TERMS STARTING WITH
Us.a (Usha) ::: the Vedic goddess of Dawn, bringer of divine illuminaUsa tion; "the illumining dawn of the higher or undivided Consciousness".
Usage variance – This variance relates to the difference between the actual quantity of materials used and the budgeted quantity of materials used.
Usanas Kavya (Ushanas Kavya) ::: [Ved.]: the rsi of the heavenward desire that is born from the seer knowledge; [in the [Gita], Usanas Kavi is named as vibhuti among the seer-poets].
Usanas (Sanskrit) Uśanas [from the verbal root vaś to desire, wish] The regent of the planet Venus, or Sukra; also the planet itself. In Hindu myth Usanas is described as the guru of the daityas or asuras, and also as being possessed of vast wisdom and knowledge — the attribute of spiritualized intellectuality corresponding to occult characteristics ascribed to the regent of Venus.
Usanas-Sukra (Sanskrit) Uśanas-śukra [from uśanas Venus + śukra bright, resplendent] Venus-Lucifer, Venus as the light-bringer, referring not so much to physical light as to the light of intellect and inner vision. The guardian spirit, with reference to the solar system, of earth and of mankind; for what the buddhi-manas is in the human constitution when compared with the kama-manas, that same role, mutatis mutandis on the cosmic scale, the regent of Venus plays in the solar system, wherein by comparison the earth is the vehicle for kama-manas. Also commonly called in Hindu mythology Kavi or Kavya, signifying poet and the feeling that the true poet is intellectually intuitional with reference to “feeling” or “seeing” some, at least, of the mysteries of nature.
Usas (Usha, Ushas) ::: Dawn, the bringer of illumination.
Used as an adjective meaning generating, producing.
Used as a philosophical term, dis means space.
Used for the real or spiritual presence in universal nature, as signifying the Ever-being or Ever-existing.
Used in connection with Jehovah as well as with non-Jewish gods. Its plural form is ’elim, whereas the Hebrew plural ’elohim is, strictly speaking, the plural of a cognate Chaldee and Hebrew word ’eloah. This last word has a feminine termination, whereas the plural has the masculine termination, thus imbodying in curious fashion both masculine and feminine attributes when used in the plural form. In translations from the Bible, ’elohim is usually translated into English as God, whereas Jehovah is usually rendered into English as Lord. See also ALHIM
Used in India as an honorary title for any great or revered man.
Used in limited senses in reference to planes of manifestation: thus the unmanifested causes of things on the physical plane may be manifest to the consciousness pertaining to the higher planes. See also MANIFESTATION
Used in the Gospels to mean astonishment, trance, or ecstatic visions.
Used of any manifested god in a universe, and hence of our sun.
Useful life – Refers to the expected length of time, normally given in years, during which a depreciating asset will continue to be productive.
Usenet "messaging" /yoos'net/ or /yooz'net/ (Or "Usenet news", from "Users' Network") A distributed {bulletin board} system and the people who post and read articles thereon. Originally implemented in 1979 - 1980 by Steve Bellovin, Jim Ellis, Tom Truscott and Steve Daniel at Duke University, and supported mainly by {Unix} machines, it swiftly grew to become international in scope and, before the advent of the {web}, probably the largest decentralised information utility in existence. Usenet encompassed government agencies, universities, high schools, businesses of all sizes and home computers of all descriptions. As of early 1993, it hosted over 1200 {newsgroups} ("groups" for short) and an average of 40 megabytes (the equivalent of several thousand paper pages) of new technical articles, news, discussion, chatter, and {flamage} every day. By November 1999, the number of groups had grown to over 37,000. To join in, you need a {Usenet provider (https://www.usenetstorm.com)}. Originally you needed a {news reader} program but there are now several web gateways, cheifly {Google Groups (http://groups.google.com/)} (originally {Deja News}). Some {web browsers} used to include news readers and {URLs} beginning "news:" referred to Usenet newsgroups. {Network News Transfer Protocol} is a {protocol} used to transfer news articles between a news {server} and a {news reader}. In the beginning, not all Usenet hosts were on the Internet. The {uucp} {protocol} was sometimes used to transfer articles between servers, though this became increasingly rare with the spread of the {Internet}. [Gene Spafford "spaf@cs.purdue.edu", "What is Usenet?", regular posting to {news:news.announce.newusers}]. (2017-09-26)
Usenet ::: (messaging) /yoos'net/ or /yooz'net/ (Or Usenet news, from Users' Network) A distributed bulletin board system and the people who post and read the advent of the World-Wide Web, probably the largest decentralised information utility in existence.Usenet encompasses government agencies, universities, high schools, businesses of all sizes, and home computers of all descriptions. In the beginning, not all chatter, and flamage every day. By November 1999, the number of groups had grown to over 37,000.To join in you originally needed a news reader program but there are now several web gateways such as . Several web browsers include news readers and URLs beginning news: refer to Usenet newsgroups.Network News Transfer Protocol is a protocol used to transfer news articles between a news server and a news reader. The uucp protocol was sometimes used to transfer articles between servers, though this is probably rare now that most sites are on the Internet.Stanford University runs a service to send news articles by electronic mail. Send electronic mail to with help in the message body. [Still? URL?] . .[Gene Spafford (1999-12-17)
Usenet news {Usenet}
Usenetter "networking" A (regular) user of {Usenet}. (1996-09-08)
Usenetter ::: (networking) A (regular) user of Usenet. (1996-09-08)
Usera—an angel serving in the 1st Heaven.
User Brain Damage "humour" (UBD) A description (usually abbreviated) used to close a trouble report obviously due to utter cluelessness on the user's part. Compare {pilot error}; opposite: {PBD}; see also {brain-damaged}, {PEBCAK}. (1998-08-27)
User Brain Damage ::: (humour) (UBD) A description (usually abbreviated) used to close a trouble report obviously due to utter cluelessness on the user's part. Compare pilot error; opposite: PBD; see also brain-damaged, PEBCAK. (1998-08-27)
User Datagram Protocol ::: (protocol) (UDP) Internet standard network layer, transport layer and session layer protocols which provide simple but unreliable datagram services. process-to-process addressing information [to what?]. UDP is a connectionless protocol which, like TCP, is layered on top of IP.UDP neither guarantees delivery nor does it require a connection. As a result it is lightweight and efficient, but all error processing and retransmission must be taken care of by the application program.Unix manual page: udp(4).[Postel, Jon, User Datagram Protocol, RFC 768, Network Information Center, SRI International, Menlo Park, Calif., August 1980]. (1998-02-11)
User Datagram Protocol "protocol" (UDP) {Internet} {standard} {network layer}, {transport layer} and {session layer} {protocols} which provide simple but {unreliable} {datagram} services. UDP is defined in {STD 6}, {RFC 768}. It adds a {checksum} and additional process-to-process addressing information [to what?]. UDP is a {connectionless protocol} which, like {TCP}, is layered on top of {IP}. UDP neither guarantees delivery nor does it require a connection. As a result it is lightweight and efficient, but all error processing and retransmission must be taken care of by the {application program}. {Unix manual page}: udp(4). [Postel, Jon, User Datagram Protocol, RFC 768, Network Information Center, SRI International, Menlo Park, Calif., August 1980]. (1998-02-11)
User Interface Language "language, graphics" (UIL) A language for specifying {widget} hierarchies etc. in {OSF}/Motif and {DECwindows}. (1997-03-01)
User Interface Language ::: (language, graphics) (UIL) A language for specifying widget hierarchies etc. in OSF/Motif and DECwindows. (1997-03-01)
User Network Interface "communications, networking" (UNI) An interface point between {ATM} end users and a private {ATM switch}, or between a private ATM switch and the {public carrier} ATM network. The physical and {protocol} specifications for UNIs are defined by the {ATM Forum}'s UNI documents, which allow for various types of physical interfaces. See also: {NNI} (1999-01-23)
User Network Interface ::: (communications, networking) (UNI) An interface point between ATM end users and a private ATM switch, or between a private ATM switch and the public carrier ATM network.The physical and protocol specifications for UNIs are defined by the ATM Forum's UNI documents, which allow for various types of physical interfaces.See also: NNI (1999-01-23)
Use the Source Luke ::: (humour, programming) (UTSL) (A pun on Obi-Wan Kenobi's Use the Force, Luke! in Star Wars) A more polite version of RTFS. This is a common way of futile pass through the manuals, or broadcasting questions on Usenet that haven't attracted wizards to answer them.Once upon a time in Elder Days, everyone running Unix had source. After 1978, AT&T's policy tightened up, so this objurgation was in theory appropriately were so ubiquitous that one could utter it at almost anyone on the network without concern.Nowadays, free Unix clones are becoming common enough that almost anyone can read source legally. The most widely distributed is probably Linux. FreeBSD, implementations with source such as BSD/OS from BSDI are accelerating this trend. (1996-01-02)
Use the Source Luke "humour, programming" (UTSL) (A pun on Obi-Wan Kenobi's "Use the Force, Luke!" in "Star Wars") A more polite version of {RTFS}. This is a common way of suggesting that someone would be better off reading the source code that supports whatever feature is causing confusion, rather than making yet another futile pass through the manuals, or broadcasting questions on {Usenet} that haven't attracted {wizards} to answer them. Once upon a time in {Elder Days}, everyone running {Unix} had source. After 1978, {AT&T}'s policy tightened up, so this objurgation was in theory appropriately directed only at associates of some outfit with a Unix {source licence}. In practice, bootlegs of Unix source code (made precisely for reference purposes) were so ubiquitous that one could utter it at almost anyone on {the network} without concern. Nowadays, free Unix clones are becoming common enough that almost anyone can read source legally. The most widely distributed is probably {Linux}. {FreeBSD}, {NetBSD}, {386BSD}, {jolix} also have their followers. Cheap commercial Unix implementations with source such as {BSD/OS} from {BSDI} are accelerating this trend. (1996-01-02)
Ushabtiu: A little figurine or statuette, a number of which were entombed with the body of each deceased in ancient Egypt; the duty of the ushabtiu was to answer for the deceased during the trial of judgment before the divine judges, and to cultivate the fields for the deceased in the next world. (Also referred to as ushabti.)
Ushanas Kavya ::: see Usanas Kavya
Ushas (Sanskrit) Uṣas [from the verbal root uṣ to burn, warm by illumination or light] The dawn, daughter of heaven, identical with the Latin Aurora and the Greek Eos. First mentioned in the Vedas, “wherein her name is also Ahana and Dyotana ([both words meaning] the illuminator), and is a most poetical and fascinating image. She is the ever-faithful friend of men, of rich and poor, though she is believed to prefer the latter. She smiles upon and visits the dwelling of every living mortal. She is the immortal, ever-youthful virgin, the light of the poor, and the destroyer of darkness” (TG 356).
Ushnisha (Sanskrit) Uṣṇīṣa [from the verbal root uṣ to be warm, flaming; mystically warmth through inner light, intuition, vision] A turban, diadem, or crown; also a kind of “excrescence” on the head of a buddha. Like the long ears so often seen in figures of the buddhas, the meaning of the ushnisha is entirely occult, and was in no sense whatsoever intended to signify a tuft of hair, nor any fleshly excrescence on the skull, but was a way of suggesting the radiating power of the eye of Siva or organ of vision and of intuition, working at relatively full power within the skull of a great adept. The eye of Siva is the pineal gland; originally an external and active eye in the head of primitive mankind during this fourth round on earth, it gradually retreated within the skull, which grew to cover its place with bones, skin, and hair. As this presently so-called third eye retreated within the skull, its place was progressively taken by the two present organs of vision. At this period of our racial development it is buddhas, avataras, and other initiates of relatively high status who alone use the organ of spiritual vision, for in them the pineal gland has become active and is to some extent physiologically enlarged; although in everyone else it is more or less nonfunctional, yet to some degree functional.
Usiel and a list of his adjutant princes. [Rf. Butler,
Usiel is a good angel, of the order of virtues, a
Usiel is listed 5th. In The Book of the Angel Raziel,
Usiel (Uziel, Uzziel, “strength of God”)—in
Usiel (Uzziel) is among the 7 angels before the
Usiologie: A German term apparently not used in English, derived from the Greek, Ousia, essence, hence the science of essence -- J.J.R.
Uslael —an angel serving in the 4th Heaven.
Usnīsasitātapatrā
Usnīsasitātapatrā. (S). See TATHĀGATOsnĪsASITĀTAPATRĀ.
Ustad Master, title used by pupils to address for example a musical teacher. Maheboob Khan was sometimes referred to as Ustad.
Ustael —in Barrett, The Magus, andin de Abano,
Ustur —in Chaldean lore, one of 4 chief classes
Usually the number of terms is specified and we must sum the first specified nuber of terms without omitting any. The concept of partial sums allow the definition of the convergence of a series to be based on that of a sequence. Examining the partial sums of a series also helps evaluate the sum of infinite sereis.
Usually there cannot but be a mixture of these two ways until the consciousness is ready to be entirely open, entirely submit- ted to the Divine’s organisation of all its action. It is then that all responsibility disappears and there is no personal burden.
usability ::: (programming) The effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which users can achieve tasks in a particular environment of a product. High usability means a system is: easy to learn and remember; efficient, visually pleasing and fun to use; and quick to recover from errors. . (1999-04-01)
usability "programming" The effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which users can achieve tasks in a particular environment of a product. High usability means a system is: easy to learn and remember; efficient, visually pleasing and fun to use; and quick to recover from errors. {(http://orrnet.com/)}. (1999-04-01)
usable ::: a. --> Capable of being used.
usage ::: n. --> The act of using; mode of using or treating; treatment; conduct with respect to a person or a thing; as, good usage; ill usage; hard usage.
Manners; conduct; behavior.
Long-continued practice; customary mode of procedure; custom; habitual use; method.
Customary use or employment, as of a word or phrase in a particular sense or signification.
usager ::: n. --> One who has the use of anything in trust for another.
USAModSim ::: (language) United States Army ModSim compiler.Version 1.0 runs on SPARC/SunOS, Silicon Graphics, MS-DOS. .E-mail: Charles Herring . (1993-12-29)
USAModSim "language" United States Army {ModSim} compiler. Version 1.0 runs on {SPARC}/{SunOS}, {Silicon Graphics}, {MS-DOS}. {(ftp://max.cecer.army.mil/ftp/isle)}. E-mail: Charles Herring "herring@lincoln.cecer.army.mil". (1993-12-29)
usance ::: v. t. --> Use; usage; employment.
Custom; practice; usage.
Interest paid for money; usury.
The time, fixed variously by the usage between different countries, when a bill of exchange is payable; as, a bill drawn on London at one usance, or at double usance.
usa.net {Internet Express}
usant ::: a. --> Using; accustomed.
usarbudhah ::: wakers with the Dawn. [Ved.]
US-ASCII "character" The 7-bit version of {ASCII}, which preceded (and is the basis for) 8-bit versions such as {Latin-1}, {MacASCII} and later, even larger coded character sets such as {Unicode}. US-ASCII is defined in Standard ANSI X3.4-1986, "US-ASCII. Coded Character Set - 7-Bit American Standard Code for Information Interchange". (1998-10-18)
US-ASCII ::: (character) The 7-bit version of ASCII, which preceded (and is the basis for) 8-bit versions such as Latin-1, MacASCII and later, even larger coded character sets such as Unicode.US-ASCII is defined in Standard ANSI X3.4-1986, US-ASCII. Coded Character Set - 7-Bit American Standard Code for Information Interchange. (1998-10-18)
us.asi (ushasi) ::: in the dawn (of the illumined consciousness). usasi
USB ::: 1. (architecture) Universal Serial Bus.2. (communications) Upper Side-Band modulation. (1997-07-16)
USB 1. "architecture" {Universal Serial Bus}. 2. "communications" {Upper Side-Band modulation}. (1997-07-16)
USB 2.0 {Universal Serial Bus}
USB Adapter Card Support "communications, software" A set of software extensions that provide support for {USB} adapter cards installed in the {PCI} bus or {Cardbus} slots in {Macintosh} computers that do not have built-in USB ports. (2001-11-28)
USB Adapter Card Support ::: (communications, software) A set of software extensions that provide support for USB adapter cards installed in the PCI bus or Cardbus slots in Macintosh computers that do not have built-in USB ports.(2001-11-28)
USB drive "storage" A {hard disk drive} connected via {Universal Serial Bus} (USB). May also refer to some kind of {memory stick} connected via USB. (2008-05-21)
usbegs ::: n. pl. --> Alt. of Usbeks
usbeks ::: n. pl. --> A Turkish tribe which about the close of the 15th century conquered, and settled in, that part of Asia now called Turkestan.
used for invoking. The name Abariel is found
used here in the sense of offspring and princes in
used ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Use
used in conjuring after proper investiture by the
used in conjuring rites. Mentioned in The Secret
used in the text of
used to apply to Israel. William Blake refers to the
useful ::: a. --> Full of use, advantage, or profit; producing, or having power to produce, good; serviceable for any end or object; helpful toward advancing any purpose; beneficial; profitable; advantageous; as, vessels and instruments useful in a family; books useful for improvement; useful knowledge; useful arts.
usefully ::: adv. --> In a useful manner.
usefulness ::: n. --> The quality or state of being useful; utility; serviceableness; advantage.
USE "language" An early system on the {IBM 1130}. [Listed in CACM 2(5):16, May 1959]. (2004-09-14)
USE ::: (language) An early system on the IBM 1130.[Listed in CACM 2(5):16, May 1959].(2004-09-14)
useless ::: a. --> Having, or being of, no use; unserviceable; producing no good end; answering no valuable purpose; not advancing the end proposed; unprofitable; ineffectual; as, a useless garment; useless pity.
uselessly
useless :::
USENIX "body" Since 1975, the USENIX Association has provided a forum for the communication of the results of innovation and research in {Unix} and modern {open systems}. It is well known for its technical conferences, tutorial programs, and the wide variety of publications it has sponsored over the years. USENIX is the original not-for-profit membership organisation for individuals and institutions interested in {Unix} and {Unix}-like systems, by extension, {X}, {object-oriented} technology, and other advanced tools and technologies, and the broad interconnected and interoperable computing environment. USENIX's activities include an annual technical conference; frequent specific-topic conferences and symposia; a highly regarded tutorial program covering a wide range of topics, introductory through advanced; numerous publications, including a book series, in cooperation with The {MIT Press}, on advanced computing systems, proceedings from USENIX symposia and conferences, the quarterly journal "Computing Systems", and the biweekly newsletter; "login: "; participation in various {ANSI}, {IEEE} and {ISO} {standards} efforts; sponsorship of local and special technical groups relevant to Unix. The chartering of SAGE, the {System Administrators Guild} as a Special Technical Group within USENIX is the most recent. {(http://usenix.org)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.org.usenix}. (1994-12-07)
USENIX ::: (body) Since 1975, the USENIX Association has provided a forum for the communication of the results of innovation and research in Unix and modern open systems. It is well known for its technical conferences, tutorial programs, and the wide variety of publications it has sponsored over the years.USENIX is the original not-for-profit membership organisation for individuals and institutions interested in Unix and Unix-like systems, by extension, X, object-oriented technology, and other advanced tools and technologies, and the broad interconnected and interoperable computing environment.USENIX's activities include an annual technical conference; frequent specific-topic conferences and symposia; a highly regarded tutorial program System Administrators Guild as a Special Technical Group within USENIX is the most recent. .Usenet newsgroup: comp.org.usenix. (1994-12-07)
user ::: 1. (person) Someone doing real work with the computer, using it as a means rather than an end. Someone who pays to use a computer. A programmer who program, however skillfully, without getting into the internals of the program. One who reports bugs instead of just fixing them. See also luser, real user.Users are looked down on by hackers to some extent because they don't understand the full ramifications of the system in all its glory. The term is relative: a skillfully or not. Thus there is some overlap between the two terms; the subtle distinctions must be resolved by context.2. (jargon) Any person, organisation, process, device, program, protocol, or system which uses a service provided by others.The term client (as in client-server systems) is rather more specific, usually implying two processes communicating via some protocol.[Jargon File] (1996-04-28)
user 1. "person" Someone doing "real work" with the computer, using it as a means rather than an end. Someone who pays to use a computer. A programmer who will believe anything you tell him. One who asks silly questions without thinking for two seconds or looking in the documentation. Someone who uses a program, however skillfully, without getting into the internals of the program. One who reports {bugs} instead of just fixing them. See also {luser}, {real user}. Users are looked down on by {hackers} to some extent because they don't understand the full ramifications of the system in all its glory. The term is relative: a skilled hacker may be a user with respect to some program he himself does not hack. A LISP hacker might be one who maintains LISP or one who uses LISP (but with the skill of a hacker). A LISP user is one who uses LISP, whether skillfully or not. Thus there is some overlap between the two terms; the subtle distinctions must be resolved by context. 2. "jargon" Any person, organisation, process, device, program, {protocol}, or system which uses a service provided by others. The term "{client}" (as in "{client-server}" systems) is rather more specific, usually implying two processes communicating via some protocol. [{Jargon File}] (1996-04-28)
user acceptance testing "testing" The type of {testing} where monitored users determine whether a system meets all their requirements, and will support the business for which it was designed. (2003-09-24)
user acceptance testing ::: (testing) The type of testing where monitored users determine whether a system meets all their requirements, and will support the business for which it was designed.(2003-09-24)
user base "jargon" The number of users of some product or standard. This term typically arises in discussions of {backward compatibility} or {lock-in}. (1998-01-15)
user base ::: (jargon) The number of users of some product or standard.This term typically arises in discussions of backward compatibility or lock-in. (1998-01-15)
user experience (UX)
user-friendly ::: Programmer-hostile. Generally used by hackers in a critical tone, to describe systems that hold the user's hand so obsessively that they make it painful for the more experienced and knowledgeable to get any work done. See menuitis, drool-proof paper, Macintrash, user-obsequious.[Jargon File]
user-friendly Programmer-hostile. Generally used by hackers in a critical tone, to describe systems that hold the user's hand so obsessively that they make it painful for the more experienced and knowledgeable to get any work done. See {menuitis}, {drool-proof paper}, {Macintrash}, {user-obsequious}. [{Jargon File}]
user identifier "operating system" 1. (Or "uid", "user id") A number or name which is unique to a particular user of a computer or group of computers which share user information. The {operating system} uses the uid to represent the user in its data structures, e.g. the owner of a file or process, the person attempting to access a system resource etc. A user database, e.g. {Unix}'s /etc/passwd file or {NIS}, maps the uid to other information about that user such as their {user name}, {password}, {home directory} and real name. 2. {user name}. (1997-03-01)
user identifier ::: (operating system) 1. (Or uid, user id) A number or name which is unique to a particular user of a computer or group of computers which share user structures, e.g. the owner of a file or process, the person attempting to access a system resource etc.A user database, e.g. Unix's /etc/passwd file or NIS, maps the uid to other information about that user such as their user name, password, home directory and real name.2. user name. (1997-03-01)
user id {user identifier}
user interface copyright ::: There have been several attempts, mostly by big US software companies, to enforce patents and copyright on user interfaces. Such legal action aims to car manufacturer was forced to use a different interface this would be very bad for car users.Following a non-jury trial, which began in early January 1987, a federal judge ruled on 1990-06-28 that keyboard commands and on-screen images produced by Lotus commands represented instructions for a machine rather than the expression of an idea.Soon after this decision, on 1990-07-02, Lotus sued Borland International and the Santa Cruz Operation for producing spreadsheets (Quattro, Quattro Pro and SCO Professional) whose interfaces could be configured to look like 1-2-3's. (1994-11-16)
user interface copyright There have been several attempts, mostly by big US software companies, to enforce patents and {copyright} on user interfaces. Such legal action aims to restrict the use of certain command languages or {graphical user interfaces} to products from one software supplier. This is undesirable because it either forces users to buy software from the company whose interface they have learned or to learn more than one interface. An analogy is often drawn with the user interface of a car - the arrangement of pedals and steering wheel etc. If each car manufacturer was forced to use a different interface this would be very bad for car users. Following a non-jury trial, which began in early January 1987, a federal judge ruled on 1990-06-28 that keyboard commands and on-screen images produced by {Lotus Development Corporation}'s popular {1-2-3} {spreadsheet} are protected by {copyright}. {Paperback Software International} and subcontractor Stephenson Software Ltd. who lost the case, argued that the copyright applies only to the inner workings of the software. US District Judge Robert Keeton wrote that "The user interface of 1-2-3 is its most unique element and is the aspect that has made 1-2-3 so popular. That defendants went to such trouble to copy that element is a testament to its substantiality". Defence attorneys had argued that the Lotus commands represented "instructions for a machine rather than the expression of an idea". Soon after this decision, on 1990-07-02, Lotus sued {Borland International} and the {Santa Cruz Operation} for producing {spreadsheets} (Quattro, Quattro Pro and SCO Professional) whose interfaces could be configured to look like 1-2-3's. (1994-11-16)
user interface (UI) The aspects of a computer system or program which can be seen (or heard or otherwise perceived) by the human user, and the commands and mechanisms the user uses to control its operation and input data. A {graphical user interface} emphasises the use of pictures for output and a pointing device such as a {mouse} for input and control whereas a {command line interface} requires the user to type textual commands and input at a keyboard and produces a single stream of text as output. A user interface contrasts with, but is typically built on top of, an {Application Program Interface} (API). See also {user interface copyright}. (1995-02-20)
user interface ::: (UI) The aspects of a computer system or program which can be seen (or heard or otherwise perceived) by the human user, and the commands and mechanisms the user uses to control its operation and input data.A graphical user interface emphasises the use of pictures for output and a pointing device such as a mouse for input and control whereas a command line interface requires the user to type textual commands and input at a keyboard and produces a single stream of text as output.A user interface contrasts with, but is typically built on top of, an Application Program Interface (API).See also user interface copyright. (1995-02-20)
user name "operating system, security" (Or "logon") A unique name for each user of computer services which can be accessed by several persons. Users need to identify themselves for accounting, {security}, logging, and {resource management}. Usually a person must also enter a {password} in order to access a service. Once the user has logged on the {operating system} will often use a (short) {user identifier}, e.g. an integer, to refer to them rather than their user name. User names can usually be any short string of alphanumeric characters. Common choices are first name, initials, or some combination of first name, last name, initials and an arbitrary number. User names are often assigned by {system administrators} according to some local policy, or they may be chosen by the users themselves. User names are often also used as {mailbox} names in {electronic mail} addresses. (1997-03-16)
user name ::: (operating system, security) (Or logon) A unique name for each user of computer services which can be accessed by several persons.Users need to identify themselves for accounting, security, logging, and resource management. Usually a person must also enter a password in order to use a (short) user identifier, e.g. an integer, to refer to them rather than their user name.User names can usually be any short string of alphanumeric characters. Common choices are first name, initials, or some combination of first name, last name, administrators according to some local policy, or they may be chosen by the users themselves.User names are often also used as mailbox names in electronic mail addresses. (1997-03-16)
user ::: n. --> One who uses.
Enjoyment of property; use.
user-obsequious "jargon" Emphatic form of {user-friendly}. Connotes a system so verbose, inflexible, and determinedly simple-minded that it is nearly unusable. "Design a system any fool can use and only a fool will want to use it." See {WIMP}, {Macintrash}. See also {user-unctuous}. [{Jargon File}] (1999-06-27)
user-obsequious ::: (jargon) Emphatic form of user-friendly. Connotes a system so verbose, inflexible, and determinedly simple-minded that it is nearly unusable. Design a system any fool can use and only a fool will want to use it.See WIMP, Macintrash.See also user-unctuous.[Jargon File] (1999-06-27)
user-unctuous ::: (jargon) (By analogy with user-friendly and user-obsequious) User-interfaces that attempt to soothe (or, some would say, stupify) users in labelling of system components (such as the main hard drive being labelled Your Hard Drive -- or, with infantile pronoun-reversal, My Hard Drive). (1999-06-27)
user-unctuous "jargon" (By analogy with {user-friendly} and {user-obsequious}) User-interfaces that attempt to soothe (or, some would say, stupify) users instead of cooperating with them. Common "features" of user-unctuous systems include: icons of happy faces; mellow colors; melodic sound effects or even mood music; help tips appearing unbidden and at unhelpful moments; and a cloying tone either in system messages ("Oops! I couldn't seem to find my old preferences file! I do think I'll have to make a new one! Please press OK to continue!") or in labelling of system components (such as the main hard drive being labelled "Your Hard Drive" -- or, with infantile pronoun-reversal, "My Hard Drive"). (1999-06-27)
use ::: v. t. --> The act of employing anything, or of applying it to one&
USG Unix ::: operating system /U-S-G yoo'niks/ Refers to AT&T Unix commercial versions after Version 7, especially System III and System V releases 1, 2, and 3. So called because during most of the lifespan of those versions AT&T's support crew was called the Unix Support Group.Compare BSD.[Jargon File] (1997-02-20)
USG Unix {operating system} /U-S-G yoo'niks/ Refers to AT&T {Unix} commercial versions after {Version 7}, especially System III and System V releases 1, 2, and 3. So called because during most of the lifespan of those versions AT&T's support crew was called the "Unix Support Group". Compare {BSD}. [{Jargon File}] (1997-02-20)
usherance ::: n. --> The act of ushering, or the state of being ushered in.
usherdom ::: n. --> The office or position of an usher; ushership; also, ushers, collectively.
ushered ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Usher
ushering ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Usher
usherless ::: a. --> Destitute of an usher.
usher ::: n. --> An officer or servant who has the care of the door of a court, hall, chamber, or the like; hence, an officer whose business it is to introduce strangers, or to walk before a person of rank. Also, one who escorts persons to seats in a church, theater, etc.
