock That
is unpleasant to it; and when it involves words or thoughts,
--
the whole conversation, but the impression That remains
is That You are not very pleased with the questions I ask
You every Wednesday. Is this true?
--
am pleased. But it is true That I find you mentally a bit lazy and
indifferent to the opportunity I give you each week to ask me
--
give the impression That you are really searching for the secrets
of life and the world.
--
and unpleasant no longer exist. But in That case, mental activity
is replaced by an intuitive activity of a much higher kind.
--
is justifiable, and it is That which men travesty and deform in
all their actions.
--
of view and from Your answer I conclude That the American action is not at all justifiable. But, Mother, isn't the
world in danger of being swallowed by the Communists
and isn't That why the Americans and their Allies are
Series Ten - To a Young Captain
engaged in safeguarding the freedom of man? Is That the
Divine Will?
--
and of the goal to be achieved, which is the only thing That
matters.
--
Some say That You have stated: "Among the 1500
people who are here, there are only 250 or so who understand Sri Aurobindo's yoga, only forty-five who practise
--
It is true That the number of those who take the yoga
seriously is not considerable...
--
do so here. The only thing That one has outside, but does not
have here, is the moral constraint of an external discipline.
Here one is free and the only constraint is the one That one
puts on oneself when one is SINCERE.
--
decided not to go. In any case I doubted That You would
approve of this proposal, but all the same I had the
--
From your letter I can see That you really have a great desire to
accept the invitation... I do not want, then, to deprive you of
--
and send me away with the assurance That You will
be with me always, That I can go without fear, That it
will do me good, etc., in spite of my insistence That I
no longer feel like going after having received Your first
--
Naturally, after That, I go and make all the necessary
arrangements. X arranges for my departure. But later
on, You reply to X That You have given me permission
because You learned from me That he approves of my
going there. Strange!
--
but it is true That I have got him into a very complicated
situation and I regret it.
--
one has an aspiration That mankind should become better, or
less unhappy, less miserable; all sorts of things like That. One
can practise yoga for That, but That is not believing. To believe is
to have the faith That there cannot be a world without the Divine,
That the very existence of the world proves the existence of the
--
out or been taught, nothing like That: faith. A faith That is a living
knowledge, not an acquired one, That the existence of the world
is enough to prove the Divine. Without the Divine, no world.
And this is so obvious, you see, That one has the impression That
in order to think otherwise, one has to be a bit dense. And the
--
For me it is even stronger than That. I look at a rose, a
thing That contains such a concentration of spontaneous beauty
- not man-made: spontaneous, a blossoming; one has only to
see it to be sure That there is a Divine. It is a certainty. One
cannot... it is impossible not to believe. It is like those people
--
without being absolutely convinced That the Divine is there? We
call it the Divine - the Divine is tiny! (Mother laughs.) For me
existence is an incontestable proof That there is... That there is
nothing but That - something we cannot name, cannot define,
cannot describe, but something we can feel and can more and
more become. A Something That is more perfect than all the
perfections, more beautiful than all the beauties, more marvellous than all the marvels, so That even the totality of all That
exists cannot express it. And there is nothing but That. And it
is not a Something floating in nothingness: there is nothing but
--
How can we know That our acts, our thoughts and
our aspirations are not tainted by vital desire, though
--
only to imagine That the thing one wants to do will not be done,
and if this imagination creates the least uneasiness, then one can
--
For several years now, we have been hearing That the
Ashram is in a terrible financial condition, and from time
--
said That the Ashram is undergoing a financial crisis?
But perhaps it is just because certain individuals and certain
departments are spending extravagantly That there is a financial
crisis!...
--
When I heard That X was drowned in a lake at Gingee during the outing, I was unable to believe it or to be
shocked by this news. The only question That arose in me
was: How is it possible! Mother knew we were at Gingee,
--
It is said That nothing is in us, everything comes from
outside. It is also said elsewhere That our vision of the
outside (of the world around us) is the reflection of our
--
You once wrote to me That "others are a mirror reflecting
the image of what you are." Can you explain this to me
--
The things That shock you most in others are those That you are
struggling against in yourself or trying to suppress in yourself.
--
On the cards That You send to people on their birthdays, often You simply write: "Bonne fête to X, with
my blessings." But sometimes You write various other
--
Why is it That whenever one thinks of You one feels
a need for physical closeness? What is the value of this
--
passes quickly. But there are periods when I feel That I
Series Ten - To a Young Captain
--
Is it necessary That it should have a significance?
Sri Aurobindo announced That from That date onwards
something would happen.34 And it did happen.
That is all That is needed.
21 June 1967
--
It is said That the vibrations of the being develop
from one life to another, become richer and form the psychic personality behind the surface personality. But then
--
No, the psychic decants - That is exactly what happens.
The psychic does not retain things in their totality - it decants,
--
reason or other, the psychic was present and participated; in That
case it retains the memory of the circumstance. But the memory
it retains is That of the psychic life of That moment; so even if it
retains the memory of the image, it is a simplified image such as
--
emotional vibration of a circumstance; and That is what is solid,
what remains, what lasts. And so with That, one has a perception
- a little vague, a little blurred - of the people who were there,
of the circumstances, of the events, and That makes a psychic
memory; it is rarely the events That mentally are considered
as the most memorable or most important in a lifetime, but
--
participated - in the event. And That is what remains.
15 July 1967
--
Your Presence so That we may have Your protection. But
the other day while we were on a long journey, we felt the
--
of any danger. Was there a possibility of danger on That
day? If so, why didn't we sense it?
--
written to me That the tyres of the car were in poor condition.
You did not feel the danger because I did not want you to
--
Why is it That in the Ashram itself people feel the
need to form little groups and societies: for example,
--
It is because men still imagine That to do something useful, they
have to form groups.
--
Does the Divine punish injustice? Is it possible That
He ever punishes anyone?
--
Divine or takes one farther from Him - and That is the supreme
consequence.
--
Aurobindo's Action. He said That had there been an enlightened person like Vivekananda, the work could have
been done better, but That Mother has to do Her work
with the instruments She has at her disposal. Finally he
told me That he had no opinion on the subject. "My
business," he said, "is to write." And he asked me what
my "business" was. I replied That I didn't know what
my "business" was - all I knew was That I had to concentrate on myself in order to perfect myself more and
more. Was That correct? Mother, what actually is my
"business"?
Certainly, the most important occupation is to develop and perfect oneself, but That can be done very well, and even better, while
working. It is for you to know what work it is That most interests
you, the one That opens for you a path towards perfection. It
may be something apparently very modest; it is not the apparent
--
lives, but I feel very strongly That it is in this very life That
we must realise our highest aspirations, as if this were
--
a hope. It is not That I don't believe in reincarnation, but
this idea comes back to my mind very often. Mother, is
--
sad. I tell myself That it is not an ordinary illness, That
it is an experience leading towards physical transformation. But when I think of Your suffering body, I am
--
I have the impression That Your Force responds according to the intensity of our prayer. But my case seems
to be different. Or am I not conscious of my prayers?
--
It is always That way for everyone. The difference lies in each
one's state of consciousness. Some are entirely conscious of what
01.10 - Nicholas Berdyaev: God Made Human, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Nicholas Berdyaev is an ardent worker, as a Russian is naturally expected to be, in the cause of the spiritual rehabilitation of mankind. He is a Christian, a neo-Christian: some of his conclusions are old-world truths and bear repetition and insistence; others are of a more limited, conditional and even doubtful nature. His conception of the value of human person, the dignity and the high reality he gives to it, can never be too welcome in a world where the individual seems to have gone the way of vanished empires and kings and princes. But even more important and interesting is the view he underlines That the true person is a spiritual being, That is to say, it is quite other than the empirical ego That man normally is"not this That one worships" as the Upanishads too declare. Further, in his spiritual being man, the individual, is not simply a portion or a fraction; he is, on the contrary, an integer, a complete whole, a creative focus; the true individual is a microcosm yet holding in it and imaging the macrocosm. Only perhaps greater stress is laid upon the aspect of creativity or activism. An Eastern sage, a Vedantin, would look for the true spiritual reality behind the flux of forces: Prakriti or Energy is only the executive will of the Purusha, the Conscious Being. The personality in Nature is a formulation and emanation of the transcendent impersonality.
There is another aspect of personality as viewed by Berdyaev which involves a bias of the more orthodox Christian faith: the Christ is inseparable from the Cross. So he says: "There is no such thing as personality if there is no capacity for suffering. Suffering is inherent in God too, if he is a personality, and not merely an abstract idea. God shares in the sufferings of men. He yearns for responsive love. There are divine as well as human passions and therefore divine or creative personality must always suffer to the end of time. A condition of anguish and distress is inherent in it." The view is logically enforced upon the Christian, it is said, if he is to accept incarnation, God becoming flesh. Flesh cannot but be weak. This very weakness, so human, is and must be specially characteristic of God also, if he is one with man and his lover and saviour.
Eastern spirituality does not view sorrow and sufferingevilas an integral part of the Divine Consciousness. It is born out of the Divine, no doubt, as nothing can be outside the Divine, but it is a local and temporal formation; it is a disposition consequent upon certain conditions and with the absence or elimination of those conditions, this disposition too disappears. God and the Divine Consciousness can only be purity, light, immortality and delight. The compassion That a Buddha feels for the suffering humanity is not at all a feeling of suffering; pain or any such normal human reaction does not enter into its composition; it is the movement of a transcendent consciousness which is beyond and purified of the normal reactions, yet overarching them and entering into them as a soothing and illumining and vivifying presence. The healer knows and understands the pain and suffering of his patient but is not touched by them; he need not contract the illness of his patient in order to be in sympathy with him. The Divine the Soulcan be in flesh and yet not smirched with its mire; the flesh is not essentially or irrevocably the ooze it is under certain given conditions. The divine physical body is composed of radiant matter and one can speak of it even as of the soul That weapons cannot pierce it nor can fire burn it.
***
01.10 - Principle and Personality, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is asked of us why do we preach a man and not purely and solely a principle. Our ideal being avowedly the establishment and reign of a new principle of world-order and not gathering recruits for the camp of a sectarian teacher, it seems all the more inconsistent, if not thoroughly ruinous for our cause, That we should lay stress upon a particular individual and incur the danger of overshadowing the universal truths upon which we seek to build human society. Now, it is not That we are unconscious or oblivious of the many evils attendant upon the system of preaching a man the history of the rise and decay of many sects and societies is there to give us sufficient warning; and yet if we cannot entirely give the go-by to personalities and stick to mere and bare principles, it is because we have clear reasons for it, because we are not unconscious or oblivious either of the evils That beset the system of preaching the principle alone.
Religious bodies That are formed through the bhakti and puja for one man, social reconstructions forced by the will and power of a single individual, have already in the inception this grain of incapacity and disease and death That they are not an integrally self-conscious creation, they are not, as a whole, intelligent and wide awake and therefore constantly responsive to the truths and ideals and realities for which they exist, for which at least, their founder intended them to exist. The light at the apex is the only light and the entire structure is but the shadow of That light; the whole thing has the aspect of a dark mass galvanised into red-hot activity by the passing touch of a dynamo. Immediately however the solitary light fails and the dynamo stops, there is nothing but the original darkness and inertiatoma asit tamasa gudham agre.
Man, however great and puissant he may be, is a perishable thing. People who gather or are gathered round a man and cling to him through the tie of a personal relation must fall off and scatter when the man passes away and the personal tie loses its hold. What remains is a memory, a gradually fading memory. But memory is hardly a creative force, it is a dead, at best, a moribund thing; the real creative power is Presence. So when the great man's presence, the power That crystallises is gone, the whole edifice crumbles and vanishes into air or remains a mere name.
Love and admiration for a mahapurusha is not enough, even faith in his gospel is of little avail, nor can actual participation, consecrated work and labour in his cause save the situation; it is only when the principles, the bare realities for which the mahapurusha stands are in the open forum and men have the full and free opportunity of testing and assimilating them, it is only when individuals thus become living embodiments of those principles and realities That we do create a thing universal and permanent, as universal and permanent as earthly things may be. Principles only can embrace and unify the whole of humanity; a particular personality shall always create division and limitation. By placing the man in front, we erect a wall between the Principle and men at large. It is the principles, on the contrary, That should be given the place of honour: our attempt should be to keep back personalities and make as little use of them as possible. Let the principles work and create in their freedom and power, untrammelled by the limitations of any mere human vessel.
We are quite familiar with this cry so rampant in our democratic ageprinciples and no personalities! And although we admit the justice of it, yet we cannot ignore the trenchant one-sidedness which it involves. It is perhaps only a reaction, a swing to the opposite extreme of a mentality given too much to personalities, as the case generally has been in the past. It may be necessary, as a corrective, but it belongs only to a temporary stage. Since, however, we are after a universal ideal, we must also have an integral method. We shall have to curb many of our susceptibilities, diminish many of our apprehensions and soberly strike a balance between opposite extremes.
We do not speak like politicians or banias; but the very truth of the matter demands such a policy or line of action. It is very well to talk of principles and principles alone, but what are principles unless they take life and form in a particular individual? They are airy nothings, notions in the brain of logicians and metaphysicians, fit subjects for discussion in the academy, but they are devoid of That vital urge which makes them creative agencies. We have long lines of philosophers, especially European, who most scrupulously avoided all touch of personalities, whose utmost care was to keep principles pure and unsullied; and the upshot was That those principles remained principles only, barren and infructuous, some thing like, in the strong and puissant phrase of BaudelaireLa froide majest de la femme strile. And on the contrary, we have had other peoples, much addicted to personalitiesespecially in Asiawho did not care so much for abstract principles as for concrete embodiments; and what has been the result here? None can say That they did not produce anything or produced only still-born things. They produced living creaturesephemeral, some might say, but creatures That lived and moved and had their days.
But, it may be asked, what is the necessity, what is the purpose in making it all a one man show? Granting That principles require personalities for their fructuation and vital functioning, what remains to be envisaged is not one personality but a plural personality, the people at large, as many individuals of the human race as can be consciously imbued with those principles. When principles are made part and parcel of, are concentrated in a single solitary personality, they get "cribbed and cabined," they are vitiated by the idiosyncrasies of the man, they come to have a narrower field of application; they are emptied of the general verities they contain and finally cease to have any effect.
The thing, however, is That what you call principles do not drop from heaven in their virgin purity and all at once lay hold of mankind en masse. It is always through a particular individual That a great principle manifests itself. Principles do not live in the general mind of man and even if they live, they live secreted and unconscious; it is only a puissant personality, who has lived the principle, That can bring it forward into life and action, can awaken, like the Vedic Dawn, what was dead in allmritam kanchana bodhayanti. Men in general are by themselves 'inert and indifferent; they have little leisure or inclination to seek, from any inner urge of their own, for principles and primal truths; they become conscious of these only when expressed and embodied in some great and rare soul. An Avatar, a Messiah or a Prophet is the centre, the focus through which a Truth and Law first dawns and then radiates and spreads abroad. The little lamps are all lighted by the sparks That the great torch scatters.
And yet we yield to none in our demand for holding forth the principles always and ever before the wide open gaze of all. The principle is there to make people self-knowing and self-guiding; and the man is also there to illustrate That principle, to serve as the hope and prophecy of achievement. The living soul is there to touch your soul, if you require the touch; and the principle is there by which to test and testify. For, we do not ask anybody to be a mere automaton, a blind devotee, a soul without individual choice and initiative. On the contrary, we insist on each and every individual to find his own soul and stand on his own Truththis is the fundamental principle we declare, the only creedif creed it be That we ask people to note and freely follow. We ask all people to be fully self-dependent and self-illumined, for only thus can a real and solid reconstruction of human nature and society be possible; we do not wish That they should bow down ungrudgingly to anything, be it a principle or a personality. In this respect we claim the very first rank of iconoclasts and anarchists. And along with That, if we still choose to remain an idol-lover and a hero-worshipper, it is because we recognise That our mind, human as it is, being not a simple equation but a complex paradox, the idol or the hero symbolises for us and for those who so will, the very iconoclasm and anarchism and perhaps other more positive things as wellwhich we behold within and seek to manifest.
The world is full of ikons and archons; we cannot escape them, even if we try the world itself being a great ikon and as great an archon. Those who swear by principles, swear always by some personality or other, if not by a living creature then by a lifeless book, if not by Religion then by Science, if not by the East then by the West, if not by Buddha or Christ then by Bentham or Voltaire. Only they do it unwittingly they change one set of personalities for another and believe they have rejected them all. The veils of Maya are a thousand-fold tangle and you think you have entirely escaped her when you have only run away from one fold to fall into another. The wise do not attempt to reject and negate Maya, but consciously accept herfreedom lies in a knowing affirmation. So we too have accepted and affirmed an icon, but we have done it consciously and knowingly; we are not bound by our idol, we see the truth of it, and we serve and utilise it as best as we may.
01.11 - Aldous Huxley: The Perennial Philosophy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A similar compilation was published in the Arya, called The Eternal Wisdom (Les Paroles ternelles, in French) a portion of which appeared later on in book-form: That was more elaborate, the contents were arranged in such a way That no comments were needed, they were self-explanatory, divided as they were in chapters and sections and subsections with proper headings, the whole thing put in a logical and organised sequence. Huxley's compilation begins under the title of the Upanishadic text " That art Thou" with this saying of Eckhart: "The more God is in all things, the more He is outside them. The more He is within, the more without". It will be interesting to note That the Arya compilation too starts with the same idea under the title "The God of All; the God who is in All", the first quotation being from Philolaus, "The Universe is a Unity".The Eternal Wisdom has an introduction called "The Song of Wisdom" which begins with this saying from the Book of Wisdom: "We fight to win sublime Wisdom; therefore men call us warriors".
Huxley gives only one quotation from Sri Aurobindo under the heading "God in the World". Here it is:
"The touch of Earth is always reinvigorating to the son of Earth, even when he seeks a supraphysical Knowledge. It may even be said That the supraphysical can only be really mastered in its fullnessto its heights we can always reachwhen we keep our feet firmly on the physical. 'Earth is His footing' says the Upanishad, whenever it images the Self That manifests in the universe." Huxley's commentary is as follows:
"To its heights we can always come. For those of us who are still splashing about in the lower ooze, the phrase has a rather ironical ring. Nevertheless, in the light of even the most distant acquaintance with the heights and the fullness, it is possible to understand what its author means. To discover the Kingdom of God exclusively within oneself is easier than to discover it, not only there, but also in the outer worlds of minds and things and living creatures. It is easier because the heights within reveal themselves to those who are ready to exclude from their purview all That lies without. And though this exclusion may be a painful and mortificatory process, the fact remains That it is less arduous than the process of inclusion, by which we come to know the fullness as well as the heights of spiritual life. Where there is exclusive concentration on the heights within, temptations and distractions are avoided and there is a general denial and suppression. But when the hope is to know God inclusivelyto realise the divine Ground in the world as well as in the soul, temptations and distractions must not be avoided, but submitted to and used as opportunities for advance; there must be no suppression of outward-turning activities, but a transformation of them so That they become sacramental."
The neatness of the commentary cannot be improved upon. Only with regard to the "ironical ring" of which Huxley speaks, it has just to be pointed out, as he himself seems to understand, That the "we" referred to in the phrase does not mean humanity in general That 'splashes about in the lower ooze' but those who have a sufficiently developed inner spiritual life.
There is a quotation from Lao Tzu put under the heading "Grace and Free Will": "It was when the Great Way declined That human kindness and morality arose".
We fear Mr. Huxley has completely missed the point of the cryptic sentence. He seems to take it as meaning That human kindness and morality are a means to the recovery of the Lost Way-although codes of ethics and deliberate choices are not sufficient in themselves, they are only a second best, yet they mark the rise of self-consciousness and have to be utilised to pass on into the unitive knowledge That is Tao. This explanation or amplification seems to us somewhat confused and irrelevant to the idea expressed in the apophthegm. What is stated here is much simpler and transparent. It is this That when the Divine is absent and the divine Knowledge, then comes in man with his human mental knowledge: it is man's humanity That clouds the Divine and to reach the' Divine one must reject the human values, all the moralities, sarva dharmn, seek only the Divine. The lesser way lies through the dualities, good and evil, the Great Way is beyond them and cannot be limited or measured by the relative standards. Especially in the modern age we see the decline and almost the disappearance of the Greater Light and instead a thousand smaller lights are lighted which vainly strive to dispel the gathering darkness. These do not help, they are false lights and men are apt to cling to them, shutting their eyes to the true one which is not That That one worships here and now, nedam yadidam upsate.
There is a beautiful quotation from the Chinese sage, Wu Ch'ng-n, regarding the doubtful utility of written Scriptures:
"'Listen to this!' shouted Monkey. 'After all the trouble we had getting here from China, and after you specially ordered That we were to be given the scriptures, Ananda and Kasyapa made a fraudulent delivery of goods. They gave us blank copies to take away; I ask you, what is the good of That to us?' 'You needn't shout,' said the Buddha, smiling. 'As a matter of fact, it is such blank scrolls as these That are the true scriptures. But I quite see That the people of China are too foolish and ignorant to believe this, so there is nothing for it but to give them copies with some writing on.' "
A sage can smile and smile delightfully! The parable illustrates the well-known Biblical phrase, 'the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life'. The monkey is symbolical of the ignorant, arrogant, fussy human mind. There is another Buddhistic story about the monkey quoted in the book and it is as delightful; but being somewhat long, we cannot reproduce it here. It tells how the mind-monkey is terribly agile, quick, clever, competent, moving lightning-fast, imagining That it can easily go to the end of the world, to Paradise itself, to Brahmic status. But alas! when he thought he was speeding straight like a rocket or an arrow and arrive right at the target, he found That he was spinning like a top at the same spot, and what he very likely took to be the very fragrance of the topmost supreme heaven was nothing but the aroma of his own urine.
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01.11 - The Basis of Unity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A modern society or people cannot have religion, That is to say, credal religion, as the basis of its organized collective life. It was mediaeval society and people That were organized on That line. Indeed mediaevalism means nothing more and nothing lessthan That. But whatever the need and justification in the past, the principle is an anachronism under modern conditions. It was needed, perhaps, to keep alive a truth which goes into the very roots of human life and its deepest aspiration; and it was needed also for a dynamic application of That truth on a larger scale and in smaller details, on the mass of mankind and in its day to day life. That was the aim of the Church Militant and the Khilafat; That was the spirit, although in a more Sattwic way, behind the Buddhistic evangelism or even Hindu colonization.
The truth behind a credal religion is the aspiration towards the realization of the Divine, some ultimate reality That gives a permanent meaning and value to the human life, to the existence lodged in this 'sphere of sorrow' here below. Credal paraphernalia were necessary to express or buttress this core of spiritual truth when mankind, in the mass, had not attained a certain level of enlightenment in the mind and a certain degree of development in its life-relations. The modern age is modern precisely because it had attained to a necessary extent this mental enlightenment and this life development. So the scheme or scaffolding That was required in the past is no longer unavoidable and can have either no reality at all or only a modified utility.
A modern people is a composite entity, especially with regard to its religious affiliation. Not religion, but culture is the basis of modern collective life, national or social. Culture includes in its grain That fineness of temperament which appreciates all truths behind all forms, even when there is a personal allegiance to one particular form.
In India, it is well known, the diversity of affiliations is colossal, sui generis. Two major affiliations have today almost cut the country into two; and desperate remedies are suggested which are worse than the malady itself, as they may kill the patient outright. If it is so, it is, I repeat, the mediaeval spirit That is at:, the bottom of the trouble.
The rise of this spirit in modern times and conditions is a phenomenon That has to be explained and faced: it is a ghost That has come out of the past and has got to be laid and laid for good. First of all, it is a reaction from modernism; it is a reaction from the modernist denial of certain fundamental and eternal truths, of God, soul, and immortality: it is a reaction from the modernist affirmation of the mere economic man. And it is also a defensive gesture of a particular complex of consciousness That has grown and lives powerfully and now apprehends expurgation and elimination.
In Europe such a contingency did not arise, because the religious spirit, rampant in the days of Inquisitions and St. Bartholomews, died away: it died, and (or, because) it was replaced by a spirit That was felt as being equally, if not more, au thentic and, which for the moment, suffused the whole consciousness with a large and high afflatus, commensurate with the amplitude of man's aspiration. I refer, of course, to the spirit of the Renaissance. It was a spirit profane and secular, no doubt, but on That level it brought a catholicity of temper and a richness in varied interesta humanistic culture, as it is calledwhich constituted a living and unifying ideal for Europe. That spirit culminated in the great French Revolution which was the final coup de grace to all That still remained of mediaevalism, even in its outer structure, political and economical.
In India the spirit of renascence came very late, late almost by three centuries; and even then it could not flood the whole of the continent in all its nooks and corners, psychological and physical. There were any number of pockets (to use a current military phrase) left behind which guarded the spirit of the past and offered persistent and obdurate resistance. Perhaps, such a dispensation was needed in India and inevitable also; inevitable, because the religious spirit is closest to India's soul and is its most direct expression and cannot be uprooted so easily; needed, because India's and the world's future demands it and depends upon it.
Only, the religious spirit has to be bathed and purified and enlightened by the spirit of the renascence: That is to say, one must learn and understand and realize That Spirit is the thing the one thing needfulTamevaikam jnatha; 'religions' are its names and forms, appliances and decorations. Let us have by all means the religious spirit, the fundamental experience That is the inmost truth of all religions, That is the matter of our soul; but in our mind and life and body let there be a luminous catholicity, let these organs and instruments be trained to see and compare and appreciate the variety, the numberless facets which the one Spirit naturally presents to the human consciousness. Ekam sat viprh bahudh vadanti. It is an ancient truth That man discovered even in his earliest seekings; but it still awaits an adequate expression and application in life.
II
India's historical development is marked by a special characteristic which is at once the expression of her inmost nature and the setting of a problem which she has to solve for herself and for the whole human race. I have spoken of the diversity and divergence of affiliations in a modern social unit. But what distinguishes India from all other peoples is That the diversity and divergence have culminated here in contradictoriness and mutual exclusion.
The first extremes That met in India and fought and gradually coalesced to form a single cultural and social whole were, as is well known, the Aryan and the non-Aryan. Indeed, the geologists tell us, the land itself is divided into two parts structurally quite different and distinct, the Deccan plateau and the Himalayan ranges with the Indo-Gangetic plain: the former is formed out of the most ancient and stable and, on the whole, horizontally bedded rocks of the earth, while the latter is of comparatively recent origin, formed out of a more flexible and weaker belt (the Himalayan region consisting of a colossal flexing and crumpling of strata). The disparity is so much That a certain group of geologists hold That the Deccan plateau did not at all form part of the Asiatic continent, but had drifted and dashed into it:in fact the Himalayas are the result of this mighty impact. The usual division of an Aryan and a Dravidian race may be due to a memory of the clash of the two continents and their races.
However, coming to historical times, we see wave after wave of the most heterogeneous and disparate elementsSakas and Huns and Greeks, each bringing its quota of exotic materialenter into the oceanic Indian life and culture, lose their separate foreign identity and become part and parcel of the common whole. Even so,a single unitary body was formed out of such varied and shifting materialsnot in the political, but in a socio-religious sense. For a catholic religious spirit, not being solely doctrinal and personal, admitted and embraced in its supple and wide texture almost an infinite variety of approaches to the Divine, of forms and norms of apprehending the Beyond. It has been called Hinduism: it is a vast synthesis of multiple affiliations. It expresses the characteristic genius of India and hence Hinduism and Indianism came to be looked upon as synonymous terms. And the same could be defined also as Vedic religion and culture, for its invariable basis the bed-rock on which it stood firm and erectwas the Vedas, the Knowledge seen by the sages. But there had already risen a voice of dissidence and discord That of Buddha, not so much, perhaps, of Buddha as of Buddhism. The Buddhistic enlightenment and discipline did not admit the supreme authority of the Vedas; it sought other bases of truth and reality. It was a great denial; and it meant and worked for a vital schism. The denial of the Vedas by itself, perhaps, would not be serious, but it became so, as it was symptomatic of a deeper divergence. Denying the Vedas, the Buddhistic spirit denied life. It was quite a new thing in the Indian consciousness and spiritual discipline. And it left such a stamp there That even today it stands as the dominant character of the Indian outlook. However, India's synthetic genius rose to the occasion and knew how to bridge the chasm, close up the fissure, and present again a body whole and entire. Buddha became one of the Avataras: the discipline of Nirvana and Maya was reserved as the last duty to be performed at the end of life, as the culmination of a full-length span of action and achievement; the way to Moksha lay through Dharma and Artha and Kama, Sannyasa had to be built upon Brahmacharya and Garhasthya. The integral ideal was epitomized by Kalidasa in his famous lines about the character of the Raghus:
They devoted themselves to study in their boyhood, in youth they pursued the objects of life; when old they took to spiritual austerities, and in the end they died united with the higher consciousness.
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And still this was not the lastit could not be the lastanti thesis That had to be synthetized. The dialectical movement led to a more serious and fiercer contradiction. The Buddhistic schism was after all a division brought about from within: it could be said That the two terms of the antinomy belonged to the same genus and were commensurable. The idea or experience of Asat and Maya was not unknown to the Upanishads, only it had not there the exclusive stress which the later developments gave it. Hence quite a different, an altogether foreign body was imported into what was or had come to be a homogeneous entity, and in a considerable mass.
Unlike the previous irruptions That merged and were lost in the general life and consciousness, Islam entered as a leaven That maintained its integrity and revolutionized Indian life and culture by infusing into its tone a Semitic accent. After the Islamic impact India could not be what she was beforea change became inevitable even in the major note. It was a psychological cataclysm almost on a par with the geological one That formed her body; but the spirit behind which created the body was working automatically, inexorably towards the greater and more difficult synthesis demanded by the situation. Only the thing is to be done now consciously, not through an unconscious process of laissez-faire as on the inferior stages of evolution in the past. And That is the true genesis of the present conflict.
History abounds in instances of racial and cultural immixture. Indeed, all major human groupings of today are invariably composite formations. Excepting, perhaps, some primitiveaboriginal tribes there are no pure races existent. The Briton, the Dane, the Anglo-Saxon, and the Norman have combined to form the British; a Frenchman has a Gaul, a Roman, a Frank in him; and a Spaniard's blood would show an Iberian, a Latin, a Gothic, a Moorish element in it. And much more than a people, a culture in modern times has been a veritable cockpit of multifarious and even incongruous elements. There are instances also in which a perfect fusion could not be accomplished, and one element had to be rejected or crushed out. The complete disappearance of the Aztecs and Mayas in South America, the decadence of the Red Indians in North America, of the Negroes in Africa as a result of a fierce clash with European peoples and European culture illustrate the point.
Nature, on the whole, has solved the problem of blood fusion and mental fusion of different peoples, although on a smaller scale. India today presents the problem on a larger scale and on a higher or deeper level. The demand is for a spiritual fusion and unity. Strange to say, although the Spirit is the true bed-rock of unitysince, at bottom, it means identityit is on this plane That mankind has not yet been able to really meet and coalesce. India's genius has been precisely working in the line of a perfect solution of this supreme problem.
Islam comes with a full-fledged spiritual soul and a mental and vital formation commensurable with That inner being and consciousness. It comes with a dynamic spirit, a warrior mood, That aims at conquering the physical world for the Lord, a temperament which Indian spirituality had not, or had lost long before, if she had anything of it. This was, perhaps, what Vivekananda meant when he spoke graphically of a Hindu soul with a Muslim body. The Islamic dispensation, however, brings with it not only something complementary, but also something contradictory, if not for anything else, at least for the strong individuality which does not easily yield to assimilation. Still, in spite of great odds, the process of assimilation was going on slowly and surely. But of late it appears to have come to a dead halt; difficulties have been presented which seem insuperable.
If religious toleration were enough, if That made up man's highest and largest achievement, then Nature need not have attempted to go beyond cultural fusion; a liberal culture is the surest basis for a catholic religious spirit. But such a spirit of toleration and catholicity, although it bespeaks a widened consciousness, does not always enshrine a profundity of being. Nobody is more tolerant and catholic than a dilettante, but an ardent spiritual soul is different.
To be loyal to one's line of self-fulfilment, to follow one's self-law, swadharma, wholly and absolutelywithout this no spiritual life is possible and yet not to come into clash with other lines and loyalties, nay more, to be in positive harmony with them, is a problem which has not been really solved. It was solved, perhaps, in the consciousness of a Ramakrishna, a few individuals here and there, but it has always remained a source of conflict and disharmony in the general mind even in the field of spirituality. The clash of spiritual or religious loyalties has taken such an acute form in India today, they have been carried to the bitter extreme, in order, we venture to say, That the final synthesis might be absolute and irrevocable. This is India's mission to work out, and this is the lesson which she brings to the world.
The solution can come, first, by going to the true religion of the Spirit, by being truly spiritual and not merely religious, for, as we have said, real unity lies only in and through the Spirit, since Spirit is one and indivisible; secondly, by bringing down somethinga great part, indeed, if not the wholeof this puissant and marvellous Spirit into our life of emotions and sensations and activities.
If it is said That this is an ideal for the few only, not for the mass, our answer to That is the answer of the GitaYad yad acharati sreshthah. Let the few then practise and achieve the ideal: the mass will have to follow as far as it is possible and necessary. It is the very character of the evolutionary system of Nature, as expressed in the principle of symbiosis, That any considerable change in one place (in one species) is accompanied by a corresponding change in the same direction in other contiguous places (in other associated species) in order That the poise and balance of the system may be maintained.
It is precisely strong nuclei That are needed (even, perhaps, one strong nucleus is sufficient) where the single and integrated spiritual consciousness is an accomplished and established fact: That acts inevitably as a solvent drawing in and assimilating or transforming and re-creating as much, of the surroundings as its own degree and nature of achievement inevitably demand.
India did not and could not stop at mere cultural fusionwhich was a supreme gift of the Moguls. She did not and could not stop at another momentous cultural fusion brought about by the European impact. She aimed at something more. Nature demanded of her That she should discover a greater secret of human unity and through progressive experiments apply and establish it in fact. Christianity did not raise this problem of the greater synthesis, for the Christian peoples were more culture-minded than religious-minded. It was left for an Asiatic people to set the problem and for India to work out the solution.
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01.12 - Goethe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The year 1949 has just celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great force of light That was Goethe. We too remember him on the occasion, and will try to present in a few words, as we see it, the fundamental experience, the major Intuition That stirred this human soul, the lesson he brought to mankind. Goe the was a great poet. He showed how a language, perhaps least poetical by nature, can be moulded to embody the great beauty of great poetry. He made the German language sing, even as the sun's ray made the stone of Memnon sing when falling upon it. Goe the was a man of consummate culture. Truly and almost literally it could be said of him That nothing human he considered foreign to his inquiring mind. And Goe the was a man of great wisdom. His observation and judgment on thingsno matter to whatever realm they belonghave an arresting appropriateness, a happy and revealing insight. But above all, he was an aspiring soulaspiring to know and be in touch with the hidden Divinity in man and the world.
Goe the and the Problem of Evil
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One view considers Evil as coeval with Good: the Prince of Evil is God's peer, equal to him in all ways, absolutely separate, independent and self-existent. Light and Darkness are eternal principles living side by side, possessing equal reality. For, although it is permissible to the individual to pass out of the Darkness and enter into Light, the Darkness itself does not disappear: it remains and maintains its domain, and even it is said That some human beings are meant eternally for this domain. That is the Manichean principle and That also is fundamentally the dualistic conception of chit-achit in some Indian systems (although the principle of chit or light is usually given a higher position and priority of excellence).
The Christian too accepts the dual principle, but does not give equal status to the two. Satan is there, an eternal reality: it is anti-God, it seeks to oppose God, frustrate his work. It is the great tempter whose task it is to persuade, to inspire man to remain always an earthly creature and never turn to know or live in God. Now the crucial question That arises is, what is the necessity of this Antagonist in God's scheme of creation? What is the meaning of this struggle and battle? God could have created, if he had chosen, a world without Evil. The orthodox Christi an answer is That in That case one could not have fully appreciated the true value and glory of God's presence. It is to manifest and proclaim the great victory That the strife and combat has been arranged in which Man triumphs in the end and God's work stands vindicated. The place of Satan is always Hell, but he cannot drag down a soul into his pit to hold it there eternally (although according to one doctrine there are or may be certain eternally damned souls).
Goe the carries the process of convergence and even harmony of the two powers a little further and shows That although they are contrary apparently, they are not contradictory principles in essence. For, Satan is, after all, God's servant, even a very obedient servant; he is an instrument in the hand of the Almighty to work out His purpose. The purpose is to help and lead man, although in a devious way, towards a greater understanding, a nearer approach to Himself.
The Challenge and the Pact
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Satan is jealous of man who is God's favourite. He tells God That his partiality to man is misplaced. God has put into man a little of his light (reason and intelligence and something more perhaps), but to what purpose? Man tries to soar, he thinks he flies high and wide, but in fact he is and will be an insect That "lies always in the grass and sings its old song in the grass." God answers That whatever the perplexity in which man now is, in the end he will come out and reach the Light with a greater and richer experience of it. Satan smiles in return and says he will prove otherwise. Given a free hand, he can do whatever he likes with man: "Dust shall he eat and with a relish." God willingly agrees to the challenge: there is no harm in Satan's trying his hand. Indeed, Satan will prove to be a good companion to man; for man is normally prone to inertia and sinks into repose and rest and stagnation. Satan will be the goad, the force That drives towards ceaseless activity. For activity is life, and without activity no progress.
Thus, as sanctioned by God, there is a competition, a wager between man and Satan. The pact between the parties is this That, on the one hand, Satan will serve man here in life upon earth, and on the other hand, in return, man will have to serve Satan there, on the other side of life. That is to say, Satan will give the whole world to man to enjoy, man will have to give Satan only his soul. Man in his ignorance says he does not care for his soul, does not know of a there or elsewhere: he will be satisfied if he gets what he wants upon earth. That, evidently, is the demand of what is familiarly known as life-force (lan vital): the utmost fulfilment of the life-force is what man stands for, although the full significance of the movement may not be clear to him or even to Satan at the moment. For life-force does not necessarily drag man down, as its grand finale as it were, into hellhowever much Satan might wish it to be so. In what way, we shall see presently. Now Satan promises man all That he would desire and even more: he would give him his fill so' That he will ask for no more. Man takes up the challenge and declares That his hunger is insatiable, whatever Satan can bring to it, it will take in and press on: satisfaction and satiety will never come in his way. Satan thinks he knows better, for he is armed with a master weapon to lay man low and make him cry halt!
Love Human and Love Divine
Satan proposes to lead man down into hell through a sure means, nothing more sure, according to him, viz., love for a woman and a woman's love in return. Nothing like That to make man earth-bound or hell-bound and force out of him the nostalgic cry, "Time must have a stop." A most simple, primal and primeval lyric love will most suit Satan's purpose. Hence the Margaret episode. Love=Passion=Lust=Hell; That is the inevitable equation sequence, and through which runs the magic thread of infatuation. And That charm is invincible. Satan did succeed and was within an ace, as they say, of the final and definitive triumph: but That was not to be, for he left out of account an incalculable element. Love, even human love has, at least can have, a wonderful power, the potency of reversing the natural decree and bring about a supernatural intervention. Human love can at a crucial momentin extremiscall down the Divine Grace, which means God's love for man. And the soul meant for perdition and about to be seized and carried away by Satan finds itself suddenly free and lifted up and borne by Heaven's messengers. Human Jove is divine love itself in earthly form and figure and whatever its apparent aberrations it is in soul and substance That thing. Satan is hoisted with his own petard. That is God's irony.
But Goethe's Satan seems to know or feel something of his fate. He knows his function and the limit too of his function. He speaks of the doomsday for people, but it is his doomsday also, he says in mystic terms. Yes, it is his doomsday, for it is the day of man's liberation. Satan has to release man from the pact That stands cancelled. The soul of man cannot be sold, even if he wanted it.
The Cosmic Rhythm
The angels weave the symphony That is creation. They represent the various notes and rhythmsin their higher and purer degrees That make up the grand harmony of the spheres. It is magnificent, this music That moves the cosmos, and wonderful the glory of God manifest therein. But is it absolutely perfect? Is there nowhere any flaw in it? There is a doubting voice That enters a dissenting note. That is Satan, the Antagonist, the Evil One. Man is the weakest link in the chain of the apparently all-perfect harmony. And Satan boldly proposes to snap it if God only let him do so. He can prove to God That the true nature of his creation is not cosmos but chaos not a harmony in peace and light, but a confusion, a Walpurgis Night. God acquiesces in the play of this apparent breach and proves in the end That it is part of a wider scheme, a vaster harmony. Evil is rounded off by Grace.
The total eradication of Evil from the world and human nature and the remoulding of a terrestrial life in the substance and pattern of the Highest Good That is beyond all dualities is a conception which it was not for Goe the to envisage. In the order of reality or existence, first there is the consciousness of division, of trenchant separation in which Good is equated with not-evil and evil with not-good. This is the outlook of individualised consciousness. Next, as the consciousness grows and envelops the whole existence, good and evil are both embraced and are found to form a secret and magic harmony. That is the universal or cosmic consciousness. And Goethe's genius seems to be an outflowering of something of this status of consciousness. But there is still a higher status, the status of transcendence in which evil is not simply embraced but dissolved and even transmuted into a supreme reality of which it is an aberration, a reflection or projection, a lower formulation. That is the mystery of a spiritual realisation to which Goe the aspired perhaps, but had not the necessary initiation to enter into.
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01.12 - Three Degrees of Social Organisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Declaration of Rights is a characteristic modern phenomenon. It is a message of liberty and freedom,no doubt of secular liberty and freedomthings not very common in the old world; and yet at the same time it is a clarion That calls for and prepares strife and battle. If the conception of Right has sanctified the individual or a unit collectivity, it has also pari passu developed a fissiparous tendency in human organisation. Society based on or living by the principle of Right becomes naturally and inevitably a competitive society. Where man is regarded as nothing moreand, of course, nothing lessthan a bundle of rights, human aggregation is bound to be an exact image of Darwinian Naturered in tooth and claw.
But Right is not the only term on which an ideal or even a decent society can be based. There is another term which can serve equally well, if not better. I am obviously referring to the conception of duty. I tis an old world conception; it isa conception particularly familiar to the East. The Indian term for Right is also the term for dutyadhikara means both. In Europe too, in more recent times, when after the frustration of the dream of a new world envisaged by the French Revolution, man was called upon again to rise and hope, it was Mazzini who brought forward the new or discarded principle as a mantra replacing the other more dangerous one. A hierarchy of duties was given by him as the pattern of a fulfilled ideal life. In India, in our days the distinction between the two attitudes was very strongly insisted upon by the great Vivekananda.
Vivekananda said That if human society is to be remodelled, one must first of all learn not to think and act in terms of claims and rights but in terms of duties and obligations. Fulfil your duties conscientiously, the rights will take care of themselves; it is such an attitude That can give man the right poise, the right impetus, the right outlook with regard to a collective living. If instead of each one demanding what one considers as one's dues and consequently scrambling and battling for them, and most often not getting them or getting at a ruinous pricewhat made Arjuna cry, "What shall I do with all this kingdom if in regaining it I lose all my kith and kin dear to me?"if, indeed, instead of claiming one's right, one were content to know one's duty and do it as it should be done, then not only there would be peace and amity upon earth, but also each one far from losing anything would find miraculously all That one most needs and must have,the necessary, the right rights and all.
It might be objected here however That actually in the history of humanity the conception of Duty has been no less pugnacious than That of Right. In certain ages and among certain peoples, for example, it was considered the imperative duty of the faithful to kill or convert by force or otherwise as many as possible belonging to other faiths: it was the mission of the good shepherd to burn the impious and the heretic. In recent times, it was a sense of high and solemn duty That perpetrated what has been termed "purges"brutalities undertaken, it appears, to purify and preserve the integrity of a particular ideological, social or racial aggregate. But the real name of such a spirit is not duty but fanaticism. And there is a considerable difference between the two. Fanaticism may be defined as duty running away with itself; but what we are concerned with here is not the aberration of duty, but duty proper self-poised.
One might claim also on behalf of the doctrine of Right That the right kind of Right brings no harm, it is as already stated another name for liberty, for the privilege of living and it includes the obligation to let live. One can do what one likes provided one does not infringe on an equal right of others to do the same. The measure of one's liberty is equal to the measure of others' liberty.
Here is the crux of the question. The dictum of utilitarian philosophers is a golden rule which is easy to formulate but not so to execute. For the line of demarcation between one's own rights and the equal rights of others is so undefinable and variable That a title suit is inevitable in each case. In asserting and establishing and even maintaining one's rights there is always the possibilityalmost the certaintyof encroaching upon others' rights.
What is required is not therefore an external delimitation of frontiers between unit and unit, but an inner outlook of nature and a poise of character. And this can be cultivated and brought into action by learning to live by the sense of duty. Even then, even the sense of duty, we have to admit, is not enough. For if it leads or is capable of leading into an aberration, we must have something else to check and control it, some other higher and more potent principle. Indeed, both the conceptions of Duty and Right belong to the domain of mental ideal, although one is usually more aggressive and militant (Rajasic) and the other tends to be more tolerant and considerate (sattwic): neither can give an absolute certainty of poise, a clear guarantee of perfect harmony.
Indian wisdom has found this other, a fairer terma tertium quid,the mystic factor, sought for by so many philosophers on so many counts. That is the very well- known, the very familiar termDharma. What is Dharma then? How does it accomplish the miracle which to others seems to have proved an impossibility? Dharma is self-law, That is to say, the law of the Self; it is the rhythm and movement of our inner or inmost being, the spontaneous working out of our truth-conscious nature.
We may perhaps view the three terms Right, Duty and Dharma as degrees of an ascending consciousness. Consciousness at Its origin and in its primitive formulation is dominated by the principle of inertia (tamas); in That state things have mostly an undifferentiated collective existence, they helplessly move about acted upon by forces outside them. A rise in growth and evolution brings about differentiation, specialisation, organisation. And this means consciousness of oneself of the distinct and separate existence of each and everyone, in other words, self-assertion, the claim, the right of each individual unit to be itself, to become itself first and foremost. It is a necessary development; for it signifies the growth of self consciousness in the units out of a mass unconsciousness or semi-consciousness. It is the expression of rajas, the mode of dynamism, of strife and struggle, it is the corrective of tamas.
In the earliest and primitive society men lived totally in a mass consciousness. Their life was a blind obedienceobedience to the chief the patriarch or pater familiasobedience to the laws and customs of the collectivity to which one belonged. It was called duty; it was called even dharma, but evidently on a lower level, in an inferior formulation. In reality it was more of the nature of the mechanical functioning of an automaton than the exercise of conscious will and deliberate choice, which is the very soul of the conception of duty.
The conception of Right had to appear in order to bring out the principle of individuality, of personal freedom and fulfilment. For, a true healthy collectivity is the association and organisation of free and self-determinate units. The growth of independent individuality naturally means at first clash and rivalry, and a violently competitive society is the result. It is only at this stage That the conception of duty can fruitfully come in and develop in man and his society the mode of Sattwa, which is That of light and wisdom, of toleration and harmony. Then only a society is sought to be moulded on the principle of co-ordination and co-operation.
Still, the conception of duty cannot finally and definitively solve the problem. It cannot arrive at a perfect harmonisation of the conflicting claims of individual units; for, duty, as I have already said, is a child of mental idealism, and although the mind can exercise some kind of control over life-forces, it cannot altogether eliminate the seeds of conflict That lie imbedded in the very nature of life. It is for this reason That there is an element of constraint in duty; it is, as the poet says, the "stern daughter of the Voice of God". One has to compel oneself, one has to use force on oneself to carry out one's dutythere is a feeling somehow of its being a bitter pill. The cult of duty means rajas controlled and coerced by Sattwa, not the transcendence of rajas. This leads us to the high and supreme conception of Dharma, which is a transcendence of the gunas. Dharma is not an ideal, a standard or a rule That one has to obey: it is the law of self-nature That one inevitably follows, it is easy, spontaneous, delightful. The path of duty is heroic, the path of Dharma is of the gods, godly (cf. Virabhava and Divyabhava of the Tantras).
The principle of Dharma then inculcates That each individual must, in order to act, find out his truth of being, his true soul and inmost consciousness: one must entirely and integrally merge oneself into That, be identified with it in such a manner That all acts and feelings and thoughts, in fact all movements, inner and outerspontaneously and irrepressibly well out of That fount and origin. The individual souls, being made of one truth-nature in its multiple modalities, when they live, move and have their being in its essential law and dynamism, there cannot but be absolute harmony and perfect synthesis between all the units, even as the sun and moon and stars, as the Veda says, each following its specific orbit according to its specific nature, never collide or haltna me Thate na tas Thatuh but weave out a faultless pattern of symphony.
The future society of man is envisaged as something of like nature. When the mortal being will have found his immortal soul and divine self, then each one will be able to give full and free expression to his self-nature (swabhava); then indeed the utmost sweep of dynamism in each and all will not cause clash or conflict; on the contrary, each will increase the other and there will be a global increment and fulfilmentparasparam bhavayantah. The division and conflict, the stress and strain That belong to the very nature of the inferior level of being and consciousness will then have been transcended. It is only thus That a diviner humanity can be born and replace all the other moulds and types That can never lead to anything final and absolutely satisfactory.
***
01.13 - T. S. Eliot: Four Quartets, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Yes, by the force of this secret knowledge he has discovered, this supreme skill in action, as it is termed in the Eastern lore, I That the poet at last comes out into the open, into the light and happiness of the Dawn and the Day:
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
--
The Divine Love is a greater fire than the low smouldering fire That our secular unregenerate life is. One has to choose and declare his adhesion. Indeed, the stage of conversion, the crucial turn from the ordinary life to the spiritual life Eliot has characterised in a very striking manner. We usually say, sometimes in an outburst of grief, sometimes in a spirit of sudden disgust and renunciation That the world is dark and dismal and lonesome, the only thing to do here is to be done with it. The true renunciation, That which is deep and abiding, is not, however, so simple a thing, such a short cut. So our poet says, but the world is not dark enough, it is not lonesome enough: the world lives and moves in a superficial half-light, it is neither real death nor real life, it is death in life. It is this miserable mediocrity, the shallow uncertainty of consciousness That spells danger and ruin for the soul. Hence the poet exclaims:
. . . . Not here
--
Yes, That is the condition demanded, an entire vacuity in which nothing moves. That is the real Dark Night of the Soul. It is then only That the Grace leans down and descends, then only beams in the sweet Light of lights. Eliot has expressed the experience in these lines of rare beauty and sincerity :
Time and the bell have buried the day,
--
Eliot's is a very Christian soul, but we must remember at the same time That he is nothing if not modern. And this modernism gives all the warp and woof woven upon That inner core. How is it characterised? First of all, an intellectualism That requires a reasoned and rational synthesis of all experiences. Another poet, a great poet of the soul's Dark Night was, as we all know, Francis Thompson: it was in his case not merely the soul's night, darkness extended even to life, he lived the Dark Night actually and physically. His haunting, weird lines, seize within their grip our brain and mind and very flesh
My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,5
--
But Thompson was not an intellectual, his doubts and despondencies were not of the mental order, he was a boiling, swelling life-surge, a geyser, a volcano. He, too, crossed the Night and saw the light of Day, but in a different way. Well, I he did not march into the day, it was the Day That marched I into him! Yes, the Divine Grace came and seized him from behind with violence. A modern, a modernist consciousness cannot expect That indulgence. God meets him only halfway, he has to work up himself the other half. He has laid so many demands and conditions: the knots in his case are not cut asunder but slowly disengaged.
The modern temper is especially partial to harmony: it cannot assert and reject unilaterally and categorically, it wishes to go round an object and view all its sides; it asks for a synthesis and reconciliation of differences and contraries. Two major chords of life-experience That demand accord are Life and Death, Time and Eternity. Indeed, the problem of Time hangs heavy on the human consciousness. It has touched to the quick philosophers and sages in all ages and climes; it is the great question That confronts the spiritual seeker, the riddle That the Sphinx of life puts to the journeying soul for solution.
A modern Neo-Brahmin, Aldous Huxley, has given a solution of the problem in his now famous Shakespearean apothegm, "Time must have a stop". That is an old-world solution rediscovered by the modern mind in and through the ravages of Time's storm and stress. It means, salvation lies, after all, beyond the flow of Time, one must free oneself from the vicious and unending circle of mortal and mundane life. As the Rajayogi controls and holds his breath, stills all life-movement and realises a dead-stop of consciousness (Samadhi), even so one must control and stop all secular movements in oneself and attain a timeless stillness and vacancy in which alone the true spiritual light and life can descend and manifest. That is the age-long and ancient solution to which the Neo-Brahmin as well the Neo-Christian adheres.
Eliot seems to demur, however, and does not go to That extreme length. He wishes to go beyond, but to find out the source and matrix of the here below. As I said, he seeks a synthesis and not a mere transcendence: the transcendence is indeed a part of the synthesis, the other part is furnished by an immanence. He does not cut away altogether from Time, but reaches its outermost limit, its rim, its summit, where it stops, not altogether annihilated, but held in suspended animation. That is the "still point" to which he refers in the following lines:
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
--
He aims at the neutral point between the positive and the negative poles, which is neither, yet holding the two togetherat the crossing of Yes and No, the known and the unknown, the local and the eternal. That is what he means when he says:
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment
--
First, the movement towards transcendence, That is the journey in the Night which you do throwing away one by one all your possessions and burdens till you make yourself bare and naked, you die but you are reborn a new babe:
Into another intensity
--
That is the lesson That our poet has learnt from the Gita and That is the motto he too would prescribe to the seekers.
Now, a modern poet is modern, because he is doubly attracted and attached to things of this world and this mundane life, in spite of all his need and urge to go beyond for the larger truth and the higher reality. Apart from the natural link with which we are born, there is this other fascination which the poor miserable things, all the little superficialities, trivialities especially have for the modern mind in view of their possible sense and significance and right of existence. These too have a magic of their own, not merely a black magic:
--
The Word was made flesh and the Word was made Poetry. To express the supreme Word in life, That is the work of the sage, the Rishi. To express the Word in speech, That is the labour of the Poet. Eliot undertook this double function of the poet and the sage and he found the task difficult. The poet has to utter the unutterable, if he is to clo the in words the mystic experience of the sage in him. That is Eliot's ambition:
.... Words, after speech, reach
--
Our poet is too self-conscious, he himself feels That he has not the perfect voice. A Homer, even a Milton possesses a unity of tone and a wholeness of perception which are denied to the modern. To the modern, however, the old masters are not subtle enough, broad enough, psychological enough, let us say the word, spiritual enough. And yet the poetic inspiration, more than the religious urge, needs the injunction not to be busy with too many things, but to be centred upon the one thing needful, viz., to create poetically and not to discourse philosophically or preach prophetically. Not That it is impossible for the poet to swallow the philosopher and the prophet, metabolising them into the substance of his bone and marrow, of "the trilling wire in his blood", as Eliot graphically expresses. That perhaps is the consummation towards which poetry is tending. But at present, in Eliot, at least, the strands remain distinct, each with its own temper and rhythm, not fused and moulded into a single streamlined form of beauty. Our poet flies high, very high indeed at times, often or often he flies low, not disdaining the perilous limit of bathos. Perhaps it is all wilful, it is a mannerism which he cherishes. The mannerism may explain his psychology and enshrine his philosophy. But the poet, the magician is to be looked for elsewhere. In the present collection of poems it is the philosophical, exegetical, discursive Eliot who dominates: although the high lights of the subject-matter may be its justification. Still even if we have here doldrums like
That the past has another pattern, and ceases to be a mere sequence
Or even development: the latter a partial fallacy Encouraged by superficial notions of evolution, Which becomes, in the popular mind, a means of disowning the past.17
--
Here the poet is almost grimly tense, concentrated and has not allowed himself to be dissipated by thinkings and arguments, has confined himself wholly to a living experience. That is because the poet has since then moved up and sought a more rarefied air, a more even and smooth temper. The utter and absolute poetic ring of the Inferno is difficult to maintain in the Paradiso, unless and until the poet transforms himself wholly into the Rishi, like the poet of the Gita or the Upanishads.
"East Coker"
01.14 - Nicholas Roerich, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Ex oriente lux. Out of the East the Light, and That light is of the nature and substance of beauty, of creative and dynamic beauty in the life the spirit. This, I suppose, is Roerich's message in a nutshell. The Light of the East is always the light of the ample consciousness That dwells on the heights of our being in God.
The call That stirred a Western soul, made him a wanderer over the world in quest of the Holy Grail and finally lodged him in the Home of the Snows is symbolic of a more than individual destiny. It is representative of the secret history of a whole culture and civilisation That have been ruling humanity for some centuries, its inner want and need and hankering and fulfilment. The West shall come to the East and be reborn. That is the prophecy of occult seers and sages.
I speak of Roerich as a Western soul, but more precisely perhaps he is a soul of the mid-region (as also in another sense we shall see subsequently) intermediary between the East and the West. His external make-up had all the characteristic elements of the Western culture, but his mind and temperament, his inner soul was oriental. And yet it was not the calm luminous staticancientsoul That an Indian or a Chinese sage is; it is a nomad soul, newly awakened, young and fresh and ardent, something primitive, pulsating with the unspoilt green sap of life something in the manner of Whitman. And That makes him all the more representative of the young and ardent West yearning for the light That was never on sea or land.
Is it not strange That one should look to the East for the light? There is a light indeed That dwells in the setting suns, but That is the inferior light, the light That moves level with the earth, pins us down to the normal and ordinary life and consciousness: it" leads into the Night, into Nihil, pralaya. It is the light of the morning sun That man looks up to in his forward march, the sun That rises in the East whom the Vedic Rishi invoked in these magnificent lines:
Lo, the supreme light of all lights is come, a vast and varied consciousness is born in us. . . .