An under teacher, or assistant master, in a school. ::: v. t.
ushership ::: n. --> The office of an usher; usherdom.
usher :::
ushers :::
ushinken 有身見. See SATKĀYADṚstI
usik ::: an aspirant (applied like nr to men and gods, but, like nr also, sometimes especially indicating the Angirasas). [Ved.] ::: usigbhih [instrumental plural], by those who desire. ::: usijah [plural], desirers (of the godheads) .
usim ::: A Motorola 6809 simulator. Version 0.11 by Ray P. Bellis . . (1993-02-14)
usim "simulation" A {Motorola 6809} {emulator} and {assembler}. (2014-06-24)
using ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Use
usitative ::: a. --> Denoting usual or customary action.
USL ::: 1. Query language, close to natural English.2. User System Language. Bellcore, Operations Technology Generic Requirements: User System Interface, TR-825.3. Unix System Laboratories: the software subsidiary of AT&T, responsible for Unix System V and related software.
USL 1. Query language, close to natural English. 2. User System Language. Bellcore, "Operations Technology Generic Requirements: User System Interface", TR-825. 3. Unix System Laboratories: the software subsidiary of {AT&T}, responsible for {Unix} {System V} and related software.
usman. [alt. usmagata] (T. drod; C. nuan; J. nan; K. nan 煖). In Sanskrit, "heat"; the first of the "aids to penetration" (NIRVEDHABHĀGĪYA) that are developed during the "path of preparation" (PRAYOGAMĀRGA) and mark the transition from the mundane sphere of cultivation (LAUKIKA[BHĀVANĀ]MĀRGA) to the supramundane vision (viz., DARsANAMĀRGA) of the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (CATVĀRY ĀRYASATYĀNI). This stage is called heat, the ABHIDHARMAMAHĀVIBHĀsĀ says, because it "can burn all the fuel of the afflictions (KLEsA)." Heat involves ardent faith (sRADDHĀ) regarding the DHARMAVINAYA: when that faith is conditioned by the noble truth of the path (MĀRGASATYA), it produces ardency regarding the right DHARMA; when it is faith conditioned by the noble truth of extinction (NIRODHASATYA), it produces ardency regarding the VINAYA. usman and summit (MuRDHAN), the first two of the nirvedhabhāgīyas, are still subject to retrogression and thus belong to the worldly path of cultivation (laukikabhāvanāmārga).
usman
us metrically: “Of the Angels, th’exact number who/Shall undertake to tell, he shall grow/
usnea ::: n. --> A genus of lichens, most of the species of which have long, gray, pendulous, and finely branched fronds. Usnea barbata is the common bearded lichen which grows on branches of trees in northern forests.
us "networking" The {country code} for the United States. Usually used only by schools, libraries, and some state and local governments. Other US sites, and many international ones, use the non-national {top-level domains} .com, .edu etc. (1999-01-27)
usnic ::: a. --> Pertaining to, or designating, a complex acid obtained, as a yellow crystalline substance, from certain genera of lichens (Usnea, Parmelia, etc.).
usnīsa. (P. unhīsa; T. gtsug tor; C. foding/rouji; J. butcho/nikukei; K. pulchong/yukkye 佛頂/肉髻). In Sanskrit, lit. "turban," the protuberance appearing on the crown of a buddha's head, which is commonly depicted in buddha images. The MAHĀPADĀNASUTTANTA and LAKKHAnASUTTANTA of the Pāli DĪGHANIKĀYA refer to the unhīsasīsa ("wearing a turban on the head") as one of the thirty-two major "marks of a superman" (P. mahāpurisalakkhana; S. MAHĀPURUsALAKsAnA). Many texts report that the usnīsa is endowed with a variety of magical powers. For example, it is said that, although the usnīsa is perfectly proportional to the Buddha's head, it cannot be measured. It is impossible to see the top of the usnīsa, and divinities (DEVA) are unable to fly above it. Many scriptures, including the Usnīsavijayadhāranī, also mention the Buddha radiating light from his usnīsa. Later Buddhist works in Sanskrit refer to this protuberance as the usnīsa-siraskatā (lit. "head-bone"). The origin and precise interpretation of this unique feature of a Buddha remains in dispute. The Sanskrit term usnīsa is in fact a common word for turban. Some art historians have argued that the usnīsa originated as a topknot of hair, such as is found depicted in Graeco-Gandhāran Buddhist sculpture from northwestern India from around the first century CE; the interpretation of the usnīsa as a protuberance on the top of the skull subsequently evolved at MATHURĀ, where artists began to cover the usnīsa with little snail-curled hair, due to a misinterpretation of the wavy hairstyle of Gandhāran sculptures. The Chinese pilgrims FAXIAN and XUANZANG report seeing the "usnīsa bone" of the Buddha being worshipped at a monastery in Hadda (in present-day Afghanistan).
usnīsa
uso 有相. See SĀKARA
us ::: pl. --> of I ::: pron. --> The persons speaking, regarded as an object; ourselves; -- the objective case of we. See We.
USP {unique sales point}
usquebaugh ::: a. --> A compound distilled spirit made in Ireland and Scotland; whisky.
A liquor compounded of brandy, or other strong spirit, raisins, cinnamon and other spices.
usra ::: Bull; the bright or luminous one, the illuminated power of the Truth in man.
usra ::: cow; radiance, ray of light. [Ved.]
usr User. The "/usr" directory hierarchy on {Unix} systems. Once upon a time, in the early days of Unix, this area actually held users' home directories and files. Since these tend to expand much faster than system files, /usr would be mounted on the biggest disk on the system. The root directory, "/" in contrast, contains only what is needed to {boot} the {kernel}, after which /usr and other disks could be mounted as part of the multi-user start-up process. /usr has been used as the "everything else" area, with many "system" files such as compiler libraries (/usr/include, /usr/lib), utilty programs (/usr/bin, /usr/ucb), games (/usr/games), local additions (/usr/local), manuals (/usr/man), temporary files and queues for various {daemons} (/usr/spool). These optional extras have grown in size as Unix has evolved and disks have dropped in price. Under later versions of {SunOS}, the user files have fled /usr altogether for a new "/home" {partition} and temporary files have moved to "/var". This allows /usr to be mounted read-only with some gain in security and performance since access times are not updated for files on read-only file systems.
usriya ::: the Shining One; ray; cow. ::: usriyasu [locative plural], in the bright ones or cows.
US Robotics {U.S. Robotics, Inc.}
USR {U.S. Robotics, Inc.}
USSA Object-oriented state language by B. Burshteyn, Pyramid, 1992. {Documentation (ftp://primost.cs.wisc.edu/pub/ussa.ps.Z)}.
USSA ::: Object-oriented state language by B. Burshteyn, Pyramid, 1992. .
usself ::: n. pl. --> Ourselves.
ustion ::: n. --> The act of burning, or the state of being burned.
ustorious ::: a. --> Having the quality of burning.
ustulate ::: a. --> Blackened as if burned.
ustulation ::: n. --> The act of burning or searing.
The operation of expelling one substance from another by heat, as sulphur or arsenic from ores, in a muffle.
The roasting or drying of moist substances so as prepare them for pulverizing.
The burning of wine.
Lascivious passion; concupiscence.
usually 5 or 6 named angels of prayer: Akatriel,
usually applied to Beliel or Beliar or Mastema.
usually given, being Michael, Gabriel, and Ra¬
usually identified or personified as Michael,
usually linked with Metatron. [Rf. Heywood, The
usually listed as 5th of the 10 holy sefiroth (divine
usually listed as Kurmavatar (the tortoise avatar);
usual ::: n. --> Such as is in common use; such as occurs in ordinary practice, or in the ordinary course of events; customary; ordinary; habitual; common.
usucaption ::: n. --> The acquisition of the title or right to property by the uninterrupted possession of it for a certain term prescribed by law; -- the same as prescription in common law.
usufruct ::: n. --> The right of using and enjoying the profits of an estate or other thing belonging to another, without impairing the substance.
usufructuary ::: n. --> A person who has the use of property and reaps the profits of it. ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to a usufruct; having the nature of a usufruct.
US {Unit Separator}
usurarious ::: a. --> Alt. of Usurary
usurary ::: a. --> Usurious.
usured ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Usure
usurer ::: n. --> One who lends money and takes interest for it; a money lender.
One who lends money at a rate of interest beyond that established by law; one who exacts an exorbitant rate of interest for the use of money.
usure ::: v. i. --> To practice usury; to charge unlawful interest. ::: n. --> Usury.
usuring ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Usure
usurious ::: a. --> Practicing usury; taking illegal or exorbitant interest for the use of money; as, a usurious person.
Partaking of usury; containing or involving usury; as, a usurious contract.
usurpant ::: a. --> Usurping; encroaching.
usurpation ::: n. --> The act of usurping, or of seizing and enjoying; an authorized, arbitrary assumption and exercise of power, especially an infringing on the rights of others; specifically, the illegal seizure of sovereign power; -- commonly used with of, also used with on or upon; as, the usurpation of a throne; the usurpation of the supreme power.
Use; usage; custom.
usurpatory ::: a. --> Marked by usurpation; usurping.
usurpature ::: n. --> Usurpation.
usurped ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Usurp
usurper ::: n. --> One who usurps; especially, one who seizes illegally on sovereign power; as, the usurper of a throne, of power, or of the rights of a patron.
usurpingly ::: adv. --> In a usurping manner.
usurping ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Usurp
usurp :::
usurp ::: v. t. --> To seize, and hold in possession, by force, or without right; as, to usurp a throne; to usurp the prerogatives of the crown; to usurp power; to usurp the right of a patron is to oust or dispossess him. ::: v. i. --> To commit forcible seizure of place, power, functions, or
usury ::: v. t. --> A premium or increase paid, or stipulated to be paid, for a loan, as of money; interest.
The practice of taking interest.
Interest in excess of a legal rate charged to a borrower for the use of money.
TERMS ANYWHERE
1. The act, power or property of appealing, alluring, enticing or inviting. 2. A thing or feature which draws by appealing to desires, tastes, etc. 3. The action of a body or substance in drawing to itself, by some physical force, another to which it is not materially attached; the force thus exercised. attractions.
1. The expenditure of something, such as time or labour, necessary for the attainment of a goal. Also fig. **2. The price paid or required for acquiring, producing, or maintaining something, usually measured in money, time, or energy; expense or expenditure; outlay. 3. **Suffering or sacrifice; loss; penalty.
1. To bring into musical accord or harmony; to tune. 2. To bring into accord, harmony, or sympathetic relationship; adjust. attuned, attuning.
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.
abhorred ::: regarded with extreme repugnance, aversion or disgust; detested; loathed. abhorring.
abnegation ::: denial, negation; refusal, formal rejection (of a doctrine, etc.).
abode ::: a dwelling-place, place of ordinary habitation; house or home. (Also pt. of abide.) abodes.
a body of executive officials collectively entrusted with the execution and administration of laws.
abrupt ::: 1. Characterized by sudden interruption or change; unannounced and unexpected; sudden, hasty. 2. Precipitous, steep. 3. Of strata: Suddenly cropping out and presenting their edges.
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
abstruse ::: 1. Concealed, hidden, secret. 2. Hard to understand; difficult, recondite.
abusing ::: using improperly, misusing; perverting, or misemploying; taking a bad advantage of.
access ::: 1. The ability, right, or permission to approach, enter, speak with, or use; admittance. 2. A way or means of approach; an entrance, channel, passage, or doorway.
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.
accord ::: agreement or harmonious correspondence of things or their properties, as of colours or tints. Of sounds: Agreement in pitch and tone; harmony.
accountable ::: subject to the obligation to report, explain, or justify something; answerable, responsible.
accuse ::: to charge with a fault; to find fault with, blame, censure. accused.
accustomed ::: 1. Customary, habitual, usual. 2. Habituated; acclimated (usually followed by to).
ache ::: a continuous or abiding pain, in contrast to a sudden or sharp one. Used of both physical and mental sensations.
aching ::: 1. Having the sensation of continuous or ever-recurring pain, throbbing painfully. 2. Full of or precipitating nostalgia, grief, loneliness, etc.
"A conscious being, no larger than a man"s thumb, stands in the centre of our self; he is master of the past and the present . . . he is today and he is tomorrow. — Katha Upanishad. (6)” The Life Divine - See *conscious being.
::: "A cosmic Will and Wisdom observant of the ascending march of the soul"s consciousness and experience as it emerges out of subconscient Matter and climbs to its own luminous divinity fixes the norm and constantly enlarges the lines of the law — or, let us say, since law is a too mechanical conception, — the truth of Karma.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
"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
acrid ::: bitterly irritating to the feelings; of bitter and irritating temper or manner; sharp, biting, caustic.
"Action is a resultant of the energy of the being, but this energy is not of one sole kind; the Consciousness-Force of the Spirit manifests itself in many kinds of energies: there are inner activities of mind, activities of life, of desire, passion, impulse, character, activities of the senses and the body, a pursuit of truth and knowledge, a pursuit of beauty, a pursuit of ethical good or evil, a pursuit of power, love, joy, happiness, fortune, success, pleasure, life-satisfactions of all kinds, life-enlargement, a pursuit of individual or collective objects, a pursuit of the health, strength, capacity, satisfaction of the body.” The Life Divine*
active ::: originating or communicating action, exerting action upon others; acting of its own accord, spontaneous.
adj. 1. Rousing (something) or being aroused, as if from sleep. n. awakenings. 2. Recognitions, realizations, or coming into awareness of things.
adjoining ::: 1. Adding, annexing, attaching, or appending. 2. Lying next, contiguous, adjacent; neighbouring.
"Adjustment for practical purposes of rival courses of action, systems, or theories, conflicting opinions or principles, by the sacrifice or surrender of a part of each. . . .” Essays Divine and Human*
admires ::: 1. Regards with pleased surprise, or with wonder mingled with esteem, approbation, or affection; and in modern usage, gazed on with pleasure. admired, admiring. adj. 2. Regarded with admiration; wondered at; contemplated with wonder mingled with esteem, etc.
adorn ::: to beautify as an ornament does; decorate; to add beauty or lustre to. adorned.
advance ::: n. **1. Fig. Onward movement in any process or course of action; progress. v. 2. To move or go forward; to proceed. 3. Fig. To go forward or make progress in life, or in any course. 3. To move, put, or push (a thing) forward. Also fig. advances, advanced, advancing.**
advent ::: any important or epoch-making arrival. In modern usage applied poetically or grandiloquently to any arrival. advent"s, advents.
aegis ::: originally the shield or breastplate of Zeus, or Athena. Currently, protection; support; sponsorship; auspices.
"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
"A fabulous tribe of wild, beastlike monsters, having the upper part of a human being and the lower part of a horse. They live in the woods or mountains of Elis, Arcadia, and Thessaly. They are representative of wild life, animal desires and barbarism. (M.I.) Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works.*
affinity ::: 1. Causal relationship or connexion (as flowing the one from the other, or having a common source). 2. A psychical or spiritual attraction believed by some sects to exist between persons.
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.
afflicted ::: distressed with mental or bodily pain; troubled greatly; grievously depressed, oppressed, cast down; tormented.
afflicting ::: 1. Grievously painful, distressing. 2. Distressing with bodily or mental suffering; troubling grievously, tormenting. self-afflicting.
agencies ::: active powers or causes which have the power to produce an effect.
agree ::: 1. To be in harmony or unison in opinions, feelings, conduct, etc.; to be in sympathy; to live or act together harmoniously; to have no causes of variance. 2. To give consent; assent (often followed by to). agreed.
air ::: 1. The transparent, invisible, inodorous, and tasteless gaseous substance which envelopes the earth. 2. *Fig. With reference to its unsubstantial or impalpable nature. 3. Outward appearance, apparent character, manner, look, style: esp. in phrases like ‘an air of absurdity"; less commonly of a thing tangible, as ‘the air of a mansion". 4. Mien or gesture (expressive of a personal quality or emotion). *air"s.
alacananda ::: "One of the four head streams of the river Ganga in the Himalayas. According to the Vaishnavas it is the terrestrial Ganga which Shiva received upon his head as it fell from heaven. The famous shrine of Badrinath is situated on the banks of this stream. (Dow.)” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
alarm ::: n. 1. A warning sound of any kind to give notice of danger, or to arouse or attract attention; esp. a loud and hurried peal rung out by a tocsin or alarm bell. v. 2. To arouse to a sense of danger, to excite the attention or suspicion of, to put on the alert; warn. 3. To strike with fear or apprehension of danger; to agitate or excite with sudden fear. alarmed, alarming.
alchemy ::: any magical or miraculous power or process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value. alchemies.
"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 conscious being is one and indivisible in itself, but in manifestation it becomes a complex rhythm, a scale of harmonies, a hierarchy of states or movements.” The Upanishads
allegiance ::: loyalty or devotion to some person, group, cause, or the like.
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*.
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- ::: prefix: Wholly, altogether, infinitely. Since 1600, the number of these [combinations] has been enormously extended, all-** having become a possible prefix, in poetry at least, to almost any adjective of quality. all-affirming, All-Beautiful, All-Beautiful"s, All-Bliss, All-Blissful, All-causing, all-concealing, all-conquering, All-Conscient, All-Conscious, all-containing, All-containing, all-creating, all-defeating, All-Delight, all-discovering, all-embracing, all-fulfilling, all-harbouring, all-inhabiting, all-knowing, All-knowing, All-Knowledge, all-levelling, All-Life, All-love, All-Love, all-negating, all-powerful, all-revealing, All-ruler, all-ruling, all-seeing, All-seeing, all-seeking, all-shaping, all-supporting, all-sustaining, all-swallowing, All-Truth, All-vision, All-Wisdom, all-wise, All-Wise, all-witnessing, All-Wonderful, All-Wonderful"s.**
"All the limitlessly wise immortals desired and found the Child within us who is everywhere around us.” The Secret of the Veda
All these centres are in the middle of the body; they are supposed to be attached to the spinal cord; but in fact all these things are in the subtle body, suksma deha , though one has the feeling of their activities as if in the physical body when the consciousness is awake.” Letters on Yoga
almighty ::: 1. *Orig. and in the strict sense used as an attribute of the Deity, and joined to God or other title. 2. Absol. The Almighty; a title of God. 3. All-powerful (in a general sense); omnipotent. Almighty"s, Almightiness, almightiness.
altar ::: 1. A block, pile, table, stand, mound, platform, or other elevated structure on which to place or sacrifice offerings to a deity. 2. With reference to the uses, customs, dedication, or peculiar sanctity of the altar. 3. A place consecrated to devotional observances. altar"s, altars, altar-burnings, mountain-altars.
ambiguous ::: 1. Open to or having several possible meanings or interpretations; equivocal; questionable; indistinct, obscure, not clearly defined. 2. Of doubtful or uncertain nature; difficult to comprehend, distinguish, or classify; admitting more than one interpretation, or explanation; of double meaning. 3. Of oracles, people, using words of double meaning. ambiguously.
ambrosia ("s) ::: something especially delicious or delightful to taste or smell, divinely sweet; in Classical Mythology, the food of the gods.
ambush ::: 1. An act or instance of lying concealed so as to attack by surprise. 2. The concealed position itself. ambushes.
ambushed ::: concealed so as suddenly to burst forth, come in view, or take by surprise.
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
amidst ::: in the middle of; surrounded by; among; amidst is often used of things scattered about, or in the midst of others.
amorous ::: inclined or disposed to love; in love, enamoured, fond. 2. Showing or expressing love. 3. Being in love; enamoured.
ample ::: fully sufficient or more than adequate for the purpose or need; plentiful; of adequate or more than adequate extent, size, or amount; large; spacious. ampler.
amusements ::: pleasurable pastimes of the mind or attention; mental diversions and enjoyments in lieu of more serious matters.
amuse ::: to hold the attention of (someone) pleasantly; entertain or divert in an enjoyable or cheerful manner. amused, amusing.
analyse ::: to examine carefully and in detail so as to identify causes, key factors, possible results; examine minutely and critically to determine the elements or essential features of. analysed.
ananke ::: "In Greek mythology, personification of compelling necessity or ultimate fate to which even the gods must yield.” *Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
anarch ::: a. Lawless, rebellious; n. An adherent of anarchy or a leader practicing it.
anarchy ::: a state of society without government or law ; lawlessness, confusion, chaos, disorder.
"An Avatar, roughly speaking, is one who is conscious of the presence and power of the Divine born in him or descended into him and governing from within his will and life and action; he feels identified inwardly with this divine power and presence.” Letters on Yoga
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.
anchorites ::: those who have retired to a solitary place for a life of religious seclusion; hermits, recluses.
anew ::: 1. Over again; again; once more. 2. In a new form or manner different from the previous.
::: "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.**
angel ::: 1. One of a class of spiritual beings; a celestial attendant of the Deity; a divine messenger of an order of spiritual beings superior to man in power. 2. A fallen or rebellious spirit once a spiritual attendant of the Divine. angel, Angels, **angels.
**Angel of the Way *Sri Aurobindo: "Love fulfilled does not exclude knowledge, but itself brings knowledge; and the completer the knowledge, the richer the possibility of love. ‘By Bhakti" says the Lord in the Gita ‘shall a man know Me in all my extent and greatness and as I am in the principles of my being, and when he has known Me in the principles of my being, then he enters into Me." Love without knowledge is a passionate and intense, but blind, crude, often dangerous thing, a great power, but also a stumbling-block; love, limited in knowledge, condemns itself in its fervour and often by its very fervour to narrowness; but love leading to perfect knowledge brings the infinite and absolute union. Such love is not inconsistent with, but rather throws itself with joy into divine works; for it loves God and is one with him in all his being, and therefore in all beings, and to work for the world is then to feel and fulfil multitudinously one"s love for God. This is the trinity of our powers, [work, knowledge, love] the union of all three in God to which we arrive when we start on our journey by the path of devotion with Love for the Angel of the Way to find in the ecstasy of the divine delight of the All-Lover"s being the fulfilment of ours, its secure home and blissful abiding-place and the centre of its universal radiation.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
animal ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The animal is a living laboratory in which Nature has, it is said, worked out man. Man himself may well be a thinking and living laboratory in whom and with whose conscious co-operation she wills to work out the superman, the god. Or shall we not say, rather, to manifest God?” *The Life Divine
anomalous ::: deviating from or inconsistent with the common order, form, or rule; irregular; abnormal.
anxious ::: full of mental distress or uneasiness because of fear of danger or misfortune; greatly worried.
"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
appalling ::: causing dismay or horror; shocking.
apparent ::: readily seen; exposed to sight; open to view. 2. Capable of being easily perceived or understood; plain or clear; obvious; visible.
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.
apse ::: a usually semicircular or polygonal, often vaulted recess, especially the termination of the sanctuary end of a church.
apt ::: 1. Having a natural tendency; inclined; disposed. 2. Unusually intelligent; able to learn quickly and easily. 3. Exactly suitable; appropriate.
arabesques ::: 1. Any ornaments or ornamental objects such as rugs or mosaics, in which flowers, foliage, fruits, vases, animals, and figures are represented in a fancifully combined pattern. 2. *Fine Arts.* A sinuous, spiraling, undulating, or serpentine line or linear motif.
arbitrary ::: 1. Based on or subject to individual will, judgment or preference: judgment without restriction; contingent solely upon one"s discretion. 2. Capricious; unreasonable; unsupported. 3. Derived from mere opinion or preference; capricious; uncertain. 4. Having unlimited power; uncontrolled or unrestricted by law; despotic; tyrannical.
arc ::: 1. Any unbroken part of the circumference of a circle or other curved line. 2. A luminous bridge formed in a gap between two electrodes. arcs.
arcanes ::: of things known or understood by very few; mysterious; secret; obscure; esoteric. (Employed by Sri Aurobindo as a noun.)
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.
archipelago ::: 1. Any sea, or body of water, in which there are numerous islands. 2. A large group or chain of islands.
architecture ::: 1. The profession of designing buildings and other artificial constructions and environments, usually with some regard to aesthetic effect. 2. The character or style of building. 3. Construction or structure generally. architectures.
arc-lamps ::: general term for a class of lamps in which light is produced by a voltaic arc, a luminous arc between two electrodes typically made of tungsten or carbon and barely separated.
arcturus ::: a giant star in the constellation Boötes. It is the brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere and the fourth brightest star in the sky, with an apparent magnitude of 0.00; sometimes referring to the Great Bear itself.
ardent ::: 1. Having, expressive of, or characterized by intense feeling; glowing with passion, animated by keen desire; intensely eager, zealous, fervent, fervid. 2. Burning, fiery, or hot. ardent-hued.
ardour ::: great warmth of feeling, passion or desire; zeal, fervour, eagerness, enthusiasm.
arduous ::: hard to accomplish or achieve; requiring strong effort; difficult, laborious, severe.
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.
arenas ::: central stages, rings, areas, or the like, used for sports or other forms of entertainment, surrounded by seats for spectators.
aristocracy ::: the class to which a ruling body belongs, a patrician order; the collective body of those who form a privileged class; also used fig. of those who are superior.
arouse ::: 1. To awaken from or as if from sleep or inactivity. 2. To stir up; excite 3. To stir to action or strong response; excite. aroused, arousing.
arraigned ::: called (an accused person) before a court to answer the charge made against him or her by indictment, information, or complaint, or brought before a court to answer to an indictment; accused, charged with fault.
"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.
art ::: v. archaic** A second person singular present indicative of be, now only poet., not in modern usage. All other references are to art as the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance. Also, the class of objects subject to aesthetic criteria. art"s, arts, art-parades.
ascent ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The ascent or the upward movement takes place when there is a sufficient aspiration from the being, i.e., from the various mental, vital and physical planes.” *Letters on Yoga
ascetic ::: one who dedicates his or her life to a pursuit of contemplative ideals, whether by seclusion or by abstinence from creature comforts, and practices extreme self-denial, rigorous self-discipline or self-mortification. ascetic"s, ascetics.
asoca ::: bot.: Saraca indica , Asoka, Sorrowless tree. A small flowering tree native to India with glowing clusters of orange and yellow flowers. asocas.
asphodel ::: a genus of liliaceous plants with very attractive white, pink or yellow flowers, mostly natives of the south of Europe; by the poets made an immortal flower, and said to cover the Elysian (heavenly, paradisal) fields.
::: "Aspiration is to call the forces. When the forces have answered, there is a natural state of quiet receptivity concentrated but spontaneous.” Letters on Yoga
"Aspiration should be not a form of desire, but the feeling of an inner soul"s need, and a quiet settled will to turn towards the Divine and seek the Divine. It is certainly not easy to get rid of this mixture of desire entirely — not easy for anyone; but when one has the will to do it, this also can be effected by the help of the sustaining Force.” Letters on Yoga
"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
assail ::: 1. To attack vigorously or violently; assault. 2. To impinge upon; make an impact on; beset. 3. To take upon oneself a difficult challenge with the intention of mastering it. assailed, assailing.
assembly ::: a group of people gathered together usually for a particular purpose. assemblies.
astuce ::: astuteness, i.e. of keen penetration or discernment, sagacious.
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.
athlete ::: Sri Aurobindo employs the word as an adj. in the sense of athletic: Of the nature of, or befitting, one who is physically active, powerful, muscular, robust, agile.
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.
audacious
august
auspice-hour ::: an auspice is any divine or prophetic token; a favourable sign or propitious circumstance, esp. an indication of a happy future. Sri Aurobindo combines the word ‘hour" with auspice to emphasize a special moment.
austere ::: 1. Severe in manner or appearance; uncompromising; strict; forbidding; stark. 2. Rigorously self-disciplined and severely moral; ascetic; abstinent. 3. Grave; sober; solemn; serious. 4. Without excess, luxury, or ease; severely simple; without ornament. austerity.
author ::: 1. An originator or creator, one who originates or gives existence to anything. 2. He who gives rise to or causes an action, event, circumstance, state, or condition of things. 3. The composer or writer of a treatise, play, poem, book, etc. authors.
availed ::: to be of use, value, or advantage; to have the necessary force to accomplishment something.
avatars ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The word Avatar means a descent; it is a coming down of the Divine below the line which divides the divine from the human world or status.” *Essays on the Gita
avid ::: having an ardent desire or unbounded craving; desirous of.
awakened ::: 1. Aroused from sleep, sloth, or inaction. 2. Made aware; cognizant; conscious. half-awakened.
awaken ::: fig. To rouse into activity; to stir up, excite; kindle.
awake ::: v. 1. To arouse from sleep or inactivity. 2. Fig. To rise from a state resembling sleep, such as death, indifference, inaction; to become active or vigilant. 3. To come or bring to an awareness, to become cognizant, to be fully conscious, to appreciate fully (often followed by to). awakes, awoke, awaking. *adj.* 4. Not asleep; conscious; vigilant, alert. half-awake.
aware ::: having knowledge; cognizant; conscious.
babble ::: 1. v. To utter sounds or words imperfectly, indistinctly, or without meaning. 2.* **n. *A murmuring sound or a confusion of sounds.
babbling ::: making a continuous, murmuring sound.
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
bacchant ::: n. **1. A priest or votary of Bacchus (the god of wine). 2. A drunken reveller. adj. 3. Inclined to revelry. Bacchant.**
bacchic ::: of or relating to Bacchus; drunken and carousing; riotously intoxicated.
baffled ::: 1. Confused, bewildered, or perplexed. 2. Frustrated or confounded; thwarted. baffles, baffling.
balance ::: n. **1. A state of equilibrium or equipoise; mental, psychological or emotional. 2. A weighing device, especially one consisting of a rigid beam horizontally suspended by a low-friction support at its center, with identical weighing pans hung at either end, one of which holds an unknown weight while the effective weight in the other is increased by known amounts until the beam is level and motionless. 3. An undecided or uncertain state in which issues are unresolved. v. 4. To have an equality or equivalence in weight, parts, etc.; be in equilibrium. adj. 5. Being in harmonious or proper arrangement or adjustment, proportion. 6. Mental steadiness or emotional stability; habit of calm behaviour, judgement. balanced, balancing.**
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.
bank ::: a business establishment in which money is kept for saving or commercial purposes or is invested, supplied for loans, or exchanged.
banquet ::: a ceremonial meal; a feast; a lavish and sumptuous meal.
barely ::: only just; scarcely; hardly.
bare ::: v. 1. To make bare; uncover or reveal. 2. Fig. To expose. bared, baring. adj. 3. Lacking clothing or covering; naked 4. Fig. Exposed to view; undisguised. 5. Just sufficient; mere. 6. Lacking embellishment or ornamentation; unembellished; simple; plain. 7. Unprotected; without defence. 8. Devoid of covering, a leafless trees. 9. Sheer, as bare cliffs. heaven-bare, bareness.
barge ::: a large, open pleasure boat used for parties, pageants, or formal ceremonies.
barns ::: a large farm building used for storing farm products and sheltering livestock.
barrels ::: large cylindrical containers, usually made of staves bound together with hoops, with a flat top and bottom of equal diameter.
barren ::: 1. Unproductive of results or gains; unprofitable. 2. Lacking vegetation, especially useful vegetation. 3. Devoid of something specified.
basement ::: the substructure or foundation of a building usually below ground level.
basilicas ::: public buildings in ancient Rome having a central nave with an apse at one or both ends and two side aisles formed by rows of columns, which was used as an assembly hall – also Christian churches with a similar design.
bathe ::: 1. To become immersed in or as if in liquid, as a bath or in other substances or elements. 2. To wash or pour over; suffuse or envelope, like sunshine. bathed, bathing.
battered ::: damaged especially by blows or hard usage.
baying ::: 1. Uttering a deep and prolonged bark as a dog in pursuit. 2. The chorus of barking raised by hounds in immediate conflict with a hunted animal. bayings
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).
beast ::: 1. An animal other than a human, especially a large four-footed mammal. 2. Fig. Animal nature as opposed to intellect or spirit. 3. A large wild animal. 4. A domesticated animal used by man. (Sri Aurobindo also employs the word as an adj.) beast"s, Beast"s, beasts, wild-beast. ::: —the Beast. Applied to the devil and evil spirits.
beganst ::: a native English form of the verb, to begin, now only in formal and poetic usage.
begot ::: pt. of beget. 1. Caused to exist or occur; created. 2. Called into being, gave rise to; produced. begotten.
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
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.
bench ::: 1. A long seat usually made of wood, for two or more persons. 2. A seat occupied by a person in an official capacity, esp. a judge. 3. Such a seat as a symbol of the office and dignity of an individual judge or the judiciary.
benign ::: favourable, propitious.
benumbed ::: made (any part of the body) insensible, torpid, or powerless; made numb, deprived of sensation; stupefied or stunned, as by a blow or shock; now mostly used for the effects of cold.
bewilder ::: to confuse utterly; puzzle completely. bewildered.
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 *
bindst ::: a native English form of the verb, to bind, now only in formal and poetic usage.
"Birth is an assumption of a body by the spirit, death is the casting off [of] the body; there is nothing original in this birth, nothing final in this death. Before birth we were; after death we shall be. Nor are our birth and death a single episode without continuous meaning or sequel; it is one episode out of many, scenes of our drama of existence with its denouement far away in time.” Essays Divine and Human*
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.
bivouac ("s) ::: a temporary camp with shelters such as tents, as used by soldiers or mountaineers, often unprotected from an enemy.
bizarre ::: conspicuously or grossly unconventional or unusual in style or appearance; strange.
blaspheme ::: to speak in an irreverent, contemptuous or disrespectful manner; curse; (esp. God, a divine being or sacred things).
blazing ::: 1. Burning with tremendous heat, etc. 2. Shining intensely.
blazoned ::: proclaimed loudly or displayed ostentatiously or conspicuously.
blind ::: adj. 1. Unable to see; lacking the sense of sight; sightless. Also fig. 2. Unwilling or unable to perceive or understand. 3. Lacking all consciousness or awareness. 4. Not having or based on reason or intelligence; absolute and unquestioning. 5. Not characterized or determined by reason or control. 6. Purposeless; fortuitous, random. 7. Undiscriminating; heedless; reckless. 8. Enveloped in darkness; dark, dim, obscure. 9. Dense enough to form a screen. 10. Covered or concealed from sight; hidden from immediate view. 11. Having no openings or passages for light; (a window or door) walled up. blindest, half-blind. v. 12. To deprive of sight permanently or temporarily. 13. To make sightless momentarily; dazzle. blinded.* n. 14. A blind person, esp. as pl., those who are blind. 15. Fig.* Any thing or action intended to conceal one"s real intention; a pretence, a pretext; subterfuge.
blithe ::: joyous, merry, or gay in disposition; glad; cheerful.
blood-lust ::: the desire for bloodshed.
bloom ::: n. **1. The flower of a plant. 2. Fig. A condition or time of vigour, freshness, and beauty; prime. 3. Fig. Glowing charm; delicate beauty. blooms. v. 4. To bear flowers; to blossom. Also fig. 5. To be in a healthy, glowing, or flourishing condition. 6. To flourish or grow. 7. To cause to flourish or grow; to flourish. Chiefly fig. blooms, bloomed.**
blow ::: to produce a sound or cause to sound as by expelling a current of air.
blue lotus ::: see **lotus, blue.**
"Body is the outward sign and lowest basis of the apparent division which Nature plunging into ignorance and self-nescience makes the starting-point for the recovery of unity by the individual soul, unity even in the midst of the most exaggerated forms of her multiple consciousness.” The Life Divine
body-slave ::: a servant reserved for personal attendance or use.
boisterous ::: rough and noisy; noisily jolly or rowdy; clamorous; unrestrained, excessively exuberant.
bold ::: 1. Fearless and daring; courageous. 2. Clear and distinct to the eye.
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.
bounteous ::: 1. Giving or inclined to give generously. 2. Plentiful; abundant.
bow ::: a weapon consisting of a curved, flexible strip of material, especially wood, strung taut from end to end and used to launch arrows.
brave ::: possessing or exhibiting courage or courageous endurance. 2. *Archaic. Excellent; fine; admirable*.
breaks up. ::: 1. Breaks into many parts; divides or become divided into pieces. 2. Dissolves, disbands, puts an end to, gives up; breaks up a house, household, etc.
break ::: v. 1. To destroy by or as if by shattering or crushing. 2. To force or make a way through (a barrier, etc.). 3. To vary or disrupt the uniformity or continuity of. 4. To overcome or put an end to. 5. To destroy or interrupt a regularity, uniformity, continuity, or arrangement of; interrupt. 6. To intrude upon; interrupt a conversation, etc. 7. To discontinue or sever an association, an agreement, or a relationship. **8. To overcome or wear down the spirit, strength, or resistance of. 9. (usually followed by in, into or out). 10. To filter or penetrate as sunlight into a room. 11. To come forth suddenly. 12. To utter suddenly; to express or start to express an emotion, mood, etc. 13. Said of waves, etc. when they dash against an obstacle, or topple over and become surf or broken water in the shallows. 14. To part the surface of water, as a ship or a jumping fish. breaks, broke, broken, breaking.* *n. 15.** An interruption or a disruption in continuity or regularity.
breath ::: 1. The air inhaled and exhaled in respiration. Also fig. 2. A momentary stirring of air, a slight gust. 3. Spirit or vitality; life. 4. The vapour, heat, or odour of exhaled air. Also fig. **5. A slight suggestion; hint; whisper. Breath,* *breath-fastened.**
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.
bricks ::: blocks of clay hardened by drying in the sun or burning in a kiln, and used for building, paving, etc.
brief ::: a memorandum of points of fact or of law for use in conducting a case. (All other references are as: short lived, fleeting, transitory. briefer, brief-lived.)
bright ::: 1. Emitting or reflecting light readily or in large amounts; shining; radiant. 2. Magnificent; glorious. 3. Favourable or auspicious. 4. Fig. Characterized by happiness or gladness; full of promise and hope. 5. Distinct and clear to the mind, etc. 6. Intensely clear and vibrant in tone or quality. 7. Polished; glistening as with brilliant color. brighter, brightest, bright-hued, bright-pinioned, flame-bright, moon-bright, pearl-bright, sun-bright.
brightness ::: the state or quality of being bright, luminous.
brilliant ::: 1. Full of light; shining; lustrous. 2. Of surpassing excellence; splendid; highly impressive; distinguished. 3. Strong and clear in tone; vivid; bright. pale-brilliant.
bringst ::: a native English form of the verb, to bring, now only in formal and poetic usage.
broad ::: 1. Wide in extent from side to side; of great breadth. 2. Of vast extent; spacious. 3. Broad in scope; extensive. 4. Clear and open; full; (said of daylight, etc.). broad-based, broad-flung.
brocade ::: a thick, rich fabric woven with a raised design, often using gold or silver threads. brocades.
broken ::: 1. Forcibly separated into two or more pieces; fractured. 2. Crushed in spirit or temper; discouraged; overcome. 3. Incomplete. 4. Interrupted disturbed; disconnected. 5. Torn; ruptured. (Also pp. of break.)
bronze ::: 1. Any of various alloys of copper and tin in various proportions. 2. A moderate yellowish to olive brown color.
bruised ::: hurt, especially psychologically, beaten; pounded; crushed.
brutal ::: cruel; vicious; savage.
bud ::: 1. A rudimentary inflorescence, i.e. flower bud. 2. *Fig. Something in an undeveloped or immature condition. *buds, honey-buds, lotus-bud.
burdensome ::: 1. Oppressively heavy; onerous. 2. Distressing, troublesome.
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.
burn ::: 1. To be very eager; aflame with activity, as to be on fire. 2. To emit heat or light by as if by combustion; to flame.. 3. To give off light or to glow brightly. 4. To light; a candle; incense, etc.) as an offering. 5. To suffer punishment or death by or as if by fire; put to death by fire. 6. To injure, endanger, or damage with or as if with fire. 7. Fig. To be consumed with strong emotions; be aflame with desire; anger; etc. 8. To shine intensely; to seem to glow as if on fire. burns, burned, burnt, burning.
burning ::: adj. 1. Aflame; on fire. Also fig. 2. Very bright; glowing; luminous. 3. Characterized by intense emotion; passionate. 4. Urgent or crucial. 5. Extremely hot; scorching. 6. Very hot. ever-burning.* *n. 7. The state, process, sensation, or effect of being on fire, burned, or subjected to intense heat. altar-burnings.**
burnished ::: having a smooth glossy appearance ; luster, as rubbed and polished metal.
business ::: 1. One"s rightful or proper concern or interest. 2. A specific occupation or pursuit; an action in which one is engaged.
"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*
buttressed ::: supported; reinforced; sustained as by a buttress; (an external structure built against a wall for support or reinforcement.)
bypaths ::: a little used path or track, esp. in the country.
cabin ::: 1. A small, roughly built house; a simple cottage. 2. An enclosed space; a confined area.
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.
calamitous ::: disastrous; catastrophic, ruinous; devastating.
calculus ::: a method of calculation, esp. one of several highly systematic methods of treating problems by a special system of algebraic notations, as differential or integral calculus.
calledst ::: a native English form of the verb, to call, now only in formal and poetic usage.
callest ::: a native English form of the verb, to call, now only in formal and poetic usage.
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
callst ::: a native English form of the verb, to call, now only in formal and poetic usage.
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*.
calvary ::: a hill outside ancient Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified.
camest ::: a native English form of the verb, to come, now only in formal and poetic usage.
camp ::: n. 1. A place where tents, huts, or other temporary shelters are set up, as by soldiers, nomads, or travelers. 2. The people using such shelters. 3. Temporary living quarters for soldiers or prisoners. v. 4. To make or set up a camp. or to live temporarily in or as if in a camp or outdoors. 5. To settle down securely and comfortably; become ensconced. camps, camped.
cam"st ::: a native English contracted form of the verb, to come, now only in formal and poetic usage.
canst ::: a native English form of the adverb can, now only in formal or poetic usage.
canticle ::: a song, poem, or hymn, esp. one that is religious and praiseful in character.
capital stock ::: accumulated wealth, esp. any of various shares of ownership in a business.
careful ::: 1. Attentive to potential danger, error, or harm; cautious. 2. Exercising caution or showing care or attention to; circumspect.
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.**
carolling ::: singing loudly and joyously.
cart ::: a two-wheeled vehicle drawn by an animal and used in farm work and for transporting goods.
caste-mark ::: (In India) a mark, usually on the forehead, symbolising and identifying caste membership.
castle ::: lit. A large fortified building or group of buildings with thick walls, usually dominating the surrounding country. Fig. A stronghold, fortress.
cast ::: v. 1. To throw with force; hurl. 2. To form (liquid metal, for example) into a particular shape by pouring into a mould. Also fig. 3. To cause to fall upon something or in a certain direction; send forth. 4. To throw on the ground, as in wrestling. 5. To put or place, esp. hastily or forcibly. 6. To direct (the eye, a glance, etc.) 7. To throw (something) forth or off. 8. To bestow; confer. casts, casting.
casual ::: 1. Occurring by chance; accidental. 2. Occurring offhand; not premeditated. 3. Occurring at irregular or infrequent intervals; occasional. 4. Without definite or serious intention; careless or offhand; passing.
caul ::: a portion of the amnion (A thin, tough, membranous sac) especially when it covers the head of a foetus at birth.
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.
causeless ::: having no justifying cause or reason.
causeway ::: 1. A raised roadway, as across water or marshland. 2. A paved highway.
-causing ::: being the cause of; effecting, bringing about, producing, inducing, making. All-causing.
cautious ::: showing or practicing caution; careful, prudent, guarded, tentative or restrained.
cavernous ::: like a cavern in vastness, depth, or hollowness.
ceaseless ::: without stop or pause; constant. ceaselessly.
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.
censer ::: a vessel in which incense is burned, especially during religious services.
cessation ::: a ceasing or stopping; discontinuance; pause. cessations.
cestus ::: a girdle or belt, esp. as worn in ancient Greece.
chalice ::: a cup or goblet often of gold or silver used esp. in religious services.
challenge ::: 1. A call or summons to engage in a contest, fight, or competition. 2. A demand for explanation or justification; a calling into question. v. **3. To invite; arouse; stimulate; provoke. challenges, challenged, challenging.**
chamber ::: 1. Archaic or poetic: A room in a private house, esp. a bedroom. 2. An enclosed space; compartment. chamber"s, chambers, work-chamber.
chameleon ::: any of numerous Old World lizards of the family Chamaeleontidae, characterized by the ability to change the colour of their skin, very slow locomotion, and a projectile tongue.
champion ::: an ardent defender or supporter of a cause.
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.
chaos ::: 1. The infinity of space or formless matter supposed to have preceded the existence of the ordered universe. 2. A condition, place, or state of great disorder or confusion. 3. A disorderly mass; a jumble. Chaos.
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.
charged ::: 1. Filled; loaded to capacity. 2. Given the responsibility of or for; entrusted.
chariot ::: an ancient horse-drawn, four-wheeled carriage used for occasions of ceremony or transport. chariot"s, chariots, chariot-course.
chemic ::: chemical. ::: cheque ::: a written order, usually on a standard printed form, directing a bank to pay money to a person or designated bearer. cheques.
chequered ::: 1. Marked by numerous and various shifts and changes. 2. Marked by dubious episodes; suspect in character or quality. 3. Diversified in colour, variegated.
childlike ::: like or befitting a child, as in innocence, trustfulness, or candour.
chill ::: adj. 1. Cold, often unpleasantly so; numbing. 2. Discouraging; dispiriting. 3. Unduly formal; unfriendly; unfeeling. v. 4. To lower in temperature; cool; make cold. 5. Fig. To depress (enthusiasm, etc.); discourage. chilled, chilling.
chiselled ::: shaped or cut as with a chisel, a metal tool with a sharp bevelled edge, used to cut and shape stone, wood, or metal. chisels.
choired ::: resounded, as music sung by a choir.
choosest ::: a native English form of the verb, to choose, now only in formal and poetic usage.
choral ::: of or relating to a chorus or choir.
chords ::: 1. A combination of three or more pitches sounded simultaneously. 2. Emotional responses, feelings. 3. Harmony.
choric ::: of, like, for, or in the manner of a chorus, esp. of singing, dancing, or the speaking of verse.
chrysolites ::: brown or yellow-green olivine found in igneous and metamorphic rocks and used as gemstones such as topaz, etc.
chrysoprase ::: a brittle, translucent, semiprecious chalcedony (q.v.), a variety of the silica mineral quartz. It owes its bright apple-green colour to colloidally dispersed hydrated nickel silicate. Valued in ancient times as it shone in the dark.
circe ::: 1. In Classical Mythology. the enchantress represented by Homer as turning the companions of Odysseus into swine by means of a magic drink, therefore an alluring but dangerous temptress or temptation.
circean ::: relating to or resembling Circe, the fabled enchantress described by Homer. She was supposed to possess great knowledge of magic and venomous herbs which she offered as a drink to her charmed and fascinated victims who then changed into swine; hence, pleasing, but harmful; fascinating, but degrading.
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.**
claimest ::: a native English form of the verb, to claim, now only in formal and poetic usage.
claimst ::: a native English form of the verb, to claim, now only in formal and poetic usage.
clamant ::: clamorous; loud; noisy.
clambers ::: climbs, using both feet and hands; climbs with effort or difficulty; scrambles on all fours. clambered, clambering.
clamorous ::: 1. Full of, marked by, or of the nature of clamour; shouting; noisy, loud. 2. Insistently demanding attention; importunate.
clang ::: 1. A loud resounding noise, as a large bell or metal when struck. 2. v. To make or cause to make, or produce a loud ringing, resonant sound as of a large bell.
clause ::: a distinct article, stipulation, or provision, in a document.
clauses, items, points, or particulars in a contract, treaty, or other formal agreement; conditions or stipulations in a contract.
claw ::: n. **1. A sharp, usually curved, nail on the foot of an animal, as on a cat, dog, or bird. v. 2. To tear, scratch, seize, pull, etc., with or as if with claws. clawed.**
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.
clear ::: 1. Not obscured or darkened; bright. 2. Free from darkness, obscurity, or cloudiness; transparent. 3. Serene; calm; untroubled. 4. Free from doubt or confusion; certain. 5. Easily perceptible to the eye or ear; distinct. 6. Easily understood; without ambiguity. 7. Free from impediment, obstruction, or hindrance; open. clearer, sun-clear, surface-clear.
clear-cut ::: not ambiguous; clear and obvious.
clearing ::: a tract of land, as in a forest, that contains no trees or bushes.
cleave ::: 1. To adhere closely to; stick; cling. 2. To be faithful (usually fol. by to.)
climbst ::: a native English form of the verb, to climb, now only in formal and poetic usage.
cling ::: 1. To come or be in close contact with; stick or hold together and resist separation 2. To hold fast or adhere to as if by embracing. 3. To be emotionally or intellectually attached or remain close to. 4. To hold on tightly or tenaciously to. 5. To remain attached as to an idea, hope, memory, etc. clings, clung, clinging.
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.
cloying ::: causing or tending to cause disgust or aversion through excess.
clustering ::: a number of things of the same kind, growing or held together; a bunch. 2. A group of things or persons close together.
clusters ::: a group of the same or similar elements gathered or occurring closely together.
clutch ::: n. 1. A tight grasp. v. 2. To grip or hold tightly or firmly. 3. To try to seize or grasp (usually fol. by at) clutched, clutching.
code ::: 1. A system of symbols, letters, or words given certain arbitrary meanings, used for transmitting messages requiring secrecy or brevity. 2. A systematic collection of regulations and rules of procedure or conduct. codes.
coerce ::: 1. To compel or restrain by force or authority without regard to individual wishes or desires. 2. To dominate or control, esp. by exploiting fear, anxiety, etc. 3. To bring about through the use of force or other forms of compulsion. coerced, coercing.
coilas ::: (Most often spelled Kailas.) "One of the highest and most rugged mountains of the Himalayan range, located in the southwestern part of China. It is an important holy site both to the Hindus, who identify it with the paradise of Shiva and also regard it as the abode of Kubera, and to the Tibetan Buddhists, who identify it with Mount Sumeru, cosmic centre of the universe.” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
coin ::: 1. A small piece of metal, usually flat and circular, authorized by a government for use as money. 2. A mode of expression considered standard, a symbol; token.
collaboration ::: co-operation; working together harmoniously, especially in a joint intellectual effort.
collected ::: brought or placed together; forming an aggregation from various sources.
coma ::: a state of deep, often prolonged unconsciousness, usually the result of injury, disease, or poison, in which an individual is incapable of sensing or responding to external stimuli and internal needs.
combine ::: to integrate or cause to be integrated; join together. combined.
comedy ::: 1. The comic element of drama, of literature generally, or of life. 2. A humorous element of life or literature. Comedy (see also Divine Comedy).
comest ::: a native English form of the verb, to come, now only in formal and poetic usage.
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.
commingling ::: causing to blend together; mixing.
common ::: 1. Belonging equally to or shared alike by two or more. 2. Of or relating to the community or humanity as a whole. 3. Belonging equally to or shared equally by two or more; joint. 4. Not distinguished by superior or noteworthy characteristics; average; ordinary. 5. Occurring frequently or habitually; usual. commonest.
communion ::: 1. The act or an instance of sharing, as of thoughts or feelings. 2. Religious or spiritual fellowship. communion"s, communions.
compel ::: 1. To cause (someone) by force (to be or do something) 2. To force to submit; subdue. 3. To exert a strong, irresistible force on; sway. compels, compelled, compelling, compellingly.
complainst ::: a native English form of the verb, to complain, now only in formal and poetic usage.
composer ::: one who composes, especially a person who composes music.
com"st ::: a native English contracted form of the verb, to come, now only in formal and poetic usage.
conceive ::: 1. To form or hold an idea. 2. To begin, originate, or found (something) in a particular way (usually used in the passive). 3. To apprehend mentally; understand. 4. To be created or formed in the womb; to be engendered; begotten. conceives, conceived, self-conceived.
"Concentration means fixing the consciousness in one place or on one object and in a single condition.” Letters on Yoga
concentration ("s) ::: exclusive attention to one object; close mental application.
"Concentration simply means a fixing of consciousness on something.” Guidance from Sri Aurobindo by Nagin Doshi - Vol. 1
conch-shells :: 1. The spiral shell of a gastropod, often used as a horn. 2. The fabled shell trumpet of the Tritons.
concupiscence ::: strong desire, especially sexual desire; lust.
confidante ::: a woman to whom secrets are confided or with whom private matters and problems are discussed.
confidence ::: 1. Full trust or faith in a person or thing. 2. A feeling of assurance, especially of self-assurance.
confine ::: 1. To enclose within bounds, limit, restrict. 2. To shut or keep in; prevent from leaving a place because of imprisonment, illness, discipline, etc. confined.
confused ::: 1. Lacking logical order or sense. 2. *adj. Disordered and difficult to understand or make sense of. *3. Chaotic; jumbled.
conjecture ::: the formation of conclusions from incomplete evidence; guess. conjecture"s, world-conjecture"s.
conqueror ::: someone who is victorious by force of arms. conqueror"s.
conquest ::: 1. The act or process of conquering, being victorious. 2. Something, such as territory, acquired by conquering. conquests.
conscient ::: fully conscious.
conscious ::: 1. Having an awareness of one"s environment and one"s own existence, sensations, and thoughts. 2. Conscious implies being awake or awakened to an inner realization of a fact, a truth, a condition. half-conscious, half-consciously.
conscious being ::: see being, conscious
conscious force ::: Sri Aurobindo: "For the Force that builds the worlds is a conscious Force, . . .” *The Life Divine
*consciousforce. ::: Sri Aurobindo: "In actual fact Mind measures Time by event and Space by Matter; but it is possible in pure mentality to disregard the movement of event and the disposition of substance and realise the pure movement of Conscious-Force which constitutes Space and Time; these two are then merely two aspects of the universal force of Consciousness which in their intertwined interaction comprehend the warp and woof of its action upon itself. And to a consciousness higher than Mind which should regard our past, present and future in one view, containing and not contained in them, not situated at a particular moment of Time for its point of prospection, Time might well offer itself as an eternal present. And to the same consciousness not situated at any particular point of Space, but containing all points and regions in itself, Space also might well offer itself as a subjective and indivisible extension, — no less subjective than Time.” The Life Divine
consciousness, cosmic ::: see: cosmic consciousness
::: "Consciousness is not only power of awareness of self and things, it is or has also a dynamic and creative energy. It can determine its own reactions or abstain from reactions; it can not only answer to forces, but create or put out from itself forces. Consciousness is Chit but also Chit Shakti.” Letters on Yoga
::: "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
consciousness
"Consecration is a process by which one trains the consciousness to give itself to the Divine.” Letters on Yoga
consigned ::: handed over or given into the care or charge of another; entrusted.
consonant ::: a speech sound produced by a partial or complete obstruction of the air stream by any of various constrictions of the speech organs, such as (p), (f), (r), (w), and (h).
conspiracies ::: evil, unlawful, treacherous or surreptitious plans formulated in secret by two or more persons; plots.
constant ::: 1. Unchanging in nature, value, or extent; invariable. 2. Continuing without pause or letup; unceasing. 3. Steadfast; firm in mind or purpose; resolute.
constellated ::: formed or caused to form a group or cluster.
consumed ::: destroyed totally; destroyed or expended by use. consuming.
contemptuous ::: manifesting or feeling contempt; scornful. contemptuously.
contents ::: things contained or held, as in a receptacle. Often used in the plural.
continent ::: 1. Mainland as opposed to islands. 2. A continuous extent of land. Also fig. continents.
continual ::: occurring without interruption; continuous in time.
continuous ::: uninterrupted in time, sequence, substance, or extent.
contrivings ::: clever and ingenious designs, plans, schemes.
control-room ::: a room housing control equipment where certain operations are conducted.
convention ::: a method, practice or procedure widely observed in a group, especially to facilitate social interaction; a custom. conventions.
convinced ::: brought by the use of argument or evidence to a firm belief or a course of action.
copy-book ::: a book containing models, usually of penmanship, for learners to imitate. Hence adj. commonplace; stereotyped.
cornices ::: prominent, continuous, horizontally projecting features surmounting a wall or other construction, or dividing it horizontally for compositional purposes; i.e. to crown or complete a building.
corrupt ::: 1. To destroy or subvert the honesty or integrity of. 2. To ruin morally; pervert. 3. To cause to become rotten; spoil. 4. To taint; contaminate. corrupted, corrupting.
cosmic consciousness
cosmic force ::: Sri Aurobindo: ". . . universal force and universal consciousness are one, — cosmic force is the operation of cosmic consciousness.” *The Life Divine
cosmicity ("s) ::: a word coined by Sri Aurobindo. The suffix ity is used to form abstract nouns expressing state or condition. Hence, cosmicity refers to a cosmic state or condition.