It is not a mere notion or superstition, it is an occult reality That gives sanctity to a particular place or region. The saintly soul has always been also a pilgrim, physically, to holy places, even to one single holy place, if he so chooses. The puritan poet may say tauntingly:
Here pilgrims roam, That strayed so far to seek In Golgotha him dead who lives in heaven
the pilgrim soul of Roerich declares with but equal vehemence and assurance:
--
Roerich is one of the prophets and seers who have ever been acclaiming and preparing the Golden Age, the dream That humanity has been dreaming continuously since its very childhood, That is to say, when there will be peace and harmony on earth, when racial, cultural or ideological egoism will no longer divide man and mana thing That seems today a chimera and a hallucinationwhen there will be one culture, one civilisation, one spiritual life welding all humanity into a single unit of life luminous and beautiful. Roerich believes That such a consummation can arrive only or chiefly through the growth of the sense of beauty, of the aesthetic temperament, of creative labour leading to a wider and higher consciousness. Beauty, Harmony, Light, Knowledge, Culture, Love, Delight are cardinal terms in his vision of the deeper and higher life of the future.
The stress of the inner urge to the heights and depths of spiritual values and realities found special and significant expression in his paintings. It is a difficult problem, a problem which artists and poets are tackling today with all their skill and talent. Man's consciousness is no longer satisfied with the customary and the ordinary actions and reactions of life (or thought), with the old-world and time-worn modes and manners. It is no more turned to the apparent and the obvious, to the surface forms and movements of things. It yearns to look behind and beyond, for the secret mechanism, the hidden agency That really drives things. Poets and artists are the vanguards of the age to come, prophets and pioneers preparing the way for the Lord.
Roerich discovered and elaborated his own technique to reveal That which is secret, express That which is not expressed or expressible. First of all, he is symbolical and allegorical: secondly, the choice of his symbols and allegories is hieratic, That is to say, the subject-matter refers to objects and events connected with saints and legends, shrines and enchanted places, hidden treasures, spirits and angels, etc. etc.; thirdly, the manner or style of execution is what we may term pantomimic, in other words, concrete, graphic, dramatic, even melodramatic. He has a special predilection for geometrical patterns the artistic effect of whichbalance, regularity, fixity, soliditywas greatly utilised by the French painter Czanne and poet Mallarm who seem to have influenced Roerich to a considerable degree. But this Northerner had not the reticence, the suavity, the tonic unity of the classicist, nor the normality and clarity of the Latin temperament. The prophet, the priest in him was the stronger element and made use of the artist as the rites andceremoniesmudras and chakrasof his vocation demanded. Indeed, he stands as the hierophant of a new cultural religion and his paintings and utterances are, as it were, gestures That accompany a holy ceremonial.
A Russian artist (Monsieur Benois) has stressed upon the primitivealmost aboriginalelement in Roerich and was not happy over it. Well, as has been pointed out by other prophets and thinkers, man today happens to be so sophisticated, artificial, material, cerebral That a [all-back seems to be necessary for him to take a new leap forward on to a higher ground. The pure aesthete is a closed system, with a consciousness immured in an ivory tower; but man is something more. A curious paradox. Man can reach the highest, realise the integral truth when he takes his leap, not from the relatively higher levels of his consciousness his intellectual and aesthetic and even moral status but when he can do so from his lower levels, when the physico-vital element in him serves as the springing-board. The decent and the beautiful the classic grace and aristocracyform one aspect of man, the aspect of "light"; but the aspect of energy and power lies precisely in him where the aboriginal and the barbarian find also a lodging. Man as a mental being is naturally sattwic, but prone to passivity and weakness; his physico-vital reactions, on the other hand, are obscure and crude, simple and vehement, but they have life and energy and creative power, they are there to be trained and transfigured, made effective instruments of a higher illumination.
All elemental personalities have something of the unconventional and irrational in them. And Roerich is one such in his own way. The truths and realities That he envisages and seeks to realise on earth are elemental and fundamental, although apparently simple and commonplace.
***
0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
habit, in spite of the fact That I want to get rid of these
reactions. What should I do?
--
your aspirations. Naturally, this does not mean That he
gives way to the fancies of your outer nature - I am
--
"The Dawn That does not pass away"3 - what spiritual
state does this marvellous dawn represent?
--
The soul is the Purusha That enters into the evolution.
Is my understanding correct?
--
earth will be transformed". Is That day drawing near?
It may very well be That this is what is happening now - but it
is not on the human scale.
--
fact That there is no formal date for the creation of
our Ashram, could it be said from the true occult point
of view That the Ashram was born with the Mother's
arrival?
--
When I want to be closer to You, I see That I must overcome my ego. But when I think of overcoming my ego,
I see That I must be closer to You. How can I solve this
problem?
--
How can I get rid of the habit of feeling That I own the
material things That belong to me?
If you belong entirely and totally to the Divine, then all That belongs to you, all That forms part of your material being, belongs
to the Divine.
--
Sometimes I think That the Agni You have kindled in me
is going to burn up everything That separates me from
You. What should I do to contribute to its fulfilment?
Each time That you discover in yourself something That denies
or resists, throw it into the flame of Agni, which is the fire of
--
Is it possible to make my hands conscious so That they
do nothing imperfect, incorrect or wrong? What is the
--
I want to overcome a difficulty: it is That when I perceive
faults or weaknesses in myself, something tries to justify
--
which has not yet understood That it is nobler and loftier to
recognise one's faults in order to correct them, than to conceal
them in the hope That they will not be noticed.
As for all psychological problems, here too sincerity, a total
--
To get rid of the past is something so difficult That it seems almost
impossible.
--
mind could set to work to find the answer, the reply That
Series Eleven - To a Sadhak
--
Yes, the two states are complementary, but That does not necessarily mean That they are simultaneous. Most often, "to live for
Thee" comes first and if the being is unified and sincere, "to live
--
I have begun to see That both the personal effort of the
sadhak and its result depend on the Divine Grace.
About this, one could say humorously That we are all divine, but
we are hardly even aware of it, and what we call "ourselves" is
That in us which is unaware That it is divine.
13 July 1967
--
May I know whether it is true That after death a dead
man very often returns in his daughter's child?
--
time to do all That You do? Perhaps physical time does
not exist for You!
--
and feels quite concretely That it does not itself live and act, but
That only the Supreme Lord exists and That He alone lives and
acts.
--
From what I understand, You said That the psychic beings
of the disciples of the Ashram all belong to the same family. In spite of this, there is often a lack of collaboration
among us. Why is That, Mother?
If I did say this (probably not quite in these words), it could only
--
It is said That there are certain methods in the Tantras
to open the chakras from below, whereas in the integral
--
and written That his yoga begins where the others leave off.
This is to say That yoga ordinarily consists in awakening the
physical consciousness and making it rise gradually towards the
Divine. Whereas Sri Aurobindo has said That to do his yoga,
one must already have found the Divine and united with Him -
--
It is said That Christ healed the sick and even raised the dead.
One day an idiot was brought to him to be cured. But Christ
slipped away, saying That to make a stupid man intelligent is an
impossibility.
--
of its laziness. That even the body has a will of its own
is a new experience for me.
--
The oldest tradition says That the first four emanations of
the Mahashakti - Consciousness, Love, Truth and Life - cut
--
Reality That is difficult to put into words.
2 December 1967
--
isn't That the aspiration of every sincere sadhak?
Total means vertically in all the states of being, from the
--
Whatever the past may have been, it is not time That is needed
to establish contact with the Divine, but sincerity of aspiration.
--
intensity and sincerity without the tears and anguish That
are mentioned in nearly all the old legends of the saints?
--
see the Truth That words cannot convey. What is it That
accompanies Your words?
--
I think That always, at every moment, someone or other
is calling You, and You answer. Doesn't this disturb Your
--
How is it That ordinarily the richer one is (materially),
the more dishonest one is?
--
When Mother says That wealth should not be a personal
property, I understand That what should come is more
a change of psychological attitude on the part of those
--
But how can others do it? Can it be said That each
one should get rid of the sense of property and spend his
--
I am sure That if someone is advanced enough on the path to
receive the knowledge That money is an impersonal power and
should be used for the progress of the earth, this person will
--
say That the emanation is made up of the very substance of
the emanator, whereas the formation is made up of a substance
--
To make a comparison, one could say That the emanation is
like a child made from the substance of its mother and That the
formation is like a living statue made out of a material external
--
It is true That the path is very long, but for one who follows it
with sincerity, it is really very interesting, and at every step one
--
It seems to me That the very land of Auroville aspires. Is
it true, Sweet Mother?
--
Can one say That all waste reflects a waste of consciousness?
Waste of any kind is the result of unconsciousness.
--
The Upanishad says That when one sleeps, one reaches
pure Being. Does this apply only to the Yogi or to
--
one wakes up, it is the waking being That is not conscious of the
activities of the night.
--
speaks of "the Truth That seeks to descend upon us" and
"is already there within us". Please explain this paradox
--
the night of bonds and attachments That have enveloped
me for the last three weeks, I felt That all these things
have actually been there for a long time and That now
Your Grace has brought them to my notice so That the
next step may be taken.
--
the greater the Truth That seeks to descend upon us, because it is already there within us
and calls for its release from the covering That conceals it in manifested Nature."
Sri Aurobindo
--
In this way, everything That has to be transformed will be
transformed quite naturally, without clash or damage.
--
(1) Never forget the goal That one wants to attain.
(2) Never allow any part of the being or any of its movements to contradict one's aspiration.
--
One can say very simply That all That leads to the Divine is
good, and all That leads away from the Divine is bad.
Many virtues lead away from the Divine by making men
--
the Grace That can bestow this state - even in those who by
Tapasya have abolished their ego.
--
is, the acknowledgement That there is something to be known
which we do not know) is the first effect of the divine influence
--
Can one say That such determination is demanded of the
sadhak who aspires for transformation?
--
Can one say That total sincerity and the abolition of the
ego are closely interdependent?
--
This is so true That one could rightly say: even while sleeping
one must move forward.
--
But the condition of the earth is sure to become such That a
supramental being will soon be able to live on it.
--
The Buddha said That Nirvana results in the cessation
of rebirth. But isn't the Divine always free to send back
into the manifestation the spark That extinguishes itself
in Him?
Naturally, each time That one makes a rule one makes a mistake.
Besides, although he has not taken up another physical
--
Can one hope That the sadhaks have now made good
progress towards this goal?
Now the conditions are such That every sincere effort must
necessarily tend towards this goal.
--
Things are now arranged in such a way That as soon as one
collaborates for the Divine Dawn in any form, one necessarily
--
the long duration and difficulty of the creation if its goal is That
all and everything should once more become consciously divine.
--
One would like to have the fundamental realisation That
the Divine is all and everything.
For That one must identify oneself with the Supreme Divine.
Once one is identified, when one turns towards the creation,
one sees and knows That the Divine alone exists both in the
Essence and in the manifestation.
--
Yes, it means That the entire being is absorbed in its consecration.
24 October 1968
--
through the experience of successive lives That the range of the
subconscient is gradually reduced.
--
to take place and which is more complicated than That.
19 November 1968
--
It seems to me, Mother, That when man does not accept the Divine, it is more out of ignorance than out of
wickedness. Isn't it so?
--
It seems to me, Mother, That the flame That calls and the
flame That responds are one and the same.
Essentially they are the same; but the plenitude of the response
--
Can one say, Mother, That perfect receptivity comes only
with constant union with the Divine?
If we call "perfect receptivity" the receptivity That receives only
the Divine Influence and no other, it is certain - and at the same
--
The quotation means That in order to reach the divine regions
one must, while on earth, pass through the vital, which in some
--
It is the human mind That has the conception of success and
failure. It is the human mind That wants one thing and does not
want another. In the divine plan each thing has its place and its
importance. So it is not success That matters. What matters is to
be a docile and if possible a conscious instrument of the Divine
--
Similarly, can one say That the Supreme Divine carries the Mother in his eternal consciousness?
Beyond all question.
--
"When we eat, we should be conscious That we are giving
our food to That Presence in us.... "21
When I try to take this attitude, the food tastes better
--
of ignorance, negligence or absent-mindedness That we do not
feel it. But each time That we are attentive and concentrated, we
become aware of a wonderful transformation in all things.
--
created by the separative consciousness, but something else That
our words cannot express.
--
to think That aspiration and human effort can hasten the advent
of the divine transformation, because effort and aspiration are
--
The Upanishad says: "When That is known, all is
known." All is known in its essential truth or also
--
It seems to me That to know things in detail, the ordinary
instrumentation is necessary for the yogi too, but That the
yogi puts this knowledge to the test of the essential truth.
Yes, one can put it That way. But above all, it is the attitude
towards the outward appearance That changes completely.
25 December 1968
--
divinisation of That consciousness.
31 December 1968
0.12 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
regularly, because it is the laziness of unconsciousness That keeps
you from doing them.
--
Each time I decide to work well, I see That my effort
does not last more than two days. What do You think I
should do so That I do well what I have decided to do? I
think there is something in me That refuses to obey me.
It is the same for everybody as long as one has not consciously
--
It is a long and meticulous work That requires much perseverance, but the result is worth the trouble, for it brings not
only mastery but also the possibility of the transformation and
--
How can one remember at every moment That whatever one does is for You? Particularly when one wants
to make a complete offering, how should one proceed,
never forgetting That it is for the Divine?
To achieve That, one must have an obstinate will and a great
patience. But once one has taken the resolution to do it, the
--
You wrote to me That it is not easy to come in contact
with the psychic being. Why do You consider it difficult?
--
I have seen That I am not able to force my physical
body to do a little better than my actual capacity. I would
--
certain That this consciousness has manifested in bodies other
than their present one and That it will survive the disappearance
of this body.
--
It is not by thinking That one can be in contact with Nature, for
Nature does not think.
--
with her, That can help in widening the consciousness.
Blessings.
--
peaceful mind That one can best commune with Nature.
Blessings.
--
It is selfishness That makes one jealous; it is weakness That makes
one lazy.
--
the true love: the love That loves for the joy of loving and has no
need to be loved in return; one also learns to draw Force from
the inexhaustible source and one knows by experience That by
using this Force in the service of the Divine one receives from
Him all That one has spent and much more.
All the remedies suggested by the mind, even the most
--
At times I talk in my sleep. It is a sign That the mind
lacks control, isn't it? So what should I do to keep it
--
ask it to remain perfectly quiet and silent so That your body
can rest properly. A little concentration for That, before going to
sleep, will surely be effective.
--
You may be sure That becoming conscious of the Divine Presence
in oneself considerably changes one's whole way of being and
--
A vital converted and consecrated to the Divine Will becomes a bold and forceful instrument That can overcome all
obstacles. But it first has to be disciplined, and this it consents
--
forces of Nature, and That is not very wise.
Blessings.
--
correctly, or are men still unable to do That?
Human incapacity is necessarily behind all That men do. Only
he who has become conscious of the Divine and become His
--
It must be said That this is not easy. Only he who no longer
has any ego can do it correctly.
--
Knowledge and intelligence are precisely the higher mental qualities in man, those That differentiate him from the animal.
Series Twelve - To a Student
--
man, there will surely be a difference comparable to That which
exists between man and the most advanced ape; but what this
--
Sports are all the games, competitions, tournaments, etc. That
are based on competition and lead to placings and prizes.
0.13 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I must say That at the present moment conditions are
particularly favourable.
--
His Presence, to surrender to Him completely so That one no
longer has any other will than His, and finally to unite one's
consciousness with His. That is "to realise the Divine".
Blessings.
--
Most often, it is the vital consciousness That goes out of the body
and has the form, the appearance of the person's body. If one
person dreams of another, it means That both have met at night,
most often in the vital region, but it can also happen elsewhere,
--
But all That is not even the shadow of love nor even its
deformation.
--
One has, then, to come into conscious contact with That and
learn to do so at will. The rest will follow.
Generally it is in the heart, behind the solar plexus, That one
finds this luminous presence.
--
about it and the only answer I could get is That at least
we are here in the Ashram to manifest the Divine upon
--
it That He takes so much time and uses such roundabout
ways? What joy does He get in creating unconscious
--
It is a question That all thinking people have asked.
Some have considered the problem more deeply and asked
--
in their endeavour have found That when one is united with the
Divine, one's vision of things changes totally, and they have all
--
will, so That the psychic being may accept or reject each of these
movements, impulses, thoughts or acts of will. Those That are
accepted will be kept and carried out; those That are rejected will
be driven out of the consciousness so That they may never come
back again.
It is a long and meticulous work That may take years to be
done properly.
--
I do not think That there are more accidents here than elsewhere.
Certainly there ought to be less. But for That, the children who
study here must make an effort to grow in consciousness (a thing
--
fine opportunity That has been given to them.
22 December 1969
--
asking for permission, because they sensed That it would not be
given.
--
It so happens That we are not in an age when men have been left
to their own means. The Divine has sent down His Consciousness to give them light. All who are able to do so should profit
--
through thousands of years of ascending evolution, That men
have learned to be conscious. Now they are ready to manifest
a far higher consciousness, the consciousness That will act fully
in the superman; and That is why this consciousness has come
down on earth to work in all who are ready to receive it.
--
What is this great change That you speak of? And
how can we be of help to it?
This great change is the appearance on earth of a new race That
will be to man what man is to the animal. The consciousness of
--
If the departed one is a person one loves, one should concentrate one's love on him in peace and calm, for That is what
can most help the one who has departed.
--
we get so involved That we cry or feel frightened. And if
we keep aloof we cannot appreciate it properly. So what
--
It is the vital That gets touched and moved.
If you watch mentally, the interest is no longer the same;
--
I did not say That you must not read newspapers. I said That you
must not blindly believe everything you read; you should know
0.14 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The remedy lies in union with the divine forces That are at
work and a receptivity full of trust and peace which makes the
--
Sri Aurobindo has revealed to us a few of the marvels That the
future will bring to the earth and has encouraged us to prepare
--
another. It is only when one gets rid of the ego That one becomes
a free being.
--
Grant That nothing in us may be an obstacle to the fulfilment
of Thy Will.
Grant That we may become conscious and effective collaborators in the fulfilment of Thy Will.
5 December 1971
--
Our human consciousness has windows That open upon the
Infinite. But generally men keep these windows carefully closed.
--
Egos That are converted and wholly consecrated to the
Divine become especially powerful and effective instruments.
--
movements and the judge of all That you should or should not
do, and to strive to submit your external nature to its decisions.
--
Feeling alone in the midst of human beings is the sign That you
are beginning to feel the need to find in your own being contact
--
Let us learn to be silent so That the Lord may make use of
us.
--
It is by perfecting our faith in the Divine Grace That we shall
be able to conquer the defeatism of the subconscient.
--
It is only in perfect union with the Divine That the consciousness
can emerge into the eternal delight. And this conscious union is
--
on the grounds That others are not transformed. But That is
the stronghold of bad will, for each one's duty is to transform
--
If men knew That this transformation, the abolition of egoism, is the only way to gain constant peace and delight, they
would consent to make the necessary effort. This, then, is the
conviction That must awaken in them.
Everyone should repeatedly be told: abolish your ego and
--
sincerity and pursued it with an unfailing patience - That one
finds the certitude of total fulfilment and a constant luminous
--
And then to be conscious That one knows nothing compared
to what one ought to know, That one can do nothing compared
to what one ought to do, That one is nothing compared to what
one ought to be.
--
One must constantly progress in the light and peace That
come from the absence of personal desires.
--
The first condition is to have a physical nature That gives
energy rather than draws energy from others.
--
one becomes an inexhaustible channel rather than a vessel That
empties itself by giving.
It is through steadfast aspiration That one learns.
13 January 1972
--
must be convinced That the possibility of progress is unlimited.
Progress is youth; one can be young at a hundred.
--
correct our defects, so That everything may be an opportunity to
cure ourselves of ignorance and incapacity - then life becomes
--
The energies That human beings use for reproduction and That
occupy such a predominant place in their lives, should on the
--
trust and gratitude That the difficulties will be overcome.
1 February 1972
--
come from the fact That men are nearly always convinced That
they know better than the Divine what they need and what
--
Will That one has the peace and calm joy which come from the
abolition of desires.
--
element. It was around the ego That the different states of being
were grouped; but now That the birth of superhumanity is being
prepared, the ego has to disappear and give way to the psychic
--
It is under the psychic influence That the Divine manifests in
man and thus prepares the coming of superhumanity.
The psychic is immortal and it is through the psychic That
immortality can be manifested on earth.
--
The first thing one learns on the way is That the joy of giving is
far greater than the joy of taking.
Then gradually one learns That to forget oneself is the source
of immutable peace. Later on, in this self-forgetfulness, one finds
the Divine, and That is the source of an ever-increasing bliss.
Series Fourteen - To a Sadhak
Sri Aurobindo told me one day That if men knew this and
were convinced of it, they would all want to do yoga.
--
Human consciousness is so corrupted That men prefer the miseries of the ego and its ignorance to the luminous joy That comes
from a sincere surrender to the Divine. So great is their blindness
--
So completely blind are they That they would not hesitate
to make the Divine a slave of their ego, if such a thing were
--
Supreme Lord, teach us to be silent, That in the silence we may
receive Your force and understand Your will.
--
conscious of our possibilities, but also of our difficulties so That
we may overcome them in order to serve You faithfully."
--
purify oneself of all That prevents one from being totally surrendered to the Divine. To make one's consciousness more and
more receptive to the Divine Influence.
--
faithfulness is faithfulness to the Divine - and That is the faithfulness we all ought to acquire through sincere and sustained
effort.
--
is for all the progress That has to be made!
Series Fourteen - To a Sadhak
--
Supreme Lord, Perfection That we must become, Perfection That
we must manifest.
--
Grant That I may become conscious of Your Presence.
9 March 1972
Lord, we implore You, grant That nothing in us may reject Your
Presence and That we may become what You want us to be; grant
That all in us may conform to Your Will.
--
Grant That our silence may be filled with Your Presence and That
we may be fully conscious of it.
Grant That we may know That You are our life, our consciousness and our being, and That without You everything is
merely illusion.
--
Grant That we may identify ourselves with Your Eternal Consciousness so That we may know truly what Immortality is.
16 March 1972
--
This truth That man has vainly sought to know will be the
birthright of the new race, the race of tomorrow, the superman.
0 1951-09-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I aspire That
this food
0 1954-08-25 - what is this personality? and when will she come?, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
There are other great Personalities of the Divine Mother, but they were more difficult to bring down and have not stood out in front with so much prominence in the evolution of the earth-spirit. There are among them Presences indispensable for the supramental realization,most of all one who is her Personality of That mysterious and powerful ecstasy and Ananda1 which flows from a supreme divine Love, the Ananda That alone can heal the gulf between the highest heights of the supramental spirit and the lowest abysses of Matter, the Ananda That holds the key of a wonderful divines Life and even now supports from its secrecies the work of all the other Powers of the universe.
Sri Aurobindo, The Mother
--
It is true That at present, her presence is more rhetorical than factual, since so far She has had no chance to manifest. Yet even so, She is a powerful instrument in the Work, for of all the Mothers aspects, She holds the greatest power to transform the body. Indeed, those cells which can vibrate at the touch of the divine Joy, receive it and bear it, are cells reborn, on their way to becoming immortal.
But the vibrations of divine Bliss and those of pleasure cannot cohabit in the same vital and physical house. We must therefore TOTALLY renounce all feelings of pleasure to be ready to receive the divine Ananda. But rare are those who can renounce pleasure without thereby renouncing all active participation in life or sinking into a stern asceticism. And among those who realize That the transformation is to be wrought in active life, some pretend That pleasure is a form of Ananda gone more or less astray and legitimize their search for self-satisfaction, thereby creating a virtually insuperable obstacle to their own transformation.
Now, if there is anything else you wish to ask me Anyone may ask, anyoneanyone who has something to saynot just the students.
--
She came down because there WAS a possibilitybecause things had reached such a stage That it was her hour to come down. But in truth, She came down because because I thought it was possible for her to succeed.
Possibilities are still thereonly they have to materialize.
This is borne out by the fact That her descent took place at a given moment and for two or three weeks the atmospherenot only of the Ashram but of the Earthwas so highly charged with such a power of such an intense divine Bliss creating so marvelous a force That things difficult to do before could be done almost instantly.
There were repercussions the world over. But I dont believe That a single one of you noticed it you cannot even tell me when it happened, can you?
When did it happen?
I dont know dates. I dont know, I never remember dates. I can only tell you this That it happened before Sri Aurobindo left his body, That he was told about it beforeh and and That he well, he acknowledged the fact.
But there was a formidable battle with the Inconscient, for when I saw That the level of receptivity was not what it should have been, I blamed the Inconscient and tried to wage the battle there.
I dont say it was ineffectual, but between the result obtained and the result hoped for, there was a considerable difference. But as I said, you who are all so near, so steeped in this atmosphere who among you noticed anything?You simply went on with your little lives as usual.
I think it was in 1946, Mother, because you told us so many things at That time.
Right.
(A child:) Sweet Mother, now That She has come, what should we do?
You dont know?
--
Now you may ask me the questions you wanted to ask Thats all?
Mother, there is not even one single man?
--
Oh! But you see, from an occult standpoint, it is a selection. From an external standpoint you could say That there are people in the world who are far superior to you (and I would not disagree!), but from an occult standpoint, it is a selection. There are It can be said That without a doubt the majority of young people here have come because it was promised them That they would be present at the Hour of Realization but they just dont remember it! (Mother laughs) I have already said several times That when you come down on earth, you fall on your head, which leaves you a little dazed! (laughter) Its a pity, but after all, you dont have to remain dazed all your lives, do you? You should go deep within yourselves and there find the immortal consciousness then you can see very well, you can very clearly remember the circumstances in which you you aspired to be here for the Hour of the Works realization.
But actually, to tell you the truth, I think your lives are so easy That you dont exert yourselves very much! How many among you have truly an INTENSE need to find their psychic beings? To find out truly who they are? To find out what their roles are, why they are here? You just let yourselves drift. You even complain when things arent easy enough! You just take things as they come. And sometimes, should an aspiration arise in you and you encounter some difficulty in yourself, you say, Oh, Mother is there! Shell take care of it for me! And you think about something else.
Mother, previously things were very strict in the Ashram, but not now. Why?
Yes, I have always said That it changed when we had to take the very little children. How can you envision an ascetic life with little sprouts no bigger than That? Its impossible! But Thats the little surprise package the war left on our doorstep. When it was found That Pondicherry was the safest place on earth, naturally people came wheeling in here with all their baby carriages filled and asked us if we could shelter them, so we couldnt very well turn them away, could we?! Thats how it happened, and in no other way But, in the beginning, the first condition for coming here was That you would have nothing more to do with your family! If a man was married, then he had to completely overlook the fact That he had a wife and childrencompletely sever all ties, have nothing further to do with them. And if ever a wife asked to come just because her husb and happened to be here, we told her, You have no business coming here!
In the beginning, it was very, very strict for a long time.
The first condition was: Nothing more to do with your family Well, we are a long way from That! But I repeat That it only happened because of the war and not because we stopped seeing the need to cut all family ties; on the contrary, this is an indispensable condition because as long as you hang on to all these cords which bind you to ordinary life, which make you a slave to the ordinary life, how can you possibly belong to the Divine alone? What childishness! It is simply not possible. If you have ever taken the trouble to read over the early ashram rules, you would find That even friendships were considered dangerous and undesirable We made every effort to create an atmosphere in which only ONE thing counted: the Life Divine.
But as I said, bit by bit things changed. However, this had one advantage: we were too much outside of life. So there were a number of problems which had never arisen but which would have suddenly surged up the moment we wanted a complete manifestation. We took on all these problems a little prematurely, but it gave us the opportunity to solve them. In this way we learned many things and surmounted many difficulties, only it complicated things considerably. And in the present situation, given such a large number of elements who havent even the slightest idea why theyre here (!) well, it demands a far greater effort on the disciples part than before.
Before, when there were we started with 35 or 36 people but even when it got up to 150, even with 150it was as if they were all nestled in a cocoon in my consciousness: they were so near to me That I could constantly guide ALL their inner or outer movements. Day and night, at each moment, everything was totally under my control. And naturally, I think they made a great deal of progress at That time: it is a fact That I was CONSTANTLY doing the sadhana2 for them. But then, with this baby boom The sadhana cant be done for little sprouts who are 3 or 4 or 5 years old! Its out of the question. The only thing I can do is wrap them in the Consciousness and try to see That they grow up in the best of all possible conditions. However, the one advantage to all this is That instead of there being such a COMPLETE and PASSIVE dependence on the disciples part, each one has to make his own little effort. Truly, Thats excellent.
I dont know to whom I was mentioning this today (I think it was for a Birthday3 No, I dont know now. It was to someone who told me he was 18 years old. I said That between the ages of 18 and 20, I had attained a constant and conscious union with the Divine Presence and That I had done this ALL ALONE, without ANYONES help, not even books. When a little later I chanced upon Vivekanandas Raja Yoga, it really seemed so wonderful to me That someone could explain something to me! And it helped me realize in only a few months what would have otherwise taken years.
I met a man (I was perhaps 20 or 21 at the time), an Indian who had come to Europe and who told me of the Gita. There was a French translation of it (a rather poor one, I must say) which he advised me to read, and then he gave me the key (HIS key, it was his key). He said, Read the Gita (this translation of the Gita which really wasnt worth much but it was the only one available at the timein those days I wouldnt have understood anything in other languages; and besides, the English translations were just as bad and well, Sri Aurobindo hadnt done his yet!). He said, Read the Gita knowing That Krishna is the symbol of the immanent God, the God within. That was all. Read it with That knowledgewith the knowledge That Krishna represents the immanent God, the God within you. Well, within a month, the whole thing was done!
So some of you people have been here since the time you were toddlerseverything has been explained to you, the whole thing has been served to you on a silver platter (not only with words, but through psychic aid and in every possible way), you have been put on the path of this inner discovery and then you just go on drifting along: When it comes, it will come.If you even spare it That much thought!
So Thats how it is.
But Im not at all discouraged, I just find it rather laughable. Only there are other far more serious things; for example, when you try to deceive yourselves That is not so pretty. One should not mix up cats and kings. You should call a cat a cat and a king a king and human instinct, human instinctand not speak about things divine when they are utterly human, nor pretend to have supramental experiences when you are living in a blatantly ordinary consciousness.
If you look at yourselves straight in the face and you see what you are, then if by chance you should resolve to But what really astounds me is That you dont even seem to feel an intense NEED to do this! But how can we know? Because you DO know, you have been told over and over again, it has been drummed into your heads. You KNOW That you have a divine consciousness within you. And yet you can go on sleeping night after night, playing day after day, doing your lessons ad infinitum and still not be not have a BURNING desire and will to come into contact with yourselves!With yourselves, yes, the you just there, inside (motion towards the center of the chest) Really, its beyond me!
As soon as I found outand no one told me, I found out through an experienceas soon as I found out That there was a discovery to be made within myself, well, it became THE MOST IMPORTANT thing in the world. It took precedence over everything else!
And when, as I told you, I chanced upon a book or an individual That could give me just a little clue and tell me, Here. If you do such and such, you will find your pathwell I charged into it like a cyclone and nothing could have stopped me.
And how many years have you all been here, half-asleep? Naturally, youre happy to think about it now and thenespecially when I speak to you about it or sometimes when you read. But That That fire, That will which plows through all barriers, That concentration which can triumph over EVERYTHING
Now who was it That asked me what you should do?
(The child:) Me!
Well, Thats what you have to do, my child. I have just told you.
(silence)
--
But no one asked me That.
Tell us, Motherwe really want to know, Sweet Mother!
For Her, this body is but one instrument among so many others in an eternity of ages to come, and for Her its only importance is That attributed to it by the Earth and mankind the extent to which it can be used as a channel to further Her manifestation. If I find myself surrounded by people who are incapable of receiving Her, then for Her, I am quite useless.
It is very clear. So it is not I who can make Her stay. And I certainly cannot ask Her to stay for egotistical reasons. Moreover, all these Aspects, all these Personalities manifest constantly but they never manifest for personal reason. Not one of them has ever thought of helping my bodybesides, I dont ask them to because That is not their purpose. But it is more than obvious That if the people around me were receptive, She could permanently manifest since they could receive Herand this would help my body enormously because all these vibrations would run through it. But She never gets even a chance to manifestnot a single one. She only meets people who dont even feel Her when Shes there! They dont even notice Her, theyre not even aware of her presence. So how can She manifest in these conditions? Im not going to ask Her, Please come and change my body. We dont have That kind of relationship! Furthermore, the body itself wouldnt agree. It never thinks of itself, it never pays attention to itself, and besides, it is only through the work That it can be transformed.
Yes, certainly had there been any receptivity when She came down and had She been able to manifest with the power with which She came But I can tell you one thing: even before Her coming, when, with Sri Aurobindo, I had begun going down (for the Yoga) from the mental plane to the vital plane, when we brought our yoga down from the mental plane into the vital plane, in less than a month (I was forty years old at the time I didnt seem very old, I looked less than forty, but I was forty anyway), after no more than a month of this yoga, I looked exactly like an 18 year old! And someone who knew me and had stayed with me in Japan5 came here, and when he saw me, he could scarcely believe his eyes! He said, But my god, is it you? I said, Of course!
--
Well, I am only telling you all this because I thought someone might ask me about it, but otherwise I dont have That kind of relationship with Her. You see, if you consider this body, this poor body, it is very innocent: it in no way tries to draw attention to itself nor to attract forces nor to do anything at all except its workas best it can. And Thats how it stands: its importance is proportionate to its usefulness and to the significance the world attri butes to itsince its action is for the world.
But in and of itself, it is only one body among countless others. Thats all.
(To the disciple handling the microphone:) Its over now.
0 1955-04-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Mother, for more than a year now I have been near you and nothing, no really significant inner experience, no sign has come That allows me to feel I have progressed or merely to show me That I am on the right path. I cannot even say I am happy.
I am not so absurdly pretentious as to blame the divine, nor yourself and I remain quite convinced That all this is my own fault. Undoubtedly I have not known how to surrender totally in some part of myself, or I do not aspire enough or know how to open myself as needed. Also, I should rely entirely upon the divine to take care of my progress and not be concerned about the absence of experiences. I have therefore asked myself why I am so far away from the true attitude, the genuine opening, and I see two main reasons: on the one hand, the difficulties inherent in my own nature, and on the other, the outer conditions of this sadhana. These conditions do not seem to be conducive to helping me overcome the difficulties in my own nature.
I feel That I am turning in circles and taking one step backward for each one forward. Furthermore, instead of helping me draw nearer to the divine consciousness, my work in the Ashram (the very fact of working for to change work, even if I felt like it, would not change the overall situation), diverts me from this divine consciousness, or at least keeps me in a superficial consciousness from which I am unable to unglue myself as long as I am busy writing letters, doing translations, corrections or classes.1 I know its my own fault, That I should know how to be detached from my work and do it by relying upon a deeper consciousness, but what can be done? Unless I receive the grace, I cannot remember the essential thing as long as the outer part of my being is active.
When I am not immediately engrossed in work, I have to confront a thousand little temptations and daily difficulties That come from my contact with other beings and a life That does indeed remain in life. Here, even more, there is the feeling of an impossible struggle, and all these little difficulties seem to gnaw away at me; scarcely has one hole been filled when another opens up, or the same one reappears, and there is never any real victoryone has constantly to begin everything again. Finally, it seems to me That I really live only one hour a day, during the evening distribution at the playground.2 It is scarcely a life and scarcely a sadhana!
Consequently, I understand much better now why in the traditional yogas one settled all these difficulties once and for all by escaping from the world, without bothering to transform a life That seems so untransformable.
I am not now going to renounce Sri Aurobindos Yoga, Mother, for my whole life is based upon it, but I believe I should employ other meanswhich is why I am writing you this letter.
By continuing this daily little ant-like struggle and by having to confront the same desires, the same distractions every day, it seems to me I am wasting my energy in vain. Sri Aurobindos Yoga, which is meant to include life, is so difficult That one should come to it only after having already established the solid base of a concrete divine realization. That is why I want to ask you if I should not withdraw for a certain time, to Almora,3 for example, to Brewsters place,4 to live in solitude, silence, meditation, far away from people, work and temptations, until a beginning of Light and Realization is concretized in me. Once this solid base is acquired, it would be easier for me to resume my work and the struggle here for the true transformation of the outer being. But to want to transform this outer being without having fully illumined the inner being seems to me to be putting the cart before the horse, or at least condemning myself to a pitiless and endless battle in which the best of my forces are fruitlessly consumed.
In all sincerity, I must say That when I was at Brewsters place in Almora, I felt very near to That state in which the Light must surge forth. I quite understand the imperfection of this process, which involves fleeing from difficulties, but this would only be a stage, a strategic retreat, as it were.
Mother, this is not a vital desire seeking to divert me from the sadhana, for my life has no other meaning than to seek the divine, but it seems to be the only solution That could bring about some progress and get me out of this lukewarm slump in which I have been living day after day. I cannot be satisfied living merely one hour a day, when I see you.
I know That you do not like to write, Mother, but couldnt you say in a few words if you approve of my project or what I should do? In spite of all my rebellions and discouragements and resistances, I am your child. O Mother, help me!
Signed: Bernard
--
Perhaps being far away from the Ashram for a while will help you feel the special atmosphere That exists here and That cannot be found anywhere else to the same extent.
In any event, my blessings will always be with you to help you find, at long last, this inner Presence which alone gives joy and stability.
0 1955-06-09, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Mother, I cannot say That it is a nostalgia for the outside world That is drawing me backwards nor some attachment to a personal form of life, nor even some vital desire seeking its own satisfaction. That old world no longer attracts me, and I do not see at all what I would do there. Yet something is standing in my way.
If only I could see a distinct error blocking my path which I could clearly attack But I feel That I am not responsible, That it is not my personal fault if I remain without aspiration, stagnating. I feel like a battlefield of contending forces That are beyond me and against which I can do NOTHING. Oh Mother, it is not an excuse for a lack of will, or at least I dont think so I profoundly feel like a helpless toy, totally helpless.
If the divine force, if your grace, does not intervene to shatter this obscure resistance That is drawing me downwards in spite of myself, I dont know what will become of me Mother, I am not blackmailing you, I am only expressing my helplessness, my anguish.
During the day, I live more or less calmly in my little morass, but as evening and the moment to meet you draw near, then the forces pinning me to the ground begin raging beneath your pressure, and I feel at times an unbearable tearing That burns and constricts in my throat like tears That cannot be shed. Afterwards, Truth regains possession of me but the following day it all begins again.
Mother, it is an impossible, absurd, unlivable life. I feel as though I have no hand in this cruel little game. Oh Mother, why doesnt your grace trust That deep part in me which knows so well That you are the Truth? Deliver me from these evil forces since, profoundly, it is you and you alone I want. Give me the aspiration and strength I do not have. If you do not do this Yoga for me, I feel I shall never have the strength to go on.
There is something That must be SHATTERED: can it not be done once and for all without lingering on indefinitely? Mother, I am your child.
Signed: Bernard
--
Your case is not unique; there are others (and among the best and the most faithful) who are likewise a veritable battlefield for the forces opposing the advent of the truth. They feel powerless in this battle, sorrowful witnesses, victims without the strength to fight, for this is taking place in That part of the physical consciousness where the supramental forces are not yet fully active, although I am confident they soon will be. Meanwhile, the only remedy is to endure, to go through this suffering and to await patiently the hour of liberation.
While reading your prayer, I too prayed That it be heard.
With my blessings.
0 1955-09-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Mother, it seems That for weeks I have been knocking against myself at every turn, as though I were in a prison, and I cannot get out of it. Mother, I need your Space, your Light, to get out of this walled-in night That is suffocating me.
No matter where I concentrate, in my heart, above my head, between my eyes, I bang everywhere into an unyielding wall; I no longer know which way to turn, what I must do, say, pray in order to be freed from all this at last. Mother, I know That I am not making all the effort I should, but help me to make this effort, I implore your grace. I need so much to find at last this solid rock upon which to lean, this space of light where finally I may seek refuge. Mother, open the psychic being in me, open me to your sole Light which I need so much. Without your grace, I can only turn in circles, hopelessly. O Mother, may I live in you.
Your child,
0 1955-09-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Mother suddenly everything seems to have crystallizedall the little revolts, the little tensions, the ill will and petty vital demandsforming a single block of open, determined resistance. I have become conscious That from the beginning of my sadhana, the mind has led the gamewith the psychic behind and has held me in leash, helped muzzle all contrary movements, but at no time, or only rarely, has the vital submitted or opened to the higher influence. The rare times when the vital participated, I felt a great progress. But now, I find myself in front of this solid mass That says No and is not at all convinced of what the mind has been imposing upon it for almost two years now.
Mother, I am sufficiently awakened not to rebel against your Light and to understand That the vital is but one part of my being, but I have come to the conclusion That the only way of convincing this vital is not to force or stifle it, but to let it go through its own experience so it may understand by itself That it cannot be satisfied in this way. I feel the need to leave the Ashram for a while to see how I can get along away from here and to realize, no doubt, That one can really brea the only here.
I have friends in Bangalore whom I would like to join for two or three weeks, perhaps more, perhaps less, however long it may take to confront this vital with its own freedom. I need a vital activity, to move, to sail, for example, to have friends etc. The need I am feeling is exactly That which I sought to satisfy in the past through my long boat journeys along the coast of Brittany. It is a kind of thirst for space and movement.
Otherwise, Mother, there is this block before me That is obscuring all the rest and taking away my taste for everything. I would like to leave, Mother, but not in revolt; may it be an experience to go through That receives your approval. I would not like to be cut off from you by your displeasure or your condemnation, for this would seem to me terrible and leave me no other recourse but to plunge into the worst excesses in order to forget.
Mother, I would like you to forgive me, to understand me and, above all, not to deprive me of your Love. I would like you to tell me if I may leave for a few weeks and how you feel about it. It seems to me That I am profoundly your child, in spite of all this??
Signed: Bernard
0 1955-10-19, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
2) To unfold ones being before Him, to open entirely ones body from head to toe, as one opens a book, spreading open ones centers so as to make all their movements visible in a total SINCERITY That allows nothing to remain hidden.
3) To nestle in His arms, to melt in Him in a tender and absolute CONFIDENCE.
0 1956-02-29 - First Supramental Manifestation - The Golden Hammer, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
As I looked at the door, I knew and willed, in a single movement of consciousness, That THE TIME HAS COME, and lifting with both hands a mighty golden hammer I struck one blow, one single blow1 on the door and the door was shattered to pieces.
Then the supramental Light and Force and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted flow.
0 1956-03-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But the age of Communism, too, will pass. For Communism as it is preached is not constructive, it is a weapon to combat plutocracy. But when the battle is over and the armies are disbanded for want of employment, then Communism, having no more utility, will be transformed into something else That will express a higher truth.
We know this truth, and we are working for it so That it may reign upon earth.
***
0 1956-04-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Mother, two months ago I had a clear mental perception of what was asked of me: to spend the rest of my life here. This is the source of my difficulties and of the inner hell I have been living through ever since. Each time I try to emerge, there is this image That rises up in me: your-whole-life and this casts me into a violent conflict. When I came here, I thought of staying for two or three years; for me the Ashram was a means of realization, not an end.
I understand now That as long as my whole being has not ACCEPTED That it must finish its life here, there is no way out nor any recovery possible. Through my mental force alone, this acceptance is impossible; I have been turning infernally in circles these past two months, and the mind is in league with the vital. Therefore, a force greater than mine must help me accept That my way is here. I need you, Mother, for without you I am lost. I need you to tell me That the Truth of my being is indeed here and That I am truly ready to follow this path. Mother, I beseech you, help me to see the truth of my being, give me some sign That my way is here and not elsewhere. I beg of you, Mother, help me to know.
I also had a very clear sensation That you were abandoning me, That you had no further interest in me and I could just as well do as I pleased. Perhaps you cannot forgive some of my inner rebellions which have been so very violent? Am I totally guilty? Is it true That you are abandoning me?
I am broken and battered in the depths of my being as I was in my flesh in the concentration camps. Will the divine grace take pity on me? Can you, do you want to help me? Alone I can do nothing. I am in an absolute solitude, even beyond all rebellion, at my very end.
Yet I love you in spite of all That I am.
Signed: Bernard
0 1956-04-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The difficulties of the past weeks have taught me That as soon as one strays from the true consciousness, in however trifling a way, anything may happen, any excess, any aberration, any imbalance and I have felt very dangerous things prowling about me. Mother, you told me in regard to Patrick1 That the law of the manifestation was a law of freedom, even the freedom to choose wrongly. This evening, it has been my very deep perception That this freedom is virtually always a freedom to choose wrongly. I harbor a great fear of losing the true consciousness once again. I have become aware of how fragile everything in me is and That very little would be enough to carry me away.
Therefore, Sweet Mother, I come to ask a great grace of you, from the depths of my heart: take my freedom into your hands. Prevent me from falling back, far away from you. I place this freedom in your hands. Keep me safe, Mother, protect me. Grant me the grace of watching over me and of taking me in your hands completely, like a child whose steps are unsure. I no longer want this Freedom. It is you I want, the Truth of my being. Mother, as a grace, I implore you to free me from my freedom to choose wrongly.
--
Agreedwith all my heart I accept the gift you give me of your freedom to choose wrongly And it is with all my heart, too, That I shall always help you make the choice That leads straight to the goal That is, towards your real self.
With all my affection and my blessings.
0 1956-04-23, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And the things That were promised shall be fulfilled.
and rewrites it as follows in her own hand:
--
The things That were promised are fulfilled.1
Original English.
0 1956-05-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Sweet Mother, you said, The Supramental has come down on earth. What does this mean, exactly? You also said, The things That were promised are fulfilled. What are these things?
Oh, really! How ignorant! It has been promised for such a very long time, it has been said for such a very long timenot only here in the Ashram, but ever since the beginning of the earth. There have been all kinds of predictions, by all kinds of prophets. It has been said, There will be a new heaven and a new earth, a new race shall be born, the world shall be transformed Prophets have spoken of this in every tradition.
--
When the mind came down upon earth, something like a million years went by between the manifestation of the mind in the earth atmosphere and the appearance of the first man. But it will go faster this time because man is waiting for something, he has a vague idea: he is awaiting in some way or another the advent of the superman. Whereas the apes were certainly not awaiting the birth of man, they never thought of it for the excellent reason That they probably dont think very much! But man has thought about it and is waiting, so it will go faster. But faster probably still means thousands of years. We shall speak of this again in a few thousand years!
(silence)
--
But for this only like can know like. Only the Supramental Consciousness in an individual can perceive the Supramental acting in the earth atmosphere. Those who, for whatever reason, have developed this perception can see it. But those who are not even remotely conscious of their inner beings, who would be quite at a loss to say what their souls look like, are certainly not ready to perceive the difference in the earth atmosphere. They still have quite a way to go for That. Because, for those whose consciousness is more or less exclusively centered in the outer beingmental, vital and physicalthings need to have an absurd or unexpected appearance to be noticeable. And then they call it a miracle.
But we do not call a miracle the constant miracle of the forces That intervene to change circumstances and human natures and which have very far-reaching consequences, for we see only the appearance, and this appearance seems quite natural. But in truth, if you were to reflect upon the least thing That happens, you would be forced to acknowledge That it is miraculous.
It is simply because you do not reflect upon it and assume things to be as they are, what they are, unquestioningly; otherwise you would have quite a number of opportunities everyday to say to yourself, But look! That is absolutely amazing! How did it happen?
Quite simply, the habit of a purely superficial way of seeing.
--
That depends upon what you want to do with it.
If you want to look at it as an object of curiosity, then you have only to look at it, to try to understand.
--
I would repeat the same thing. What reason and what right have they to ask That things be easier? What have they done on their side? Why should it be easier? To satisfy peoples laziness and slothor what?
Because when something new comes, we always have the idea of benefiting from it.
No! Not only in the case of something new: in every case, there is always this idea of benefiting. However, That is the best way to get nothing.
Who are you trying to fool? The Divine? That is hardly possible.
Its the same with those who ask for an interview. I tell them, Look, you have come in large numbers, and if each one asks me for an interview, how could I possibly find enough minutes in so few days to see everyone? While youre here, I wouldnt have even a single minute. Then they retort, Oh, I have taken so MUCH trouble, I have come from so FAR away, I have come from way in the North, I have travelled for so many hoursand I have no right to an interview? I reply, Im sorry, but you are not the only one in That situation.
And Thats how it isswapping, bargaining. We are not a commercial enterprise, we have made it clear That we are not doing business.
The number of disciples is increasing now day by day. What does this indicate?
But inevitablyit will increase more and more! Which is why I cannot do what I used to do when there were one hundred and fifty people in the Ashram. If they had just a little bit of common sense, they would understand That I cannot have the same relationship with people now (just imagine, 1,800 people these last days!), so I cannot have the same relationship with 1,845 people (exactly, I believe) as with thirty or even a hundred. That seems an easy enough logic to understand.
But they want everything to remain as it was and, as you say, to be the first to benefit.
Mother, when the mind came down into the earth atmosphere, the ape did not make any effort to convert himself into a man, did he? It was Nature That supplied the effort. But in our case
But its not man who is going to convert himself into a superman!
--
You see, it is something else That is going to do the work.
So we are
Onlyyes, there is an only, I dont want to be so cruel: NOW MAN CAN COLLABORATE. That is, he can lend himself to the process, with good will, with aspiration, and help to his utmost. Which is why I said it will go faster. I hope it will go MUCH faster.
But even if it does go much faster, it will still take some time!
--
Look. If all of you who have heard of this, not once but perhaps hundreds of times, who have spoken of it yourselves, thought about it, hoped for it, wanted it (there are some people who have come here only for this, to receive the Supramental Force and to be transformed into supermen, this has been their goal) then how is it That you were ALL such strangers to this Force That when it came, you did not even feel it?!
Can you solve That problem for me? If you find the solution to this problem, you will have the solution to the difficulty.
I am not speaking of people from outside who have never thought about it, who have never felt concerned and who do not even know That there may be something like the Supermind to receive, in fact. I am speaking of people who have built their lives upon this aspiration (and I dont doubt their sincerity for a minute), who have workedsome of them for thirty years, some for thirty-five, others somewhat lessall the while saying, When the supermind comes When the supermind comes That was their refrain: When the supermind comes Consequently, they were really in the best possible frame of mind, one could not have dreamt of a better predisposition. How is it, then, That their inner preparation was so lets just say incomplete, That they did not feel the Vibration immediately, as soon as it came, through a shock of identity?
Individually, each ones goal was to make himself ready, to enter into a more or less intimate individual relationship with this Force, so as to help the process; or else, if he could not help, at least be ready to recognize and be open to the Force when it would manifest. Then instead of being an alien element in a world in which your OWN inner capacity remains unmanifest, you suddenly become That, you enter directly, fully, into the very atmosphere: the Force is there, all around you, permeating you.
If you had had a little inner contact, you would have recognized it immediately, dont you think so?
Well, in any event, That was the case for those who had a little inner contact; they recognized it, they felt it, and they said, Ah, there it is! It has come! But how is it That so many hundreds of peoplenot to mention the handful of those who really wanted only That, thought only of That, had staked their whole lives on Thathow is it That they felt nothing? What can this mean?
It is well known That only like knows like. It is an obvious fact.
There was indeed a possibility to enter into contact with the Thing individuallythis was even what Sri Aurobindo had described as being the necessary procedure: a certain number of people would enter into contact with this Force through their inner effort and their aspiration. We had called it the ascent towards the Supermind. And IF and when they had touched the Supermind through an inner ascent ( That is, by freeing themselves from the material consciousness), they should have recognized it SPONTANEOUSLY as soon as it came. But a preliminary contact was indispensableif you have never touched it, how can you recognize it?
Thats how the universal movement works (I read this to you a few days ago): through their inner effort and inner progress, certain individuals, who are the pioneers, the forerunners, enter into communication with the new Force which is to manifest, and they receive it in themselves. And because a number of calls like this surge forth, the thing becomes possible, and the era, the time, the moment for the manifestation comes. This is how it happened and the Manifestation took place.
But then, all those who were ready should have recognized it.
I hasten to tell you That some did recognize it, but they were so few But as for those who ask these questions, who even took the trouble to come here, who took the train to gulp this down as you gulp down a soft drink, how can they possibly feel anything whatsoever if they have not prepared themselves at all? Yet they are already speaking of profiting: We want to benefit from it
After all, if they have even a tiny bit of sincerity (not too much, its tiring!), a tiny bit of sincerity, it is quite possible (I am joking), it is quite possible That they might get a few good kicks to make them go faster! It is possible. In fact, I think Thats what will happen.
But really, this attitude this rather overly commercial attitude, is usually not very profitable. If you have difficulties and you sincerely aspire, it is likely That the difficulties will diminish. Let us hope so.
(Turning to the disciple) So you may tell them this: be sincere and you will be helped.
--
Yes, yes, yes! I indeed said all That. I acknowledge it. And so?
It is said, The supramental principle is at work
--
But when the doors are opened and the flood pours in, it can no longer be called a descent: it is a Force That spreads everywhere. Understood? Ah!
I dont care what words you use. I do not essentially insist upon my words, but I explain them to you, and its better to agree on words beforehand, for otherwise theres no end to explanations.
But now, you may reply to those people who are asking these insidious questions That the best way to receive anything whatsoever is not to pull, but to give. If they want to give themselves to the new life, well, the new life will enter into them.
But if they want to pull the new life into themselves, they will close the door with their egoism. Thats all.
Mother is referring to the darshan of April 24, 1956. Four times a year, for 'darshan,' visitors increasingly poured into the Ashram to pass one by one before Mother (and formerly, Sri Aurobindo) to receive her look.
0 1956-09-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
A light, not like the golden light of the Supermind: rather a kind of phosphorescence. I felt That had it been night, it would have been physically visible.
And it was denser than my physical body: the physical body seemed to me almost unrealas though crumblylike sand running through your fingers.
--
I had had a somewhat similar experience at the time of the union of the supreme creative principle with the physical consciousness. But That was a subtle experience, while this was materialin the body.
I did not have the experience, I did not look at it: I WAS it.
And it radiated from me: myriads of little sparks That were penetrating everybody I saw them enter into each one of those present.
One more step.
0 1956-09-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Scarcely has a moment gone by since I left That I have not thought of you, but I wanted to wait for things to be clear and settled in me before writing, for you obviously have other things to do than listen to platonic declarations.
My friends keep telling me That I am not ready and That, like R,1 whom they knew, I should go and spend some time in society. They say That my idea of going to the Himalayas is absurd, and they advise me to return to Brazil for a few years to stay with W W is an elderly American millionaire the only good rich man I knowwho wanted to make me an heir, as it were, to his financial affairs and who treats me rather like a son. He was quite disappointed when I came back to India. My friends tell me That if I have to go through a period in the outside world, the best way to do it is to remain near someone who is fond of me, while at the same time ensuring a material independence for the future.
These questions of money do not interest me. In fact, nothing interests me except this something I feel within me. The only question for me is to know whether I am truly ready for the Yoga, or if my failings are not the sign of some immaturity. Mother, you alone can tell me what is right.
I feel a bit lost, cut off from you. The idea of going to the Himalayas is absurd and I am abandoning it. My friends tell me That I may remain with them as long as I wish, but this is hardly a solution; I dont even feel like writing a book any longernothing seems to appeal to me except the trees in this garden and the music That fills a large part of my days. There is no solution other than the Ashram or Brazil. You alone can tell me what to do.
I KNOW That ultimately my place is near you, but is That my place at present, after all these failings? Spontaneously, it is you I want, you alone who represent the light and all That is real in this world; I can love no one but you nor be interested in anything but this thing within me, but will it not all begin again once I have returned to the Ashram? You alone know the stage I am at, what is good for me, what is possible.
Sweet Mother, may I still ask for your Love, your help? For without your help, nothing is possible, and without your love, nothing has any meaning.
I feel That I am your child in spite of all my contradictions and failings. I love you.
Signed: Bernard
--
But perhaps you have felt this way because you had left your work in the Ashram for an entirely personal, That is, necessarily egoistical reason, and egoism always isolates one from the great current of universal forces. That is why, too, you no longer clearly perceive my love and my help which nevertheless are always with you.
You asked me what I see and whether your difficulties will not reappear upon your return to the Ashram. It may well be. If you return as you still are at present, it may be That after a very short period it will all begin again. That is why I am going to propose something to you but to accept it you will have to be heroic and very determined in your consecration to my work.
This possibility appeared to me while reading what you wrote about your sojourn in Brazil with W, the only good rich man you have known. Here is my proposal, which I express to you quite plainly, spontaneously, as it presented itself to me.
--
That which you would not do for yourself personally, would you not do it for the divine cause?
Go to Brazil, to this good rich man, make him understand the importance of our work, the extent to which his fortune would be used to the utmost for the good of all and for the earths salvation were he to put it, even partially, at the disposal of our action. Win this victory over the power of money, and by so doing you will be freed from all your personal difficulties. Then you can return here with no apprehension, and you will be ready for the transformation.
Reflect upon this, take your time, tell me very frankly how you feel about it and whether it appears to you, as it does to me, to be a door opening onto a path That will bring you back, free and strong at last to me.
All my affection is with you, and my blessings never leave you.
0 1956-10-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Z asked me, Why didnt you stop it?1 I replied, Probably because I am not omnipotent! Then he insisted: No, Thats not it. I make no distinction between your will and the divine will and I know That you dont either. So why didnt you stop it?
And suddenly, I understood.
It was because I hadnt thought of it. It hadnt even grazed my consciousness. The divine will is not at all like That, it is not a will: it is a VISION, a global vision, That sees and No, it does not guide (to guide suggests something outside, but nothing is outside), a creative vision, as it were; yet even then, the word create does not here have the meaning we generally attribute to it.
And what is the Ashram? (I dont even mean in terms of the Universeon Earth only.) A speck. And why should this speck receive exceptional treatment? Perhaps if people here had realized the supermind. But are they so exceptional as to expect exceptional treatment?