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 Truth ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Cosmic Truth is the view on things of a cosmic consciousness in which things are seen in their true essence and their true relation to the Divine and to each other.” *Letters on Yoga
cosmic Will ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Agni is the Deva, the All-Seer, manifested as conscious-force or, as it would be called in modern language, Divine or Cosmic Will, first hidden and building up the eternal worlds, then manifest, ``born"", building up in man the Truth and the Immortality.” *The Secret of the Veda
cosmos ::: the universe regarded as an orderly, harmonious whole. cosmos", cosmos-chaos.
cottage ::: a small, humble, single-storied house, especially in the country.
couching ::: lying in ambush or in hiding; lurking.
couldst ::: a native English form of the adverb could, now only in formal or poetic usage.
counters ::: anything used in keeping account, as a disk of metal or wood, used in some games, as checkers, for marking a player"s position or for keeping score.
course ::: 1. A direction or route taken or to be taken. 2. The path, route, or channel along which anything moves. 3. Advance or progression in a particular direction; forward or onward movement. 4. The continuous passage or progress through time or a succession of stages. chariot-course.
court ::: 1. The room or building in which a tribunal sits and justice is administered. 2. A judicial tribunal duly constituted for the hearing and determination of legal cases.
courted ::: 1. Endeavoured to win favour with. 2. Tried to gain the love or affections of. 3. Attempted to gain (applause, favour, a decision, etc.).
craft ::: 1. An art, trade, or occupation requiring special skill, esp. manual skill. 2. Skill; dexterity. 3. Skill or ability used for bad purposes; cunning; deceit; guile; fraud; evasion or deception. crafts.
crammed ::: forced or stuffed (usually fol. by into, down, etc.).
crane ::: any of various large wading birds of the family Gruidae, having a long neck, long legs, and a long bill.
crawl ::: n. 1. The action of moving slowly on the hands or knees or dragging the body along the ground. 2. A very slow movement or progress. v. 3. To move slowly, either by dragging the body along the ground or on the hands and knees. 4. To advance slowly, feebly, laboriously, or with frequent stops. crawls, crawled, crawling.
creaks ::: makes or causes to make a harsh squeaking or grating sound.
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.
credentials ::: evidence of authority, status, rights, entitlement to privileges or the like, usually in written form.
credulous ::: disposed to believe too readily, esp. without proper or adequate evidence; gullible.
creed ::: 1. A formal statement of religious belief; a confession of faith. 2. Any system or codification of belief or of opinion. creeds.
creep ::: 1. To move with the body close to the ground, as on hands and knees. 2. To go or approach stealthily or furtively. 3. To move slowly, quietly, or cautiously. creeps, crept.
crescendo ::: music. A gradual increase, especially in the volume or intensity of sound in a passage.
criedst ::: a native English form of the verb, to cry, now only in formal and poetic usage.
criest ::: a native English form of the verb, to cry, now only in formal and poetic usage.
crime ::: an evil act; serious offense, especially one in violation of morality or law. crimes.
crooked ::: 1. Bent, angled or winding; deformed or contorted. 2. Dishonest or unscrupulous; fraudulent; perverse.
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.
crowning ::: the successful conclusion, the consummating event.
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.**
crucifies ::: treats with gross injustice; persecutes; torments; tortures.
cruel ::: 1. Causing or inflicting pain or suffering without pity. 2. Pleased at causing pain; merciless. 3. Rigid; stern; strict; unrelentingly severe. cruelly.
crush ::: 1. Fig. To conquer by force. 2. To put down; subdue completely 3. To hug, especially with great force. crushed.
crust ::: 1. The exterior portion of the earth. 2. Fig. Any hard or stiff outer covering or surface.
cry ::: 1. To entreat loudly; supplicate. 2. To call loudly; shout. 3. To sob or shed tears because of grief, sorrow, or pain; weep. 4. To utter or shout (words of appeal, exclamation, fear, etc.) 5. To utter a characteristic sound or call. Used of an animal. cries, cried, criedst, criest, crying.
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.
cryptic ::: 1. Secret; occult. 2. Mysterious in meaning; puzzling; ambiguous.
crystal ::: 1. A mineral, especially a transparent form of quartz, having a crystalline structure, often characterized by external planar faces. 2. Resembling crystal; transparent as water or a liquid. 3. Fig. Sometimes used to describe the eyes.
cult ::: 1. Obsessive, especially faddish, devotion to or veneration for a person, principle, or thing. 2. A specific system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and deity. 3. A group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal. cults.
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:
curious ::: 1. Eager to learn more. 2. Arousing interest because of novelty or strangeness.
currency ::: money in any form when in actual use as a medium of exchange; also anything that has value.
current ::: 1. (esp. of water or air) A steady usually natural flow in a particular direction. 2. A flow of electric charge through a conductor. current"s, currents.
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.
customs-line ::: an area (or line) where a governmental agency checks baggage or merchandise for contraband and goods subject to duty.
cyclopean ::: pertaining to one of a race of giants having a single eye in the middle of the forehead or any of three one-eyed Titans who forged thunderbolts for Zeus.
cynic ::: 1. A person who believes all people are motivated by selfishness and whose outlook is scornfully and often habitually negative. 2. *adj. *Bitterly or sneeringly distrustful, contemptuous, or pessimistic.
daedal ::: n. **1. Complex or intricate. adj. 2.** Skilful or ingenious.
daemonic ::: one"s indwelling spirit, or genius.
dagger ("s) ::: a short, sword like weapon with a pointed blade and a handle, used for thrusting and stabbing.
dally ::: 1. To waste time idly; linger; dawdle. 2. To talk or behave amorously, or behave in a careless manner without serious intentions; toy with. dallies, dallying, dalliance.
dam ::: a female parent (esp. used of four-footed domestic animals).
dangled ::: caused to hang loosely, esp. with a jerking or swaying motion.
dare ::: 1. To have the boldness and courage to try; venture; hazard; risk. 2. To meet defiantly; face courageously. dares, dared, daring.
daring ::: n. 1. Adventurous courage; boldness. daring"s. adj. 2. Bold or courageous; fearless or intrepid; adventurous.
fig. Hearts filled with despair; disillusionment; devastating sorrow, especially from disappointment or tragedy in love.
"For the essence of consciousness is the power to be aware of itself and its objects, . . . .” The Life Divine
Heart-lotus — emotional centre. The psychic is behind it.
"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
"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
**"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*
"I have said that the Avatar is one who comes to open the Way for humanity to a higher consciousness —. . . .” Letters on Yoga
"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*
"Indian devotion has especially seized upon the most intimate human relations and made them stepping-stones to the supra-human. God the Guru, God the Master, God the Friend, God the Mother, God the Child, God the Self, each of these experiences — for to us they are more than merely ideas, — it has carried to its extreme possibilities.” Essays in Philosophy and 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.
::: ". . . in such a view, the word consciousness changes its meaning. It is no longer synonymous with mentality but indicates a self-aware force of existence of which mentality is a middle term; below mentality it sinks into vital and material movements which are for us subconscient; above, it rises into the supramental which is for us the superconscient. But in all it is one and the same thing organising itself differently. This is, once more, the Indian conception of Chit which, as energy, creates the worlds.” *The Life Divine
". . . in the Avatar there is the special manifestation, the divine birth from above, the eternal and universal Godhead descended into a form of individual humanity, âtmânam srjâmi, and conscious not only behind the veil but in the outward nature.” Essays on the Gita
"In the subconscient knowledge or consciousness is involved in action, for action is the essence of Life.” The Life Divine
"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 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 [the Cosmic Spirit] uses Truth and Falsehood, Knowledge and Ignorance and all the other dualities as elements in the manifestation and works out what has to be worked out till all is ready for a higher working.” Letters on Yoga*
"Mind, life and body, the soul in the succession of Time, the conscient, subconscient and superconscient, — these in their various relations and the result of their relations are cosmos and are Nature.” The Life Divine
"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. 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.
"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
"Pulling comes usually from a desire to get things for oneself — in aspiration there is a self-giving for the higher consciousness to descend and take possession — the more intense the call the greater the self-giving.” Letters on Yoga
regards as resulting from a specified cause; considers as caused by something or someone. attributing.
::: See also lotus (as chakras*).
*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: "And finally all is lifted up and taken into the supermind and made a part of the infinitely luminous consciousness, knowledge and experience of the supramental being, the Vijnana Purusha.” The Synthesis of Yoga*) ::: Angel of the House. The guardian spirit of the home.
Sri Aurobindo: "Birth is the first spiritual mystery of the physical universe, death is the second which gives its double point of perplexity to the mystery of birth; for life, which would otherwise be a self-evident fact of existence, becomes itself a mystery by virtue of these two which seem to be its beginning and its end and yet in a thousand ways betray themselves as neither of these things, but rather intermediate stages in an occult processus of life.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "But if the individual is a persistent reality, an eternal portion or power of the Eternal, if his growth of consciousness is the means by which the Spirit in things discloses its being, the cosmos reveals itself as a conditioned manifestation of the play of the eternal One in the being of Sachchidananda with the eternal Many.” *The Life Divine
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: "Concentration is a gathering together of the consciousness and either centralising at one point or turning on a single object, e.g., the Divine; there can also be a gathered condition throughout the whole being, not at a point. In meditation it is not indispensable to gather like this, one can simply remain with a quiet mind thinking of one subject or observing what comes in the consciousness and dealing with it.” *Letters on Yoga
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: "Creation is not a making of something out of nothing or of one thing out of another, but a self-projection of Brahman into the conditions of Space and Time. Creation is not a making, but a becoming in terms and forms of conscious existence.” The Upanishads*
Sri Aurobindo: ". . . for each individual is in himself the Eternal who has assumed name and form and supports through him the experiences of life turning on an ever-circling wheel of birth in the manifestation. The wheel is kept in motion by the desire of the individual, which becomes the effective cause of rebirth and by the mind"s turning away from the knowledge of the eternal self to the preoccupations of the temporal becoming.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "In the very atom there is a subconscious will and desire which must also be present in all atomic aggregates because they are present in the Force which constitutes the atom.” *Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
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: " Karma is nothing but the will of the Spirit in action, consequence nothing but the creation of will. What is in the will of being, expresses itself in karma and consequence. When the will is limited in mind, karma appears as a bondage and a limitation, consequence as a reaction or an imposition. But when the will of the being is infinite in the spirit, karma and consequence become instead the joy of the creative spirit, the construction of the eternal mechanist, the word and drama of the eternal poet, the harmony of the eternal musician, the play of the eternal child.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "Matter, body is only a massed motion of force of conscious being employed as a starting-point for the variable relations of consciousness working through its power of sense.” *Essays on the Gita
::: 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 anarchic is the true divine state of man in the end as in the beginning; but in between it would lead us straight to the devil and his kingdom.” Essays Divine and Human*
Sri Aurobindo: "The centres or Chakras are seven in number: ::: The thousand-petalled lotus on the top of the head.
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 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: "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: "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: "Very usually, altruism is only the sublimest form of selfishness.” *Essays Divine and Human
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 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: "Yes: the purpose is to create a large luminous trailing repetitive movement like the flight of the Bird with its dragon tail of white fire.” *Letters on Savitri
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
"Stability and movement, we must remember, are only our psychological representations of the Absolute, even as are oneness and multitude. The Absolute is beyond stability and movement as it is beyond unity and multiplicity. But it takes its eternal poise in the one and the stable and whirls round itself infinitely, inconceivably, securely in the moving and multitudinous.” The Life Divine
supporting or sustaining a person or thing.
(Technically)** **Any of various birds of the family Paradisaeidae, native to New Guinea and adjacent islands, usually having brilliant plumage and long tail feathers in the male.
"The Absolute neither creates nor is created, — in the current sense of making or being made; we can speak of creation only in the sense of the Being becoming in form and movement what it already is in substance and status.” *The Life Divine
"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 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 child usually signifies the psychic being — new-born in the sense that it at last comes to the surface.” Letters on Yoga
"The child (when it does not mean the psychic being) is usually the symbol of something new-born in some part of the consciousness.” Letters on Yoga
::: "The Conscious Being, Purusha, is the Self as originator, witness, support and lord and enjoyer of the forms and works of Nature.” *The Life Divine
"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 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 Cross is in Yoga the symbol of the soul & nature in their strong & perfect union, but because of our fall into the impurities of ignorance it has become the symbol of suffering and purification.” 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 Infinite creates and is Brahma.” The Renaissance in India ::: "Brahman is not only the cause and supporting power and indwelling principle of the universe, he is also its material and its sole material. Matter also is Brahman and it is nothing other than or different from Brahman.” The Life Divine*
::: The Mother: "Consciousness is the faculty of becoming aware of anything through identification. The Divine Consciousness is not only aware but knows and effects.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol.15*. Consciousness.
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 conquer the Adversary is not a small thing. One must have a greater power than his to vanquish him. But one can liberate oneself totally from his influence. And from the minute one is completely free from his influence, one"s self-giving can be total. And with the self-giving comes joy, long before the Adversary is truly vanquished and disappears.”
::: 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 nervous envelope, the aura.” Letters on Yoga*
"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 strings on an apron, used for securing it around one"s person.tie to someone"s apron strings. To make or be dependent on or dominated by someone.
"This body of ours is a symbol of our real being. . . .” Letters on Yoga ::: ". . . the body itself is only a constant act of consciousness of the spirit.” Essays on the Gita
"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*
"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
v. **1. Focused attention, thought, etc., on (something). adj. 2. Directed or drawn toward a common center; focussed. concentrating.**
"We are not the body, but the body is still something of ourselves. With realisation the erroneous identification ceases — in certain experiences the existence of the body is not felt at all. In the full realisation the body is within us, not we in it, it is an instrumental formation in our wider being, — our consciousness exceeds but also pervades it, — it can be dissolved without our ceasing to be the self.” Letters on Yoga
"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
"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*
KEYS (10k)
92 Anonymous
73 Epictetus
67 Heraclitus
42 Sri Ramana Maharshi
32 Saint Augustine of Hippo
27 Buson
24 Miyamoto Musashi
19 Confucius
16 Marcus Aurelius
15 Friedrich Nietzsche
15 Albert Camus
12 Publilius Syrus
12 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
11 Ralph Waldo Emerson
11 Albert Einstein
10 Jalaluddin Rumi
10 Saint Thomas Aquinas
10 Dogen Zenji
9 Voltaire
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9 Bertrand Russell
8 Yosa Buson
8 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
8 Sri Ramakrishna
7 Tao Te Ching
6 Thich Nhat Hanh
6 Bruce Lee
6 Arthur Schopenhauer
6 Aldous Huxley
5 Sri Ramana Maharshi
5 Soren Kierkegaard
5 Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina
5 Saint Ignatius of Loyola
5 Mark Twain
5 Marcel Proust
5 Lucius Annaeus Seneca
5 George Bernard Shaw
5 Elon Musk
5 Dr. Seuss
5 Carl Jung
5 The Mother
5 Sri Aurobindo
5 Plotinus
5 Plato
5 Jalaluddin Rumi
5 Hafiz
4 William Shakespeare
4 Tagami Kikusha
4 Seneca
4 Saint Therese of Lisieux
4 Robert Anton Wilson
4 Gurdjieff
4 Georg C Lichtenberg
4 Edgar Allan Poe
4 C.S. Lewis
4 Buddha
4 Bill Hicks
4 Angelus Silesius
4 Paracelsus
3 Unknown
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3 Susan Sontag
3 Shunryu Suzuki
3 Saint Maximus the Confessor
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3 Saint Alphonsus Liguori
3 Rabia al-Adawiyya
3 Proclus
3 Philokalia
3 Pema Chödrön
3 Oscar Wilde
3 Maya Angelou
3 Leo Tolstoy
3 Herodotus
3 Henry David Thoreau
3 Haruki Murakami
3 Desiderius Erasmus
3 Catullus
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3 Archilochus
3 Swami Vivekananda
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3 Ogawa
3 Lao Tzu
3 Kobayashi Issa
3 Bodhidharma
3 Aristotle
3 Abraham Maslow
2 William James
2 Wei Wu Wei
2 Thomas A Kempis
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2 Sophocles
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2 Saint Philip Neri
2 Saint Maximus of Turin
2 Saint John Vianney
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2 Saint Henry Suso
2 Saint Gregory of Nyssa
2 Saint Benedict of Nursia
2 Saint Ambrose
2 Rudyard Kipling
2 Ringu Tulku
2 Ramesh Balsekar
2 Plautus
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2 Pablo Picasso
2 Ovid
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2 Marcus Tullius Cicero
2 Mahabharata
2 Ludwig Wittgenstein
2 Linus Torvalds
2 Lilly Wachowski
2 Lewis Carroll
2 Khalil Gibran
2 Ken Wilber
2 John Milton
2 Jiddu Krishnamurti
2 Ikkyu
2 Ignatius of Antioch
2 Hermann Hesse
2 Heraclitus
2 Guru Rinpoche
2 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
2 George Carlin
2 Frank Herbert
2 Erik Erikson
2 Epicurus
2 Eliphas Levi
2 Eckhart Tolle
2 D.T. Suzuki
2 Dion Fortune
2 Democritus
2 Dante Alighieri
2 C S Lewis
2 Charles Dickens
2 Book of Wisdom
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2 Attar of Nishapur
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2 Antoine de Saint-Exupery
2 Alfred North Whitehead
2 Alan Watts
2 Saint Teresa of Avila
2 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
2 Matsuo Basho
2 Ibn Arabi
1 Zig Ziglar
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1 Vincent van Gogh
1 Viktor Frankl
1 Venerable Barthalomew Holzhauser
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1 Velimir Khlebnikov
1 Ursula K. Le Guin
1 Turkish proverb. See: http://bit.ly/2CCQAUS
1 T S Eliot
1 Tōyō Eichō
1 Toni Morrison
1 Tolstoi
1 Tilopa
1 Thomas Paine
1 Thomas J. Watson
1 Thomas A Edison
1 The Zohar
1 The Sutra on the Buddha's Bequeathed Teaching
1 "The Rosicrucian Manuscripts."
1 Theophilus of Antioch
1 Theophan the Recluse
1 The Mother
1 The most dangerous people are those who have passion but lack wisdom - Haemin Sunim
1 THE GOSPEL OF SRI RAMAKRISHNA
1 The Corpus Hermeticum
1 The anagogy shows us where we end our strife.
1 Terry Pratchett
1 Teilhard de Chardin
1 Tashkandi
1 Taigu Ryokan
1 Tacitus
1 Swami Vijnanananda
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1 Sri Sarada Devi
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1 Socrates?
1 Simone Weil
1 Shuson kato 1905-1993
1 Shinto-Gobusho
1 Shen-hsiu
1 Sheng-yen
1 Shantideva-
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1 Sathya Sai Baba
1 Sant Rajinder Singh
1 Samael Aun Weor
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1 Saint Vincent of Lerins
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1 Saint Justin Martyr
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1 Saint Hildegard of Bingen
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1 Saadi
1 Ryan Holiday
1 Rousseau
1 Romans XII. II
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1 Proverbs XXIV. 16
1 Proverb
1 Plutarch
1 Philolaus
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1 P.D. Ouspensky
1 P D Ouspensky
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1 Melessus
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1 Martin Luther King Jr.
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1 Mao Zedong
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1 Macrobius
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1 Leviticus XIX. 18
1 Leviticus XIX.17
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1 Lao Tzu
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1 Karl Popper
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1 Joe DiMaggio
1 Jijun
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1 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
1 Jean Gebser
1 Jean de La Fontaine
1 Jean de La Bruyère
1 Japanese Proverb
1 James V. Schall
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1 Jacques Yves Cousteau
1 Iyanla Vanzant
1 Italo Calvino
1 Isavasya Upanishad
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1 Iroquois saying
1 Iris Murdoch
1 Irenaeus
1 Inscription on the Catacombs
1 II Timothy II. 22
1 Iio Sogi 1421-1502
1 Iggy Pop
1 id. 25. 26
1 id
1 Iamblichus
1 Hunt
1 Hui Hai
1 H P Lovecraft
1 Hokusai
1 H. Jackson Brown Jr.
1 Hermes Trismegistus
1 Hermes: "On the Rebirth"
1 Herbert Spencer
1 Heraclitus 88
1 Henry Van Dyke
1 Henry Suso
1 Henri de Lubac
1 Heide Quade
1 Hazrat Inayat Khan
1 Hans Christian Andersen
1 Hakushu Kitahara
1 Hafiz
1 Haemin Sunim
1 Hadis
1 Goldie Hawn
1 Goenka
1 Gita Bellin
1 Giordano Bruno
1 GG
1 Geshe Wangyal
1 George Washington
1 George Orwell
1 George Gurdjieff
1 George?
1 Genesis III.19
1 G.B. Shaw
1 Galen
1 Fyodor Dostoevsky
1 Fumoto Oka 1877-1951
1 Friedrich Von Hugel
1 Frederick Lenz
1 Frank Zappa
1 Fo-shu-hing-tsan-king
1 Fo-shu- hing-tsan-king
1 Fo-sho-hing-tsan-king
1 For source see: https://bit.ly/3cPHvYO
1 Ferdinand Ulrich
1 Exodus XX.82
1 E. W. Dijkstra
1 Euripides
1 Erelesiastieus
1 Epistle to Diognetus
1 Epictetus 33. 2
1 Epictetus
1 Epicietus
1 Emerson
1 Emanuel Swedenborg
1 Elder Porphyrios
1 Edwin Markham
1 Earl Nightingale
1 Dr. Seuss [Theodor Seuss Geisel]
1 Douglas Adams
1 Dōgen Zenji
1 Diogenes
1 Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
1 Dhammapada
1 De Trinitate III
1 Denis Diderot
1 Deepak Chopra
1 David Hume
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1 David Deida
1 David Bowie
1 David
1 Dante
1 Czeslaw Milosz
1 Cullavaga
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1 Colossians III. 5
1 Clement of Rome
1 Claude Debussy
1 Cinderella
1 Chu-King
1 Chuck Close
1 Christopher Morley
1 Chinese Texts
1 Chinese Buddhistic
1 Chi-king
1 Chi-King
1 Cheng Yen
1 Charlotte Brontë
1 Cassandra Clare
1 Carl Sagan
1 Callimachus
1 Buddhist Texts
1 Buddhist Text
1 Bruce Feirstein
1 Brian Tracy
1 Bram Stoker
1 Bossuet
1 Bono
1 Boethius
1 Bob Ross
1 Bob Marley
1 Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati
1 Bhagavad Gita
1 be to other souls
1 Benjamin Disraeli
1 Ben Hecht
1 B D Schiers
1 Baruch Spinoza
1 Barry Diller
1 Baisao 1675-1763
1 Baha Ullah
1 Ayush Jaiswal
1 Auguste Rodin
1 Athanasius
1 Asclepius
1 Arthur Schopenauer
1 Arthur Koestler
1 Arthur C Clarke
1 Arnobius of Sicca
1 Archbishop Desmond Tutu
1 Antonio Porchia
1 Antoine the Healer
1 Antoine de Saint-Exuper
1 Anthony Bourdain
1 Anonymous Proverb
1 Anonymous English Monk
1 Anon.
1 Annie Proulx
1 Anne Sexton
1 Anita Krizzan
1 Angelus Silesius I.15
1 And so forth. See Sufi Symbolism:
1 And so forth. See "Sufi Symbolism":
1 Andrei Tarkovsky
1 Ancient Greek saying.
1 Anatole France
1 Amma
1 Amir Khusrau
1 Alexander von Humboldt
1 Alcineon
1 Alan Perlis
1 Ajahn Chah
1 Saadi
1 Maimonides
1 Leonardo da Vinci
1 Kabir
1 Aristophanes
1 Ahmad]
1 African proverb
1 Aeschylus
1 Adyashanti
1 Advaita Bodha Deepika
1 2nd century sermon
1 1 John 1:7)
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
465 Anonymous
32 Rachel Ren e Russell
20 Jane Austen
16 Plautus
16 Markus Zusak
10 Toba Beta
10 Heraclitus
9 John Green
9 Gaius Julius Caesar
9 Dr Seuss
9 Confucius
9 Aeschylus
8 Katie Reus
8 George W Bush
7 Ovid
7 J K Rowling
7 Ambrosius Stub
6 Alphonsus de Guimaraens
6 Aesop
5 Various
1:Friends are God's way of taking care of us." ~ Anonymous, #KEYS
2:Time does not change us. It just unfolds us." ~ Max Frisch, #KEYS
3:Real love is a cosmic force which goes through us. ~ Gurdjieff, #KEYS
4:In each of us there is another whom we do not know.
~ Carl Jung,#KEYS
5:Christ opened heaven for us in the humanity he assumed. ~ Irenaeus, #KEYS
6:The blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin ~ 1 John 1:7), #KEYS
7:It is time now for us to rise from sleep. ~ Saint Benedict of Nursia, #KEYS
8:Let us be silent, -- so we may hear the whisper of the gods. ~ Emerson, #KEYS
9:The desire for wisdom leads us to the Eternal Kingdom. ~ Book of Wisdom, #KEYS
10:There is no reality except the one contained within us. ~ Hermann Hesse, #KEYS
11:If God be with us, there is no one else left to fear. ~ Saint Philip Neri, #KEYS
12:Sat is within us. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
13:For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business. ~ T S Eliot, #KEYS
14:If God did not exist, it would be necessary for us to invent Him. ~ Voltaire, #KEYS
15:Let us go singing as far as we go: the road will be less tedious.
~ Virgil,#KEYS
16:Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm. ~ Georg C Lichtenberg, #KEYS
17:Our fate lives within us; you only have to be brave enough to see it." ~ Merida, #KEYS
18:For us who strive to follow. May I reach That purest heaven, ~ be to other souls, #KEYS
19:A true friend is somebody who can make us do what we can.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,#KEYS
20:When the gods want to punish us, they grant our desires." ~ Ancient Greek saying., #KEYS
21:The uplift of a fearless heart will help us over barriers." ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder, #KEYS
22:We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
~ Oscar Wilde,#KEYS
23:The golden rule is, to help those we love to escape from us." ~ Friedrich Von Hugel, #KEYS
24:Whenever you mow us down, we multiply; the blood of Christians is seed. ~ Tertullian, #KEYS
25:Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know." ~ Pema Chödrön, #KEYS
26:Prayer should bring us to an altar where no walls or names exist. ~ Rabia al-Adawiyya, #KEYS
27:We acknowledge God only when we are conscious of His manifestation in us. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #KEYS
28:What allows us to be human is something daemonic. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
29:Inspiration is for amateurs ~ the rest of us just show up and get to work. ~ Chuck Close, #KEYS
30:Pride alienates man from heaven, humility unites us to heaven. ~ Saint Bridget of Sweden, #KEYS
31:Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving. ~ Madeleine L'Engle, #KEYS
32:Morning glories - in the evening, they let us admire their buds. ~ Tagami Kikusha, 1753-1826, #KEYS
33:We have committed the Golden Rule to memory; let us now commit it to life.
~ Edwin Markham,#KEYS
34:Deliver us, O Allah, from the Sea of Names. ~ Ibn Arabi, [T5], #KEYS
35:Raise your heart to a happier state, towards that great good that never cheats us. ~ Petrarch, #KEYS
36:The purpose of thinking is to let the ideas die instead of us dying. ~ Alfred North Whitehead #KEYS
37:Do not be afraid; our fate Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.
~ Dante Alighieri, Inferno,#KEYS
38:Holy silence allows us to hear the voice of God more clearly. ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
39:Regardless of what we do, our karma has no hold on us. ~ Bodhidharma, #KEYS
40:Perhaps the greatest risk any of us will ever take is to be seen as we really are. ~ Cinderella, #KEYS
41:Everything that irritates us about others can lead to an understanding of ourselves. ~ Carl Jung, #KEYS
42:It is not the outer objects that entangle us. It is the inner clinging that entangles us. ~ Tilopa, #KEYS
43:It is wonderful what tricks our dreams play us, and how conveniently we can imagine. ~ Bram Stoker, #KEYS
44:The moral meaning gives us the rule of daily life. ~ The anagogy shows us where we end our strife., #KEYS
45:We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it. ~ C S Lewis, #KEYS
46:For the two of us, home isn't a place. It is a person. And we are finally home. ~ Stephanie Perkins, #KEYS
47:Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world. ~ Voltaire, #KEYS
48:Only law can give us freedom. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #KEYS
49:That God, too, desired us? ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
50:Blake encourages us to fully engage our imagination in questioning of reality. ~ Taigen Dan Leighton, #KEYS
51:Knowledge does not come to us by details, but in flashes of light from heaven. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #KEYS
52:The vagaries of life though painful teach us not to cling to this floating world. ~ Ikkyu, 1394-1481, #KEYS
53:Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.
~ Voltaire,#KEYS
54:No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.