--
Arbitrariness. But the Divine is not like That!
People say, I gave everything, I sacrificed everything. In exchange, I expect exceptional conditionseverything should be beautiful, harmonious, easy.
But the divine vision is global. The people in the Ashram do not want this strike but what about the others? They are ignorant, mean, full of ill will, etc., but in their own way they are following a path, and why should they be deprived of the Grace? By the fact That their action is against the Ashram? It is certainly a Grace.
I said That I had not even thought of intervening. When things threatened to turn bad, I simply applied a force so That it wouldnt become too serious.
Complete surrender It is not a matter of giving what is small to something greater nor of losing ones will in the divine will; it is a matter of ANNULLING ones will in something That is of another nature.
What comes to replace this human will?
--
I used to be different (although I was said to be non-interfering); I acted, if at all, to defend myself But I understood very quickly That even this was a reaction of ignorance and That things would be set right automatically if one remained in the true consciousness.
A consciousness That sees and makes you see.
Which is why things go amiss when people try to force me to act: I am outside of myself, so to speak. As soon as I come back here, with no one around, then I see.
I have called for a greater package of Grace and asked That the truth of things prevail. We shall see what happens.
Mother is referring to a strike by the salaried workers of the Ashram, one of the numerous internal and external difficulties constantly assailing Her.
0 1956-10-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Two things which were parallel and concomitant That is, they are always together:
Oneidentity with the Origin, which imparts an absolute serenity and perfect detachment to the action.
--
And the moment I perceived this, I saw That my third attitude in action, which is the will for progress for the whole earth as well as for each particular individual, was not the height of my being.
***
--
One is never anything but a divine apprentice: the Divine of yesterday is only an apprentice to the Divine of tomorrow No, I am not speaking of a progressive manifestation That is much farther below.
When I am at my highest, I am already too high for the manifestation.
--
No, it is exactly the opposite of what you are saying. It is not That the Divine in his divinity is opposed to his own manifested selfHe is very far beyond, beyond the necessity for Grace; He perceives his unique and exclusive responsibility, and That it is He and He alone who must change in His Manifestation so That all may change.
***
0 1956-10-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Sweet Mother, my birthday is the day after tomorrow, the 30th. I come to place my inner situation before you so That you may help me take a decision.
I am facing the same difficulties as before my departure to Hyderabad, and I have made the same mistakes. The main reason for this state is That, on the one hand, words and ideas seem to have lost all power over me, and on the other, the vital elan which led me thus far is dead. So upon what shall my faith rest? I still have some faith, of course, but it has become totally ABSTRACT. The vital does not cooperate, so I feel all withered, suspended in a void, nothing seems to give me direction anymore. There is no rebelliousness in me, but rather a void.
In this state, I am ceaselessly thinking of my forest in Guiana or of my travels through Africa and the ardor That filled me with life in those days. I seem to need to have my goal before me and to walk towards it. Outer difficulties also seem to help me resolve my inner problems: there is a kind of need in me for the elements the sea, the forest, the desert for a milieu with which I can wrestle and through which I can grow. Here, I seem to lack a dynamic point of leverage. Here, in the everyday routine, everything seems to be falling apart in me. Should I not return to my forest in Guiana?
Mother, I implore you, in the name of whatever led me to you in the first place, give me the strength to do WHAT HAS TO BE DONE. You who see and who can, decide for me. You are my Mother. Whatever my shortcomings, my difficulties, I feel I am so deeply your child.
--
P.S. If you see That I should remain here, put in me the necessary strength and aspiration. I shall obey you. I want to obey you.
***
--
Open a new chapter in your existence. Live, no longer for your own realization or the realization of your ideal, however exalted it may be, but to serve an eternal work That transcends your individuality on all sides.
Signed: Mother
0 1956-12-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I have wanted to remain near you, and I love you, but there is something in me That does not accept an Ashram ending. There is a need in me to DO, to act. But what? What? Have I something to do in this life?
For years I have dreamed of going to Chinese Turkestan. Should I head in That direction? Or towards Africa?
I dont see a thing, nothing. Oh Mother, I turn towards you in this void That is stifling me. Hear my prayer. Tell me what I must do. Give me a sign. Mother, you are my sole recourse, for who else would show me the path to be taken, who else but you would love me? Or is my fate to go off into the night?
Forgive me, Mother, for loving you so poorly, for giving myself so badly. Mother, you are my only hope, all the rest in me is utter despair.
0 1956-12-26, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I feel That this Truth of my being, this self most intensely felt, is independent from any form or institution. As far back as I can reach in my consciousness, this thing has been there; it was what drove me at an early age to liberate myself from my family, my religion, my country, a profession, marriage or society in general. I feel this thing to be a kind of absolute freedom, and I have been feeling within me this same profound drive for more than a year. Is this need for freedom wrong? And yet is it not because of this That the best in me has blossomed?
This is actually what is happening in me: I never really accepted the W solution, and the solution of Somalil and doesnt appeal to me. But I feel drawn by the idea of Turkestan, as I already told you, and this is why:
Ten years ago, I had two intuitions the first of which, to my great astonishment, was realized. It was That I had something important to do in South America and though I never could have foreseen such a voyage, I went there. The second was That I had something to do in Turkestan.
Mother, this is the problem around which I have desperately been turning in circles. What is the truth of my destiny? Is it That which is urging me so strongly to leave, or That which is struggling against my freedom? For ultimately, sincerely, what I want is to fulfill my lifes truth. If I have ever had a will, then it is: LET BE WHAT MUST BE. Mother, how can one truly know? Is this drive, this very old and very CLEAR urge in me, false??
Your child,
0 1957-01-01, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
A power greater than That of Evil
can alone win the victory.
--
That will save the world.
***
0 1957-01-18, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The conflict That is tearing me apart is between this shadowy part of a past That does not want to die, and the new light. I wonder if, rather than escaping to some desert, it would not be wiser to resolve this conflict by objectify it, by writing this book I spoke to you about.
But I would like to know whether it is really useful for me to write this book, or whether it is not just some inferior task, a makeshift.
You told me one day That I could be useful to you. Then, by chance, I came across this passage from Sri Aurobindo the other day: Everyone has in him something divine, something his own, a chance of perfection and strength in however small a sphere which God offers him to take or refuse.
Could you tell me, as a favor, what this particular thing is in me which may be useful to you and serve you? If I could only know what my real work is in this world All the conflicting impulses in me stem from my being like an unemployed force, like a being whose place has not yet been determined.
What do you see in me, Mother? Is it through writing That I shall achieve what is to be achievedor does all this still belong to a nether world? But if so, then of what use am I? If I were good at something, it would give me some air to breathe.
Your child,
0 1957-03-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I name you Satprem (true love) for it is only when you awaken to divine love That you will feel That you love.
Signed: Mother
0 1957-04-09, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
For I SEE That, were I to give in now, I would be done forthere would be no alternative but to live out the rest of my days in the Ashram. But everything in me rebels at this idea. The idea of winding up as General Secretary of the Ashram, like Pavitra, makes my skin crawl. It is absurd, and I apologize for speaking this way, Mother, for I admire Pavitra but I cant help it, I cant do it, I do not want to end up like That.
For more than a year now, I have been hypnotized by the idea That if I give in, I will be condemned to remain here. Once more, forgive me for speaking so absurdly, for of course I know it is not a condemnation; and yet a part of me feels That it would be.
Thus I am so tense That I do not even want to close my eyes to meditate for fear of yielding. And I fall into all kinds of errors That horrify me, simply because the pressure is too strong at times, and I literally suffocate. Mother, I am not cut out to be a disciple.
I realize That all the progress I was able to make during the first two years has been lost and I am just as before, worse than beforeas if all my strength were in ruin, all faith in myself undoneso much so That at times I curse myself for having come here at all.
That is the situation, Mother. I feel my unworthiness profoundly. I am the opposite of Satprem, unable to love and to give myself. Everything in me is sealed tight.
So what is to be done? I intend asking your permission to leave as soon as the book is finished (I am determined to finish it, for it will rid me of the past it represents). I expect nothing from the world, except a bit of external space, in the absence of another space.
--
P.S. And yet, even if I leave, I know That I shall have to come back here Everything is a paradox, and I CANNOT get out of this paradox.
***
--
I read your letter yesterday, and here is the answer That immediately came to me. I add to it the assurance That nothing has changed, nor can change, in my relationship with you, and That you are and always will be my child for That is the truth of your being.
Here is what I wrote:
--
I am saying all this so That you do not hypnotize yourself further with some imaginary and groundless possibility.
I am with you always.
0 1957-07-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
First, I could tell you That to do a collective yoga, there has to be a collectivity! And I could speak to you about the different conditions required to be a collectivity. But last night (smiling), I had a symbolic vision of our collectivity.
This vision took place early in the night and woke me up with a rather unpleasant feeling. Then I fell back to sleep and forgot about it; but a little while ago, when I was thinking of the question put to me, it returned. It returned with a great intensity and so imperatively That now, just as I wanted to tell you what kind of collectivity we wish to realize according to the ideal described by Sri Aurobindo in the last chapter of The Life Divinea gnostic, supramental collectivity, the only kind That can do Sri Aurobindos integral yoga and be realized physically in a progressive collective body becoming more and more divine the recollection of this vision became so imperative That I couldnt speak.
Its symbolism was very clear, though of quite a familiar nature, as it were, and because of its very familiarity, unmistakable in its realism Were I to tell you all the details, you would probably not even be able to follow: it was rather intricate. It was a kind of (how can I express it?)an immense hotel where all the terrestrial possibilities were lodged in different apartments. And it was all in a constant state of transformation: parts or entire wings of the building were suddenly torn down and rebuilt while people were still living in them, such That if you went off somewhere within the immense hotel itself, you ran the risk of no longer finding your room when you wanted to return to it, for it might have been torn down and was being rebuilt according to another plan! It was orderly, it was organized yet there was this fantastic chaos which I mentioned. And all this was a symbola symbol That certainly applies to what Sri Aurobindo has written here1 regarding the necessity for the transformation of the body, the type of transformation That has to take place for life to become a divine life.
It went something like this: somewhere, in the center of this enormous edifice, there was a room reservedas it seemed in the story for a mother and her daughter. The mother was a lady, an elderly lady, a very influential matron who had a great deal of authority and her own views concerning the entire organization. Her daughter seemed to have a power of movement and activity enabling her to be everywhere at once while at the same time remaining in her room, which was well, a bit more than a roomit was a kind of apartment which, above all, had the characteristic of being very central. But she was constantly arguing with her mother. The mother wanted to keep things just as they were, with their usual rhythm, which precisely meant the habit of tearing down one thing to rebuild another, then again tearing down That to build still another, thus giving the building an appearance of frightful confusion. But the daughter did not like this, and she had another plan. Most of all, she wanted to bring something completely new into the organization: a kind of super-organization That would render all this confusion unnecessary. Finally, as it was impossible for them to reach an understanding, the daughter left the room to go on a kind of general inspection She went out, looked everything over, and then wanted to return to her room to decide upon some final measures. But this is where something rather peculiar began happening.
She clearly remembered where her room was, but each time she set out to go there, either the staircase disappeared or things were so changed That she could no longer find her way! So she went here and there, up and down, searched, went in and out but it was impossible to find the way to her room! Since all of this assumed a physical appearanceas I said, a very familiar and very common appearance, as is always the case in these symbolic visions there was somewhere (how shall I put it?) the hotels administrative office and a woman who seemed to be the manager, who had all the keys and who knew where everyone was staying. So the daughter went to this person and asked her, Could you show me the way to my room?But of course! Easily! Everyone around the manager looked at her as if to say, How can you say That? However, she got up, and with authority asked for a key the key to the daughters roomsaying, I shall take you there. And off she went along all kinds of paths, but all so complicated, so bizarre! The daughter was following along behind her very attentively, you see, so as not to lose sight of her. But just as they should have come to the place where the daughters room was supposed to be, suddenly the manageress (let us call her the manageress), both the manageress and her key vanished! And the sense of this vanishing was so acute That at the same time, everything vanished!
So to help you understand this enigma, let me tell you That the mother is physical Nature as she is, and the daughter is the new creation. The manageress is the worlds organizing mental consciousness as Nature has developed it thus far, That is, the most advanced organizing sense to have manifested in the present state of material Nature. This is the key to the vision.
Naturally, when I awoke, I immediately knew what could resolve this problem which appeared so absolutely insoluble. The vanishing of the manageress and her key was an obvious sign That she was altogether incapable of leading what could be called the creative consciousness of the new world to its true place.
I knew this, but I did not have a vision of the solution, which means it has yet to manifest; this thing had not yet manifested in the building, this fantastic construction, although it is the very mode of consciousness which could transform this incoherent creation into something real, truly conceived, willed and materialized, with a center in its proper place, a recognized place, and with a REAL effective power.
--
The symbolism is quite clear in That all the possibilities are there, all the activities are there, but in disorder and confusion. They are neither coordinated nor centralized nor unified around the central and unique truth and consciousness and will. So this brings us back precisely to this question of a collective yoga and of a collectivity capable of realizing it. What should this collectivity be?
It is certainly not an arbitrary construction of the type built by men, where everything is put pell-mell, without any order, without reality, and which is held together by only illusory ties. Here, these ties were symbolized by the hotels walls, while actually in ordinary human constructions (if we take a religious community, for example), they are symbolized by the building of a monastery, an identity of clothing, an identity of activities, an identity even of movementor to put it more precisely: everyone wears the same uniform, everyone gets up at the same time, everyone eats the same thing, everyone says his prayers together, etc.; there is an overall identity. But naturally, on the inside there remains the chaos of many disparate consciousnesses, each one following its own mode, for this kind of group identification, which extends right up to an identity of beliefs and dogma, is absolutely illusory.
Yet it is one of the most common types of human collectivityto group together, band together, unite around a common ideal, a common action, a common realization but in an absolutely artificial way. In contrast to this, Sri Aurobindo tells us That a true communitywhat he terms a gnostic or supramental communitycan be based only upon the INNER REALIZATION of each one of its members, each realizing his real, concrete oneness and identity with all the other members of the community; That is, each one should not feel himself a member connected to all the others in an arbitrary way, but That all are one within himself. For each one, the others should be as much himself as his own bodynot in a mental and artificial way, but through a fact of consciousness, by an inner realization.
(silence)
This means That before hoping to realize such a gnostic collectivity, each one must first of all become (or at least start to become) a gnostic being. It is obvious That the individual work must take the lead and the collective work follow; but the fact remains That spontaneously, without any arbitrary intervention of will the individual progress IS restrained or CHECKED, as It were, by the collective state. Between the collectivity and the individual, there exists an interdependence from which one cannot be totally free, even if one tries. And even he who might try, in his yoga, to free himself totally from the human and terrestrial state of consciousness, would be at least subconsciously bound by the state of the whole, which impedes and PULLS BACKWARDS. One can attempt to go much faster, one can attempt to let all the weight of attachments and responsibilities fall off, but in spite of everything, the realization of even the most advanced or the leader in the march of evolution is dependent upon the realization of the whole, dependent upon the state in which the terrestrial collectivity happens to be. And this PULLS backwards to such an extent That sometimes one has to wait centuries for the earth to be ready before being able to realize what is to be realized.
This is why Sri Aurobindo has also written somewhere else That a double movement is necessary: the effort for individual progress and realization must be combined with the effort of trying to uplift the whole so as to enable it to make a progress indispensable for the greater progress of the individual: a mass progress, if you will, That allows the individual to take a further step forward.
And now you understand why I had thought it would be useful to have a few meditations in common, to work at creating a common atmosphere a bit more organized than my big hotel of last night!
0 1957-07-18, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
If I must have some new experience outside, this one has the advantage of being short-termed and not far away from India, and it is also in an interesting milieu. The only disadvantage is That I would have to pay for the trip as far as Kabul. But I dont want to do anything That displeases you or of which you do not really approve. In the event you might feel this to be a worthwhile experience, I would have to leave by the beginning of August.
I place this in your hands, sincerely.
0 1957-10-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
There is no question of my abandoning the path and I remain convinced That the only goal in life is spiritual. But I need things to help me along the way: I am not yet ripe enough to depend upon inner strength alone. And when I speak of the forest or a boat, it is not only for the sake of adventure or the feeling of space, but also because they mean a discipline. Outer constraints and difficulties help me, they force me to remain concentrated around That which is best in me. In a sense, life here is too easy. Yet it is also too hard, for one must depend on ones own discipline I do not yet have That strength, I need to be helped by outer circumstances. The very difficulty of life in the outside world helps me to be disciplined, for it forces me to concentrate all my vital strength in effort. Here, this vital part is unemployed, so it acts foolishly, it strains at the leash.
I doubt That a new experience outside can really resolve things, but I believe it might help me make it to the next stage and consolidate my inner life. And if you wish, I would return in a year or two.
I shall soon have completed the revision1 of The Life Divine and The Human Cycle, so I believe I shall have done the best I could, at present, to serve you. October 30th is my birthday. Could I leave immediately thereafter?
It is not because I am unhappy with the Ashram That I want to leave, but because I am unhappy with myself and because I want to master myself through other means.
I give you so little love, but I have tried my best, and my departure is not a betrayal.
--
In truth, the only thing in the world That interests you, directly or indirectly, is YOURSELF. That is why you feel imprisoned within such narrow, stifling limits.
Signed: Mother
0 1957-10-17, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
One of the very first results of the supramental manifestation was to give the body a freedom and an autonomy it has never before known. And when I say freedom, I dont mean some psychological perception or an inner state of consciousness, but something else and far betterit is a new phenomenon in the body, in the cells of the body. For the first time, the cells themselves have felt That they are free, That they have the power to decide. When the new vibrations came and combined with the old ones, I felt it at once and it showed me That a new world was really taking birth.
In its normal state, the body always feels That it is not its own master: illnesses invade it without its really being able to resist thema thousand factors impose themselves or exert pressure upon it. Its sole power is the power to defend itself, to react. Once the illness has got in, it can fight and overcome iteven modern medicine has acknowledged That the body is cured only when it decides to get cured; it is not the drugs per se That heal, for if the ailment is temporarily suppressed by a drug without the bodys will, it grows up again elsewhere in some other form until the body itself has decided to be cured. But this implies only a defensive power, the power to react against an invading enemyit is not true freedom.
But with the supramental manifestation, something new has taken place in the body: it feels it is its own master, autonomous, with its two feet solidly on the ground, as it were. This gives a physical impression of the whole being suddenly drawing itself up, with its head lifted high I am my own master.
We live perennially with a burden on our shoulders, something That bows our heads down, and we feel pulled, led by all kinds of external forces, we dont know by whom or what, nor where tothis is what men call Fate, Destiny. When you do yoga, one of the first experiences the experience of the kundalini, as it is called here in Indiais precisely one in which the consciousness rises, breaks through this hard lid, here, at the crown of the head, and at last you emerge into the Light. Then you see, you know, you decide and you realizedifficulties may still remain, but truly speaking one is above them. Well, as a result of the supramental manifestation, it is THIS experience That came into the body. The body straightened its head up and felt its freedom, its independence.
During the flu epidemic, for example, I spent every day in the midst of people who were germ carriers. And one day, I clearly felt That the body had decided not to catch this flu. It asserted its autonomy. You see, it was not a question of the higher Will deciding, no. It didnt take place in the highest consciousness: the body itself decided. When you are way above in your consciousness, you see things, you know things; but in actual fact, once you descend again into matter, it is like water running through sand. In this respect, things have changed, the body has a DIRECT power, independent of any outer intervention. Even though it is barely visible, I consider this to be a very important result.
And this new vibration in the body has allowed me to understand the mechanism of the transformation. It is not something That comes from a higher Will, not a higher consciousness That imposes itself upon the body: it is the body itself awakening in its cells, a freedom of the cells themselves, an absolutely new vibration That sets disorders righteven disorders That existed prior to the supramental manifestation.
Naturally, all this is a gradual process, but I am hopeful That little by little this new consciousness will grow, gain ground and victoriously resist the old forces of destruction and annihilation, and this Fatality we believed to be so inexorable.
***
0 1957-10-18, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
This evening, you spoke of the possibility of shortening the path of realization to a few months, days or hours. And yesterday, when you talked to me about the freedom of the body, you spoke of the experience of the Kundalini, of this breaking of the lid That makes you emerge once and for all, above difficulties, into the light.
I need a practical method corresponding to my present possibilities and to results of which I am presently capable. I feel That my efforts are dispersed by concentrating sometimes here, sometimes therea feeling of not knowing exactly what to do to break through and get out of all this. Would you point out some particular concentration to which I could adhere, a particular method That I would stick to?
I am well aware That a supple attitude is recommended in the Yoga, yet for the time being, it seems to me That one well-defined method would help me hold on1this practical aspect would help me. I will do it methodically, obstinately, until it cracks for good.
Your child,
0 1957-11-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The integral yoga is made up of an uninterrupted series of tests That you must pass through without any advance notice, thereby forcing you to be always vigilant and attentive.
Three groups of examiners conduct these tests. Apparently they have nothing in common and their methods are so different, at times even so seemingly contradictory, That they do not appear to work towards the same goal, and yet they complete one another, they work together for a common aim and each is indispensable for the integral result.
These three categories of tests are: those conducted by the forces of Nature, those conducted by the spiritual and divine forces, and those conducted by the hostile forces. This latter category is the most deceptive in its appearance, and a constant state of vigilance, sincerity and humility is required so as not to be caught by surprise or unprepared.
--
But do not imagine That those who are tested are on one side and those who test on the other; depending upon the times and circumstances, we are both examiners and examined, and it may even happen That simultaneously, at the very same moment, we are the examined and the examiner. And whatever benefits we derive depend, in both quality and quantity, upon the intensity of our aspiration and the alertness of our consciousness.
To conclude, a final recommendation: never pose as an examiner. For while it is good to remember constantly That perhaps one is passing a very important test, it is, on the other hand, extremely dangerous to imagine oneself entrusted with applying tests to others, for That is an open door to the most absurd and harmful vanities. It is not an ignorant human will That decides these things but the Supreme Wisdom.
***
0 1957-12-13, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Sweet Mother, this is what is rising from my soul: I feel in me something unemployed, something seeking to express itself in life. I want to be like a knight, your knight, and go off in search of a treasure That I could bring back to you. The world has lost all sense of the wonderful, all beauty of Adventure, this quest known to the knights of the Middle Ages. It is this That calls so relentlessly within me, this need for a quest in the world and for a beautiful Adventure which at the same time would be an adventure of the soul. How I wish That the two things, inner and outer, be JOINED, That the joy of action, of the open road and the quest help the souls blossoming, That they be like a prayer of the soul expressed in life. The knights of the Middle Ages knew this. Perhaps it is all childish and absurd in the midst of this 20th century, but this is what I feel, this That is summoning me to leavenot anything base, not anything mediocre, only a need for something in me to be fulfilled. If only I could bring you back a beautiful treasure!
After That, perhaps I would be riper to accept the everyday life of the Ashram, and know how to give myself better.
Mother, I feel all this very strongly; I need your help to follow the true path of my being and fulfill this new outer cycle, should you see That it has to be fulfilled. I feel so strongly That something remains for me to DO. Guide me, Sweet Mother.
Your child,
0 1957-12-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The other day you told me That in order to know things, you plug into the subtle plane, and there it all unrolls as on a tape recorder. How does this work, exactly?
There is a whole gradation of planes of consciousness, from the physical consciousness to my radiant consciousness at the very highest level, That which knows the Will of the Supreme. I keep all these planes of consciousness in front of me, working simultaneously, coordinatedly, and I am acting on each plane, gathering the information proper to each plane, so as to have the integral truth of things. Thus, when I have a decision to make in regard to one of you, I plug into you directly from That level of the supreme consciousness which sees the deep truth of your being. But at the same time, my decision is shaped, as it were, by the information given to me by the other planes of consciousness and particularly by the physical consciousness, which acts as a recorder.
This physical consciousness records all it sees, all your reactions, your thoughts, all the factswithout preference, without prejudice, without personal will. Nothing escapes it. Its work is almost mechanical. Therefore I know what to tell or to ask you according to the integral truth of your being and its present possibilities. Ordinarily, in the normal man, the physical consciousness does not see things as they are, for three reasons: because of ignorance, because of preference, and because of an egoistic will. You color what you see, eliminate what displeases you. In short, you see only what you desire to see.
Now, I recently had a very striking experience: a discrepancy occurred between my physical consciousness and the consciousness of the world. In some instances decisions made in the Light and the Truth produced unexpected results, upheavals in the consciousness of others That were neither foreseen nor desired, and I did not understand. No matter how hard I tried, I could not understand and I emphasize this word understand. At last, I had to leave my highest consciousness and pull myself down into the physical consciousness to find out what was happening. And there, in my head, I saw what appeared to be a little cell bursting, and suddenly I understood: the recording had been defective. The physical consciousness had neglected to register certain of your lower reactions. It could not have been through preference or through personal will (these things were eliminated from my consciousness long, long ago). But I saw That this most material consciousness was already completely permeated with the transforming supramental truth, and it could no longer follow the rhythm of normal life. It was much more attuned to the true consciousness than to the world! I couldnt possibly blame it for lagging behind; on the contrary, it was in front, too far ahead! There was a discrepancy between the rhythm of the transformation of my being and the worlds own rhythm. The supramental action on the world is slow, it does not act directlyit acts by infiltration, by traversing the successive layers, and the results are slow to come about. So I had to pull myself violently down in order to wait for the others.
One must at times know how not to know.
--
Humility, a perfect humility, is the condition for all realization. The mind is so cocksure. It thinks it knows everything, understands everything. And if ever it acts through idealism to serve a cause That appears noble to it, it becomes even more arrogant more intransigent, and it is almost impossible to make it see That there might be something still higher beyond its noble conceptions and its great altruistic or other ideals. Humility is the only remedy. I am not speaking of humility as conceived by certain religions, with this God That belittles his creatures and only likes to see them down on their knees. When I was a child, this kind of humility revolted me, and I refused to believe in a God That wants to belittle his creatures. I dont mean That kind of humility, but rather the recognition That one does not know, That one knows nothing, and That there may be something beyond what presently appears to us as the truest, the most noble or disinterested. True humility consists in constantly referring oneself to the Lord, in placing all before Him. When I receive a blow (and there are quite a few of them in my sadhana), my immediate, spontaneous reaction, like a spring, is to throw myself before Him and to say, Thou, Lord. Without this humility, I would never have been able to realize anything. And I say I only to make myself understood, but in fact I means the Lord through this body, his instrument. When you begin living THIS kind of humility, it means you are drawing nearer to the realization. It is the condition, the starting point.
***
--
In the external consciousness, the impersonal and mechanical recording of what is happening and of what are the people and things That comprise both the field of action and the limitations imposed upon this action. The recording is innately automatic and mechanical, without any kind of evaluation, as objective as possible.
***
0 1958-01-01, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
thou hast said That thou wilt collaborate
and there is no limit
--
There is nothing to explain. It is an experience, something That took place, and when it took place, I noted it down; and it so happens That it occurred just as I remembered That I had to write something for the new year (which at That time was the following year, That is, the year beginning today). When I remembered That I had to write somethingnot because of That, but simultaneouslythis experience came, and when I noted it down, I realized That it was the message for this year!
(Mother reads the notation of her experience)
--
The evening I told you these things, I totally identified myself with Nature and I entered into her play. And this movement of identification brought forth a response, a new kind of intimacy between Nature and myself, a long movement of drawing ever nearer which culminated in an experience That came on November 8.
Nature suddenly understood. She understood That this newborn Consciousness does not seek to reject her, but wants to embrace her entirely. She understood That this new spirituality does not stand apart from life, does not timorously recoil before the awesome richness of her movement, but on the contrary wants to integrate all her facets. She understood That the supramental consciousness is not there to diminish her but to make her complete.
Then, from the supreme Reality came this command: Awaken, O Nature, to the joy of collaboration. And suddenly, all Nature rushed forth in an immense bounding of joy, saying, I accept! I will collaborate! And at the same time, there came a calm, an absolute tranquillity, to allow this receptacle, this body, to receive and contain without breaking and without losing anything of the Joy of Nature That was rushing forth in a movement of grateful recognition like an overwhelming flood. She accepted, she sawwith all eternity before her That this supramental consciousness would fulfill her more perfectly and impart a still greater force to her movement and more richness, more possibilities to her play.
And suddenly, as if resounding from every corner of the earth, I heard these great notes which are sometimes heard in the subtle physicalra ther like those of Beethovens Concerto in Dwhich come at moments of great progress, as though fifty orchestras were bursting forth all at once without a single discordant note, to sound the joy of this new communion of Nature and Spirit, the meeting of old friends who, after a long separation, find each other once more.
Then came these words: O Nature, Material Mother, thou hast said That thou wilt collaborate, and there is no limit to the splendor of this collaboration.
And the radiant felicity of this splendor was perceived in a perfect peace.
--
I have one thing to add: we must not misinterpret the meaning of this experience and imagine That henceforth everything will take place without difficulties or always in accordance with our personal desires. It is not at this level. It does not mean That when we do not want it to rain, it will not rain! Or when we want some event to take place in the world, it will immediately take place, or That all difficulties will be abolished and everything will be like a fairy tale. It is not like That. It is something more profound. Nature has accepted into her play of forces the newly manifested Force and has included it in her movements. But as always, the movements of Nature take place on a scale infinitely surpassing the human scale and invisible to the ordinary human consciousness. It is more of an inner, psychological possibility That has been born in the world than a spectacular change in earthly events.
I mention this because you might be tempted to believe That fairy tales are going to be realized upon earth. The time has not yet come.
(silence)
--
The miracles That are taking place are not what could be called literary miracles, for they do not take place as in storybooks. They are visible only to a very profound vision of thingsvery profound, very comprehensive, very vast.
(silence)
0 1958-01-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It is an error to confuse Joy and Felicity. They are two very different things. Not only are their vibrations different, but their colors are different. The color of Felicity is blue, a clear silvery blue (the blue of the Ashram flag), very luminous and transparent. And it has a passive and fresh quality That refreshes and rejuvenates.
Whereas Joy is a golden rose color, a pale gold with a tinge of red, a very pale red. It is active, warm, fortifying, intensifying. The first is sweetness, the second is tenderness.
And Blisswhat I spontaneously call Blissis the synthesis of both. It is found in the very heights of the supramental consciousness, in a diamond light, an uncolored, sparkling light containing all the colors. Joy and Felicity form two sides of a triangle That has Bliss at its apex.
Bliss contains coolness and warmth, passivity and activity, repose and action, sweetness and tenderness, all at the same time. Divine tenderness is something very different from sweetnessit is a paroxysm of joy, a vibration so strong That the body feels it will burst, so it is forced to widen.
The diamond light of Bliss has the power to melt all hostile forces. Nothing can resist it. No consciousness, no being, no hostile will can draw near it without immediately being dissolved, for it is the Divine light in its pure creative power.
0 1958-01-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It is quite evident That for some reason or otheror perhaps for no reason at all the Supreme has changed His mind about it.
***
0 1958-02-03a, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I would like to tell you That I am staying, very simply, for something in me wants this, but I am afraid to make a decision That I may not be able to keep. A force other than mine is needed. In short, you have to do the willing for me, to utter a word That would help me understand truly That I must stay here. Grant me the grace of helping and enlightening me. I would like to decide without preference, in obedience to the sole Truth and in accordance with my real possibilities.
I have received a long letter from Swami,1 who in essence says That I should be able to realize what I have to realize right here with you, but he does not refuse to take me with him should I persist in my intention.
Mother, I am placing all this in your hands, sincerely.
0 1958-02-03b - The Supramental Ship, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Between the beings of the supramental world and men, there exists approximately the same gap as between men and animals. Sometime ago, I had the experience of identification with animal life, and it is a fact That animals do not understand us; their consciousness is so constituted That we elude them almost entirely. And yet I have known domestic animalscats and dogs, but especially catswho made an almost yogic effort of consciousness to understand us. But generally, when they watch us living and acting, they dont understand, they dont SEE US as we are and they suffer because of us. We are a constant enigma to them Only a very tiny part of their consciousness is linked to us. And it is the same for us when we try to look at the supramental world. Only when the link of consciousness has been built shall we see itand even then, only That part of our being which has undergone the transformation will be capable of seeing it as it isotherwise the two worlds would remain as separate as the animal world and the human world.
The experience I had on February 3 proves this. Before, I had had an individual, subjective contact with the supramental world, whereas on February 3, I went strolling there in a concrete wayas concretely as I used to go strolling in Paris in times pastin a world That EXISTS IN ITSELF, beyond all subjectivity.
It is like a bridge being built between the two worlds.
--
The supramental world exists in a permanent way, and I am there permanently in a supramental body. I had proof of this today when my earthly consciousness went there and consciously remained there between two and three oclock in the afternoon: I now know That for the two worlds to join in a constant and conscious relationship what is missing is an intermediate zone between the existing physical world and the supramental world as it exists. This zone has yet to be built, both in the individual consciousness and in the objective world, and it is being built. When formerly I used to speak of the new world That is being created, I was speaking of this intermediate zone. And similarly, when I am on this side That is, in the realm of the physical consciousness and I see the supramental power, the supramental light and substance constantly permeating matter, I am seeing and participating in the construction of this zone.
I found myself upon an immense ship, which is the symbolic representation of the place where this work is being carried out. This ship, as big as a city, is thoroughly organized, and it had certainly already been functioning for quite some time, for its organization was fully developed. It is the place where people destined for the supramental life are being trained. These people (or at least a part of their being) had already undergone a supramental transformation because the ship itself and all That was aboard was neither material nor subtle-physical, neither vital nor mental: it was a supramental substance. This substance itself was of the most material supramental, the supramental substance nearest the physical world, the first to manifest. The light was a blend of red and gold, forming a uniform substance of luminous orange. Everything was like That the light was like That, the people were like Thateverything had this color, in varying shades, however, which enabled things to be distinguished from one another. The overall impression was of a shadowless world: there were shades, but no shadows. The atmosphere was full of joy, calm, order; everything worked smoothly and silently. At the same time, I could see all the details of the education, the training in all domains by which the people on board were being prepared.
This immense ship had just arrived at the shore of the supramental world, and a first batch of people destined to become the future inhabitants of the supramental world were about to disembark. Everything was arranged for this first landing. A certain number of very tall beings were posted on the wharf. They were not human beings and never before had they been men. Nor were they permanent inhabitants of the supramental world. They had been delegated from above and posted there to control and supervise the landing. I was in charge of all this since the beginning and throughout. I myself had prepared all the groups. I was standing on the bridge of the ship, calling the groups forward one by one and having them disembark on the shore. The tall beings posted there seemed to be reviewing those who were disembarking, allowing those who were ready to go ashore and sending back those who were not and who had to continue their training aboard the ship. While standing there watching everyone, That part of my consciousness coming from here became extremely interested: it wanted to see, to identify all the people, to see how they had changed and to find out who had been taken immediately as well as those who had to remain and continue their training. After awhile, as I was observing, I began to feel pulled backwards and That my body was being awakened by a consciousness or a person from here1and in my consciousness, I protested: No, no, not yet! Not yet! I want to see whos there! I was watching all this and noting it with intense interest It went on like That until, suddenly, the clock here began striking three, which violently jerked me back. There was the sensation of a sudden fall into my body. I came back with a shock, but since I had been called back very suddenly, all my memory was still intact. I remained quiet and still until I could bring back the whole experience and preserve it.
The nature of objects on this ship was not That which we know upon earth; for example, the clothes were not made of cloth, and this thing That resembled cloth was not manufacturedit was a part of the body, made of the same substance That took on different forms. It had a kind of plasticity. When a change had to be made, it was done not by artificial and outer means but by an inner working, by a working of the consciousness That gave the substance its form or appearance. Life created its own forms. There was ONE SINGLE substance in all things; it changed the nature of its vibration according to the needs or uses.
Those who were sent back for more training were not of a uniform color; their bodies seemed to have patches of a grayish opacity, a substance resembling the earth substance. They were dull, as though they had not been wholly permeated by the light or wholly transformed. They were not like this all over, but in places.
--
Just as I was called back, when I was saying, Not yet , I had a quick glimpse of myself, of my form in the supramental world. I was a mixture of what these tall beings were and the beings aboard the ship. The top part of myself, especially my head, was a mere silhouette of a whitish color with an orange fringe. The more it approached the feet, the more the color resembled That of the people on the ship, or in other words, orange; the more it went up towards the top, the more translucid and white it was, and the red faded. The head was only a silhouette with a brilliant sun at its center; from it issued rays of light which were the action of the will.
As for the people I saw aboard ship, I recognized them all. Some were here in the Ashram, some came from elsewhere, but I knew them as well. I saw everyone, but as I realized That I would not remember everyone when I came back, I decided not to give any names. Besides, it is unnecessary. Three or four faces were very clearly visible, and when I saw them, I understood the feeling That I have had here, on earth, while looking into their eyes: there was such an extraordinary joy On the whole, the people were young; there were very few children, and their ages were around fourteen or fifteen, but certainly not below ten or twelve (I did not stay long enough to see all the details). There were no very old people, with the exception of a few. Most of the people who had gone ashore were of a middle ageagain, except for a few. Several times before this experience, certain individual cases had already been examined at a place where people capable of being supramentalized are examined; I had then had a few surprises which I had noted I even told some people. But those whom I disembarked today I saw very distinctly. They were of a middle age, neither young children nor elderly people, with only a few rare exceptions, and this quite corresponded to what I expected. I decided not to say anything, not to give any names. As I did not stay until the end, it would be impossible for me to draw an exact picture, for it was neither absolutely clear nor complete. I do not want to say things to some and not say them to others.
What I can say is That the criterion or the judgment was based EXCLUSIVELY on the substance constituting the peoplewhe ther they belonged completely to the supramental world or not, whether they were made of this very special substance. The criterion adopted was neither moral nor psychological. It is likely That their bodily substance was the result of an inner law or an inner movement which, at That time, was not in question. At least it is quite clear That the values are different.
When I came back, along with the memory of the experience, I knew That the supramental world was permanent, That my presence there is permanent, and That only a missing link is needed to allow the consciousness and the substance to connectand it is this link That is being built. At That time, my impression (an impression which remained rather long, almost the whole day) was of an extreme relativityno, not exactly That, but an impression That the relationship between this world and the other completely changes the criterion by which things are to be evaluated or judged. This criterion had nothing mental about it, and it gave the strange inner feeling That so many things we consider good or bad are not really so. It was very clear That everything depended upon the capacity of things and upon their ability to express the supramental world or be in relationship with it. It was so completely different, at times even so opposite to our ordinary way of looking at things! I recall one little thing That we usually consider bad actually how funny it was to see That it is something excellent! And other things That we consider important were really quite unimportant there! Whether it was like this or like That made no difference. What is very obvious is That our appreciation of what is divine or not divine is incorrect. I even laughed at certain things Our usual feeling about what is anti-divine seems artificial, based upon something untrue, unliving (besides, what we call life here appeared lifeless in comparison with That world); in any event, this feeling should be based upon our relationship between the two worlds and according to whether things make this relationship easier or more difficult. This would thus completely change our evaluation of what brings us nearer to the Divine or what takes us away from Him. With people, too, I saw That what helps them or prevents them from becoming supramental is very different from what our ordinary moral notions imagine. I felt just how ridiculous we are.
(Then Mother speaks to the children)
--
But one thing and I wish to stress this point to youwhich now seems to me to be the most essential difference between our world and the supramental world (and it is only after having gone there consciously, with the consciousness That ordinarily works here, That this difference appeared to me in what might be called its enormity): everything here, except for what happens within and at a very deep level, seemed absolutely artificial to me. Not one of the values of ordinary physical life is based upon truth. Just as we have to buy cloth, sew it together, then put it on our backs in order to dress ourselves, likewise we have to take things from outside and then put them inside our bodies in order to feed ourselves. For everything, our life is artificial.
A true, sincere, spontaneous life, as in the supramental world, is a springing forth of things through the fact of conscious will, a power over substance That shapes this substance according to what we decide it should be. And he who has this power and this knowledge can obtain whatever he wants, whereas he who does not has no artificial means of getting what he desires.
In ordinary life, EVERYTHING is artificial. Depending upon the chance of your birth or circumstances, you have a more or less high position or a more or less comfortable life, not because it is the spontaneous, natural and sincere expression of your way of being and of your inner need, but because the fortuity of lifes circumstances has placed you in contact with these things. An absolutely worthless man may be in a very high position, and a man who might have marvelous capacities of creation and organization may find himself toiling in a quite limited and inferior position, whereas he would be a wholly useful individual if the world were sincere.
It is this artificiality, this insincerity, this complete lack of truth That appeared so shocking to me That one wonders how, in a world as false as this one, we can arrive at any truthful evaluation of things.
But instead of feeling grieved, morose, rebellious, discontent, I had rather the feeling of what I spoke of at the end: of such a ridiculous absurdity That for several days I was seized with an uncontrollable laughter whenever I saw things and people! Such a tremendous laughter, so absolutely inexplicable (except to me), because of the ridiculousness of these situations.
When I invited you on a voyage into the unknown, a voyage of adventure,2 I did not know just how true were my words! And I can promise those who are ready to embark upon this adventure That they will make some very astonishing discoveries.
Indeed, one of the people near Mother had pulled Her out of the experience.
0 1958-02-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Last night, I had the vision of what this supramental world could become if men were not sufficiently prepared. The confusion existing at present upon earth is nothing in comparison to what could take place. Imagine That every powerful will has the power to transform matter as it likes! If the sense of collective oneness did not grow in proportion to the development of power, the resulting conflict would be yet more acute and chaotic than our material conflicts.
***
0 1958-02-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Some people come to see me in utter despair, in tears, in what they call terrible moral suffering; when I see them like That I slightly shift the needle in That part of my consciousness containing all of you, and when they leave, they are completely relieved. It is just like a compass needle I slightly shift the needle in my consciousness, and its over. Naturally, through habit, it returns later on. But these are mere soap bubbles.
I too have known suffering, but there was always a part of me That knew how to hold itself back and remain aloof.
The only thing in the world That still appears intolerable to me now is all physical deterioration, physical suffering, the ugliness the powerlessness to express this capacity of beauty inherent in every being. But this, too, will be conquered one day. Here, too the power will come one day to shift the needle a little. Only, one has to climb higher in consciousness: the deeper into matter you want to descend, the higher must you ascend in consciousness.
It will take time. Sri Aurobindo was surely right when he spoke of a few centuries.
0 1958-03-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Since my departure, I have been feeling your Force continually, almost constantly. And I feel an infinite gratitude That you are there, and That this thread from you to me keeps me anchored to something in this world. Simply knowing That you exist, That you are there, That I have a goal, a centerfills me with infinite gratitude. On a street in Madras, the day after I left, I suddenly had a poignant experience: I felt That if That were not in me, I would fall to pieces on the sidewalk, I would crumble, nothing would be left, nothing. And this experience remains. Like a litany, something keeps repeating almost incessantly, I need you, need you, I have only you, you alone in the world. You are all my present, all my future, I have only you Mother, I am living in a state of need, like hunger.
On the way, I stopped at J and Es place. They are living like native fishermen, in loincloths, in a coconut grove by the sea. The place is exceedingly beautiful, and the sea full of rainbow-hued coral. And suddenly, within twenty-four hours, I realized an old dreamor rather, I purged myself of an old and tenacious dream: That of living on a Pacific island as a simple fisherman. And all at once, I saw, in a flash, That this kind of life totally lacks a center. You float in a nowhere. It plunges you into some kind of higher inertia, an illumined inertia, and you lose all true substance.
As for me, I am totally out of my element in this new life, as though I were uprooted from myself. I am living in the temple, in the midst of pujas,1 with white ashes on my forehead, barefoot dressed like a Hindu, sleeping on cement at night, eating impossible curries, with some good sunburns to complete the cooking. And there I am, clinging to you, for if you were not there I would collapse, so absurd would it all be. You are the only realityhow many times have I repeated this to myself, like a litany! Apart from this, I am holding up quite well physically. But inside and outside, nothing is left but you. I need you, Thats all. Mother, this world is so horrifyingly empty. I really feel That I would evaporate if you werent there. Well, no doubt I had to go through this experience Perhaps I will be able to extract some book from it That will be of use to you. We are like children who need a lot of pictures in order to understand, and a few good kicks to realize our complete stupidity.
Swami must soon take to the road again, through Ceylon, towards March 20 or 25. So I shall go wandering with him until May; towards the beginning of May, he will return to India. I hope to have learned my lesson by then, and to have learned it well. Inwardly, I have understood That there is only you but its these problem children on the surface who must be made to toe the line once and for all.
Sweet Mother, I am in a hurry to work for you. Will you still want me? Mother, I need you, I need you. I would like to ask you an absurd question: Do you think of me? I have only you, you alone in the world.
0 1958-04-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I was waiting for things to be well established in me before writing you again. An important change has occurred: it seems That something in me has clickedwhat Sri Aurobindo calls the central will, perhapsand I am living literally in the obsession of divine realization. This is what I want, nothing else, it is the only goal in life, and at last I have understood (not with the head) That the outer realization in the world will be the consequence of the inner realization. So thousands of times a day, I repeat, Mother, I want to be your instrument, ever more conscious, I want to express your truth, your light. I want to be what you want, as you want, when you want. There is in me now a kind of need for perfection, a will to abolish this ego, a real understanding That to become your instrument means at the same time to find the perfect plenitude of ones personality. So I am living in an almost constant state of aspiration, I feel your force constantly, or nearly so, and if I am distracted a few minutes, I experience a void, an uneasiness That calls me back to you.
And at the same time, I saw That it is you who is doing everything, you who aspires in me, you who wants the progress, and That all I myself am in this affair is a screen, a resisting obstacle. O Mother, break this screen That I may be wholly transparent before you, That your transforming force may purify all the secret recesses in my being, That nothing may remain but you and you alone. O Mother, may all my being be a living expression of your light, your truth.
Mother, from the depths of my being, I offer you a sole prayer: may I become your more and more perfect instrument, a sword of light in your hands. Oh, to get out of this ego That belittles everything, diminishes everything, to emerge from it! All is falsehood in it.
And I, who understood nothing of love, am beginning to suspect who Satprem is. Mother, your grace is infinite, it has accompanied me everywhere in my life.
We are still in Kataragama, and we shall only go up to northern Ceylon, to Jaffna, around the 15th, then return to India towards the beginning of May if the visa problems are settled. Only in India, at the temple of Rameswaram, can I receive the orange robe. I am living here as a sannyasi, but dressed in white, like a Hindu. It is a stark life, nothing more. I have seen however, That truth does not lie in starkness but in a change of consciousness. (Desire always finds a means to entrench itself in very small details and in very petty and stupid, though well-rooted, avidities.)
Mother, I am seeing all the mean pettiness That obstructs your divine work. Destroy my smallness and take me unto you. May I be sincere, integrally sincere.
With infinite gratitude, I am your child.
--
P.S. My system is not in perfect condition due to this absurdly spiced food, and the river water That is used for everything.
***
--
It is with great joy That I shall receive you when you return in May.
We have a lot of work to do together, because I have kept everything for your return.
0 1958-05-01, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
To do the divine Will I have been doing the sadhana for a long time, and I can say That not a day has passed That I have not done the Divines Will. But I didnt know what it was! I was living in all the inner realms, from the subtle physical to the highest regions, yet I didnt know what it was I always had to listen, to refer things, to pay attention. Now, no morebliss! There are no more problems, and everything is done in such harmony! Even if I had to leave my body, I would be in bliss! And it would happen in the best possible way.
Only now am I beginning to understand what Sri Aurobindo has written in The Synthesis of Yoga! And the human mind, the physical mind, appears so stupid, so stupid!
0 1958-05-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
That is all it is trying to be.
I saw and understood very well That by concentrating, I could have given it the attitude of the absolute authority of the eternal Mother. When Sri Aurobindo told me, You are She, at the same time he bestowed upon my body this attitude of absolute authority. But as I had the inner vision of this truth, I concerned myself very little with the imperfections of the physical body I didnt bother about That, I only used it as an instrument. Sri Aurobindo did the sadhana for this body, which had only to remain constantly open to his action.1
Afterwards, when he left and I had to do the Yoga myself, to be able to take his physical place, I could have adopted the attitude of the sage, which is what I did since I was in an unparalleled state of calm when he left. As he left his body and entered into mine, he told me, You will continue, you will go right to the end of the work. It was then That I imposed a calm upon this body the calm of total detachment. And I could have remained like That.
But in a way, absolute calm implies withdrawal from action, so a choice had to be made between one or the other. I said to myself, I am neither exclusively this nor exclusively That. And actually, to do Sri Aurobindos work is to realize the Supramental on earth. So I began That work and, as a matter of fact, this was the only thing I asked of my body. I told it, Now you shall set right everything which is out of order and gradually realize this intermediate supermanhood between man and the supramental being or, in other words, what I call the superman.
And this is what I have been doing for the last eight years, and even much more during the past two years, since 1956. Now it is the work of each day, each minute.
Thats where I am. I have renounced the uncontested authority of a god, I have renounced the unshakable calm of the sage in order to become the superman. I have concentrated everything upon That.
We shall see.
--
In a considerable number of people, it is their body, the physical body, That obstinately resists.
The difficulty is greater for Westerners than for Indians. Its as though their substance were steeped in falsehood. It also happens with Indians, of course, but generally the falsehood is much more in the vital than in the physicalbecause after all, the physical has been utilized by bodies belonging to enlightened beings. The European substance seems steeped in rebellion; in the Indian substance this rebelliousness is subdued by an influence of surrender. The other day, someone was telling me about some Europeans with whom he corresponds, and I said, But tell them to read, to learn, to follow The Synthesis of Yoga!it leads you straight to the path. Whereupon he replied, Oh, but they say its full of talk on surrender, surrender, always surrender and they want none of it.
--
No. From the minute it is conscious, it is conscious of its own falsehood! It is conscious of this law, of That law, of this third law That fourth law, this tenth laweverything is a law. We are subject to physical laws: this will produce such and such a result if you do That, this will happen, etc. Oh! It reeks! I know it well. I know it very well. These laws reek of falsehood. In the body, we have no faith in the divine Grace, none, none, none, none! Those who have not undergone a tapasya2 as I have, say, Yes, all these inner moral things, feelings, psychology, all That is very good; we want the Divine and we are ready to But all the same, material facts are material facts, they have their concrete reality, after all an illness is an illness, food is food, and everything you do has a consequence, and when you are bah, bah, bah, bah, bah!
We must understand That this isnt trueit isnt true, its a falsehood, all this is sheer falsehood. It is NOT TRUE, it is not true!
If only we would accept the Supreme inside our bodies, if we had the experience I had a few days ago3: the supreme Knowledge in action along with the complete abolition of all consequences, past and future. Each second has its own eternity and its own law, which is a law of absolute truth.
When I had this experience, I understood That only a month ago I was still uttering mountain-sized imbecilities. And I laughed to the point of almost approving those who say, But all the same, the Supreme does not decide the number of sugar cubes you put in your coffee! That would be to project your own way of being onto the Supreme. But this is an Himalayan imbecility! It is a stupidity, the minds pretentious stupidity projecting itself onto the divine life and imagining That the divine life conforms to its own projection.
The Supreme does not decide: He knows. The Supreme does not want: He sees. And it is so for each thousandth of a second, eternally. Thats all. And it is the only true condition.
I know That the experience I had the other day is new and That I was the first person on earth to have it. But it is the only thing That is true. All the rest
I began my sadhana at birth, without knowing That I was doing it. I have continued it throughout my whole life, which means for almost eighty years (even though for perhaps the first three or four years of my life it was only something stirring about in unconsciousness). But I began a deliberate, conscious sadhana at about the age of twenty-two or twenty-three, upon prepared ground. I am now more than eighty years old: I have thought of nothing but That, I have wanted nothing but That, I had no other interest in life, and not for a single minute have I ever forgotten That it was That That I wanted. There were not periods of remembering and forgetting: it was continuous, unceasing, day and night, from the age of twenty-four and I had this experience for the first time about a week ago! So, I say That people who are in a hurry, people who are impatient, are arrogant fools.
It is a hard path. I try to make it as comfortable as possible, but nevertheless, it is a hard path. And it is obvious That it cannot be otherwise. You are beaten and battered until you understand. Until you are in That state in which all bodies are your body. But at That point, you begin to laugh! You were upset by this, hurt by That, you suffered from this or That but now, how laughable it all seems! And not only the head, but the body too finds it laughable!
(silence)
but it is so deeply rooted: all the reactions of the body-consciousness are like That, with a kind of shrinking at the idea of allowing a higher power to intervene.
(silence)
From the positive point of view, I am convinced That we agree upon the result to be obtained, That is, an integral and unreserved consecrationin love, knowledge and actionto the Supreme AND TO HIS WORK. I say to the Supreme and to his work because consecration to the Supreme alone is not enough. Now we are here for the supramental realization, this is what is expected of us, but to reach it, our consecration to it must be total, unreserved absolutely integral. I believe you have understood thisin other words, That you have the will to realize it.
From the negative point of view I mean the difficulties to be overcomeone of the most serious obstacles is That the ignorant and falsifying outer consciousness, the ordinary consciousness legitimizes all the so-called physical laws, causes, effects and consequences, all That science has discovered physically and materially. All this is an unquestionable reality to the consciousness, a reality That remains independent and absolute even in the face of the eternal divine Reality.
And it is so automatic That it is unconscious.
When it is a question of movements like anger, desire, etc., you recognize That they are wrong and must disappear, but when material laws are in questionlaws of the body, for example, its needs, its health, its nourishment, all those things they have such a solid, compact, established and concrete reality That it appears absolutely unquestionable.
Well, to be able to cure That, which of all the obstacles is the greatest (I mean the habit of putting spiritual life on one side and material life on the other, of acknowledging the right of material laws to exist), one must make a resolution never to legitimize any of these movements, at any cost.
To be able to see the problem as it is, it is absolutely indispensable, as a first step, to get out of the mental consciousness, even out of a mental transcription (in the highest mind) of the supramental vision and truth. A thing cannot be seen as it is, in its truth, except in the supramental consciousness, and if you try to explain, it immediately begins to escape you because you are obliged to give it a mental formulation.
--
Consequently, if you do not remember having had the experience, you are left in the same condition as before, but with the difference That now you know, you can know, That these material laws do not correspond to the truth Thats all. They do not at all correspond to the truth, so consequently, if you want to be faithful to your aspiration, you must in no way legitimize all That. Rather, you must say That it is an infirmity from which we are suffering for the moment, for an intermediate periodit is an infirmity and an ignorance for it really is an ignorance (this is not just a word): it is ignorance, it is not the thing as it is, even in regard to our present material bodies. Therefore, we will not legitimize anything. What we say is thisit is an infirmity which has to be endured for the time being, until we get out of it, but we do NOT ACKNOWLEDGE all this as a concrete reality. It does NOT have a concrete reality, it has a false realitywhat we call concrete reality is a false reality.
And the proof I have the proof because I experienced it myselfis That from the minute you are in the other consciousness, the true consciousness, all these things which appear so real, so concrete, change INSTANTLY. There are a number of things, certain material conditions of my bodymaterial That changed instantly. It did not last long enough for everything to change, but some things changed and never returned, they remained changed. In other words, if That consciousness were kept constantly, it would be a perpetual miracle (what we would call a miracle from our ordinary point of view), a fantastic and perpetual miracle! But from the supramental point of view, it would not be a miracle at all, it would be the most normal of things.
Therefore, if we do not want to oppose the supramental action by an obscure, inert and obstinate resistance, we have to admit once and for all That none of these things should be legitimized.
This last sentence was later added by Mother in writing.
0 1958-05-11 - the ship that said OM, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
object:0_1958-05-11 - the ship That said OM
author class:The Mother
--
One of the things That most gives me the feeling of the miraculous is when these obscure throngs1really tamasic2 beings, in fact, with children crying, people coughingwhen all That is gathered there, and then suddenly silence.
Each time That happens, I have truly the feeling of a miracle! I immediately say, Oh, Lord! Your Grace is infinite!
***
Something quite curious took place during a recent meditation. I no longer recall when exactly, but it was at a time when there were many visitors, for the courtyard was full. After perhaps no more than a few minutes, I suddenly heard a distinct voice, coming from my right, say OM, like That. And then a second time, OM. What an impact it had upon me! I felt an emotion here (gesture towards the heart) as I have not felt for years and years and years. And all, all, all was filled with light, with forceit was absolutely marvelous. It was an invocation, and during the whole meditation the Presence was resplendent.
I said to myself, Who could have done That? I was not sure if only I had heard it, so I asked. The reply was, But it was the ship leaving! There was actually a ship which had left during the night3 That is in support of those who said it was a ship. But for me, it was SOMEONE because I felt someone there and I thought, Oh! If someone, in the ardor of his soul, said That in this what I could call an atheistic silence. Because people here are so afraid of following tradition, of being the slaves of the old things, That they cast out anything closely or remotely resembling religion.
It was very strange, because my first reaction was one of bewilderment: how is it That someone I was really bewildered for a fraction, not even the fraction of a second. And then
In any event, if it wasnt a man, if it was a ship, then the ship said it! Because it was Thatit was That, it was nothing other than an invocation. And the result was fantastic!
People immediately thought, Oh, its the ship! Well, even if it was a ship, it was the ship That said OM!
And then I wondered, If we were to repeat the mantra we heard the other day4 (Om Namo Bhagavateh) during the half-hour meditation, what would happen?
--
I became stiff from it. When the forest scene5 was over, I was so stiff That I was like That (gesture): one single mass.
Mother is referring to her 'Darshan' when four times a year She appeared on her balcony high above the assembled mass of disciples and visitors on the street below. The 'darshan days' were February 21, April 24, August 15 and November 24.
0 1958-05-17, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Actually, when I myself am perfect, I believe That all the rest will become perfect automatically. But it does not seem possible to become perfect without there being a beginning of realization from the other side. So it proceeds like That, bumping from one side to the other, and we go stumbling along like a drunken man!