~ Buddha,#KEYS
55:With God ruling in us, let us be immersed in the blessings of regeneration and resurrection. ~ Origen, #KEYS
56:Let us make up for lost time. Let us give to God the time that remains to us. ~ Saint Alphonsus Liguori #KEYS
57:We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another. ~ Lucretius, #KEYS
58:The milk of Divine Love stems to us from God incarnate. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
59:Knowledge alone can make us perfect. ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. VII. 38), #KEYS
60:Let us net give ourselves up to excesses. ~ Chi-king, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
61:The things that we love tell us what we are.
~ Saint Thomas Aquinas,#KEYS
62:We use Jesus and not people, because only he will never be without us." ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
63:The eternal female draws us onward. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #KEYS
64:The more often you mow us down, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed. ~ Tertullian, #KEYS
65:he future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #KEYS
66:Let us watch over our thoughts. ~ Fo-sho-hing-tsan-king, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
67:It is only when we realize that life is taking us nowhere that it begins to have meaning. ~ Mr. Ouspensky🕊, #KEYS
68:Let us never forget that if we wish to die like the saints we must live like them." ~ Saint Théodore Guérin, #KEYS
69:Alone the Divine can give us a perfect safety.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
70:Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.
~ Stephen King, On Writing,#KEYS
71:For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #KEYS
72:Meditation lifts us above life's storm clouds into the radiant skies of the inner Light. ~ Sant Rajinder Singh, #KEYS
73:The things we truly love stay with us always, locked in our hearts as long as life remains." ~ Josephine Baker, #KEYS
74:I have never agreed with my other self wholly. The truth of the matter seems to lie between us. ~ Khalil Gibran, #KEYS
75:Let us think that we are born for the common good. ~ Seneca, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
76:Let whatever strange things happen, happen; let us see. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
77:If we do not listen to our conscience, it delivers us into the hands of our enemies. ~ Saint Isaiah the Solitary, #KEYS
78:Let us be kind to one another after the pattern of the tender mercy and goodness of our Creator. ~ Saint Clement, #KEYS
79:The consciousness of each of us is evolution looking at itself and reflecting upon itself. ~ Teilhard de Chardin, #KEYS
80:Holiness consists simply in doing God's will, and being just what God wants us to be." ~ Saint Therese of Lisieux, #KEYS
81:Let us keep watch over our thoughts. ~ Fo-shu- hing-tsan-king, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
82:Be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the gentle gardeners who make our souls blossom. ~ Marcel Proust, #KEYS
83:Time and space are within us. You are always in your Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
84:What makes us heroic? Confronting simultaenously our supreme suffering and our supreme hope. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #KEYS
85:Divine Providence permits these trials to assail us for the great benefit of our soul. ~ Philokalia, Bishop Ignatii, #KEYS
86:What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #KEYS
87:Young love is wild and outrageous, laughing at moderation, and blinding us to common sense." ~ H. Jackson Brown Jr., #KEYS
88:Zen teaches nothing; it merely enables us to wake up and become aware. It does not teach, it points." ~ D.T. Suzuki, #KEYS
89:Let us cherish that Self, which is the Reality, in the Heart. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
90:Mukti or Liberation is our Nature. It is another name for us. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
91:The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned." ~ Maya Angelou, #KEYS
92:We are bliss. Bliss is another name for us. It is our nature. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
93:Jesus Christ, our Lord, gave his blood for us, his flesh for our flesh, and his life for ours. ~ Saint Clement of Rome, #KEYS
94:Let us lend ear to the sages who point out to us the way. ~ Seneca, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
95:God loves each of us as if there were only one of us. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
96:Abraham offered to God his mortal son who did not die, and God gave up his immortal Son who died for all of us. ~ Origen, #KEYS
97:Before God can deliver us we must undeceive ourselves. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
98:Do you pay regular visits to yourself? Don't argue or answer rationally. Let us die, and dying, reply. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
99:Save the world that is within us, O Life. ~ Hermes: "On the Rebirth", the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
100: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
101:Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #KEYS
102:Each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.,#KEYS
103:However softly we speak, God is near enough to hear us. ~ Saint Teresa of Avila, [T5], #KEYS
104:More heavenly and those flashing stars the endless eyes seem, which Night opens up in us. ~ Novalis, Hymns to the Night 1, #KEYS
105:Real love is a cosmic force which goes through us. If we crystallize it, it becomes the greatest power in the world. ~ GG, #KEYS
106:something in us
always wants to
cry out
~ Ikkyu, @BashoSociety#KEYS
107:We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter. ~ Denis Diderot, #KEYS
108:Beloved, let us love one another. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 John, IV.7, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
109:Children have neither a past nor a future. Thus they enjoy the present, which seldom happens to us." ~ Jean de La Bruyère, #KEYS
110:Let us be prepared for death but work for life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Bande Mataram - I, The Crisis, #KEYS
111:Let us return to our hero Moses, and to loftier deeds, to show they were both superior as well as earlier. ~ Saint Ambrose, #KEYS
112:Someday perhaps the inner light will shine forth from us, and then we'll need no other light. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #KEYS
113:Let us not pose as doers but resign ourselves to the guiding power. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
114:Not for the sake of the wife, but for the sake of the Self is the wife dear to us.
~ Yajnavalkya, the Upanishads, *which?,#KEYS
115:The desire for wisdom leads us to the Eternal Kingdom. ~ Book of Wisdom, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
116:The essential principles of things are hidden from us.... ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle's De Anima 1.1.15, #KEYS
117:Each reaction which arises from us causes a delay in attaining the goal. Whereas acceptance will cause Grace to flow. ~ Amma, #KEYS
118:What we would not have done to us, we must not do to others. ~ Confucius, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
119:When we discover that the truth is already in us, we are all at once our original selves." ~ Dogen Zenji, #KEYS
120:A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exuper, #KEYS
121:Grace is needed most. Let us take the plunge, within, and "Be Still". ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
122:Let us walk, as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness. ~ Romans XIII, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
123:A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery, #KEYS
124:Let us be one even with those who do not wish to be one with us. ~ Bossuet, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
125:Let us sing a new song not with our lips but with our lives. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
126:We are not disturbed by what happens to us, but by our thoughts about what happens to us." ~ Epictetus, #KEYS
127:We try many ways to be awake, but our society still keeps us forgetful. Meditation is to help us remember.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh,#KEYS
128:Confession leads the way and brings us to salvation; baptism follows, setting the seal on our assent. ~ Saint Basil of Caesarea, #KEYS
129:Let's ask God to help us to self-control for one who lacks it, lacks his grace. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
130:Let this light from within and without illuminate our inner vision and guide us through darkness in time of chaos. ~ Inca Texts, #KEYS
131:Let us always be terrified of mortal sin and never stop walking on the road of holy eternity." ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
132: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
133:A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author. ~ G.K. Chesterton, Heretics #KEYS
134:All is in God's hands; whatever He makes us do, that we shall do.
~ The Mother, Agenda Vol 3, Satprem,#KEYS
135:Christ's mind is the controlling influence that inspires us to moderation and goodness in our behavior. ~ Saint Gregory of Nyssa, #KEYS
136:Let us sing a new song, not with our lips, but with our lives. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
137:The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us. ~ Ray Bradbury, #KEYS
138:To know how to die in one age gives us life in all the others. ~ Giordano Bruno, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
139: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
140: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
141:We fight to win sublime Wisdom; therefore men call us warriors. ~ Book of Wisdom, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
142:It is strange that the years teach us patience; that the shorter our time - the greater our capacity for waiting." ~ Elizabeth Taylor, #KEYS
143:It is unhappiness that teaches us more than happiness; it is misery that cleanses our hearts more than enjoyment. ~ Swami Saradananda, #KEYS
144:Let us respect men, and not only men of worth, but the public in general ~ Cicero, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
145:What we would not like being done to us, let us not do it to others. ~ Chang Yung, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
146: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
147:Concentration of the powers of the mind is our only instrument to help us see God. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
148:Distraction is the main problem for us all - what the Buddha called the monkey mind. We need to tame this monkey mind." ~ Tenzin Palmo, #KEYS
149:Faith is like a bright ray of sunlight. It enables us to see God in all things as well as all things in God." ~ Saint Francis de Sales, #KEYS
150:Our sweet Jesus, through the excess of His love and liberality, has left Himself to us in the Most Holy Sacrament. ~ Saint Philip Neri, #KEYS
151: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
152:Let us, who are of the day, be sober. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Thessalonians, V. 8, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
153:Listen to Nature: she cries out to us that we are all members of one family. ~ Sadi, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
154:There is nothing so great as the Eucharist. If God had something more precious, He would have given it to us. ~ Saint Jean John Vianney, #KEYS
155:Faith guides even us and we follow its sure light on the way which conducts us to God and His homeland. ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
156: one and single direction is needed which will conduct us to a one sole end. ~ Philo, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
157:There is nothing but quotations left for us. Our language is a system of quotations. ~ Jorge Luis Borges, #KEYS
158:The task for us now, if we are to survive, is to build the earth. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #KEYS
159:The deeper the humility with which we conduct ourselves, the better it is for us. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
160:The voice which tells us that we are immortal is the voice of God within us. ~ Pascal, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
161:He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
162:If we attain something
it was there from the beginning of time.
If we lose something
it is hiding somewhere near us.
~ Taigu Ryokan,#KEYS
163:Pray, 'Take us by the hand as a father takes his son, and leave us not.' ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. VI. 91), #KEYS
164: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
165: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
166: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
167:It is the soul in us which turns always towards Truth, Good and Beauty.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, [T5],#KEYS
168:Pets are humanizing. They remind us we have an obligation and responsibility to preserve and nurture and care for all life." ~ James Cromwell, #KEYS
169:The help of Sri Aurobindo is constant; it is for us to know how to receive it.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I,#KEYS
170: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
171:Let us make our minds pure, the rest will be easy; and we shall attain spiritual bliss comparable to nothing else in life. ~ Swami Vijnanananda, #KEYS
172:Our Lord! Accept this from us. You are indeed the All-Hearing, All-Knowing ~ Quran 2:127, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
173:The secret of happiness is to live moment by moment and to thank God for what He is sending us every day in His goodness." ~ Saint Gianna Molla, #KEYS
174:If then we have angels, let us be sober, as though we were in the presence of tutors; for there is a demon present also. ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #KEYS
175: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
176:We have to face the pain we have been running from. In fact, we need to learn to rest in it and let its searing power transform us." ~ Joko Beck, #KEYS
177:What we have caught and what we have killed we have left behind, but what has escaped us we bring with us. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
178:If an angel were to tell us about his philosophy, I believe many of his statements might well sound like '2 x 2= 13'. ~ Georg C Lichtenberg, [T5], #KEYS
179:In prayer, more is accomplished by listening than by talking. Let us leave to God the decisions as to what shall be said. ~ Saint Francis de Sales #KEYS
180: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
181:The ills we inflict upon our neighbours follow us as our shadows follow our bodies. ~ Krishna, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
182:The life of grace heals us with respect to our mind ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Commentary on Colossians, ch. 3)., #KEYS
183:We grasp nothing except through that which is better known to us ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (In I Phys. lect. 1)., #KEYS
184:Let us help each other as friends that we may put a term to suffering. ~ Fo-shu-hing-tsan-king, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
185:Let us seek the treasure within our hearts, and when we have found it let us hold fast to it with all our might. ~ Philokalia, Nikiphoros the Monk, #KEYS
186:Only the Eternal's strength in us can dare
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Heavens of the Ideal,#KEYS
187:Those things which are less evident in themselves are more evident to us ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (DV 10.12ad6)., #KEYS
188:Yoga is the science which teaches us how to get these perceptions [direct experiences of God]. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
189:Beauty of our dim soul is amorous. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Our godhead calls us, #KEYS
190:Renunciation must be for us merely an instrument and not an objec. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Renunciation, #KEYS
191: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
192:Just as grace is given from the Father through the Son, so there could be no communication of the gift to us except in the Holy Spirit. ~ Athanasius, #KEYS
193:Prayer purifies us, reading instructs us. Both are good when both are possible. Otherwise, prayer is better than reading. ~ Saint Isidore of Seville, #KEYS
194:The calmer we are, the better for us, and the more the amount of work we can do. ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. II. 293), #KEYS
195:The lower is for us the first condition of the higher. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Knowledge and the Ignorance, #KEYS
196:The Vedantic idea is the infinite principle of God embodied in everyone of us. ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. VIII. 126), #KEYS
197: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
198:Does God ever become angry with us? If yes, when?
When you believe He is angry.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
199: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
200: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
201:Sheer objectivity brings us down from art to photography. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, Poetic Vision and the Mantra, #KEYS
202:To grieve is an insult to Sri Aurobindo who is here with us, conscious and alive.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I, [T5],#KEYS
203:In the twilight of life, God will not judge us on our earthly possessions and human successes, but on how well we have loved. ~ Saint John of the Cross, #KEYS
204:Its signs stare at us like an unknown script,
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Secret Knowledge, [T5],#KEYS
205:Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer. ~ Joseph Campbell, #KEYS
206:What we fight with is so small, and when we win, it makes us small. What we want is to be defeated, decisively, by successively greater things. ~ Rilke, #KEYS
207: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
208:To work only in the material sense is to increase the load that is crushing us. ~ Antoine the Healer, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
209:All of us must be saints in this world. Holiness is a duty for you and me. So let's be saints and so give glory to the Father. ~ Saint Teresa of Calcutta, #KEYS
210: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
211:There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, it doesn't behoove any of us to speak evil of the rest of us
~ Edgar Cayce,#KEYS
212: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
213:None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #KEYS
214:Renounce everything and say: "Come, my mind and let us watch together the divinity installed in my heart!" ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
215:So we ought to be accurate, brethren, about our salvation, in case the evil one sneaks in some error and slings us out from our life. ~ Letter of Barnabas, #KEYS
216: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
217:Since love completes all, makes all hard things soft, and the difficult easy, let us strive to make all our acts proceed from love." ~ Saint Arnold Janssen, #KEYS
218:Those who have been entrusted to us abandon God, and we are silent. They fall into sin, and we do not extend a hand of rebuke. ~ Pope St. Gregory the Great, #KEYS
219:When the aspiration is awake each day brings us nearer to the goal. With my blessings,
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, [T4],#KEYS
220:It is not possible really to possess what is not-self to us. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Kena and Other Upanishads, The Supramental Godhead, #KEYS
221:The knowledge of the soul is the highest knowledge and truth has nothing for us beyond it. ~ Mahabharata, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
222:The mystery of the Trinity has opened up for us an entirely new perspective: the ground all being is communio.... ~ Henri de Lubac, The Christian Faith (13), #KEYS
223:The real individuality is that which never changes and will never change; and that is the God within us. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
224: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
225:Each of us must examine his THOUGHTS, WORDS, and DEEDS, to see whether they are directed towards Christ or are turned away from him. ~ Saint Gregory of Nyssa, #KEYS
226:Excessive fear makes us act without love, but excessive trust does not allow us to consider the danger we are going to face. ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
227:For the plenitude of His light we invoke the Divine to awaken in us the power to express Him.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
228:In the full realisation the body is within us, not we in it. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Adwaita of Shankaracharya, #KEYS
229:That Intelligence is God within us; by that men are gods and their humanity neighbours divinity. ~ Hermes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
230:The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Romans, 13:12, #KEYS
231:The tyranny exercised over us by despondency is a strong one. We need great courage if we are to persevere in resisting this emotion. ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #KEYS
232:For we are always glad to have something to comfort us, and only with difficulty does a man divest himself of self. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
233:God will bring people and events into our lives, and whatever we may think about them, they are designed for the evolution of His life in us. ~ Thomas Keating, #KEYS
234: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
235:God has mercy because of what is from Him, whereas He punishes because of what is from us ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (DV 28.3)., #KEYS
236: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
237:Let us give ourselves without reserve to the Divine, so best shall we receive the Divine Grace.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
238:One can recognise in those beings who are so lar from us the principle of our own existence. ~ Schopenhauer, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
239: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
240:Christ came in order to bring us back from a state of oppression to a state of freedom ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 3.35.8ad1)., #KEYS
241:Heavenly voices to us are a silence, those colours a whiteness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion, #KEYS
242: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
243: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
244:Self-interest is the prolongation in us of the animal. Humanity begins in man with disinterestedness. ~ Amiel, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
245:The words "My" and "Mine" spring from ignorance. How few of us say things came into existence by the will of God. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
246:All experience lies within us as passive or potential memory. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Early Cultural Writings, A System of National Education, #KEYS
247:In its essentiality all is divine even if the form baffles or repels us. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine and the Undivine, #KEYS
248:And all the while within us works His love. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Meditations of Mandavya, #KEYS
249: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
250: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
251:Pain affects us more intensely because it is abnormal to our being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Delight of Existence, The Problem, #KEYS
252:What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books. ~ Thomas Carlyle, #KEYS
253:When he says: 'Rejoice, O barren woman who never bore a child,' he is speaking of us, for our Church was barren until children were given her. ~ 2nd century sermon, #KEYS
254:As for ourselves, let each one of us dig down after the root of evil which is within one and let one pluck it out of one's heart from the root.
~ Gospel of Thomas,#KEYS
255: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
256:When a thought rises in us, let us see whether it has not its roots in the inferior worlds. ~ Antoine the Healer, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
257:If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads." ~ Anatole France, (1844 - 1924) French poet, journalist, and novelist with several best-sellers, Wikipedia., #KEYS
258:We thank you, our Father, for the holy vine of David Your servant, which You made known to us through Jesus Your Servant; to You be the glory forever." ~ The Didache, #KEYS
259:Advance our standards, set upon our foes;
Our ancient word of courage, fair Saint George,
Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons!
~ William Shakespeare,#KEYS
260:If we were all going to be equal in heaven it would be useless for us to humble ourselves here in order to have a greater place there. ~ Jerome, Against Jovinian 2:32, #KEYS
261:Love dwells in us like an unopened flower
Awaiting a rapid moment of the soul, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Satyavan,#KEYS
262:When we can draw from ourselves all our felicity, we find nothing vexatious to us in the order of Nature. ~ Cicero, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
263: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
264: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
265:Kings are men,
And they are set above their fellow-mortals
To serve us, friends. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Plays and Stories, Act IV,#KEYS
266: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
267:Let us constantly aspire to be a perfect instrument for the Divine's work. With my Blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 27 August,#KEYS
268:When waking up every morning, let us pray for a day of complete consecration. With my blessings
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 19 June,#KEYS
269:Christ tells us: The field is the world. Let us work in it and dig up wisdom, its hidden treasure, a treasure we all look for and want to obtain. ~ Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, #KEYS
270:et us obey them, but when the case is otherwise, let us uphold the rights of God and of the Church, for those are superior to all earthly authority." ~ Saint John Bosco, #KEYS
271:If we dreamed every night the same thing, it would affect us as much as the objects which we see every day. ~ Pascal, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
272: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
273:When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace. ~ Dalai Lama, #KEYS
274:An analysis of the ego convinces us that its ultimate substance is God. When egotism vanishes, divinity manifests itself. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
275: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
276:Sri Aurobindo is constantly among us and reveals himself to those who are ready to see and hear him.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I, [T5],#KEYS
277:The Age of Nations is past. The task before us now, if we would not perish, is to build the Earth. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #KEYS
278: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
279:The Lord communicates with us as we break free of our attachment to the senses, sacrifice our own will and build our lives in humility." ~ Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, #KEYS
280:When we are alone, we must act with the same sincerity as if ten eyes observed and ten fingers pointed to us ~ Ta-hio, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
281:Charity makes us adhere to God for His own sake, uniting our minds to God by the emotion of love ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 2-2.17.6)., #KEYS
282:Ego is the most formidable of the knots which keep us tied to the Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Boundaries of the Ignorance, #KEYS
283:Every one of us is precious in the cosmic perspective. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another. ~ Carl Sagan, #KEYS
284: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
285:Let us go to sleep with a prayer and wake with an aspiration for the New and Perfect Creation.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, Aspiration,#KEYS
286: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
287:The Divine meets us in many aspects and to each of them knowledge is the key. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Love and the Triple Path, #KEYS
288:The Divine's Presence is for us an absolute, immutable, invariable fact.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, The Divine Is with You, 11, [T3],#KEYS
289:They, even when they tyrannise, remain
Most dear and reverend still, who gave us birth. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Plays and Stories, Act I,#KEYS
290:What the instincts and impulses seek after, the reason labours to make us understand. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Suprarational Good, #KEYS
291:Always we bear in us a magic key
Concealed in life's hermetic envelope. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Secret Knowledge,#KEYS
292: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
293: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
294: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
295: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
296:Although the phenomenal universe exists within God, He is beyond and above it. The universe of phenomena exists only for us. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
297:As we have died with him, and have been buried and raised to life with him, so we bear him within us, both in body and in spirit, in everything we do. ~ Saint Leo the Great, #KEYS
298: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
299:The rejection of the object ceases to be necessary when the object can no longer ensnare us ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Renunciation, #KEYS
300:To want only what the Divine wants in us and for us, is the one important thing.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, The True Aim of Life, [T1],#KEYS
301: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
302:Each one of us
is the messiah of a world,
In our hands
is the medicine for every pain. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path#KEYS
303:Even as the sun rises to us and sets, so also for the creation there are alternations of existence and death. ~ Harivansa, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
304: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
305:We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can - namely, surrender our will and fulfill God's will in us. ~ Saint Teresa of Avila, #KEYS
306: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
307:Each part in us desires its absolute. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 02.05, #KEYS
308:Freedom, love and spiritual knowledge raise us from mortal nature to immortal being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Field and its Knower, #KEYS
309:He is always with us, aware of what we are, of all our thoughts, of all our feelings and all our actions.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I, [T0],#KEYS
310:The Power that acts in us is not our force. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Nirvana and the Discovery of the All-Negating Absolute, #KEYS
311:And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, John, 1:14, #KEYS
312:It is almost impossible to get rid of the illusion that the Self is one with the body. This delusion, Dehabuddhi, clings to us. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
313:It is within us that the Reality must be found and the source and foundation of a perfected life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine Life, #KEYS
314:Let us lay aside every weight and run with patience the race that is set before us. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Hebrews, XII. I, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
315:No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us. ~ John IV. 12, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
316:The Grace will never fail us - such is the faith we must keep constantly in our heart. With my blessings
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 10 May,#KEYS
317:We know perfectly well that baptism, besides washing away our sins and bringing us the gift of the Holy Spirit, is a symbol of the sufferings of Christ. ~ Jerusalem Catecheses, #KEYS
318:Our best friend is he who loves us in the best of ourselves, and yet does not ask us to be other than we are. ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, 288, #KEYS
319:Pain warns us not to exert our limbs to the point of breaking them. How much knowledge would we not need to recognize this by the exercise of mere reason. ~ Georg C Lichtenberg, #KEYS
320:Pray, and get others to pray, that God not abandon His Church, but reform it as He pleases, and as He sees best for us, and more to His honour and glory." ~ Saint Angela Merici, #KEYS
321:Each part in us desires its absolute.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 02.05,#KEYS
322:The lotus of the eternal knowledge and the eternal perfection is a bud closed and folded up within us.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, [T5],#KEYS
323:Action in the world is given us first as a means for our self-development and self-fulfilment. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Divine Work, #KEYS
324:For us, these five poets formed an alchemist mandala: Neruda was water, Parra air, de Rokha fire, Mistral earth, and Huidobro, in the center, quintessence. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky, #KEYS
325:Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace and the things wherewith one may edify another. ~ Romans XIV. 19, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
326:No one is shut out from this joy; all share the same reason for rejoicing. Our Lord, victor over sin and death, finding no man free from sin, came to free us all. ~ Leo the Great, #KEYS
327:We shall not therefore give occasion to sin, we shall not give any room to the Enemy within us, if by constant recollection we keep God ever dwelling in our hearts. ~ Saint Basil, #KEYS
328:When a thought rises in us, let us see whether it is not in touch with the inferior worlds. ~ Antoine the Healer : Revelations, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
329:Bring a thousand bags of gold coins to God, and He will only tell you: Bring the heart if you come to Us." ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
330:By faith we too embraced Christ, the salvation of God the Father, as he came to us from Bethlehem. Gentiles before, we have now become the people of God. ~ Sophronius of Jerusalem, #KEYS
331:God is indeed infinite. But he is omnipotent. He may ordain that his divinity as love may be manifest in the flesh and be among us. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
332:I see that it is the Absolute who has become all things about us; it is He who appears as the finite soul and the phenomenal world. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
333:Suffering is not a punishment, nor a fruit of sin; it is a gift of God. He allows us to share in his suffering and to make up for the sins of the world. ~ Saint Teresa of Calcutta, #KEYS
334:The light is there, and the colours surround us; but, if we had no light and no colours in our own eyes, we should not perceive the outward phenomena. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #KEYS
335:There is an immortal within us that is a spark of the Light and Bliss that are for ever. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Master of the Work, #KEYS
336:Anything which throws light upon the Universe, anything which reveals us to ourselves, should be welcome in this world of riddles. ~ Aleister Crowley, #KEYS
337:It is always our weaknesses that make us sad, and we can easily recover by advancing one step more on the way.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, [T1],#KEYS
338:Let us never lose sight of this, my brothers, that when we depart from sincerity, we depart from the Truth. ~ Antoine the Healer, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
339:Tell us what have you got from enlightenment? Did you become divine?" 'No' "Did you become a saint?" 'No' "The what did you become?" 'Awake' ~ Anthony De Mello. 'One Minute Wisdom', #KEYS
340:The insignificant veil of Maya prevents us from seeing the omnipresent and all-witnessing Sachchidananda: existence-knowledge-bliss. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
341:To be and to be fully is Nature's aim in us; but to be fully is to be wholly conscious of one's being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine Life, #KEYS
342:Ah, let us live happy without hating those who hate us. In the midst of men who hate us, let us live without hatred. ~ Dhammapada, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
343:Either let us fear the wrath which is to come or else let us love the grace we have—one or the other, so long as we are found in Jesus Christ unto true life. ~ Ignatius of Antioch, #KEYS
344:Everyone who has ever written will have discovered that writing always awakens something which, though it lay within us, we failed clearly to recognize before. ~ Georg C Lichtenberg, #KEYS
345:Jesus knew—knew—that we're carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around within us, inside, where we're all too goddam stupid and sentimental and unimaginative to look" ~ J. D. Salinger, #KEYS
346:Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken! Take heed, do not squander your life." ~ Dōgen, #KEYS
347:They shut our eyes and drive us, but at last
Our souls remember when the act is done. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Plays and Short Stories - I, Act Five,#KEYS
348:Each note is a need coming through one of us, a passion, a longing-pain … let your note be clear. Don't try to end it. Be your note. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
349:Why are we on earth?
To find the Divine who is in each of us and in all things.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, The True Aim of Life [3],#KEYS
350:One should seek the truth himself while profiting by the directions which have reached us from ancient sages and saints. ~ Tolstoi, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
351:Who can know God? It is not for us, nor required, to know God fully. It is enough if we can see and feel that God is the only reality. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
352:And the memories of all we have loved stay and come back to us in the evening of our life. They are not dead but sleep, and it is well to gather a treasure of them. ~ Vincent van Gogh, #KEYS
353:Christ our pasch is sacrificed. Therefore let us feast ... with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (1 Cor. 5:7-8)., #KEYS
354:[Doubt] delivers us from all sorts of prejudices and makes available to us an easy method of accustoming our minds to become independent of the senses.
~ Rene Descartes, 1950, p. 21,#KEYS
355:Even when we are blinded by the fulfillment of every worldly desire there may arise in us this question: "Who am I who enjoy all this?" ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
356:Friends or foes, they are all instruments in Her hands to help us work out our own Karma, through pleasure or pain. ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. VI. 435), #KEYS
357:Here dreadfully entangled love and hate
Meet us blind wanderers mid the perils of Time. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Word of Fate,#KEYS
358:Seek and you shall find.... It is when we seek for the things which are within us that quest leads to discovery. ~ Meng-Tse II. 7.3, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
359:Sin is remitted to us when God is at peace with us, and this peace consists in the love whereby God loves us ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1-2.113.2)., #KEYS
360:Systems thinking shows us that there is no outside; that you and the cause of your problems are part of a single system. The cure lies in your relationship with your 'enemy'
~ Senge,#KEYS
361:The data of the senses can bring us, is not true knowledge; it is a science of appearances. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge, #KEYS
362:The light has come and has shone upon a world enveloped in shadows; the Dayspring from on high has visited us and given light to those who lived in darkness. ~ Sophronius of Jerusalem, #KEYS
363:Conscience is said to be divinely implanted in the way that all knowledge of truth in us is said to be from God ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (DV 17.1ad6)., #KEYS
364:Even when we are blinded by the fulfillment of every worldly desire there may arise in us this question: "Who am I who enjoys all this?" ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
365:It is by suffering and troubles that it is given us to acquire little portions of that wisdom which is not learned in books. ~ Gogol, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
366:Let us give joy to all, for joy is ours.