***
0 1958-05-30, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I have noticed That in at least ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, it is an excuse people give to themselves. I have seen That practically, in the case of almost all the people who write to me saying, I am being violently attacked by hostile forces, its an excuse they are giving. It means That certain things in their nature do not want to yield, so they put all the blame on the hostile forces.
As a matter of fact, my tendency is more and more towards something in which the role of these hostile forces will be reduced to That of an examinerwhich means That they are there to test the sincerity of your spiritual quest. These elements have a reality in their action and for the workthis is their great reality but when you go beyond a certain region, it all grows dim to such a degree That it is no longer so well defined, so distinct. In the occult world, or rather if you look at the world from the occult point of view, these hostile forces are very real, their action is very real, quite concrete, and their attitude towards the divine realization is positively hostile; but as soon as you go beyond this region and enter into the spiritual world where there is no longer anything but the Divine in all things, and where there is nothing undivine, then these hostile forces become part of the total play and can no longer be called hostile forces: it is only an attitude That they have adoptedor more precisely, it is only an attitude adopted by the Divine in his play.
This again belongs to the dualities That Sri Aurobindo speaks of in (The Synthesis of Yoga, these dualities That are being reabsorbed. I dont know if he spoke of this particular one; I dont think so, but its the same thing. Its again a certain way of seeing. He has written of the Personal-Impersonal duality, Ishwara-Shakti, Purusha-Prakriti but there is still one more: Divine and anti-divine.
***
0 1958-06-06 - Supramental Ship, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Its all the same thing, but the word realization can be reserved for something That is durable, That does not wear off. Because everything on earth fades awayeverything fades away, nothing remains. In this sense, there has never been any realization, for everything fades away. Nothing is ever permanent. And I know for myself: I am doing the sadhana at a gallop, as it were; never are two experiences identical nor do they recur in the same way. As soon as something is established, the next thing begins immediately. It may appear to fade away, but it doesnt fade away; rather, it is the basis upon which the next thing is built.
***
This morning while I was on the balcony, I had an interesting experience: the experience of mans effort, in all its forms and through all the ages, to approach the Divine. And I seemed to be growing wider and wider so That all the forms and all the ways of approaching the Divine attempted by man would be contained in the present Work.
It was represented by a kind of image in which I was as vast as the Universe, and each way of approaching the Divine was like a tiny image containing the characteristic form of this approach. And my impression was this: Why do people always limit, limit themselves? Narrow, narrow, narrow! They understand only when it is narrow.
--
It was in 1910 That I had this sort of reversal of consciousness about which I spoke the other evening That is, the first contact with the higher Divine and it completely changed my life.
From That moment on, I was conscious That all one does is the expression of the indwelling Divine Will. But it is the Divine Will AT THE VERY CENTER of oneself, although for a while there remained an activity in the physical mind. But this was stilled two or three days after I saw Sri Aurobindo for the first time in 1914, and it never started up again. Silence settled. And the consciousness was established above the head.
In the first experience [of 1910], the consciousness was established in the psychic depths of the being, and from That poise issued the feeling of no longer doing anything but what the Divine wantedit was the consciousness That the divine Will was all-powerful and That there was no longer any personal will, although there was still some mental activity and everything had to be made silent. In 1914, it was silenced, and the consciousness was established above the head. Here (the heart) and here (above the head), the connection is constant.
Does one exclude the other?
They exist simultaneously; its the same thing. When you start becoming truly conscious, you realize That it depends upon the kinds of activities you have to do. When you do a certain kind of work, it is in the heart That the Force gathers to radiate outwards, and when you do another kind of work, it is above the head That the Force concentrates to radiate outwards, but the two are not separate: the center of activity is here or there depending upon what you have to do.
As for the latest experience,1 I cant say for sure That no one has ever had it, because someone like Ramakrishna, individuals like That, could have had it. But I am not sure, for when I had this experience (not of the divine Presence, which I had already felt in the cells for a long time, but the experience That the Divine ALONE is acting in the body, That He has BECOME the body, yet all the while retaining his character of divine omniscience and omnipotence) well, the whole time it remained actively like That, it was absolutely impossible to have the LEAST disorder in the body, and not only in the body, but IN ALL THE SURROUNDING MATTER. It was as if every object obeyed without even needing to decide to obey: it was automatic. There was a divine harmony in EVERYTHING (it took place in my bathroom upstairs, certainly to demonstrate That it exists in the most trivial things), in everything, constantly. So if That is established in a permanent way, there CAN NO LONGER be illness it is impossible. There can no longer be accidents, there can no longer be illness, there can no longer be disorders, and everything should harmonize (probably in a progressive way) just as That was harmonized: all the objects in the bathroom were full of a joyful enthusiasmeverything obeyed, everything!
As it was the first experience, it started to fade slightly when I began having contact with people; but I really had the feeling That it was a first experience, new upon earth. For I have experienced an absolute identity of the will with the divine Will ever since 1910, it has never left me. It isnt That, its SOMETHING ELSE. It is MATTER BECOMING THE DIVINE. And it really came with the feeling That this thing was happening for the first time upon earth. It is difficult to say for sure, but Ramakrishna died of cancer, and now That I have had the experience, I know in an ABSOLUTE way That this is impossible. If he had decided to go because the Divine wanted him to go, it would have been an orderly departure, in total harmony and with a total will, whereas this illness is a means of disorder.
Is this experience of May 1 related to the Supramental Manifestation of 1956? Is it a supramental experience?
--
It is likely That the greatest resistance will be in the most conscious beings due to a lack of mental receptivity, due to the mind itself which wants things to continue (as Sri Aurobindo has written) according to its own mode of ignorance. So-called inert matter is much more easily responsive, much moreit does not resist. And I am convinced That among plants, for example, or among animals, the response will be much quicker than among men. It will be more difficult to act upon a very organized mind; beings who live in an entirely crystallized, organized mental consciousness are as hard as stone! It resists. According to my experience, what is unconscious will certainly follow more easily. It was a delight to see the water from the tap, the mouthwash in the bottle, the glass, the spongeit all had such an air of joy and consent! There is much less ego, you see, it is not a conscious ego.
The ego becomes more and more conscious and resistant as the being develops. Very primitive, very simple beings, little children will respond first, because they dont have an organized ego. But these big people! People who have worked on themselves, who have mastered themselves, who are organized, who have an ego made of steel, it will be difficult for them.
--
This consciousness here is true in relation to this world as it is, but the other is something else entirely. An adjustment is needed for the two to touch, otherwise one jumps from one to the other. And That serves no purpose. A progressive passage has to be built between the two. This means That a whole number of rungs of consciousness are missing. This consciousness here must consciously connect with That consciousness there, which means a multitude of stairs passing from one to the other. Then we will be able to rise up progressively, and the whole will arise.
Its action will be somewhat similar to what is described in the Last Judgment, which is an entirely symbolic expression of something That makes us discern between what belongs to the world of falsehood which is destined to disappear and what belongs to this same world of ignorance and inertia but is transformable. One will go to one side and the other to the other side. All That is transformable will be permeated more and more with this new substance and this new consciousness to such an extent That it will rise towards it and serve as a link between the two but all That belongs incorrigibly to falsehood and ignorance will disappear. This was also prophesied in the Gita: among what we call the hostile or anti-divine forces, those capable of being transformed will be uplifted and go off towards the new consciousness, whereas all That is irrevocably in darkness or belongs to an evil will shall be destroyed and vanish from the Universe. And a whole part of humanity That has responded to these forces rather too zealously will certainly vanish with them. And this is what was expressed in this concept of the Last Judgment.
May 1, 1958.
0 1958-06-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Throughout all this life, knowingly or unknowingly, I have been what the Lord wanted me to be, I have done what the Lord wanted me to do. That alone matters.
***
0 1958-07-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Something I have never said completely. On the one hand, there is the attitude of those in yesterday evenings film2: God is everything, God is everywhere, God is in he who smites you (as Sri Aurobindo wroteGod made me good with a blow, shall I tell Him: O Mighty One, I forgive you your harm and cruelty but do not do it again!), an attitude which, if extended to its ultimate conclusion, accepts the world as it is: the world is the perfect expression of the divine Will. On the other hand, there is the attitude of progress and transformation. But for That, you must recognize That there are things in the world which are not as they should be.
In The Synthesis of Yoga, Sri Aurobindo says That this idea of good and bad, of pure and impure, is a notion needed for action; but the purists, such as Chaitanya, Ramakrishna and others, do not agree. They do not agree That it is indispensable for action. They simply say: your acceptance of action as a necessary thing is contrary to your perception of the Divine in all things.
How can the two be reconciled?
I recall That once I tried to speak of this, but no one followed me, no one understood, so I did not insist. I left it open and never pursued it further, for they could not decipher anything or find any meaning in what I was saying. But now I could give a very simple answer: Let the Supreme do the work. It is He who has to progress, not you!
Ramdas does not at all consider That the world as it is, is good.
No, but I know all these people, I know them thoroughly! I know Chaitanya, Ramakrishna and Ramdas thoroughly. They are utterly familiar to me. It doesnt bother them. These are people who live with a certain feeling, who have an entirely concrete experience and live in this experience, but they dont care at all if their formation they have not even crystallized it, they leave it like That, vaguecontains things That are mutually contradictory, because, in appearance, they reconcile them. They do not raise any questions, they do not have the need for an absolutely clear vision; their feeling is absolutely clear, and Thats enough for them. Ramakrishna was like That; he said the most contradictory things without being bothered in the least, and they are all exactly and equally true.
But this crystal clear vision Sri Aurobindo had, where everything is in its place, where contradictions no longer existthey never soared to That height. This was the thing, this really crystalline, perfect supramental vision, even from the standpoint of understanding and knowledge. They never went That far.
***
--
Each element, let us say each individual element (even though it is not exactly like That), is in its place according to whether the Grace acts on the individual or on the collectivity.
When the Grace acts on the collectivity, each thing, each element, each principle, is put in its place as the result of a karmic logic in the universal movement. This is what gives us the impression of disorder and confusion as we see it.
--
And then, there is a super-grace, as it were, which works in a few exceptional cases, which places you not according to what you are but according to what you are to become, which means That the universal cosmic position is ahead of the individuals progress.
And it is then That you should keep silent and fall on your knees.
Ramdas: a yogi from Northwest India who followed the path of love (bhakti). His whole yoga consisted in repeating the name Ram. He founded the Anand-ashram in Kanhargad, Kerala. He was born in 1884 and died in 1963.
0 1958-07-05, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I have just explained to Z my program for getting out of the present difficulties,1 and I think if he has not concluded That I am totally mad, it is because he has an immense respect for me! But as always in these cases, there is such a joy in me, such an exultation: all the cells are dancing. I understand why people begin singing, dancing, etc. It takes a formidable power to remain like That (gesture of solidity): there is such a desire in the throat to sing!
***
--
Yes, I remember. It was towards the end of the Darshan and I was repeating within me, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord But wordlessly. It came like That (gesture) and went far, far, far, far! It is all here (motion around the head). And That (Mother points to her chin) is determination (but there should have been a little more light on the chin!), the realizing will.
Thats it: the capacity to be an ABSOLUTELY receptive passivitylike Thatin TOTAL silence and surrender, and at the same time here, there, an IRREDUCIBLE, OMNIPOTENT will with a total power to effectuate, shattering all resistances. Both simultaneously without one inhibiting the other, in the same joy That is the GREAT secret! The harmonization of opposites, in joy and plenitude, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, for all problems: That is the great secret.
In regard to the Ashram's financial difficulties.
0 1958-07-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
When I was young, I was as poor as a turkey, as poor as could be! As an artist, I sometimes had to go out in society (as artists are forced to do). I had lacquered boots That were cracked and I painted them so it wouldnt show! This is to tell you the state I was inpoor as a turkey. So one day, in a shop window, I saw a very pretty petticoat much in fashion then, with lace, ribbons, etc. (It was the fashion in those days to have long skirts which trailed on the floor, and I didnt have a petticoat which could go with such things I didnt care, it didnt matter to me in the least, but since Nature had told me I would always have everything I needed, I wanted to make an experiment.) So I said, Well, I would very much like to have a petticoat to go with those skirts. I got five of them! They came from every direction!
And it is always like That. I never ask for anything, but if by chance I say to myself, Hmm, wouldnt it be nice to have That, mountains of them pour in! So last year, I made an experiment, I told Nature, Listen, my little one, you say That you will collaborate, you told me I would never lack anything. Well then, to put it on a level of feelings, it would really be fun, it would give me joy (in the style of Krishnas joy), to have A LOT of money to do everything I feel like doing. Its not That I want to increase things for myself, no; you give me more than I need. But to have some fun, to be able to give freely, to do things freely, to spend freely I am asking you to give me a crore of rupees1 for my birthday!
She didnt do a thing! Nothing, absolutely nothing: a complete refusal. Did she refuse or was she unable to? It may be That I always saw That money was under the control of an asuric force. (I am speaking of currency, cash; I dont want to do business. When I try to do business, it generally succeeds very well, but I dont mean That. I am speaking of cash.) I never asked her That question.
You see, this is how it happened: theres this Ganesh2 We had a meditation (this was more than thirty years ago) in the room where Prosperity3 is now distributed. There were eight or ten of us, I believe. We used to make sentences with flowers; I arranged the flowers, and each one made a sentence with the different flowers I had put there. And one day when the subject of prosperity or wealth came up, I thought (they always say That Ganesh is the god of money, of fortune, of the worlds wealth), I thought, Isnt this whole story of the god with an elephant trunk merely a lot of human imagination? Thereupon, we meditated. And who should I see walk in and park himself in front of me but a living being, absolutely alive and luminous, with a trunk That long and smiling! So then, in my meditation, I said, Ah! So its true That you exist!Of course I exist! And you may ask me for whatever you wish, from a monetary standpoint, of course, and I will give it to you!
So I asked. And for about ten years, it poured in, like this (gesture of torrents). It was incredible. I would ask, and at the next Darshan, or a month or several days later, depending, there it was.
--
Once someone even asked Santa Claus! A young Muslim girl who had a special liking for Father Christmas I dont know why, as it was not part of her religion! Without saying a word to me, she called on Santa Claus and told him, Mother doesnt believe in you; you should give Her a gift to prove to Her That you exist. You can give it to Her for Christmas. And it happened! She was quite proud.
But it only happened like That once. And as for Ganesh, That was the end of it. So then I asked Nature. It took her a long time to accept to collaborate. But as for the money, I shall have to ask her about it; because for me personally, it is still going on. I think, Hmm, wouldnt it be nice to have a wristwatch like That. And I get twenty of them! I say to myself, Well, if I had That and I get thirty of them! Things come in from every side, without my even uttering a word I dont even ask, they just come.
The first time I came here and spoke with Sri Aurobindo about what was needed for the Work, he told me (he also wrote it to me) That for the secure achievement of the Work we would need three powers: one was the power over health, the second was the power over government, and the third was the power over money.
Health naturally depends upon the sadhana; but even That is not so sure: there are other factors. As for the second, the power over government, Sri Aurobindo looked at it, studied it, considered it very carefully, and finally he told me, There is only one way to have That power: it is TO BE the government. One can influence individuals, one can transmit the will to them, but their hands are tied. In a government, there is no one individual, nor even several who is all-powerful and who can decide things. One must be the government oneself and give it the desired orientation.
For the last, for money, he told me, I still dont know exactly what it depends on. Then one day I entered into trance with this idea in mind, and after a certain journey I came to a place like a subterranean grotto (which means That it is in the subconscient, or perhaps even in the inconscient) which was the source, the place and the power over money. I was about to enter into this grotto (a kind of inner cave) when I saw, coiled and upright, an immense serpent, like an all black python, formidable, as big as a seven-story house, who said, You cannot pass!Why not? Let me pass!Myself, I would let you pass, but if I did, they would immediately destroy me.Who, then, is this they?They are the asuric4 powers who rule over money. They have put me here to guard the entrance, precisely so That you may not enter.And what is it That would give one the power to enter? Then he told me something like this: I heard ( That is, he himself had no special knowledge, but it was something he had heard from his masters, those who ruled over him), I heard That he who will have a total power over the human sexual impulses (not merely in himself, but a universal power That is, a power enabling him to control this everywhere, among all men) will have the right to enter. In other words, these forces would not be able to prevent him from entering.
A personal realization is very easy, it is nothing at all; a personal realization is one thing, but the power to control it among all men That is, to control or master such movements at will, everywhereis quite another. I dont believe That this condition has been fulfilled. If what the serpent said is true and if this is really what will vanquish these hostile forces That rule over money, well then, it has not been fulfilled.
It has been fulfilled to a certain extent but its negligible. It is conditional, limited: in one case, it works; in another, it doesnt. It is quite problematic. And naturally, where terrestrial things are involved (I dont say universal, but in any case terrestrial), when it is something involving the earth, it must be complete; there cannot be any approximations.
--
You see, the human species is a part of Nature, but as Sri Aurobindo has explained, from the moment mind expressed itself in man, it put him into a relationship with Nature very different from the relationship all the lower species have with her. All the lower species right up to man are completely under the rule of Nature; she makes them do whatever she wants, and they can do nothing without her consent. Whereas man begins to act and to live as an equal; not as an equal in terms of power, but from the standpoint of consciousness (he is beginning to do so since he has the capacity to study and to find out Natures secrets). He is not superior to her, far from it, but he is on an equal footing. And so he has acquiredthis is a fac the has acquired a certain power of independence That he immediately used to put himself under the influence of the hostile forces, which are not terrestrial but extra-terrestrial.
I am speaking of terrestrial Nature. Through their mental power, men had the choice and the freedom to make pacts with these extraterrestrial vital forces. There is a whole vital world That has nothing to do with the earth, it is entirely independent or prior to earths existence, it is self-existentwell, they have brought That down here! They have made what we see! And such being the case This is what terrestrial Nature told me: It is beyond my control.
So considering all That, Sri Aurobindo came to the conclusion That only the supramental power (Mother brings down her hands) as he said, will be able to rule over everything. And when That happens, it will be all overincluding Nature. For a long time, Nature rebelled (I have written about it often). She used to say, Why are you in such a hurry? It will be done one day. But then last year, there was That extraordinary experience.5 And it was because of That experience That I told her, Well, now That we agree, give me some proof; I am asking you for some proofdo it for me. She didnt budge, absolutely nothing.
Perhaps it is a kind of it can hardly be called an intuition, but a kind of divination of this idea That made people speak of selling ones soul to the devil for money, of money being an evil force, which produces this shrinking on the part of all those who want to lead a spiritual life but as for That, they shrink from everything, not only from money!
Perhaps it would not be necessary to have this power over all men, but in any event, it should be great enough to act upon the mass. It is likely That once a certain movement has been mastered to some degree, what the mass does or doesnt do (this whole human mass That has barely, barely emerged into even the mental consciousness) will become quite irrelevant. You see, the mass is still under the great rule of Nature. I am referring to mental humanity, predominantly mental, which developed the mind but misused it and immediately set out on the wrong pathfirst thing.
There is nothing to say since the first thing done by the divine forces which emanated for the Creation was to take the wrong path!6 That is the origin, the seed of this marvelous spirit of independence the negation of surrender, in other words. Man said, I have the power to think; I will do with it what I want, and no one has the right to intervene. I am free, I am an independent being, IN-DE-PEN-DENT! So Thats how things stand: we are all independent beings!
But yesterday, in fact, I was looking (with all these mantras and these prayers and this whole vibration That has descended into the atmosphere, creating a state of constant calling in the atmosphere), and I remembered the old movements and how everything now has changed! I was also thinking of the old disciplines, one of which is to say, I am That.7 People were told to sit in meditation and repeat, I am That, to reach an identification. And it all seemed to me so obsolete, so childish, but at the same time a part of the whole. I looked, and it seemed so absurd to sit in meditation and say, I am That! I, what is this I who is That; what is this I, where is it? I was trying to find it, and I saw a tiny, microscopic point (to see it would almost require some gigantic instrument), a tiny, obscure point in an im-men-sity of Light, and That little point was the body. At the same timeit was absolutely simultaneous I saw the Presence of the Supreme as a very, very, very, VERY immense Being, within which was I in an attitude of (I was only a sensation, you see), an attitude (gesture of surrender) like this. There were no limits, yet at the same time, one felt the joy of being permeated, enveloped and of being able to widen, widen, widen indefinitelyto widen the whole being, from the highest consciousness to the most material consciousness. And then, at the same time, to look at this body and to see every cell, every atom vibrating with a divine, radiant Presence with all its Consciousness, all its Power, all its Will, all its Loveall, all, really and a joy! An extraordinary joy. And one did not disturb the other, nothing was contradictory and everything was felt at the same time. That was when I said, But truly! This body had to have the training it has had for more than seventy years to be able to bear all That without starting to cry out or dance or leap up or whatever it might be! No, it was calm (it was exultant, but it was very calm), and it remained in control of its movements and its words. In spite of the fact That it was really living in another world, it could apparently act normal due to this strenuous training in self-control by the REASONby the reasonover the whole being, which has tamed it and given it such a great cohesive power That I can BE in the experience, I can LIVE this experience, and at the same time respond with the most amiable of smiles to the most idiotic questions!
And then, it always ends in the same way, by a canticle to the action of the grace: O, Lord! You are truly marvelous! All the experiences I have needed to pass through You have given to me, all the things I needed to do to make this body ready You have made me do, and always with the feeling That it was You who was making me do itand with the universal disapproval of all the right-minded humanity!
About one million dollars.
--
In effect, according to tradition, the first divine forces That emanated for the creation were the Asuras, who turned into demons. The gods were created later to repair the disorder engendered by the demons.
So'ham, the traditional mantra of the Vedantic path, which declares That the world is an illusion.
***
0 1958-07-19, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
A peach should ripen on the tree; its a fruit That should be picked when the sun is upon it. Just as the sun falls on it, you come along, pluck it and bite into it. Then it is absolute paradise.
There are two such fruitspeaches and golden green plums. It is the same for both. You must take them warm from the tree, bite into them, and you are filled with the taste of paradise.
--
I say That every fruit should be eaten in its own way. The being who lives according to his own nature, his own truth, must spontaneously find the right way of using things. When you live according to the truth of your being, you dont need to learn things: you do them spontaneously, according to the inner law. When you sincerely follow your nature, spontaneously and sincerely, you are divine. As soon as you think or look at yourself acting or start questioning, you are full of sin.
It is mans mental consciousness That has filled all Nature with the idea of sin and all the misery it brings. Animals are not at all unhappy in the way we are. Not at all, not at all, exceptas Sri Aurobindo saysthose That are corrupted. Those That are corrupted are those That live with men. Dogs have the sense of sin and guilt, for their whole aspiration is to resemble man. Man is the god. Hence there is dissimulation, hypocrisy: dogs lie. But men admire That. They say, Oh! How intelligent they are!
They have lost their divinity.
--
But isnt a dog more conscious, more evolved than a tiger, or higher in the spiral That is, nearer the Divine?
Its not a question of being conscious. There is no doubt That man is more evolved than the tiger, but the tiger is more divine than man. One shouldnt confuse things. These are two entirely different things.
The Divine is everywhere, in everything. We should never forget itnot for a second should we forget it. He is everywhere, in everything; and in an unconscious but spontaneous, therefore sincere, way, all That exists below the mental manifestation is divine, without mixture; in other words, it exists spontaneously and in harmony with its nature. It is man with his mind who has introduced the idea of guilt. Naturally, he is much more conscious! Theres no question about it, its a fact, although what we call consciousness (what we call it, That is, what man calls consciousness) is the power to objectify and mentalize things. It is not the true consciousness, but its what men call consciousness. So according to the human mode, it is obvious That man is much more conscious than the animal, but the human brings in sin and perversion which do not exist outside of this state we call consciouswhich in fact is not conscious but merely consists in mentalizing things and in having the ability to objectify them.
It is an ascending curve, but a curve That swerves away from the Divine. So naturally, one has to climb much higher to find a higher Divine, since it is a conscious Divine, whereas the others are divine spontaneously and instinctively, without being conscious of it. All our moral notions of good and evil, all of That, are what we have thrown over the creation with our distorted and perverted consciousness. It is we who have invented it.
We are the distorting intermediary between the purity of the animal and the divine purity of the gods.
0 1958-07-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But instead of using the energy in this way, they immediately throw it out. They start stirring about, reacting, working, speaking They feel full of energy and they throw it all out! They cant keep anything. So naturally, since the energy was not sent to be wasted like That but for an inner use, they feel absolutely flat, run down. And it is universal. They dont know, they do not know how to make this movementto turn within, to use the energy (not to keep it, it doesnt keep), to use it to repair the damage done to the body and to go deeply within to find the reason for this accident or illness, and there to change it by an aspiration, an inner transformation. Instead of That, right away they start speaking, stirring about, reacting, doing this or That!
In fact, the immense majority of human beings feel they are living only when they waste their energy. Otherwise, it does not seem to them to be life.
Not to waste energy means to utilize it towards the ends for which it was given. If energy is given for the transformation, for the sublimation of the being, it must be used for That; if energy is given to restore something That has been disrupted in the body, it must be used for That.
Naturally, if a special work is given to someone along with the energy to do this work, its very good as long as it is being used towards the end for which it was given.
But as soon as a man feels energetic, he immediately rushes into action. Or else, those who dont have the sense of doing something useful start gossiping. And still worse, those who have no control over themselves become intolerant and start arguing! If someone contradicts their will, they feel full of energy and they mistake That for a godlike wrath!
***
0 1958-07-23, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
In the final analysis, seeing the world such as it is and seems meant to be irremediably, human intellect has decided That this universe must be an error of God and That the manifestation or creation is certainly the result of a desire, the desire to manifest, know oneself, enjoy oneself. So the only thing to do is to put an end to this error as soon as possible by refusing to cling to desire and its fatal consequences.
But the Supreme Lord answers That the comedy is not entirely played out, and He adds: Wait for the last act; undoubtedly you will change your mind.
***
0 1958-08-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
When I think of the time the hatha yogis devote to the work on the bodythey do nothing but That; they do nothing but That all the time, until they have attained a certain point. This is in fact the reason why Sri Aurobindo wanted none of it: he found That it took a lot of time for a rather meager result.
***
Day and night, I am investigating all That has to be transformed I can assure you That there is plenty of work!
Last night, I had many dreams (not really dreams, but ); I used to find them very interesting because they gave me certain indications, all kinds of things, but when I saw it all now, I said to myself, Good Lord! What a waste of time! Instead, I could be living in a supramental consciousness and seeing things. So during the night, I made a resolution to change all this too. My nights have to change. I am already changing my days; now my nights have to change. But then all this subconscious in Matter, all this, it all has to change! Theres no choice, it has to be seen to.
0 1958-08-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Its remarkable That things you have understood in your consciousness reappear as problems to be solved in the cells of the body.
In the cells, both things are there. The body is convinced of the divine Presence everywhere, That all is the Divineit lives in That; and at the same time, it shrinks from certain contacts! I saw That this morning, both things at once, and I said, Lord, I know nothing at all!
There (gesture above the head), everything has been resolved, I could write books on how to resolve this or That, how the synthesis is made, etc., but here (the body) I live this synthesis stumblingly. The two coexist, but it is still not That (gesture, hands clasped together, pointing upwards).
(silence)
What problems come up! If there were a plague or cholera, for example, would the supramental Force in the cells, the supramental realization, be able to restore order out of the disorder That allows the epidemic to be? I dont mean on an individual levelindividually, if you are in a certain consciousness, you can remain untouched I am not speaking of That, I am speaking impersonally, as it were.
We know nothing. We believe we know, but as soon as it is a question of That (the body), we know nothing. As soon as we are in the subtle physical, we know everything, we live in bliss but here, we know nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing.
***
0 1958-08-09, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
If human love came forth unalloyed, it would be all-powerful. Unfortunately, in human love, there is as much SELF love as love for the beloved; it is not a love That makes you forget yourself.
Evidently the gods of the Puranas are a good deal worse than human beings, as we saw in That film the other day1 (and That story was absolutely true). The gods of the Overmind are infinitely more egocentric the only thing That counts for them is their power, the extent of their power. Man has in addition a psychic being, so consequently he has true love and compassionwherein lies his superiority over the gods. It was very, very clearly expressed in this film, and its very true.
The gods are faultless, for they live according to their own nature, spontaneously and without constraint; it is their godly way. But if one looks at it from a higher point of view, if one has a higher vision, a vision of the whole, they have fewer qualities than man. In this film, it was proved That through their capacity for love and self-giving, men can have as much power as the gods, and even morewhen they are not egoists, when they can overcome their egoism.
Certainly man is nearer the Supreme than the gods. Provided he fulfills the necessary conditions, he can be nearerhe isnt so automatically, but he can be, he has the power, the potentiality to be.
0 1958-08-30, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It was just at four oclock in the morning, and it woke me up. It was exactly like this I was apparently in my bathroom, and I had to open the door between the bathroom and Sri Aurobindos room; the moment I put my hand on the doorknob, I knew with an absolute certainty That destruction was awaiting me behind the door. It had the form or image of those great invaders of India, those who had swooped down upon India and destroyed everything in their wake But it was only an impression.
So the door had to be opened and I felt and said, Lord, may your will be done. I opened the door and behind it was Z1 in the same clothes he wears when he drives, and he was leaning against one of those big tractor tiresor perhaps he was holding it at the same time. I was so dumbfounded That I woke up. It took me a little while to be able to understand what it might mean, and afterwards Even now, I still dont know What was I? Was I India, or was I the world? I dont know. And what did Z represent? It was as imperative and clear, as positive and absolute as could be: the certitude That destruction was behind the door, That it was inevitable. And it had the form of those great Tartar or Mongol invaders, those people who came from the North and invaded India, who pillaged everything Thats what it was like. But what Z was doing there I dont know. What does he represent? The first impulse was to tell Abhay Singh, Forbid him to drive the tractor.
(Pavitra:) What was he holding in his hands, Mother?
Huge tires He was standing there, like That, with a very majestic air. He was wearing his white outfit, those long pyjamas
(Abhay Singh:) Yesterday he drove the station wagon for the visitors.
--
No, it came up to here (gesture to the top of the head). It seemed to be a tractor tire, but it did not have the heavy tread That tractor tires have.
(Abhay Singh:) There are tractor tires That have no tread.
Ah! So He was standing, and it came up to here (same gesture). So it must have been a tractor tire.
What could it represent, he, and the tractor? I dont know It was not personal, you see I mean this body. It had nothing to do with That.
(Pavitra:) The industrialization of India?
0 1958-09-16 - OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I had a mantra in French before coming to Pondicherry. It was Dieu de bont et de misricorde [God of kindness and mercy], but what it means is usually not understoodit is an entire program, a universal program. I have been repeating this mantra since the beginning of the century; it was the mantra of ascension, of realization. At present, it no longer comes in the same way, it comes rather as a memory. But it was deliberate, you see; I always said Dieu de bont et de misricorde, because even then I understood That everything is the Divine and the Divine is in all things and That it is only we who make a distinction between what is or what is not the Divine.
My experience is That, individually, we are in relationship with That aspect of the Divine which is not necessarily the most in conformity with our natures, but which is the most essential for our development or the most necessary for our action. For me, it was always a question of action because, personally, individually, each aspiration for personal development had its own form, its own spontaneous expression, so I did not use any formula. But as soon as there was the least little difficulty in action, it sprang forth. Only long afterwards did I notice That it was formulated in a certain way I would utter it without even knowing what the words were. But it came like this: Dieu de bont et de misricorde. It was as if I wanted to eliminate from action all aspects That were not this one. And it lasted for I dont know, more than twenty or twenty-five years of my life. It came spontaneously.
Just recently one day, the contact became entirely physical, the whole body was in great exaltation, and I noticed That other lines were spontaneously being added to this Dieu de bont et de misricorde, and I noted them down. It was a springing forth of states of consciousness not words.
Seigneur, Dieu de bont et de misricorde
--
Like a triumph. But I didnt write That one down because I did not want to spoil my impression.
Of course, these things should not be published. We can file them in this Agenda of the Supramental Manifestation for later on. Later on, when the Victory is won, we shall say, If you want to see the curve
--
When I have this mantra, instead of saying hello, good-bye, I shall say That. When I say hello, good-bye, it means Hello: the Presence is here, the Light is here. Good-bye: I am not going away, I am staying here.
But when I have this mantra, I believe something will happen.
--
For the moment, of all the formulas or mantras, the one That acts most directly on this body, That seizes all the cells and immediately does this (vibrating motion) is the Sanskrit mantra: OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH.
As soon as I sit for meditation, as soon as I have a quiet minute to concentrate, it always begins with this mantra, and there is a response in the body, in the cells of the body: they all start vibrating.
This is how it happened: Y had just returned, and he brought back a trunk full of things which he then proceeded to show me, and his excitement made tight, tight little waves in the atmosphere, making my head ache; it made anyway, it was unpleasant. When I left, just after That had happened, I sat down and went like this (gesture of sweeping out) to make it stop, and immediately the mantra began.
It rose up from here (Mother indicates the solar plexus), like this: Om Namo Bhagavateh OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH. It was formidable. For the entire quarter of an hour That the meditation lasted, everything was filled with Light! In the deeper tones it was of golden bronze (at the throat level it was almost red) and in the higher tones it was a kind of opaline white light: OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH.
The other day (I was in my bathroom upstairs), it came; it took hold of the entire body. It rose up in the same way, and all the cells were trembling. And with such a power! So I stopped everything, all movement, and I let the thing grow. The vibration went on expanding, ever widening, as the sound itself was expanding, expanding, and all the cells of the body were seized with an intensity of aspiration as if the entire body were swellingit became overwhelming. I felt That it would all burst.
I understood those who withdraw from everything to live That totally.
And it has such a transformative power! I felt That if it continued, something would happen, something like a change in the equilibrium of the bodys cells.
Unfortunately, I was unable to continue, because I dont have the time; it was just before the balcony darshan and I was going to be late. Something told me, That is for people who have nothing to do. Then I said, I belong to my work, and I slowly withdrew. I put on the brakes, and the action was cut short. But what remains is That whenever I repeat this mantra everything starts vibrating.
So each one must find something That acts on himself, individually. I am only speaking of the action on the physical plane, because mentally, vitally, in all the inner parts of the being, the aspiration is always, always spontaneous. I am referring only to the physical plane.
The physical seems to be more open to something That is repetitious for example, the music we play on Sundays, which has three series of combined mantras. The first is That of Chandi, addressed to the universal Mother:
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu matrirupena sansthita
--
Each time this music is played, it produces exactly the same effect upon the body. It is strange, as if all the cells were dilating, with a feeling That the body is growing larger It becomes all dilated, as if swollen with lightwith force, a lot of force. And this music seems to form spirals, like luminous ribbons of incense smoke, white (not transparent, literally white) and they rise up and up. I always see the same thing; it begins in the form of a vase, then swells like an amphora and converges higher up to blossom forth like a flower.
So for these mantras, everything depends upon what you want to do with them. I am in favor of a short mantra, especially if you want to make both numerous and spontaneous repetitionsone or two words, three at most. Because you must be able to use them in all cases, when an accident is about to happen, for example. It has to spring up without thinking, without calling: it should issue forth from the being spontaneously, like a reflex, exactly like a reflex. Then the mantra has its full force.
--
That is the normal state. It creates an atmosphere of an intensity almost more material than the subtle physical; its like almost like the phosphorescent radiations from a medium. And it has a great action, a very great action: it can prevent an accident. And it accompanies you all the time, all the time.
But it is up to you to know what you want to do with it.
--
You have no mantras That have come to you, That give you a more living feeling? Are their mantras long?
Yes, they are long. And he2 has not given me any mantra of the Mother, so They exist, but he has not given me any I dont know, they dont have much effect on me. It is something very mental.
Thats why it should spring forth from you.
(silence)
This one, this mantra, OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, came to me after some time, for I felt well, I saw That I needed to have a mantra of my own, That is, a mantra consonant with what this body has to do in the world. And it was just then That it came.3 It was truly an answer to a need That had made itself felt. So if you feel the neednot there, not in your head, but here (Mother points to the center of her heart), it will come. One day, either you will hear the words, or they will spring forth from your heart And when That happens, you must hold onto it.
The first syllable of NAMO is pronounced with a short 'a,' as in nahmo. The final word is pronounced BHA-GAH-VA-TEH.
--
The different mantras or prayers That came to Mother and which She grouped under the heading Prayers of the Consciousness of the Cells, are included as an addendum to the Agenda of 1959.
***
0 1958-09-19, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Ever since my childhood, I have spent my time veiling myself: one veil over another veil over another veil, so as to remain invisible. Because to see me without the true attitude is the great sin. Anyway, sin in the sense Sri Aurobindo defines itmeaning That things are no longer in their place.
***
0 1958-10-01, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It was so strong, so strong That it was really inexpressible. The negative experience of no longer being an individual, or in other words, the dissolution of the ego, took place a long time ago and still takes place quite often: the ego completely vanishes. But this was a positive experience of being not just the universe in its totality, but something elseineffable, yet concrete, absolutely concrete! Unutterable1and yet utterly concrete: the divine Person beyond the Impersonal.
The experience lasted for only a few minutes. And I knew, then, That all our words all our words are empty. But circumstances were such That I had to speak
Later, Mother added: 'Because I do not say everything; when I am in That state, there is a lethargy of expression!
***
0 1958-10-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It must be strong enough to pull me from my concentration or my activity. If I knew when you concentrate or do your puja,1 I could tune into you, and shell I would know more; otherwise, my inner life is too l am not at all passive inwardly, you see, I am very active, so I dont usually receive your vibrations unless they impose themselves strongly or unless I have decided beforeh and to be attentive to what is coming from someone or other. If I know That at a given moment something is going to happen, then I open a door, as it were. But its difficult to speak of these things.
When you left on your journey,2 for example, I made a specie! concentration for all to go well so That nothing untoward happen to you. I even made a formation and asked for a constant, special help over you. Then I renewed my concentration every day, which is how I came to notice That you were invoking me very regulary. I Saw you everyday, everyday, with a very regular precision. It was something That imposed itself on me, but it imposed itself only because l had initially made a formation to follow you.
For people here in the Ashram, my work is not the same. It is more like a kind of atmosphere That extends everywherea very conscious atmospherewhich I let work for each one according to his need. I dont have a special action for each person, unless something requires my special attention. When I would tune into you while you were travelling, I clearly saw your image appear before me, as though you were looking at me, but now That you have returned here, I no longer see it. Rather, I receive a sensation or an impression; and as these sensations and impressions are innumerable, its rather like one element among many. It no longer imposes itself in such an entirely distinct way nor does it appear before me in the same manner, as a clear image of yourself, as though you wanted to know something.
As soon as I am alone, I enter into a very deep concentration,a state of consciousness, a kind of universal activity. Is it deep? What is it? It is far beyond all the mental regions, far, far beyond, and it is constant. As soon as I am alone or resting somewhere, Thats how it is.
The other day when I was in this state of concentration, I had the vision That I mentioned to you. I felt I was being pulled, That something was pulling me and trying to draw my attention. I felt it very strongly. So I opened my eyes, my mental eyes (the physical eyes may remain opened or closed, it makes no difference either way; when I am concentrated, things on the physical plane no longer exist), I deliberately opened the minds eyes, for That is where I felt myself being pulled, and then I had this vision I told you of. Someone was trying to draw my attention, to tell me something. It takes someone really quite powerful, with a very great power of concentration, to do Thatthere are certainly a great many people here and elsewhere who try to do this, yet I dont feel a thing.3
In the outer, practical domain, I might suddenly think of someone, so I know That this person is calling or thinking of me. When you left on your trip, I created a special link-up so That if ever, at any moment, you called me for anything, I would know it instantly, and I remained attentive and alert. But I do That only in exceptional cases. Generally speaking, when I havent made this special link-up, things keep coming in and coming in and coming in and coming in, and the answer goes out automatically, here or there or there or therehundreds and hundreds of things That I dont keep in my memory because then it would really be frightful. I dont keep these things in my consciousness; it is rather a work That is done automatically.
When you asked me if X4 were thinking of me, I consulted my atmosphere and saw That it was true, That even many times a day Xs thoughts were coming. So I know That he is concentrating on me, or something: it simply passes through me, and I answer automatically. But I dont particularly pay attention to X, unless you ask me a question about him, in which case I deliberately tune into him, then observe and determine whether its like this or like That. Whereas this vision the other day was something That thrust itself on me; I was in another region altogether, in my inner contemplation, my concentrationa very strong concentrationwhen I was forced to enter into contact with this being whose vision I had and who was obviously a very powerful being. After telling me what he had to tell me, he went away in a very peculiar way, not at all suddenly as most people appear and disappear, not at all like That. When I first saw him, there was a living form the being himself was there but upon leaving (probably to see the effect, to find out whether he had truly succeeded in making himself understood), he left behind a kind of image of himself. Afterwards, this image blurred and it left only a silhouette, an outline, then it disappeared altogether leaving only an impression. That was the last thing I saw. So I kept the impression and analyzed it to find out exactly what was involved; all this was filed away, and then it was over. I began my concentration once again.
I intentionally carry everybody in my active consciousness for the work, and I do the work consciously; but the extent to which people in the world, or those who are here in the Ashram, are conscious of this or receive the results depends upon them, though not exclusively.
The other day, for example, though I no longer recall exactly when (I forget everything on purpose)but it was in the last part of the night I had a rather long activity concerning the whole realization of the Ashram, notably in the fields of education and art. I was apparently inspecting this area to see how things were there, so naturally I saw a certain number of people, their work and their inner states. Some saw me and, at That moment, had a vision of me. It is likely That many were asleep and didnt notice anything, but some actually saw me. The next morning, for example, someone who works at the theater told me That she had had a splendid vision of me in which I had spoken to her, blessed her, etc. This was her way of receiving the work I had done. And this kind of thing is happening more and more, in That my action is awakening the consciousness in others more and more strongly.
Naturally, the reception is always incomplete or partially modified; when it passes through the individuality, it becomes narrowed, a personal thing. It seems impossible for each one to have a consciousness vast enough to see the thing in its entirety.
You said That our way of receiving your work or becoming conscious of it does not exclusively depend upon us. What do you mean?
It depends upon the progress in the consciousness. The more the action is supramentalized, the more its reception is IMPOSED upon the consciousness of each one. The actions progress makes it more and more perceptible IN SPITE OF each ones condition. The milieu obviously limits and altersdistortswhat it receives, but the quality of the Work acts upon this receptivity and imposes itself on it in a more and more efficient and imperious way.
There is an interdependence between the individual progress and the collective progress, between That which works and That which is worked upon. It proceeds like this (gesture of intermeshing), and as one progresses, the other progresses. The progress above not only hastens the progress below but brings the two nearer together, thus changing the distance in the relationship; That is, the distance will not remain the same, the ratio between the progress here and the progress above wont always be identical.
The progress above follows a certain trajectory, and in some cases the distance increases, in others it decreases (although on the whole, the distance remains relatively unchanged), but my feeling is That the collective receptivity will increase as the action becomes increasingly supramentalized. And the need for an individual receptivitywith all its distortions and alterations and limitationswill decrease in importance as the supramental influence increasingly imposes its power. This influence will impose itself in such a way That it will no longer be subject to the defects in receptivity.
***
--
Before, I always had the negative experience of the disappearance of the ego, of the oneness of Creation, where everything implying separation disappearedan experience That, personally, I would call negative. Last Wednesday, while I was speaking (and Thats why at the end I could no longer find my words), I seemed suddenly to have left this negative phenomenon and entered into the positive experience: the experience of BEING the Supreme Lord, the experience That nothing exists but the Supreme Lordall is the Supreme Lord, there is nothing else. And at That moment, the feeling of this infinite power That has no limit, That nothing can limit, was so overwhelming That all the functions of the body, of this mental machine That summons up words, all this was I could no longer speak French. Perhaps the words could have come to me in Englishprobably, because it was easier for Sri Aurobindo to express himself in English, and Thats how it must have happened: it was the part embodied in Sri Aurobindo (the part of the Supreme That was embodied in Sri Aurobindo for its manifestation) That had the experience. This is what joined back with the Origin and caused the experience I was well aware of it. And That is probably why its transcription through English words would have been easier than through French words (for at these moments, such activities are purely mechanical, rather like automatic machines). And naturally the experience left something behind. It left the sense of a power That can no longer be qualified,5 really. And it was there yesterday evening.
The difficultyits not even a difficulty, its just a kind of precaution That is taken (automatically, in fact) in order to For example, the volume of Force That was to be expressed in the voice was too great for the speech organ. So I had to be a little attentive That is, there had to be a kind of filtering in the outermost expression, otherwise the voice would have cracked. But this isnt done through the will and reason, its automatic. Yet I feel That the capacity of Matter to contain and express is increasing with phenomenal speed. But its progressive, it cant be done instantly. There have often been people whose outer form broke because the Force was too strong; well, I clearly see That it is being dosed out. After all, this is exclusively the concern of the Supreme Lord, I dont bother about itits not my concern and I dont bother about itHe makes the necessary adjustments. Thus it comes progressively, little by little, so That no fundamental disequilibrium occurs. It gives the impression That ones head is swelling so tremendously it will burst! But then if there is a moment of stillness, it adapts; gradually, it adapts.
Only, one must be careful to keep the sense of the Unmanifest sufficiently present so That the various things the elements, the cells and all Thathave time to adapt. The sense of the Unmanifest, or in other words, to step back into the Unmanifest.6 This is what all those who have had experiences have done; they always believed That there was no possibility of adaptation, so they left their bodies and went off.
***
--
Money belongs to the one who spends it; That is an absolute law. You may pile up money, but it doesnt belong to you until you spend it. Then you have the merit, the glory, the joy, the pleasure of spending it!
Money is meant to circulate. What should remain constant is the progressive movement of an increase in the earths productionan ever-expanding progressive movement to increase the earths production and improve existence on earth. It is the material improvement of terrestrial life and the growth of the earths production That must go on expanding, enlarging, and not this silly paper or this inert metal That is amassed and lifeless.
Money is not meant to generate money; money should generate an increase in production, an improvement in the conditions of life and a progress in human consciousness. This is its true use. What I call an improvement in consciousness, a progress in consciousness, is everything That education in all its forms can providenot as its generally understood, but as we understand it here: education in art, education in from the education of the body, from the most material progress, to the spiritual education and progress through yoga; the whole spectrum, everything That leads humanity towards its future realization. Money should serve to augment That and to augment the material base for the earths progress, the best use of what the earth can giveits intelligent utilization, not the utilization That wastes and loses energies. The use That allows energies to be replenished.
In the universe there is an inexhaustible source of energy That asks only to be replenished; if you know how to go about it, it is replenished. Instead of draining life and the energies of our earth and making of it something parched and inert, we must know the practical exercise for replenishing the energy constantly. And these are not just words; I know how its to be done, and science is in the process of thoroughly finding outit has found out most admirably. But instead of using it to satisfy human passions, instead of using what science has found so That men may destroy each other more effectively than they are presently doing, it must be used to enrich the earth: to enrich the earth, to make the earth richer and richer, more active, generous, productive and to make all life grow towards its maximum efficiency. This is the true use of money. And if its not used like That, its a vicea short circuit and a vice.
But how many people know how to use it in this way? Very few, which is why they have to be taught. What I call teach is to show, to give the example. We want to be the example of true living in the world. Its a challenge I am placing before the whole financial world: I am telling them That they are in the process of withering and ruining the earth with their idiotic system; and with even less than they are now spending for useless thingsmerely for inflating something That has no inherent life, That should be only an instrument at the service of life, That has no reality in itself, That is only a means and not an end (they make an end of something That is only a means)well then, instead of making of it an end, they should make it the means. With what they have at their disposal they could oh, transform the earth so quickly! Transform it, put it into contact, truly into contact, with the supramental forces That would make life bountiful and, indeed, constantly renewedinstead of becoming withered, stagnant, shrivelled up: a future moon. A dead moon.
We are told That in a few millions or billions of years, the earth will become some kind of moon. The movement should be the opposite: the earth should become more and more a resplendent sun, but a sun of life. Not a sun That burns, but a sun That illuminesa radiant glory.
Puja: ceremony , invocation or evocation of a god (in this case, a tantric ritual ).
--
We believe That Mother used the word 'qualified' in the sense of restrict, limit Or modifya limitless Power.
The vastness beyond the creation or the cosmic manifestation, the solid base upon which all the rest can unfold.
0 1958-10-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Certain relationships are entirely within me, entirely. It is not a relationship between individuals, but a relationship between states of beingwhich means That with the same individual there may be many different relationships. If it were a single whole but I am still not sure if there is a single person with whom the relationship is global.
So there are parts which are entirely within me, entirely there is no difference; they are myself. There are other parts with which I am conscious of an exchangea very familiar, very intimate exchange. And there are parts outside of me with which I still have relationships, not exactly as with strangers but merely as acquaintances; it is still necessary to observe their reactions in order to do the correct thing. And the ratio between these different parts is naturally different depending upon the different individuals.
--
Each time we try to realize something and we encounter a resistance or an obstacle, or even a failurewhat appears to be a failurewe should know, we should NEVER forget, That it is exclusively, absolutely, to make the realization more perfect.
So this habit of cringing, of being discouraged or even feeling ill at ease or abusing oneself, saying, There, Ive done it again All this is absolute foolishness.
Rather, simply say, We do not know how to do things as they should be done, well then, let them be done for us and come what may! If we could only see how everything That looks like a difficulty, an error, a failure or an obstacle is simply there to help us make the realization more perfect.
Once we know this, everything becomes easy.
0 1958-10-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The same can be said of physical culture and of all the sciences That are concerned with the body and its workings. If the material universe is considered as the outer sheath and the manifestation of the Supreme, then it can generally be said That all the physical sciences are the rituals of worship.
We always come back to the same thing: the absolute necessity for perfect sincerity, perfect honesty and a sense of the dignity of all we do so That we may do it as it should be done.
If we could truly, perfectly know all the details of the ceremony of life, the worship of the Lord in physical life, it would be wonderfulto know, and no longer to err, never again to err. To perform the ceremony as perfectly as an initiation.
To know life utterly Oh, there is a very interesting thing in this regard! And its strange, but this particular knowledge reminds me of one of my Sutras1 (which I read out, but no one understood or understood only vaguely, like That):
It is the Supreme Lord who has ineluctably decreed the place you occupy in the universal concert, but whatever be this place, you have equally the same right as all others to ascend the supreme summits right to the supramental realization.
There is ones position in the universal hierarchy, which is something ineluctableit is the eternal lawand there is the development in the manifestation, which is an education; it is progressive and done from within the being. What is remarkable is That to become a perfect being, this positionwhatever it is, decreed since all eternity, a part of the eternal Truthmust manifest with the greatest possible perfection as a result of evolutionary growth. It is the junction, the union of the two, the eternal position and the evolutionary realization, That will make the total and perfect being, and the manifestation as the Lord has willed it since the beginning of all eternity (which has no beginning at all! ).
And for the cycle to be complete, one cannot stop on the way at any plane, not even the highest spiritual plane nor the plane closest to matter (like the occult plane in the vital, for example). One must descend right into matter, and this perfection in manifestation must be a material perfection, or otherwise the cycle is not completewhich explains why those who want to flee in order to realize the divine Will are in error. What must be done is exactly the opposite! The two must be combined in a perfect way. This is why all the honest sciences, the sciences That are practiced sincerely, honestly, exclusively with a will to know, are difficult pathsyet such sure paths for the total realization.
It brings up very interesting things. (What I am going to say now is very personal and consequently cannot be used, but it may be kept anyway:)
There are two parallel things That, from the eternal and supreme point of view, are of identical importance, in That both are equally essential for the realization to be a true realization.
On the one hand, there is what Sri Aurobindowho, as the Avatar, represented the supreme Consciousness and Will on earthdeclared me to be, That is, the supreme universal Mother; and on the other hand, there is what I am realizing in my body through the integral sadhana.2 I could be the supreme Mother and not do any sadhana, and as a matter of fact, as long as Sri Aurobindo was in his body, it was he who did the sadhana, and I received the effects. These effects were automatically established in the outer being, but he was the one doing it, not II was merely the bridge between his sadhana and the world. Only when he left his body was I forced to take up the sadhana myself; not only did I have to do what I was doing beforebeing a bridge between his sadhana and the world but I had to carry on the sadhana myself. When he left, he turned over to me the responsibility for what he himself had been doing in his body, and I had to do it. So there are both these things. Sometimes one predominates, sometimes the other (I dont mean successively in time, but it depends on the moment), and they are trying to combine in a total and perfect realization: the eternal, ineffable and immutable Consciousness of the Executrice of the Supreme, and the consciousness of the Sadhak of the integral Yoga who strives in an ascending effort towards an ever increasing progression.
To this has been added a growing initiation into the supramental realization which is (I understand it well now) the perfect union of what comes from above and what comes from below, or in other words, the eternal position and the evolutionary realization.
--
For example, this question of PowerTHE Powerover Matter. Those who perceive me as the eternal, universal Mother and Sri Aurobindo as the Avatar are surprised That our power is not absolute. They are surprised That we have not merely to say, Let it be thus for it to be thus. This is because, in the integral realization, the union of the two is essential: a union of the power That proceeds from the eternal position and the power That proceeds from the sadhana through evolutionary growth. Similarly, how is it That those who have reached even the summits of yogic knowledge (I was thinking of Swami) need to resort to beings like gods or demigods to be able to realize things?Because they have indeed united with certain higher forces and entities, but it was not decreed since the beginning of time That they were this particular being. They were not born as this or That, but through evolution they united with a latent possibility in themselves. Each one carries the Eternal within himself, but one can join Him only when one has realized the complete union of the latent Eternal with the eternal Eternal.
And this explains everything, absolutely everything: how it works, how it functions in the world.3 I was saying to myself, But I have no powers, I have no powers! Several days ago, I said, But after all, I KNOW WHO is there, I know, yet how is it That ? There, up to there (the level of the head), it is all-powerful, nothing can resist but here it is ineffective. So those who have faith, even an ignorant but real faith (it can be ignorant but nevertheless it is real), say, What! How can you have no powers? Because the sadhana is not yet over.
The Lord will possess his universe only when the universe will have consciously become the Lord.
--
Mother added: 'The most beautiful part of the experience is missing... When I try to formulate something in too precise a way, all the vastness of the experience evaporates. The entire world is being revealed in all its organization down to the minutest details but everything simultaneouslyhow can That be explained? It's not possible.'
***
0 1958-10-17, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
7) But even in the event you have not made the irrevocable decision at the outset, should you have the good fortune to live during one of these unimaginable hours of universal history when the Grace is present, embodied upon earth, It will offer you, at certain exceptional moments, the renewed possibility of making a final choice That will lead you straight to the goal.
That was the message of hope.
And then it continues (Mother reads):
--
I wrote That before reading Sri Aurobindos aphorism on the sentinels of Nature.1 I found it very interesting and I said to myself, Well! Thats exactly what came to me!
There is still one more (but it is not the last):
11) Allow nothing, nowhere, to deny the truth of your being: That is sincerity.
'If mankind only caught a glimpse of what infinite enjoyments, what perfect forces, what luminous reaches of spontaneous knowledge, what wide calms of our being lie waiting for us in the tracts which our animal evolution has not yet conquered, they would leave all and never rest till they had gained these treasures. But the way is narrow, the doors are hard to force, and fear, distrust and scepticism are there, sentinels of Nature to forbid the turning away of our feet from less ordinary pastures.'
0 1958-10-25 - to go out of your body, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Each one is in touch with the universal expression of an aspect or a will or a mode of the Supreme, and if one aspires for this, it is this That comes, with an extraordinary plasticity. And when That happens, I even become the Witness (not the witness in the way of the Purusha1: a witness far more infinite and eternal than the Purusha). I see what responds, why it responds, how it responds. This is how I know what people want (not here below, nor even in their highest aspiration). I see it even when the people themselves are no longer consciousor rather, not yet conscious (for me, its no longer, but anyway ), when they are not yet conscious of this identification somewhere. Even then I see it.
Its interesting.
They do pujas to all these forces or divinities, but it is not it is not the highest Truth. What Sri Aurobindo called the true surrender, the surrender to the Supreme, is a truth higher than That of relying solely upon oneself.
And That is what always brings in complications, conflicts. I was surprised That the atmosphere [of the Ashram] is filled with conflict when he is here but That is the reason.2
Why arent people conscious of this identification while having it in a part of their being?
--
I had a Danish friend, an artist, to whom this happened. He wanted me to teach him how to go out of his body. He had interesting dreams so he thought it might be worthwhile to go there consciously. I helped him to go out but it was frightful! When he dreamed, a part of his mind indeed remained conscious, active, and a kind of link remained between this active part and his outer being, so he remembered some of his dreams, but it was only a very partial phenomenon. To go out of your body means That you must gradually pass through ALL the states of being, if you are to do it systematically. But already in the subtle physical it was almost non-individualized, and as soon as he went a bit further, there was no longer anything! It was unformed, nonexistent.
So they sit down (they are told to interiorize, to go within themselves), and they panic!Naturally they feel That they That they are disappearing: there is nothing! There is no consciousness!
Purusha: the Being or the Self That witnesses and supports the Becoming.
The occult atmosphere of tantric pujas invokes forces That do not coincide with the completely different atmosphere and the completely different attitude of the supramental yoga.
***
0 1958-11-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Last night, I thought, My god! If I have to Individually, with this one or That one, by selecting the best, I could get somewhere, but this this mass.1 Swami had told me sohe told me immediately after his first meditation (collective meditation at the Ashram playground), he told me, The stuff is not good! (Mother laughs)
I didnt press the matter.
All this together constitutes one collective entity, and the individual is lost in it. If I had to deal with this person or That person individually, it would be different. But all together, taking them all together as a collective entity, well, its not brilliant.
Mother is referring to the Ashram as a collectivity.
--- Grep of noun that
thatch
thatch palm
thatch tree
thatched roof
thatcher
thatcherism
thatcherite