For not for ourselves alone our spirits came ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Return to Earth,#KEYS
367:Life to us means only the way she affects our ego and the way our ego replies to her touches. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Gist of the Karmayoga, #KEYS
368:The being of the Divine has surprises for us which confound the ideas of the limiting intellect. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Mystery of Love, #KEYS
369:A secret Will compels us to endure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 02.06, #KEYS
370:Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, Romans, 13:11,#KEYS
371:In us the secret Spirit can indite
A page and summary of the Infinite, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Hill-top Temple,#KEYS
372:Our mind perhaps deceives us with its words
And gives the name of doom to our own choice; ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Word of Fate,#KEYS
373:Rules us, who in the Brahmin and the dog
Can, if He will, show equal godhead. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Baji Prabhou,#KEYS
374:The Divine holds our hand through all and if he seems to let us fall, it is only to raise us higher. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Faith and Shakti, #KEYS
375:The wisdom and love of God in turning our evil into His good does not absolve us of our moral responsibility. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Karmayogin, Facts and Opinions, #KEYS
376:The wise weep not for the dead nor the living: all of us were before and shall not cease to be hereafter. ~ Bhagavad Gita. II. 11, 12, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
377: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, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
378:All life is only a lavish and manifold opportunity given us to discover, realise, express the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Suprarational Good, #KEYS
379:The grace of God is so great and His love for us is such that we cannot understand what He has done for us ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (On the Creed, a. 4). #KEYS
380:The true call upon us is the call of the Infinite and the Supreme. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Origin and Remedy of Falsehood, Error, Wrong and Evil, #KEYS
381:As far as we are concerned, Christ's immolation on our behalf takes place when we become aware of this grace and understand the life conferred on us by this sacrifice. ~ Pseudo-Chrysostom, #KEYS
382:But He is not supremely lovable TO US in this way, because of our appetite's inclination towards visible goods ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 2-2.24.2ad2)., #KEYS
383:God, who has the power to raise the dead, is the One who permitted us to die. He who can restore life is the One who permitted men to be killed ~ Saint Peter Chrysologos, Sermons, 1.101)., #KEYS
384:The grace of God is so great and His love for us is such that we cannot understand what He has done for us ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (On the Creed, a. 4)., #KEYS
385:What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.
~ Voltaire,#KEYS
386:Let us understand that God is a physician, and that suffering is a medicine for salvation, not a punishment for damnation. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
387:All the time of our life and faith will benefit us nothing if we do not resist, as is fitting for children of God, in this present lawless age and in the coming trials. ~ Letter of Barnabas, #KEYS
388:At each moment of our life, in all circumstance the Grace is there helping us to surmount all difficulties. With my blessings
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
389:A vast Unknown is round us and within;
All things are wrapped in the dynamic One: ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Kingdom of Subtle Matter,#KEYS
390:Emptiness is that which frees us from religiosity and leads us to true spirituality." ~ Brother Lawrence, (1614 - 1691) served as a lay brother in a Carmelite monastery in Paris, Wikipedia., #KEYS
391:The land is sacred. These words are at the core of our being. The land is our mother, the rivers our blood. Take our land away and we die. That is, the Indian in us dies." ~ Mary Brave Bird, #KEYS
392:Book! You lie there; the fact is, you books must know your places. You'll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts. ~ Stubb in Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, #KEYS
393:And he departed from our sight that we might return to our hearts and find him there. For he left us, and behold, he is here. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
394:I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little further down our particular path than we have yet gone ourselves. ~ E.M. Forster #KEYS
395:Money makes us forget God. Dependence on God is true self-reliance. Dependence on money is not. The two cannot go together. It is dangerous to have your legs in two boats. ~ SWAMI AKHANDANADA, #KEYS
396:No human will can finally prevail against the Divine's Will. Let us put ourselves deliberately and exclusively on the side of the Divine, and the Victory is ultimately certain. ~ Mother Mirra, #KEYS
397:The books we love, they love us back. And just as we mark our places in the pages, those pages leave their marks on us. I can see it in you, sure as I see it in me. ~ Jay Kristoff, Nevernight, #KEYS
398:The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds. ~ John Maynard Keynes, #KEYS
399:They went out from us, but they were not really of our number; if they had been, they would have remained with us. Their desertion shows that none of them was of our number." ~ 1 John 2:18-19, #KEYS
400:This is how Scripture depicts to us the Supreme Artist, praising each one of His works. Thus earth, air, sky, water, day, night, all visible things, remind us of our Benefactor. ~ Saint Basil, #KEYS
401:Eliminate the falsity of the being which figures as the ego; then our true being can manifest in us. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Object of Knowledge, #KEYS
402:Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all pollutionof the flesh and spirit. ~ II Corinthians VII. I, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
403:The impossible is the hint of what shall be,
Mortal the door to immortality. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Our godhead calls us,#KEYS
404:When we contemplate the sufferings of Jesus He grants us, according to the measure of our faith, the grace to practice the virtues He revealed during those sacred hours." ~ Saint Angela Merici, #KEYS
405:You move us to delight in praising You; for You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
406:All life is only a lavish and manifold opportunity given us to discover, realise, express the Divine.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Suprarational Good, 148,#KEYS
407:As humans we make mistakes. The best of us are those who repent, reflect, make changes and better ourselves.. ~ Shaykh Muhammad Al-Yaqoubi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
408:Even as the hard K us ha-grass tears the hand which knows not how to size it, so a misplaced asceticism leads to the lower life. ~ Dhammapada, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
409:God meets us in many ways of his being and in all tempts us to him even while he seems to elude us. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Delight of the Divine, #KEYS
410:As we move toward death, we realize that all we can take with us is our selves." ~ Robert Earl Burton, "Self-Remembering,", (1995). Teacher of The Fourth Way, (the teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff)., #KEYS
411:Equality of soul created by the surrender to the universal Wisdom gives us a supreme peace and calm. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, Agni, the Illumined Will, #KEYS
412:Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and has released us from our sins by His blood, ... ~ Revelation 1:5, #KEYS
413:The higher we project our view and our aspiration, the greater the Truth that seeks to descend upon us. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Sevenfold Chord of Being, #KEYS
414:We must aid our parents, love and revere them, according to their human nature, but hate their moral vices and what in them turns us away from God (Commentary on John 19). ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #KEYS
415:He is not from amongst us who doesnt show respect to the elderly and mercy to the youth. ~ Prophet Muhammad peace and blessings be upon him), @Sufi_Path #KEYS
416:Knowledge is still incomplete if it gives us only an idea and cannot verify it in experience; ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Realisation of Sachchidananda, #KEYS
417:Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #KEYS
418:Our smallness saves us from the Infinite
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 07.04 - The Triple Soul-Forces,#KEYS
419:All spiritual teachings are only meant to make us retrace our steps to our Original Source. We need not acquire anything new, only give up false ideas and useless accretions. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
420:Death is strong: it has the power to deprive us of the gift of life. ~ Love is strong: it has the power to restore us to the exercise of a better life ~ Bishop Baldwin of Canterbury, Treatise 10)., #KEYS
421:Divine Mother, Do you wish us to try and intensively spread the Yoga in America?
Yoga can not be spread by any exterior means.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
422:In the night a million stars arise
To watch us with their ancient friendly eyes. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Perigone Prologuises,#KEYS
423:People must think of us as Christ's servants, stewards entrusted with the mysteries of God. What is expected of stewards is that each one should be found worthy of his trust. ~ 1 Corinthians 4:1-2, #KEYS
424:[The Lord] teaches us to make prayer in common for all our brethren. For he did not say my Father who art in heaven, but our Father, offering petitions for the common body. ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #KEYS
425:Through all ways of our being the Divine can touch us and make use of them to awaken and liberate the spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ananda Brahman, #KEYS
426:Truth is seen in itself, while God reveals it to us through the ministry of angels who 'see the face of the Father' ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Mt. 18:10)(ScG 4.1)., #KEYS
427:We rarely think of the air we breathe, yet it is in us and around us all the time. In similar fashion, the presence of God penetrates us, is all around us, is always embracing us. ~ Thomas Keating, #KEYS
428:Let us do our best in all circumstances, leaving the result to the Divine's decision. 20 May 1954
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, Surrender to the Divine Will [109],#KEYS
429:The secret Self within us is an intuitive self and this intuitive self is seated in every centre of our being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Intuitive Mind, #KEYS
430:All existence is a manifestation of the divine Existence and that which is within us is spirit of the eternal Spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, Above the Gunas, #KEYS
431:He poured forth his gifts on them all but most abundantly on us who have taken refuge in his compassion through our Lord Jesus Christ, to who be glory and majesty forever and ever. ~ Clement of Rome, #KEYS
432:He who relieves us of sin is Hari. He relieves us of our three afflictions in the world. Chaitanya preached the glory of Hari's name; it must be good. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
433:Let us attach ourselves to a solid good, to a good that shines within and not externally. Let us devote all our efforts to its discovery. ~ Seneca, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
434:Ourselves within us lethal forces nurse;
We make of our own enemies our guests. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain,#KEYS
435:Christ rose early when the day was beginning to dawn, to denote that by His Resurrection He brought us to the light of glory ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 3.52.2ad3)., #KEYS
436:he night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armour of light. ~ Romans XIII. 12, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
437:Let all of us, my brethren, be enlightened and made radiant by this light. Let all of us share in its splendor, and be so filled with it that no one remains in the darkness. ~ Sophronius of Jerusalem, #KEYS
438:Man falls not suddenly into death, but moves to meet him step by step. We are dying each day; each day robs us of a part of our existence. ~ Sencea, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
439:One has to go on till the struggle is over and there is the straight and open and thornless way before us. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Patience and Perseverance, #KEYS
440:Only a little of us foresees its steps,
Only a little has will and purposed pace. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Parable of the Search for the Soul,#KEYS
441:312. Each man of us has a million lives yet to fulfil upon this earth. Why then this haste and clamour and impatience?
~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine And Human, Karma[53],#KEYS
442:Beauty is always seducing while justice often appears unattractive. If in this world we could see justice as it is in itself, it would engulf us in loveliness. ~ George Grant, "Justice and Technology", #KEYS
443:Life-World
The Light is nearer to us than we think and at any time its hour may come. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Himself and the Ashram, Birthday Messages for Disciples,#KEYS
444:The creative operation of God does not simply mold us like soft clay. It is a Fire that animates all it touches...that gives life. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #KEYS
445:The good acts we do today, our own progress will show to us tomorrow as an evil, because we shall have acquired a greater light. ~ Antoine the Healer, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
446:To be and to become more and more what the Divine wants us to be should be our greatest preoccupation.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, The True Aim of Life, [T0],#KEYS
447:As long as there is intense struggle, there are still desires which tie us to the world. We have not realized yet its complete hollowness. When we realize that, the way is easy. ~ Swami Ramakrishnananda, #KEYS
448:Instead of standing on the shore and proving to ourselves that the ocean cannot carry us, let us venture on its waters just to see. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #KEYS
449:Sri Aurobindo is always with us, enlightening, guiding, protecting. We must answer to his grace by a perfect faithfulness.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 14 AUGUST, [T1],#KEYS
450:Both peace and peacelessness come to us for the sake of our own experience, according to God's dispensation, but we have to remain steady under all circumstances by holding on to Him. ~ Swami Saradananda, #KEYS
451:The circumstances that provoke our first entry into the path are not the real index of the thing that is at work in us. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Faith and Shakti, #KEYS
452:A dull gravitation drags us down
To the blind driven inertia of our base. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Yoga of the King, The Yoga of the Soul's Release,#KEYS
453:My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth. ~ John III. 18, 19, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
454:Read the gospel attentively and you will see that Jesus sacrificed even charity for prayer. And do you know why? To teach us that, without God, we are too poor to help the poor. ~ Mother Teresa of Calcutta, #KEYS
455:Science gives us the objective truth of existence and the superficial knowledge of our physical and vital being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Lower Triple Purusha, #KEYS
456:The truths and the symbols which represent them move in conjunction and form the living chariot that bears up (for us) the throne of the Divine Humanity. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Statesman's's Manual, #KEYS
457:Eternal Presence
[facsimile]
Sri Aurobindo is constantly among us and reveals himself to those who are ready to see and hear him.
*
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I, [T5],#KEYS
458:Let us unite our will in a great aspiration; let us pray for an intervention of the Grace. A miracle can always happen. Faith has a sovereign power. ~ The Mother, On Education, [T5], #KEYS
459:The motives that lead us to do anything might be arranged like the thirty-two winds and might be given names on the same pattern: for instance, "bread-bread-fame" or "fame-fame-bread." ~ Georg C Lichtenberg, #KEYS
460:Everything good or true that the angels inspire in us is God's, so God is constantly talking to us. He talks very differently, though, to one person than to another.
~ Emanuel Swedenborg, Secrets of Heaven,#KEYS
461:Our inner Mind dwells in a larger light,
Its brightness looks at us through hidden doors. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Parable of the Search for the Soul,#KEYS
462:Rejoicing with Simeon, let us sing a hymn of thanksgiving to God, the Father of the light, who sent the true light to dispel the darkness and to give us all a share in his splendor. ~ Sophronius of Jerusalem, #KEYS
463:We go on to say, May your name be hallowed. It is not that we think to make God holy by our prayers; rather we are asking God that his name may be made holy in us. ~ Cyprian of Carthage, On the Lord's Prayer, #KEYS
464:Pray, 'Thou our Father, our Mother, our dearest Friend ! Thou who bearest this universe, help us to bear the little burden of this our life.' ~ Swami Vivekananda, (C.W. VI. 91), #KEYS
465:Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can. Because the cosmos is also within us. We're made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself. ~ Carl Sagan, #KEYS
466:The discussion of prayer is so great that it requires the Father to reveal it, his firstborn Word to teach it, and the Spirit to enable us to think and speak rightly of so great a subject. ~ Origen, On Prayer, #KEYS
467:The zeal we devote to fulfilling the precept "Know thyself," leads us to the true happiness whose condition is the knowledge of veritable truths. ~ Porphyry, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
468:Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." ~ John Wayne, #KEYS
469:For life cannot subsist without science and science exposes us to this peril that it does not walk towards the light of the true life. ~ Epistle to Diognetus, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
470:God is not remote from us. He is at the point of my pen, my (pick) shovel, my paint brush, my (sewing) needle - and my heart and thoughts. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #KEYS
471:Since our father is related to us as principle, even as God is, it belongs properly to the father to receive honor from his children ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 2-2.26.9ad3)., #KEYS
472:We ought to be in a constant state of aspiration, but when we cannot aspire let us pray with the simplcity of a child. With my blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 25 July,#KEYS
473:We shall incur no slight injury but rather great danger, if we rashly yield ourselves to the inclinations of men who aim at exciting strife and tumults, so as to draw us away from what is good. ~ Saint Clement, #KEYS
474:Happiness and misery, pleasure and pain are transient and so the Lord asks us in the Gita to go beyond both, and this can be attained only by constantly thinking of the Lord in the heart. ~ SWAMI VIRESWARANANDA, #KEYS
475:Just discernment is of two kinds. The first conducts us towards the phenomenon, while the second knows how the Absolute appears in the universe. ~ Ramakrishna, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
476:Knowledge sets us free, art sets us free. A great library is freedom...and that freedom must not be compromised. It must be available to all who need it, when they need it, and that's always. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #KEYS
477:Let us work for the food which does not perish - our salvation. Let us work in the vineyard of the Lord to earn our daily wage in the wisdom which says: Those who work in me will not sin. ~ Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, #KEYS
478:Do not abandon us in impotence and darkness; shatter all limits, break all chains, dispel all illusions.
Our aspiration rises towards Thee as an ardent prayer.
~ The Mother, Prayers and Meditations,#KEYS
479:O Lord, eternal Master, enlighten us, guide our steps, show us the way towards the realisation of Thy law, towards the accomplishment of Thy work.
~ The Mother, Prayers And Meditations,#KEYS
480:To put into practice the teachings of our holy faith, it is not enough to convince ourselves that they are true; we must love them. Love united to faith makes us practise our religion." ~ Saint Alphonsus Liguori, #KEYS
481:A supreme difficulty is Nature's indication to us of a supreme conquest to be won and an ultimate problem to be solved ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Three Steps of Nature, #KEYS
482:Let us fasten our eyes on the blood of Christ and let us realize how precious it is to his Father because it was shed for our salvation and it brought the grace of repentance to the whole world. ~ Clement of Rome, #KEYS
483:You are priests, not social or political leaders. Let us not be under the illusion that we are serving the Gospel through an exaggerated interest in the wide field of temporal problems." ~ Saint Pope John Paul II, #KEYS
484:Ah! let us live happy without desires among those who are given up to covetousness. In the midst of men full of desires, let us dwell empty of them. ~ Dhammapada, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
485:Every grace granted to man has three degrees in order; for by God it is communicated to Christ, from Christ it passes to the Virgin, and from the Virgin it descends to us." ~ Saint Bernardine of Siena, (1380-1444), #KEYS
486:Let us die and enter into the darkness, silencing our anxieties, our passions and all the fantasies of our imagination. Let us pass over with the crucified Christ from this world to the Father. ~ Saint Bonaventure, #KEYS
487:The material world and the physical life exist for us only by virtue of our internal self and our internal life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Kena and Other Upanishads, The Subject of the Upanishad, #KEYS
488:The only way for us to have long-term happiness is to live by our highest ideals, to consistently act in acccordance with what we believe our life is truly about. ~ Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within, p. 345, #KEYS
489:All forces are to us invisible,—but they are not invisible to the spiritual vision of the Infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
490:For loving draws us more to things than knowing does, since good is found by going to the thing, whereas the true is found when the thing comes to us. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, [T5], #KEYS
491:No human will can finally prevail against the Divine's Will. Let us put ourselves deliberately and exclusively on the side of the Divine, and the Victory is ultimately certain. ~ The Mother, #KEYS
492:Our intelligence ought to govern us as a herdsman governs his goats, cows and sheep, preferring for himself and his herd all that is useful and agreeable. ~ Philo, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
493:All creation tends toward man, all mankind tends toward Christ, and, in turn, Christ, as he has revealed himself to us, tends to unite with all mankind, and through it with the universe. ~ Louis Bouyer, Cosmos (231), #KEYS
494:Beneath the person lies, even in us, that "wholly other", whose profundities, impenetrable to any concept, can yet be grasped in the numinous self-feeling by one who has experience of the deeper life. ~ Rudolph Otto, #KEYS
495:Everybody is quick to point out the oppression of others towards us but nobody wants to see how we oppress ourselves by our selves." ~ Shaykh Abdullah Al-Haddad, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
496:He is here and there, He is everywhere, He is within us. He pervades this universe. In fact, He is immanent and resident in nature. He is intra-cosmic. He rules not from outside, but from within. ~ Swami Abhedananda, #KEYS
497:If we want to have conversations with God (of course within us), is it possible? If yes, on what condition?
God does not indulge in conversation.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
498:Let us read it thus: even if you do turn your face away from us, Lord, its light is still imprinted upon us. We hold it in our hearts and our innermost feelings are transformed by its light. ~ Saint Ambrose of Milan, #KEYS
499:To follow Sri Aurobindo in the great adventure of his integral Yoga, one needed always to be a warrior; now that he has left us physically, one needs to be a hero. ~ The Mother, CWM, 15 : 184 #KEYS
500:We find ourselves in this earth as in a tempestuous sea, in a desert, in a vale of tears. Now then, Mary is the Star of the Sea, the solace of our desert, the light that guides us towards heaven." ~ Saint John Bosco, #KEYS
501:What is the best method to find the Divine who is in each of us and in all things?
Aspiration. Silence. Concentration in the solar plexus region.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
502:Believe me, the Lord is always with you. If you practice a little, He will extend His helping hand to you. It is He who is protecting us all from miseries and troubles. How unbounded is His grace! ~ Swami Brahmananda, #KEYS
503:It is necessary that the Holy Spirit enter our heart. Everything good that we do, that we do for Christ, is given to us by the Holy Spirit, but prayer most of all, which is always available to us. ~ Seraphim of Sarov, #KEYS
504:Above us, within us, around us is the AllStrength and it is that that we have to rely on for our work, our development, our transforming change. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Sleep, #KEYS
505:If we shed tears for God, does He ever shed a tear for us?
Surely He has deep compassion for you, but His eyes are not of the kind that shed tears.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
506:All difficulties are solved by taking rest in the Divine's arms, for these arms are always opened with love to shelter us.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, Face and Overcome Difficulties,#KEYS
507:Although in God there is no privation, still, according to the mode of our apprehension, He is known to us by way only of privation and remotion ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1.11.3ad2), #KEYS
508:Conscious dimly of births unfinished hid in our being
Rest we cannot; a world cries in us for space and for fullness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion,#KEYS
509:One should remain as a witness to whatever happens, adopting the attitude, 'Let whatever strange things that happen happen, let us see!' Nothing happens by accident in the divine scheme of things. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
510:Surya Savitri, who is Bhaga, stands between the Infinite and the created worlds within us and without. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, Selected Hymns, To Bhaga Savitri - the Enjoyer, #KEYS
511:The Divine is already there immanent within us, ourselves are that in our inmost reality and it is this reality. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Supermind and the Life Divine, #KEYS
512:What should we do to remain always in contact with the Divine, so that no person or event can draw us away from this contact?
Aspiration. Sincerity.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
513:Concentration on the Divine is the only truly valid thing. To do what the Divine wants us to do is the only thing valid.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, The True Aim of Life, [T0],#KEYS
514:Nature takes us as we are and to some extent suits her movements to our need or our demands on her. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Rebirth and Other Worlds; Karma, the Soul and Immortality, #KEYS
515: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. ~ St. Luke, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
516:The Divine's Presence gives us peace in strength, serenity in action and an unchanging happiness in the midst of all circumstances.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, The Divine Is with You,#KEYS
517:To know is not to be well informed; it is our own effort that must reveal all to us and we can owe nothing to other than ourselves. ~ Antoine the Healer: "Revelations", the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
518:When one discovers the enigma of a single atom, one can see the mystery of all creation, that within us as well as that without. ~ Mohy-ud-din-arabi: Treatise on Unity, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
519:I learned from experience that joy does not reside in the things about us, but in the very depths of the soul, that one can have it in the gloom of a dungeon as well as in the palace of a king. ~ Saint Therese of Lisieux, #KEYS
520:The higher Truth is all the time working in us but through the lower power - Aparashakti. It is when we become conscious of the play of this higher Power then only yoga begins. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #KEYS
521:Once we recognize that thoughts are empty, the mind will no longer have the power to deceive us. But as long as we take our deluded thoughts as real, they will continue to torment us mercilessly. ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, #KEYS
522:The universe swings again into orbit around us.
Am I looking for you or you for me?
The question is wrong.
As long as I keep using two pronouns,
I am this in-between, two-headed thing.
~ Jalaluddin Rumi#KEYS
523:We have the choice; it depends on us to choose the good or the evil by our own will. The choice of evil draws us to our physical nature and subjects us to fate. ~ Horace, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
524:When we wish to enjoy Christ we should go to meet him, and not expect that he adapt himself to us; rather, we should adapt ourselves to him ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (In John 11, lect. 5)., #KEYS
525:Words are not cubicles for truth telling. Words do not allow us to touch the face of God or define the contours of the soul." ~ Kilroy J. Oldster "Dead Toad Scrolls,", (2016). A series of meditative essays [Worth a read.], #KEYS
526:Nothing more allows of growth in humanity than to train oneself ardently in reciprocity, that is to say, to do to others as we would that they should do to us. ~ Meng-Tse, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
527:Since we are not without insight, we ought to perceive the will of the goodness of our Father in speaking to us, wishing us to search out how we are to approach him, without being led astray like them. ~ Letter of Barnabas, #KEYS
528:The contemplation of the impermanence of things, that wonderful gateway to Truth, leads us to victory over the thirst for the satisfaction of our desires. ~ Sangiti Sutta, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
529:The tests we face in life's journey are not to reveal our weaknesses, but to help us discover our inner strengths. We can only know how strong we are when we strive and thrive beyond the challenges we face." ~ Kemi Sogonle, #KEYS
530:Until we know the Truth (not mentally but by experience, by change of consciousness) we need the soul's faith to sustain us and hold on to the Truth. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Faith, #KEYS
531:Wherefore let us consider how it behoveth us to be in the sight of God and the angels, and so let us take our part in the psalmody that mind and voice accord together. ~ Saint Benedict of Nursia, The Rule of Saint Benedict, #KEYS
532:You rouse men to take delight in praising you: for you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it comes to rest in you ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, Confessions 1.1)., #KEYS
533:All things are by Time and the Will eternal that moves us,
And for each birth its hour is set in the night or the dawning. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion,#KEYS
534:If I regard myself as a martyr, I must think too of myself as that martyr's executioner; for we suffer only by the imagination of evil which is in us. ~ Antoine the Healer, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
535:Listen to the voice of duty, of honor, of nature and of your endangered country. Let us form one body, one heart, and defend to the last warrior our country, our homes, our liberty, and the graves of our fathers. ~ Tecumseh, #KEYS
536:The most deadly poison of our times is indifference. And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise Him to the greatest extent of our powers. ~ Saint Maximilian Kolbe, #KEYS
537:But as we cannot love what is outside ourselves, we must love a being who is in us and who is not ourselves. Now it is only the universal Being who is such an one. ~ Pascal, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
538:Even as death shall gather us all for memory's clusters,
All in their day who were great or were little, heroes or cowards. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion,#KEYS
539:Mind is what creates both samsara and nirvana. Yet there is nothing much to it - it is just thoughts. Once we recognize that thoughts are empty, the mind will no longer have the power to deceive us. ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, #KEYS
540:Realistic art does not and cannot give us a scientifically accurate presentation of life, because Art is not and cannot be Science. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, Poetic Vision and the Mantra, #KEYS
541:The most deadly poison of our times is indifference. And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise Him to the greatest extent of our powers." ~ Saint Maximilian Kolbe, #KEYS
542:Ever we hear in the heart of the peril a flute go before us,
Luminous beckoning hands in the distance invite and implore us. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ahana,#KEYS
543:Let us be on our guard in case, if we relax on the grounds that we have been called, we may go to sleep over our sins and the evil ruler take power over us and drive us out from the king dom ofthe Lord. ~ Letter of Barnabas, #KEYS
544:He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. ~ Aeschylus, Agamemnon, l. 177, #KEYS
545:Let us without feet, make the holy circuit round the door of the King, For he has come intoxicated with 'Am I not I?' and broken our door." ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, "Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi," Wikipedia., #KEYS
546:Lord, the year is dying and our gratitude bows down to Thee. Lord, the year is reborn, our prayer rises up to Thee. Let it be for us also the dawn of a new life.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III,#KEYS
547:All that is real in me is God; all that is real in God is I. The gulf between God and me is thus bridged. Thus by knowing God, we find that the kingdom of heaven is within us. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
548:Dearly beloved, today our Saviour is born; let us rejoice. Sadness should have no place on the birthday of life. The fear of death has been swallowed up; life brings us joy with the promise of eternal happiness. ~ Leo the Great, #KEYS
549:Holiness had to be brought to man by the humanity assumed by one who was God, so that God might overcome the tyrant by force and so deliver us and lead us back to himself through the mediation of his Son. ~ Gregory of Nazianzen, #KEYS
550:The reactions of the normal mind are a degradation of the divine values which would but for this degradation make this truth evident to us. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Way of Equality, #KEYS
551:We perceive that this miraculous development is not the result of our own efforts: an eternal Perfection is moulding us into its own image
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Four Aids [63],#KEYS
552:All the kingdoms of this world are worth nothing to me. It is better for me to die in Christ Jesus than to be king over the ends of the earth. I seek him who died for our sake, I desire him who rose for us. ~ Ignatius of Antioch, #KEYS
553:Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves. ~ T S Eliot, #KEYS
554:And the Lord Jehovah said, "Behold, the man is become as one of us...and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever ~ Genesis, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
555:As thou wrappest thy cloak about thee, feel yet greater love to God, Who alike in summer and in winter has given us coverings convenient for us, at once to preserve our life, and to cover what is unseemly. ~ Saint Basil the Great, #KEYS
556:He that loveth not, Knoweth not God; for God is Love. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us. God is Love; and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God and God in him. ~ Yeshua (Jesus Christ), #KEYS
557:That which was revealed to Moses in the bush, we see accomplished here and strange manner. The Virgin bore Fire within her, yet was not consumed, when she gave birth to the Benefactor Who brings us light. ~ Saint John of Damascus, #KEYS
558:The mind of the most rational among us may be compared to a stormy ocean of passionate convictions based on desire, upon which float perilously a few tiny boats carrying a cargo of scientifically tested beliefs. ~ Bertrand Russell, #KEYS
559:When Christ came, he banished the devil from our hearts, in order to build in them a temple for himself. Let us therefore do what we can with his help, so that our evil deeds will not deface that temple. ~ Saint Caesarius of Arles, #KEYS
560:In each human being there is a beast crouching ready to manifest at the slightest unwatchfulness. The only remedy us a constant vigilance. With my blessings.
~ The Mother, Mantras Of The Mother, 18 AUGUST,#KEYS
561:Man knows himself only insofar as he knows the world, becoming aware of it only within himself, and of himself only within it. Each new subject, well observed, opens up within us a new organ of thought. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #KEYS
562:The value of our actions lies not so much in their apparent nature and outward result as in their help towards the growth of the Divine within us. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Suprarational Good, #KEYS
563:What keeps us from seeing God? Selfishness, egotism, ambition, vanity, pride. The more we can minimize these, the sooner will we come to the goal. If we can get rid of them altogether, then freedom is ours. ~ Swami Ramakrishnananda, #KEYS
564:Allah gave it to us to use it against shaitan, so use it at the start of every act. this weapon can defeat countless devils, so have faith, and use it. ~ Shaykh Nazim Al Haqqani, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
565:Let us impose upon our desires the yoke of submission to reason, let them be ever calm and never bring trouble into our souls; thence result wisdom, constancy, moderation. ~ Cicero, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
566:To sleep, perchance to dream-ay, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life. ~ Shakespeare, #KEYS
567:We must be satisfied with what the Divine gives us, and do what He wants us to do without weakness, free from useless ambition.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, Surrender to the Divine Will, Surrender,#KEYS
568:Why are we all joy when we have done a good action ? Because each good action assures us that our true "I" is not limited to our own person, but exists in all that lives. ~ Tolstoi, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
569:Destiny's lasso, its slip-knot tied by delight and repining,
Draws us through tangles of failure and victory's inextricable twining. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ahana,#KEYS
570:The spiritual path is not one where we find our way to God, but rather one where we remove everything that prevents us from seeing that we're already in the divine court. ~ Helwa, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
571:To those who accuse us of a doctrine of three gods, let it be stated that we confess one God, not in number but in nature. For what is said to be one numerically is not one absolutely, nor is it simple in nature. ~ Evagrius of Pontus, #KEYS
572:Attempts to wake before our time are often punished, especially by those who love us most. Because they, bless them, are asleep…" ~ R.D. Laing, (1927 - 1989), Scottish psychiatrist who wrote extensively on mental illness, Wikipedia., #KEYS
573:Christ tells us that if we are to join him, we shall travel the way he took. It is surely not right that the Son of God should go his way on the path of shame while the sons of men walk the way of worldly honor. ~ Saint John of Ávila, #KEYS
574:For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many and lords many,) but to us there is but one God, of whom are all things. ~ Corinthians, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
575:After all, for the greatest as for the smallest of us our strength is not our own but given to us for the game that has to be played, the work that we have to do. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Sleep, #KEYS
576:He tells us that night is almost over, not that it is about to fall. By this we are meant to understand that the coming of Christ's light puts Satan's darkness to flight, leaving no place for any shadow of sin. ~ Saint Maximus of Turin, #KEYS
577:Meditate, then, at all times on the things of God, and speak the things of God, when you sit in your house. By house we can understand the Church, or the secret place within us, so that we are to speak within ourselves. ~ Saint Ambrose, #KEYS
578:O to spread forth, O to encircle and seize
More hearts till love in us has filled thy world! ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Eternal Day, The Soul's Choice and the Supreme Consummation,#KEYS
579:Since human nature is known to us only as subject to these bodily frailties, if the Son of God had assumed human nature without them, he would not seem truly human ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 3.14.1)., #KEYS
580:The leaven of our former malice is thrown out, and a new creature is filled and inebriated with the Lord himself. For the effect of our sharing in the body and blood of Christ is to change us into what we receive. ~ Saint Leo the Great, #KEYS
581:The passions spur us on like cruel drivers, daily urging us, through our love for earthly things, to act in opposition to the Lord and our own true welfare, and to do what is pleasing to that flatterer, Satan. ~ Saint John of Kronstadt, #KEYS
582:We do not freely determine our thinking according to the truth of things, it is determined for us by our nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Indeterminates, Cosmic Determinations and the Indeterminable, #KEYS
583:We must be prepared to leave behind on the path not only that which we stigmatise as evil, but that which seems to us to be good, yet is not the one good. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Renunciation, #KEYS
584:Wisdom comes through suffering.
Trouble, with its memories of pain,
Drips in our hearts as we try to sleep,
So men against their will
Learn to practice moderation.
Favours come to us from gods.
~ Aeschylus, Agamemnon,#KEYS
585:Disapproval of that which threatens and hurts us, approval of that which flatters and satisfies refine into the conception of good and evil. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Delight of Existence, The Problem, #KEYS
586:Let us become fire, let us travel through fire. We have a free way to the ascent. The Father will guide us, unfolding the ways of fire; let us not flow with the lowly stream from forgetfulness. ~ Proclus, De Philosophia Chaldaica, fr. 2, #KEYS
587:Let us give up all this foolish talk of doing good to the world. It is not waiting for your or my help; yet we must work and constantly do good, because it is a blessings to ourselves. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
588:That Christ died for us is so tremendous a fact that our intellect can scarcely grasp it, for in no way does it fall in the natural way of our understanding ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (On the Creed, a. 4), #KEYS
589:When we get back to our true being, the ego falls away from us; its place is taken by our supreme and integral self, the true individuality. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Soul and Its Liberation, #KEYS
590:Allah 'Azza wa Jalla wants only goodness for us, not badness. But people oppress themselves, & cause trouble & problems for themselves. ~ Shaykh Mehmet Adil al-Haqqani Al-Naqshabandi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
591:I have never counted as real possessions either treasures or palaces or the places which give us credit and put authority in our hands or the pleasures of which men are slaves. ~ Cicero, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
592:Taking pity on mankind's weakness, and moved by our corruption, he could not stand aside and see death have the mastery over us; he did not want creation to perish and his Father's work in fashioning man to be in vain. ~ Saint Athanasius, #KEYS
593:That, travellers from on high, arrive to us
Deformed by our search, tricked by costuming mind, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Eternal Day, The Soul's Choice and the Supreme Consummation,#KEYS
594:There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside of them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself. ~ Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf, #KEYS
595:They, above all, are pre-eminently worthy of the name Angel because they first receive the Divine Light, and through them are transmitted to us the revelations which are above us. ~ Dionysius the Areopagite, The Celestial Hierarchies, IV #KEYS
596:Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, (1844 - 1900) German philosopher, cultural critic, composer, poet, and philologist, Wikipedia., #KEYS
597:Only the Eternal's strength in us can dare
To attempt the immense adventure of that climb
And the sacrifice of all we cherish here. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Heavens of the Ideal,#KEYS
598:We stopped looking for monsters under our bed when we realized that they were inside us." ~ Charles Darwin, (1809 - 1882) English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution, Wikipedia, #KEYS
599:In place of earth the Spirit reopens heaven to us and gladly admits us into paradise, giving us even now greater honor than the angels, and by the holy waters of baptism extinguishing the unquenchable fires of hell. ~ Didymus of Alexandria, #KEYS
600:Now it is high time to awake out of sleep.. The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light. ~ Romans VII 11. 12, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
601:Creatures of themselves do not withdraw us from God, but lead us to Him; for "the invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made" ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Rm. 1:20)., #KEYS
602:His Mercy is so great that he hinders no one from drinking from the fountain of life. Indeed, he calls us loudly to do so (Jn 7:37). But he is so good that he will not force us to drink of it. ~ Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection ch. 20, #KEYS
603:Pain is the touch of our Mother teaching us how to bear and grow in rapture. She has three stages of her schooling, endurance first, next equality of soul, last ecstasy.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine And Human,#KEYS
604:Physical troubles always come as lessons to teach equality and to reveal what in us is pure and luminous enough to remain unaffected. It is in equality that one finds the remedy. An important point: equality does not mean indifference.
~ ?,#KEYS
605:We prefer and put on almost unconsciously the garb which will look best in the eye that regards us from outside and we allow a veil to drop over the eye within. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Renunciation, #KEYS
606:'Why do you turn your face away?' We think that God has turned his face away from us when we find ourselves suffering, so that shadows overwhelm our feelings and stop our eyes from seeing the brilliance of the truth. ~ Saint Ambrose of Milan, #KEYS
607:Knowing all vain, yet we strive; for our nature seizing us always
Drives like the flock that is herded and urged towards shambles or pasture. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion,#KEYS
608:The body is given us as one instrument necessary to the totality of our works and it is to be used, not neglected, hurt, suppressed or abolished. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Power of the Instruments, #KEYS
609:This deepening of love is the real purpose of the dark night of the soul. The dark night helps us become who we are created to be: lovers of God and one another." ~ Gerald G. May, (1940 - 2005) American Psychiatrist and Theologian, Wikipedia., #KEYS
610:We seemed to be two bodies with a single spirit. Though we cannot believe those who claim that everything is contained in everything, yet you must believe that in our case each of us was in the other and with the other. ~ Gregory of Nazianzen, #KEYS
611:What a weakness it is to love Jesus only when he caresses us, and to be cold immediately once he afflicts us. This is not true love. Those who love thus love themselves too much to love God with all their heart. ~ Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, #KEYS
612:When we receive with an entire and perfect resignation the afflictions which God sends us they become for us favors and benefits; because conformity to the will of God is a gain far superior to all temporal advantages. ~ Saint Vincent de Paul, #KEYS
613:In this last day of the year, let us take the resolution that all our weaknesses and obstinate obscurities will drop from us along with the finishing year.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, Difficulties, Mistakes,#KEYS
614:Only if we grant power to something can it have power over us. It becomes a serving and sustaining potency when we again are able to place it into the realm where it belongs, instead of submitting to it." ~ Jean Gebser, The Ever-Present Origin, #KEYS
615:Our being must move eternally through Time;
Death helps us not, vain is the hope to cease; ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 02.06,#KEYS
616:The whole universe is sum up in the Human Being. Devil is not a monster waiting to trap us, He is a voice inside. Look for Your Devil in Yourself, not in the Others. Don't forget that the one who knows his Devil, knows his God. ~ Shams Tabrizi, #KEYS
617:Life is short, but the soul is immortal and eternal, and one thing being certain, death, let us therefore take up a great ideal and give up our whole life to it. Let this be our determination. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
618:Since we are only vessels of clay, we must first be cleansed in water and then hardened by spiritual fire - for God is a consuming fire. We need the Holy Spirit to perfect and renew us, for spiritual fire can cleanse us. ~ Didymus of Alexandria, #KEYS
619:The godhead in us is our spirit moving towards its own concealed perfection, must be a supreme spiritual law and truth of our nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Standards of Conduct and Spiritual Freedom, #KEYS
620:God's word is uttered by those who repeat Christ's teaching and meditate on his sayings. Let us always speak this word. When we speak about wisdom, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about virtue, we are speaking of Christ. ~ Saint Ambrose, #KEYS
621:Let us not allow our souls to relax, so that they would be free to consort with wicked people and sinners, in case we become like them. The final stumbling block has drawn near, about which scripture speaks, as Enoch says. ~ Letter of Barnabas, #KEYS
622:This groping search in darkness reveals to us the incomprehensible one as inescapably near, as the one in whom "we live, move, and are" (Acts 17:28), but who remains incomprehensible, nevertheless.... ~ Edith Stein, Finite and Eternal Being (60), #KEYS
623:When our sense of 'I' and 'mine' are about to destroy us, we are saved by following the Satguru's advice. He gives us the training needed to avoid such circumstances later. The very proximity of the Guru gives us strength. ~ MATA AMRITANANDAMAYI, #KEYS
624:Every one of us tries to discover how to sing to God. You must sing to him, but you must sing well. He does not want your voice to come harshly to his ears, so sing well, brothers! ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
625:He am I whom I love, He whom I love is I, Two Spirits in one single body dwelling. So seest thou me, then seest thou Him, And seest thou Him, then seest thou Us." ~ Al- Hallaj, (c. 858 - 922) Persian mystic, poet and teacher of Sufism, Wikipedia., #KEYS
626:Knowledge of God has entered into us and at once ignorance disappears. The knowledge of joy arrives and before her, my son, sorrow shall flee away to those who can still feel her sting. ~ Hermes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
627:The world lives in us, thinks in us, forms itself in us; but we imagine that it is we who live, think, become separately by ourselves and for ourselves. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Boundaries of the Ignorance, #KEYS
628:Do not think yourself big or small, very important or very unimportant; for we are nothing in ourselves. We must only live to become what the Divine wills of us.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, Humility and Modesty,#KEYS
629:Is the day done? Give thanks to Him Who has given us the sun for our daily work, and has provided for us a fire to light up the night, and to serve the rest of the needs of life. Let night give the other occasion of prayer. ~ Saint Basil the Great, #KEYS
630:The way of death for us was through the sin of Adam. The devil is the mediator of this way, the one who persuades us to sin and hurled us headlong into death ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, The Trinity, 4.12.15)., #KEYS
631:Agreat part of our thoughts and feelings come into us from outside, from our fellow-men, both from individuals and from the collective mind of humanity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Planes of Our Existence, #KEYS
632:Let us eat and drink, because tomorrow we shall die - but this is sensuality's cowardly lust for life, that contemptible order of things where one lives in order to eat and drink, instead of eating and drinking in order to live. ~ Soren Kierkegaard, #KEYS
633:Life-Stream
The life-world is constantly acting upon us and behind everything in material existence there stand appropriate powers of the life-world. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga: The Planes of Our Existence,#KEYS
634:My brothers, each of us ought surely to rejoice on this holy day. Let no one, conscious of his sinfulness, withdraw from our common celebration, nor let anyone be kept away from our public prayer by the burden of his guilt. ~ Saint Maximus of Turin, #KEYS
635:We say that God is our Father. In the same way we call Him Mother, and so on. These relationships are conceived in order to strengthen Bhakti in us, and they make us feel nearer and dearer to God. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
636:I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, unavailable to us without such drugs. ~ Carl Sagan, #KEYS
637:If in union with Christ we have imitated his death, we shall also imitate him in his resurrection. We must realize that our former selves have been crucified with him to destroy this sinful body and to free us from the slavery of sin. ~ Romans 6:6-7, #KEYS
638:Suffering is due only to our weakness and imperfection. When external forces affect us, if we have acquired sufficient strength to assimilate them, we derive joy from them, otherwise they produce pain.
~ Anilbaran Roy, Interviews and Conversations,#KEYS
639:When thou seest all nature sunk in sleep, then again worship Him Who gives us even against our wills release from the continuous strain of toil, and by a short refreshment restores us once again to the vigour of our strength. ~ Saint Basil the Great, #KEYS
640:All vices are destroyed by self-restraint, and whatever avarice thirsts for, pride strives for, luxury lusts after, is overcome by the solid force of this virtue, who can fail to understand the aid which is given us by fastings? ~ Saint Leo the Great, #KEYS
641:He has not assumed a body as proper to His own nature, far from it, for as the Word He is without body. He has been manifested in a human body for this reason only, out of the love and goodness of His Father, for the salvation of us men. ~ Athanasius, #KEYS
642:In a complete silence only is the Silence heard; in a pure peace only is its Being revealed. Therefore to us the name of That is the Silence and the Peace. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Purified Understanding, #KEYS
643:o let us accomplish what we know to be upright, let us keep watch over our thoughts so as not to suffer ourselves to be invaded by any pollution. As we sow, so we shall reap. ~ Fo-shu-hing-tsan king, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
644:One should remain as a witness to whatever happens, adopting the attitude, 'Let whatever strange things that happens happen, let us see!' This should be one's practice. Nothing happens by accident in the divine scheme of things. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
645:That the preaching of these men was indeed divine is brought home to us in the same way. For how otherwise could twelve uneducated men, who lived on lakes and rivers and wastelands, get the idea for such an immense enterprise? ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #KEYS
646:The zest for life, which is the source of all passion and all insight, even divine, does not come to us from ourselves.... It is God who has to give us the impulse of wanting him. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #KEYS
647:What a weakness it is to love Jesus Christ only when He Caresses us, and to be cold immediately once He afflicts us. This is not true love. Those who love thus, love themselves too much to love God with all their heart. ~ Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, #KEYS
648:Everyone knows nowadays that people "have complexes." What is not so well known, though far more important theoretically, is that complexes can have us. ~ Carl Jung, Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 8: Structure & Dynamics of the Psyche (par. 200), #KEYS
649:For whatever good work we may do, let us not claim any praise or benefit. It belongs to God. Give up the fruits to God. Let us stand aside and think that we are only servants obeying God, our Master. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
650:Let us change our traditional attitude to the construction of programs. Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings what we want a computer to do. ~ Donald Knuth, #KEYS
651:Let us take care above all not to walk like a flock of sheep each in the other's traces; let us inform ourselves rather of the place where we ought to go than of that where others are going. ~ Seneca, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
652:Most of us seldom take the trouble to think. It is a troublesome and fatiguing process and often leads to uncomfortable conclusions. But crises and deadlocks when they occur have at least this advantage, that they force us to think. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru, #KEYS
653:Tantra is only valuable in so far as it enables us to give effect to Vedanta & in itself it has no value or necessity at all. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Autobiographical Notes and Other Writings of Historical Interest, To Motilal Roy, #KEYS
654:We beg you, Lord, to be our help and our support. Free us from our troubles; take pity on the lowly; raise up those who have fallen; give help to the poor, health to the sick, and bring home those who have wandered away. ~ Clement I to the Corinthians, #KEYS
655:What a weakness it is to love Jesus Christ only when He Caresses us, and to be cold immediately once He afflicts us. This is not true love. Those who love thus, love themselves too much to love God with all their heart." ~ Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, #KEYS
656:What wonder if feel no burden when borne up by the Almighty and led on by the Supreme Guide! For we are always glad to have something to comfort us, and only with difficulty does a man divest himself of self. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, #KEYS
657:Yet is it a conscious power that moves in us,
A seed-idea is parent of our acts
And destiny the unrecognised child of Will. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind,#KEYS
658:Do not weigh down your servants with the burden of their sins, but purify us and direct the paths we take so that we go forward in purity and innocence of heart, so that all that we do is good and acceptable to you and to those who lead us. ~ Clement I, #KEYS
659:Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused. ~ Paulo Coelho, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
660:Self-Denial
Only when we have climbed above ourselves,
A line of the Transcendent meets our road
And joins us to the timeless and the true; ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Kingdom of Subtle Matter#KEYS
661:They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice... that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.
~ Arthur Schopenhauer,#KEYS
662:Be quiet now and wait. It may be that the ocean one, the one we desire so to move into and become, desires us out here on land a little longer, going our sundry roads to the shore. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
663:For things and their revolutions are like the images of a dream...So long as the dream lasts, all this world appears real to us ; the world exists no longer when the dream is finished. ~ Shankaracharya, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
664:Let us continue the fight on the day of the Lord. The days of anguish and of tribulation have overtaken us; if God so wills, let us die for the holy laws of our fathers, so that we may deserve to obtain an eternal inheritance with them. ~ Saint Boniface, #KEYS
665:Unless there is self-effort, nothing can be accomplished. The illumined souls show us the path. Isn't that a great help? But we have to walk it. If you open your hearts to us we can show you the path, because we have walked the path. ~ Swami Turiyananda, #KEYS
666:The law that deprives us of the memory of past lives is a law of the cosmic Wisdom and serves, not disserves its evolutionary purpose. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Rebirth and Other Worlds; Karma, the Soul and Immortality, #KEYS
667:There is, brethren, one God, the knowledge of whom we gain from the Holy Scriptures and from no other source. Whatever things the Holy Scriptures declare, at these let us look; and whatever they teach, let us learn it ~ Hippolytus of Rome, Against Noetus, #KEYS
668:We offer to You O Lord, this awesome and unbloody sacrifice, beseeching You to deal with us not according to our sins, and not to render to us according to our iniquities, but according to Your great mercy and love. ~ Anaphora of the Liturgy of St. James, #KEYS
669:You must work constantly, day and night devote your whole energy, and let the results remain in the hands of the Lord. Let every action of your daily life be a free offering to the world. Let us all work for others and die for others, ~ SWAMI ABHEDANANDA, #KEYS
670:Lo: Thy vast Self we name but do not know, And in the naming break the mystic spell. O Siva: If the Silence is thy Hymn, Teach us to sing it well." ~ Sunyata. "Dancing with the Void,"(2001, 2015). According to myth, sung by the Snow Maiden, Uma Haimavati., #KEYS
671:You never go away from us, yet we have difficulty in returning to You. Come, Lord, stir us up and call us back. Kindle and seize us. Be our fire and our sweetness. Let us love. Let us run." ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
672:And by sleep the human example teaches us that we mean not a suspension of consciousness, but its gathering inward away from conscious physical response to the impacts of external things. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine 1.10-14, #KEYS
673:Faith adheres to all the articles of faith by reason of one medium: the First Truth proposed to us in Scriptures, according to the teaching of the Church who well understands them ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 2-2.5.3.ad2)., #KEYS
674:Our troubles arise not from the failures of our thoughts alone; they arise largely because we have not given leadership to our hearts. We have not given to our souls the power to direct us in the right way of things. ~ Manly P Hall (Resurrection 1964, p.2), #KEYS
675:A greater Personality sometimes
Possesses us which yet we know is ours:
Or we adore the Master of our souls.
Then the small bodily ego thins and falls; ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Secret Knowledge,#KEYS
676:He saw our many errors and the damnation that awaited us, and knowing that apart from him we had no hope of salvation, he pitied us, and in his mercy saved us. He called us when we were not his people and willed us to become his people. ~ 2nd century sermon, #KEYS
677:This is the highest, all-embracing benefit that Christ has bestowed on us. This is the revelation of the mystery, this is the emptying out of the divine nature, the union of God and man, and the deification of the manhood that was assumed. ~ Andrew of Crete, #KEYS
678:Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but it is also their means of communication. It is the same with us and God. Every separation is a link. ~ Simone Weil, 'Metaxu', #KEYS
679:We cannot live in a world that is not our own, in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a home. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening, to use our own voice, to see our own light. ~ Saint Hildegard of Bingen, #KEYS
680:We want spiritual ideals before us, we want enthusiastically to gather around grand spiritual names. Our heroes must be spiritual. Such a hero has been given to us in the person of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
681:You have asked us to help You. How can I help You? What am I to do?
To concentrate and open to receive the new progressive consciousness, to receive the new things which are coming down.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III,#KEYS
682:Actual grace is constantly offered to us for the accomplishment of the duty of the present moment, just as air comes constantly into our lungs to permit us to breathe. ~ Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life: Prelude of Eternal Life, #KEYS
683:Exactly the same technology can be used for good and for evil. It is as if there were a God who said to us, I set before you two ways: You can use your technology to destroy yourselves or to carry you to the planets and the stars. It's up to you. ~ Carl Sagan, #KEYS
684:Let us always remember the world is only the projection of the mind and the mind is in the Self. Wherever the body may move the mind must be kept under control. The body moves, but not the Self. The world is within the Self, that is all. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
685:The observations and reckonings of astronomers have taught us many surprising things, but the most important result of their studies is, undoubtedly, that they reveal to us the abyss of our ignorance. ~ Kant, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
686:Altruism taken as a rule of life does not deliver us; it is a potent instrument for self-enlargement and for correction of the narrower ego. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Origin and Remedy of Falsehood, Error, Wrong and Evil, #KEYS
687:Lest the Church be deprived on that day of the fruit of the Passion offered to us by this sacrament, the body of Christ consecrated the day before is reserved to be consumed on that day ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 3.83.2ad2)., #KEYS
688:God has to work in the soul in secret and in darkness because if we fully knew what was happening, and what Mystery, transformation, God and Grace will eventually ask of us, we would either try to take charge or stop the whole process. ~ Saint John of the Cross, #KEYS
689:The name 'Emmanuel,' meaning 'God with us,' refers to the cause of salvation, which is the union of the Divine and human natures in the Person of the Son of God, whereby 'God is with us' ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 3.37.2ad1)., #KEYS
690:The opinion of the Supreme Lord alone has importance. The Supreme Lord alone deserves all our love and He returns it to us a hundredfold.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, Man's relationship with the Divine, The Divine Is with You,#KEYS
691:Let us watch at the gates of our senses. Let us be moderate in all that regards our nourishment; let us vow ourselves to vigilance and be armed with an intelligence that no fume s have veiled. ~ Majjhima Nikaya, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
692:The longing for untouched nature is it self a product of culture originating in the over artificiality of existence. In truth, nature begins to relate to us only when we begin to end well that, when culture begins in it. ~ Romano Guardini, Letters from Lake Como, #KEYS
693:They leap out like stars in their brightness,
Lights that we think our own, yet they are but tokens and counters,
Signs of the Forces that flow through us serving a Power that is secret. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, Ilion,#KEYS
694:And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 John, 5:14-15, #KEYS
695:Each [animal] knows naturally what is salutary and marvelously appropriates what suits its nature. Virtues exist in us also by nature, and the soul has affinity with them not by education, but by nature herself. ~ Basil of Caesarea, On the Hexameron, Homily 9.3-4, #KEYS
696:It is the one Infinite that appears to us as the many finite: the creation adds nothing to the Infinite; it remains after creation what it was before. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
697:The Word who became all things for us is close to us, our Lord Jesus Christ who promises to remain with us always. He cries out, saying: "See, I am with you all the days of this age." He is himself the shepherd, the high priest, the way and the door. ~ Athanasius, #KEYS
698:A being appears, it has an epiphany: in that it is beautiful and makes us marvel. In appearing it gives itself, it delivers itself to us: it is good. And in giving itself up, it speaks itself, it unveils itself: it is true.... ~ Hans Urs von Balthasar, My Work 116, #KEYS
699:Beloved, let us give thanks to God the Father, through his Son, in the Holy Spirit, because in his great love for us he took pity on us, and when we were dead in our sins he brought us to life with Christ, so that in him we might be a new creation. ~ Leo the Great, #KEYS
700:Let us cast aside the opulence of this world; let us have recourse to only that portion of it that serves a good end; let us gain our lives by acts of charity; let us share what we have with the poor that we may be rich in the bounty of heaven. ~ Gregory Nazianzen, #KEYS
701:Let us have always in our hearts this thought: I am a man and nothing that interests humanity is foreign to me. We have a common birth; our society resembles the stones of a road that sustain each other. ~ Seneca, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
702: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, Savitri, Nirvana and the Discovery of the All-Negating Absolute,#KEYS
703:We are bidden to 'put on Christ', to become like God. That is, whether we like it or not, God intends to give us what we need, not what we now think we want. Once more, we are embarrassed by the intolerable compliment, by too much love, not too little. ~ C S Lewis, #KEYS
704:Every philosophical interpretation of participation is us at bottom a presentiment or expression of the problem of the transcendentals, of the absolutely universal givens of reality. ~ Louis Bertrand Geiger, La Participation dans la Philosophie de S. Thomas d'Aquin, #KEYS
705:There is a road in the hearts of all of us, hidden and seldom traveled, which leads to an unknown, secret place." ~ Luther Standing Bear, (1868 - 1939) a Sicangu and Oglala Lakota chief, author, educator, philosopher, and actor of the twentieth century," Wikipedia., #KEYS
706:Agatha, the name of our saint, means 'good.' She was truly good, for she lived as a child of God. She was also given as the gift of God, the source of all goodness to her bridegroom, Christ, and to us. For she grants us a share in her goodness. ~ Methodius of Sicily, #KEYS
707:Ananke's engines organising Chance,
Channels perverse of a stupendous Will,
Tools of the Unknown who use us as their tools, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 02.05,#KEYS
708:Let us follow in his paths by the guidance of the Gospel; then we shall deserve to see him who has called us into his kingdom. If we wish to attain a dwelling-place in his kingdom we shall not reach it unless we hasten there by our good deeds. ~ Rule of St. Benedict, #KEYS
709:When we render natural and easy to us perfect concentration (or the operation which consists in fixing attention, contemplation and meditation), a power of exact discernment develops. ~ Patanjali : Aphroisms.III. 9, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
710:You have labored to make right that which is external (al-zahir) and were afraid of the lion, while we have labored to make right that which is within (al-batin) and the lion was afraid of us." ~ Imam al-Ghazali, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
711:For us, philosophy has become something like an intellectual exercise; for the Greeks it was not an external decoration of life but the inner beauty of the latter and an elucidation of it psychophysical and social structure. ~ Pavel Florensky, The Meaning of Idealism, #KEYS
712:Human beings know themselves only in so far as they know the world; they perceive the world only in themselves, and themselves only in the world. Every new object, clearly seen, opens up a new organ of perception in us ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 'Significant Help', #KEYS
713:Our own effort is roused from slothful sleep by the restlessness of heretics, forcing us to examine the Scriptures more carefully, lest they use them to harm the flock of Christ ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, Letter 194 to Sixtus)., #KEYS
714:Spiritual freedom is not the egoistic assertion of our separate mind and life but obedience to the Divine Truth in ourself and our members and in all around us. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, Conditions for the Coming of a Spiritual Age, #KEYS
715:You alone can give us these gifts and confer these favors on us. We put our trust in you through Jesus Christ, our high priest, the guardian of our souls. Through him be glory and majesty to you now and through all generations until the end of time. Amen. ~ Clement I, #KEYS
716:In those days Christ was present to the Israelites as he followed them, but he is present to us in a much deeper sense. The Lord was with them because of the favor he showed to Moses; now he is with us, but not simply because of your obedience. ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #KEYS
717:The spirits of Angels are indeed [like us] bounded by space, yet their knowledge extends far above us beyond comparison; for they expand by external and internal knowing, since they contemplate the very source of knowledge itself. ~ Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job 2, #KEYS
718:In two ways, therefore, the eternal light makes himself known to the world, by Scripture and by what is created. Not otherwise is divine knowledge renewed in us except by the writings of divine Scripture and the sight of the creature. ~ Eriugena, Homilia in Johannem 11, #KEYS
719:May our blessed Lord Jesus Christ reign! Gaudeamus omnes; let us all rejoice who are in the service of the Most High, because the great visitation and reformation of the world is approaching when there shall be only one fold and one Shepherd." ~ Saint Francis di Paola., #KEYS
720:Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other." ~ 14th Dalai Lama, (b. 1935), Recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and the US Congressional Gold Medal in 2006, Lives as a refugee in India, Wikipedia., #KEYS
721:Because of us he was deprived of his glory for a little while, the glory that was his as the Father's only-begotten Son, but through the cross this glory is seen to have been restored to him in a certain way in the body that he had assumed. ~ Saint Anastasius of Antioch, #KEYS
722:How shall we conquer the old man in us? When the flower becomes a fruit, the petals fall of themselves; so when the divinity increases in us, all the weaknesses of human nature vanish of their own accord. ~ Ramakrishna, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
723:If we both see that what you say is true, and we both see that what I say is true, then where do we see that? Not I in you, nor you in me, but both of us in that unalterable truth that is above our minds. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
724:Let us add that nature is given its full significance only if it is looked at as offering us a means of rising up to the knowledge of divine truths, which is precisely the essential function which we have recognized in symbolism. ~ Rene Guenon, Symbols of Sacred Science #KEYS
725:Once the masterpiece has emerged, the lesser works surrounding it fall into place; and it then gives the impression of having been led up to and foreseeable, though actually it is inconceivable ~ or, rather, it can only be conceived of once it is there for us to see it., #KEYS
726:Since this fountain, this source of life, this table surrounds us with untold blessings and fills us with the gifts of the Spirit, let us approach it with sincerity of heart and purity of conscience to receive grace and mercy in our time of need. ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #KEYS
727:That lives within us by ourselves unseen;
Only sometimes a holier influence comes,
A tide of mightier surgings bears our lives
And a diviner Presence moves the soul. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Secret Knowledge,#KEYS
728:The chastisements of God will fall upon us in diverse manners. The plague, the trouble, the spilled blood. There will be in our France a frightful reversal! Nevertheless those days will be abrogated in favor of the just." ~ Ven. Mother Marie Josepha of Bourg, (1788-1862), #KEYS
729:We would like to see the world around us as beautiful as we know it could be, but this cannot be achieved until the soul world within us is as beautiful as it must be to transform the outer surface of things. ~ Manly P. Hall Lecture #KEYS
730:A thunder rolling mid the hills of God,
Tireless, severe is their tremendous Voice:
Exceeding us, to exceed ourselves they call
And bid us rise incessantly above. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Heavens of the Ideal,#KEYS
731:In the first year, mistress of treasure and filled with blessings, — let the Cherubim give thanks with us, they who bear — the Son in glory Who gave up His glorious state — and toiled and found the sheep that was lost — to Him be thanksgiving! ~ Ephraim the Syrian, #KEYS
732:Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and to know that everything in life has a purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings to us to learn from." ~ Elizabeth Kubler Ross, (1926-2004) a Swiss-American psychiatrist, Wikipedia., #KEYS
733:Love and compassion are the true religions to me. But to develop this, we do not need to believe in any religion." ~ 14th Dalai Lama, (b. 1935), Recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and the US Congressional Gold Medal in 2006, Lives as a refugee in India, Wikipedia., #KEYS
734:The sacrifice and the divine return for our sacrifice then become a gladly accepted means towards our last perfection; for it is recognised now as the road to the fulfilment in us of the eternal purpose.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
735:What is soul and in what form does it exist in us?
The first form of the soul is a spark of light from the Divine. By evolution it becomes an individualised being and then it can take the form it wants.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
736:Our natural desire for the good ... is itself and original participation in God's love operating within us, moving us from within. This immanent ideal that we call nature... frees us, by virtue of its being a participation in God's creative word of love ~ David L Schindler, #KEYS
737:We do not know where death awaits us; so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave." ~ Michel de Montaigne, (1533 - 1592) French philosopher of the French Renaissance, Wikipedia, #KEYS
738:A being appears, it has an epiphany: in that it is beautiful... In appearing it gives itself, it delivers itself to us: it is good. In giving itself up, it speaks itself, it unveils itself: it is true (in itself, but in the other to which it reveals itself). ~ Von Balthasar, #KEYS
739:God is, or He is not. But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? ~ Blaise Pascal, #KEYS
740:In tasting gall Jesus took on himself the bitterness and toil of man's mortal, painful life. By drinking vinegar he made his own the degradation men had suffered, and in the same act gave us the grace to better our condition treatise ~ Theodoret of Cyr, On the Incarnation)., #KEYS
741:Lear n to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from." ~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, (1926 - 2004) Swiss-American psychiatrist, Wikipedia., #KEYS
742:Prophets and incarnations who have come and gone have shown us one thing, that we too can become heirs of knowledge and power like themselves - if we only have the will. If we struggle, walking the path taken by them, we too will reach that goal one day. ~ Swami Saradananda, #KEYS
743:Religion is not merely [human]; it is but the... elevated expression taken in us by a manner of being which is necessarily the manner of being of all things. The different aspects which it assumes in us are in continuity with the constitution of the universe. ~ Emile Mersch, #KEYS
744:Sacred Scripture does not present divine things to us under sensible images so that our intellect may stop with them, but that it may rise from them to immaterial things ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (On Boethius' De Trinitate, q. 6, a. 2 ad 1)., #KEYS
745:Scripture tells you: You shall speak of these commandments when you sit in your house, and when you walk along the way, and when you lie down, and when you get up. Let us then speak of the Lord Jesus, for he is wisdom, he is the word, the Word indeed of God. ~ Saint Ambrose, #KEYS
746:The Apostles were many and to only one of them did he say Feed my sheep. May it never happen that we truly lack good shepherds! May it never happen to us! May God's loving kindness never fail to provide them! ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
747:Then will the other great Bible of God, the Book of Nature, become transparent to us, when we regard the forms of matter as words, as symbols, valuable only as being the expression, an unrolled but yet a glorious fragment, of the wisdom of the Supreme Being. ~ S T Coleridge, #KEYS
748:Awe is a sense for the transcendence, for the reference everywhere to mystery beyond all things. It enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine…. What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, What Is Man? (89), #KEYS
749:Let us remember that the automatic machine is the precise economic equivalent of slave labor this will produce an unemployment situation in comparison with which the depression of the thirties will seem a pleasant joke.
~ Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings, 1954,#KEYS
750:Lure of the Infinite
With a hundred marvellous faces
Always he lures us to love him, always he draws us to pleasure
Leaving remembrance and anguish behind for our only treasure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems: Ahana, Lure of the Infinite#KEYS
751:There are no part-time contemplatives. To live in the presence of God should be as natural for a Christian as to breathe the air that surrounds us; it is the spontaneous expression of our love... when we know that we are a child of God. ~ Abhishiktananda (Henri Le Saux, OSB), #KEYS
752:An ancient tale of woe can move us still,
We keep the ache of breasts that breathe no more,
We are shaken by the sight of human pain,
And share the miseries that others feel. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Word of Fate,#KEYS
753:Be resigned to the Mother. Pray to Her earnestly, crying like a child, and you will discover the Light. Whenever we asked the Master, he told us also: ''Pray sincerely to the Mother, and She will straighten the path". He gave us this advice again and again. ~ Swami Shivananda, #KEYS
754:In our present life of Nature, in our externalised surface existence, it is the world that seems to create us; but in the turn to the spiritual life it is we who must create ourselves and our world. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine Life, #KEYS
755:Many times we despise someone without any reason. Why? Simply, because that person personifies some errors that we carry well hidden within and we do not like that person exhibiting them. In fact, deep within us, we carry the errors that we blame others for. ~ Samael Aun Weor, #KEYS
756:Our Savior was born today: let us be glad. For there is no proper place for sadness, when we keep the birthday of the Life, which destroys the fear of mortality and brings to us the joy of promised eternity. No one is kept from sharing in this happiness. ~ Saint Leo the Great, #KEYS
757:The Divine is present among us. When we remember Him always He gives us the strength to face all circumstances with perfect peace and equanimity. Become aware of the Presence and your difficulties will disappear.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
758:There is a genius within every one of us - we don't know it. We must find the way to make it come out - but it is there sleeping, it asks for nothing better than to manifest; we must open the door to it.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1957-1958,#KEYS
759:We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch." ~ E. E. Cummings, (1894 -1962), American poet, painter, author, and playwright, wrote approx. 2,900 poems, Wikipedia., #KEYS
760:But now, if every one to whom we ought to show, or who ought to show to us, the offices of mercy is by right called a neighbor, it is manifest that the command to love our neighbor embraces the holy angels also. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
761:Faith is the mother of us all, going forward with hope following and with love of God and Christ and neighbor leading the way. If a man is among these then he has fulfilled the commandment of righteousness, for he who has love is far from all sin. ~ Polycarp to the Philippians, #KEYS
762:When we try to liberate our Selves we also liberate our not-Selves & this can lead to an experience of misery , frustration & disappointment. The pain of this makes us think twice about any further attempts at liberation." ~ William Arkle, "A Geography of Consciousness, (1974), #KEYS
763:At last there wakes in us a witness Soul
That looks at truths unseen and scans the Unknown;
Then all assumes a new and marvellous face: ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 02.05,#KEYS
764:But I contend that the disgusting behavior of many of their alleged 'holy men' relieves us of any intellectual obligation to take the stuff seriously. No amount of sanctimonious rationalization can make such behavior anything but pathological.
~ Robert Heinlein, Tramp Royale.,#KEYS
765:For those who live in pious fear and in love are willing to endure torment rather than have their neighbour suffer; and they more willingly suffer their own condemnation than the loss of that harmony that has been so nobly and righteously handed down to us. ~ Pope St. Clement I, #KEYS
766:The fear that impermanence awakens in us, that nothing is real and nothing lasts, is, we come to discover, our greatest friend because it drives us to ask: If everything dies & changes, then what is really true?" ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying", (1994), #KEYS
767:Why do we exist at all?…If there is a meaning or significance to it all [i.e human life], where do we find it? When we come to doubt the meaning of our existence in this way, when we have become a question to ourselves, the religious quest awakens within us. ~ Keiji Nishitani, #KEYS
768:A friend is more to be longed for than the light; I speak of a genuine one. And wonder not: for it were better for us that the sun should be extinguished, than that we should be deprived of friends; better to live in darkness, than to be without friends." ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #KEYS
769:And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, so that in this way the Wisdom of God, who consoles us as a mother, may refresh us from that very same bread [of the angels] and lead us through the sacraments of the incarnation to the knowledge and vision of divine splendor. ~ Bede, #KEYS
770:And this food is called among us eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake except one who believes that the things which we teach are true and has received the washing that is for the remission of sins and rebirth, and who so lives as Christ handed down ~ Justin, 1st apol, #KEYS
771:Each one of us is responsible for other living beings' happiness, besides our own. As a result, your loving kindness is the most wish-fulfilling thing in life, more precious than anything else in this world. That makes for a most satisfying, fulfilling life. ~ Lama Zopa Rinpoche, #KEYS
772:God is not only inside us; He is both inside and outside. The Divine Mother showed me in the Kāli temple that everything is Chinmaya, the Embodiment of Spirit; that it is She who has become all this. Everything is indeed Chinmaya. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
773:The great hammer-beats of a pent-up world-heart
Burst open the narrow dams that keep us safe
Against the forces of the universe. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Yoga of the King, The Yoga of the Spirit's Freedom and Greatness,#KEYS
774:The Spirit frees us from sin and death, and changes us from the earthly men we were, men of dust and ashes, into spiritual men, sharers in the divine glory, sons and heirs of God the Father who bear a likeness to the Son and are his co-heirs and brothers. ~ Didymus of Alexandria, #KEYS
775:When a Nietzsche, a Dostoyevsky, a Kierkegaard uncovers a human universe for us, when the material universe displays [before us] the depths of the history of the earth or spaces between the stars, theological thought is obliged to broaden itself to their measure. ~ Jean Danielou, #KEYS
776:After baptism, we are called God's children. Therefore we should carefully examine our Father's characteristics, so that, by molding and framing ourselves in the likeness of our Father, we may appear true children of him who calls us to adoption by grace. ~ Saint Gregory of Nyssa, #KEYS
777:As the word we speak is an image of the Word who is God's Son, so also is the wisdom implanted in us an image of the Wisdom who is God's Son. It gives us the ability to know and understand and so makes us capable of receiving him who is the all-creative Wisdom. ~ Saint Athanasius, #KEYS
778:It is called Passover bc, when he was striking down the firstborn, the destroying angel passed over the houses of the Hebrews, but it is even more true to say that he passes over us, for he does so once and for all when we are raised up by Christ to eternal life. ~ Ps.-Chrysostom, #KEYS
779:Parents sometimes when they have gotten one, or two, or three children, fear to give birth to any more, lest they reduce the rest to beggary. ~ But because the inheritance which He promises us is such as many may possess, He called into His brotherhood the peoples of the nations., #KEYS
780:The Holy Spirit renews us in baptism through his godhead, which he shares w/ the Father and the Son. Finding us in a state of deformity, the Spirit restores our original beauty and fills us with his grace, leaving no room for anything unworthy of our love. ~ Didymus of Alexandria, #KEYS
781:We have already received from God the ability to fulfil all his commands. We have then no reason to resent them, as if something beyond our capacity were being asked of us. We have no reason either to be angry, as if we had to pay back more than we had received. ~ Basil the Great, #KEYS
782:We have emerged from this fatal numbness, this fascination with quantity... We know that the world is indeed a text and that it speaks to us, humbly and joyfully, of its own absence, but also of the eternal presence of someone else, namely its Creator. ~ Paul Claudel, 'Mallarmé', #KEYS
783:Because we find that love is work enough for us, we don't take the time to categorize what we are doing as either "contemplation" or "action." We find that prayer is action and that action is prayer. It seems to us that truly loving action is filled with light. ~ Madeline Delbrêl, #KEYS
784:Being is given to us... we do not first produce being, or make it be as for us; originally it is given as an excess of otherness which arouses our astonishment that it is at all… The metaphysician keeps alive this elemental astonishment. ~ William Desmond, Intimate Strangeness 5, #KEYS
785:Beloved, we shd never forget that we have renounced the world. We are living here now as aliens and only for a time. When the day of our homecoming puts an end to our exile, frees us from the world's bonds, and restores us to paradise and to a kingdom, we shd welcome it. ~ Cyprian, #KEYS
786:He ransomed us from our servitude to the world as he ransomed Israel from the hand of Egypt; he freed us from our slavery to the devil as he freed Israel from Pharaoh's hand. He sealed our souls with his own Spirit and the members of our body with his own blood. ~ Melito of Sardis, #KEYS
787:Let us enter into the dark, silencing our anxieties, our passions and all the fantasies of our imagination. Let us pass over w/ the crucified Christ from this world to the Father so that, when the Father has shown himself to us, we can say with Philip: 'It is enough' ~ Bonaventure, #KEYS
788:Love demands freedom. It always has, and it always will. We are free to resist, reject, and rebel against God's ways for us. We can have all the hell we want." ~ Rob Bell, (b.1970), author, listed by "Time" in 2011 as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World, Wikipedia., #KEYS
789:Mother-Earth
Is it not better
To live in the great air God made for us,
A peasant in the open glory of earth,
Feeling it, yet not knowing it, like him
To drink the cool life-giving brook ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Plays and Stories, Act I,#KEYS
790:My fellow Christians, our annual celebration of a martyr's feast has brought us together. She achieved renown in the early Church for her noble victory; she is well known now as well, for she continues to triumph through her divine miracles which occur daily. ~ Methodius of Sicily, #KEYS
791:Only a god can save us. The only possibility available to us is that by thinking and poeticizing we prepare a readiness for the appearance of a god, or for the absence of a god in [our] decline, insofar as in view of the absent god we are in a state of decline
~ Martin Heidegger,#KEYS
792:Persevere in labors that lead to salvation. Always be busy in spiritual actions. In this way, no matter how often the enemy of our souls approaches, no matter how many times he may try to come near us, he'll find our hearts closed and armed against him. ~ Saint Cyprian of Carthage, #KEYS
793:The dawn intimates that the night is over; it does not yet proclaim the full light of day…Are not all of us who follow the truth in this life daybreak and dawn? We do some things which already belong to the light but are not free from the remnants of darkness ~ Gregory the Great, #KEYS
794:The Divine is everywhere on all the planes of consciousness seen by us in different ways and aspects of his being. But there is a Supreme which is above all these planes and ways and aspects and from which they come. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I, #KEYS
795:The saying "Know thyself" means that we should recognize & acknowledge in ourselves the God who made us in his own image, for if we do this, we will be recognized by our Maker. So let us not be at enmity with ourselves but change our way of life without delay. ~ Hippolytus of Rome, #KEYS
796:A great part of reality… is open to us only in a way completely different from that in which objects [of science] are accessible. To grasp these other realities, to state truths about their existence in nature, we must actualize another intellectual key. ~ Dietrich Von Hildebrand, #KEYS
797:And so all that the Son of God did and taught for the world's reconciliation is not for us simply a matter of past history. Here and now we experience his power at work among us. Born of a virgin mother by the action of the Holy Spirit, Christ keeps his Church spotless. ~ Saint Leo, #KEYS
798:Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever newborn; you who, by constantly shattering our mental categories, force us to go ever further and further in our pursuit of the truth. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #KEYS
799:Even the smallest animals come together in harmony and peace. All these things the great creator and Lord of all commanded to exist in peace and harmony, giving his blessings to all things, but most particularly to us who have sought refuge in his mercy. ~ Saint Clement of Rome, #KEYS
800:Let us not fear to reject from our religion all that is useless, material, tangible as well as all that is vague and in definite; the more we purify its spiritual kernel, the more we shall understand the true law of life ~ Tolstoi, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
801:The five daily prayers are supposed to purify us, but it doesn't do so with many of us because we treat it like a burden to be lifted off our shoulders, not a gift that we are presenting to our God. ~ Shaykh Muhammad Al-Yaqoubi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
802:We, the ordinary people of the streets, believe w/ all our might that this street, this world, where God has placed us, is our place of holiness... We, the ordinary people of the streets, do not see solitude as the absence of the world but as the presence of God ~ Madeline Delbrêl, #KEYS
803:The Lord's Prayer is the most perfect of prayers.... In it we ask, not only for all the things we can rightly desire, but also in the sequence that they should be desired. This prayer not only teaches us to ask for things, but also in what order we should desire them. ~ Saint Thomas, #KEYS
804:There is not one God for us and another for you, but he alone is God who led your fathers out of Egypt with a strong hand and a high arm. Nor have we trusted any other, for there is no other but him, in whom you also have trusted, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ~ Saint Justin, #KEYS
805:We must seek out with much research the things that can save us. Let us flee perfectly from all the works of lawlessness, in case the works of lawlessness overtake us, and let us hate the deception of this present time, so that in the future we may be loved. ~ Letter of Barnabas, #KEYS
806:History instructs us, the law teaches, prophecy foretells, correction punishes, morality persuades; but the book of psalms goes further. It is medicine for our spiritual health. Whoever reads it will find in it a medicine to cure the wounds caused by his own passions. ~ Saint Ambrose, #KEYS
807:Trials and tribulations offer us a chance to make reparation for our past faults and sins. On such occasions the Lord comes to us like a physician to heal the wounds left by our sins. Tribulation is the divine medicine." ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
808:Make of us the hero warriors we aspire to become. May we fight successfully the great battle of the future that is to be born, against the past that seeks to endure, so that the new things may manifest and we be ready to receive them.
~ The Mother, On Education,#KEYS
809:One on another we prey and one by another are mighty.
This is the world and we have not made it; if it is evil,
Blame first the gods; but for us, we must live by its laws or we perish. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion,#KEYS
810:Tat savitur varam rupam jyotih parasya dhimahi
yannah satyena dipayet.1
1. Let us meditate on the most auspicious form of Savitri, on the light of the Supreme which shall illumine us with the Truth. ~ Sri Aurobindo's translation, Sri Aurobindo Centenary Library, vol. 26, p. 513,#KEYS
811:Satsang and spiritual books have the power to turn our minds towards good thoughts. That alone, however, will not enable us to go forward with steady steps. To rid our minds of all the dirt, and to progress towards the ultimate goal, we have to take refuge in a Guru ~ MATA AMRITANANDAMAYI, #KEYS
812:We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours. ~ John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, #KEYS
813:But what is memory if not the language of feeling, a dictionary of faces and days and smells which repeat themselves like the verbs and adjectives in a speech, sneaking in behind the thing itself,into the pure present, making us sad or teaching us vicariously... ~ Julio Cortazar, Hopscotch, #KEYS
814:5. High-uplifted be, piercing through reveal in us the things divine, O Fire; lay low what the demon forces42 have established: companion or single, crush the foe.
42 Or, demon impulsions ~ Sri Aurobindo, Hymns To The Mystic Fire, 2 - Other Hymns,#KEYS
815:We have heard where Christ shines in us: he is the eternal brilliant illumination of souls, whom the Father sent into the world so that his face should shine on us and permit us to contemplate eternal and heavenly truths - we who had been plunged in earthly darkness. ~ Saint Ambrose of Milan, #KEYS
816:Our cravings alone keep us separated from God. Root out all desires and call on Him! If He wills that the body should die, let it die while chanting His name! By worldly standards a man may be great. But he too in some life or other will have to renounce everything for God.~ Swami Turiyananda, #KEYS
817:Our Father: at this name love is aroused in us . . . and the confidence of obtaining what we are about to ask.... What would he not give to his children who ask, since he has already granted them the gift of being his children? ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
818:Death is a stair, a door, a stumbling stride
The soul must take to cross from birth to birth,
A grey defeat pregnant with victory,
A whip to lash us towards our deathless state. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Dream Twilight of the Ideal,#KEYS
819:The Passion of Christ discloses the miseries of this life; the Resurrection of Christ points to the happiness of the life to come. At present, let us labor; let us hope for the future. Now is the time for work; then, for reward. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
820:What Nature herself attends from us is that the whole of what we are should rise into the spiritual consciousness and become a manifest and manifold power of the spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Out of the Sevenfold Ignorance towards the Sevenfold Knowledge, #KEYS
821:Lord, we are upon earth to accomplish Thy work of transformation. It is our sole will, our sole preoccupation. Grant that it may be also our sole occupation and that all our actions may help us towards this single goal. 1 January 1951 ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I, #KEYS
822:Questions bring us closer to that experience, though they are often paradoxical: when we first ask them, the immediate answer is a conditioned response. To dig deeply into these questions, to look deep inside oneself, is its own spiritual practice. What is the most important thing? ~ Adyashanti, #KEYS
823:That virtue of the soul, which is called Patience, is so great a gift of God, that even in Him who bestows the same upon us, whereby He waits for evil men that they may amend, is set forth by the name of Patience ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, On Patience 1)., #KEYS
824:We shall merge into the One from whom we came. The True One is pervading each and every heart. He Himself unites us in Union with Himself; the True Mansion of His Presence is close at hand. With each and every breath, I dwell upon You; I shall never forget You.
~ Guru Nanak, Guru Granth Sahib,#KEYS
825:God can be seen. By practicing spiritual discipline one sees God, through His grace. The rishis directly realized the Self. One cannot know the truth about God through science. Science gives us information only about things perceived by the senses. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
826:God is always inside and also outside, telling us to shed fears and worries. 'You can't run away from Me,' says He. But I am ever inside you; seek and you shall find,The moment you attain complete mastery over your passions, you will get Me within you, effulgent and blissful ~ Swami Vijnanananda, #KEYS
827:· Apr 23, 202 ~ "The heavenly sacrifice, instituted by Christ, is the most gracious legacy of his new covenant. The night he was delivered up to be crucified, he left us this gift as a pledge of his abiding presence. This sacrifice is our sustenance on life's journey." -St. Gaudentius of Brescia, #KEYS
828:We die for the reason that we are subject to death by a necessary law of nature, or in consequence of some violence done to us. But Christ did not die because of any necessity. He gave up His life by His power and His own will ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (CT 1.230)., #KEYS
829:We must lie before the Divine always like a page perfectly blank, so that the Divine's will may be inscribed in us without any difficulty or mixture. 20 November 1954
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, Surrender to the Divine Will, TO WILL WHAT THE DIVINE WILLS [108],#KEYS
830:Let us then joyfully celebrate the coming of our salvation and redemption. Let us celebrate the festive day on which he who is the great and eternal day came from the great and endless day of eternity into our own short day of time. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
831:The proper function of the life-energy is to do what it is bidden by the divine principle in us, to reach to and enjoy what is given to it by that indwelling Divine and not to desire at all. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Heart and the Mind, #KEYS
832:Blessed be you, universal matter, immeasurable time, boundless ether, triple abyss of stars and atoms and generations: you who by overflowing and dissolving our narrow standards or measurement reveal to us the dimensions of God. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #KEYS
833:Cyberspace is colonising what we used to think of as the real world. I think that our grandchildren will probably regard the distinction we make between what we call the real world and what they think of as simply the world as the quaintest and most incomprehensible thing about us. ~ William Gibson, #KEYS
834:The charm of Maya is so irresistible, it is only when God is gracious to us that we can lift the veil and get a little glimpse of Him. All Maya is localized in ego. Take away the ego and the whole structure of Maya will fall. Then you will realize a state of perfect calmness ~ Swami Ramakrishnananda, #KEYS
835:A song is a thing of joy; more profoundly, it is a thing of love. Anyone, therefore, who has learned to love the new life has learned to sing a new song, and the new song reminds us of our new life. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, Sermo 34, 1-3. 5-6: CCL 42, 424-426, #KEYS
836:If then we wish to give ourselves to the study of philosophy, let us apply ourselves to self-knowledge and we shall arrive at a right philosophy by elevating ourselves from the conception of ourselves to the contemplation of the universe. ~ Porphyry, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
837:Each of us assumes everyone else knows what HE is doing. They all assume we know what WE are doing. We don't... Nothing is going on and nobody knows what it is. Nobody is concealing anything except the fact that he does not understand anything anymore and wishes he could go home. ~ Philip K Dick, VALIS, #KEYS
838:Yet in the midst of our labour and weeping not utterly lonely
Wander our steps, nor are terror and grief our portion only.
Do we not hear in the heart of the peril a flute go before us? ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Descent of Ahana,#KEYS
839:All is not here a blinded Nature's task:
A Word, a Wisdom watches us from on high,
A Witness sanctioning her will and works,
An Eye unseen in the unseeing vast; ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 02.05,#KEYS
840:Each of us bears his punishment, fruit of a seed that's forgotten;
Each of us curses his neighbour protecting his heart with illusions:
Therefore like children we blame each other and hate and are angry. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion,#KEYS
841:ur conscience is an inner light which guides us with an infallible security, shows us everywhere the Good and invites us to cooperate in it; but the intelligence snatches it away from us under a veil whose stuff is of the imagination. ~ Antoine the Healer, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
842:Thou hast demanded of me what is this phantasma goria of things here around us. To tell thee the whole truth of this matter would take too long; it is a fantastic image which issues from a vast ocean and then into that vast ocean it returns. ~ Omar Khayyam, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
843:We sin our pleasant sins and then refrain
And think that God's deceived. He waits His time
And when we walk the clean and polished road
He trips us with the mire our shoes yet keep,
The pleasant mud we walked before. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Plays and Stories, Act V,#KEYS
844:The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die, liberty will never perish. Soldiers! ~ Charlie Chaplin, #KEYS
845:It is the one Savior of his body, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who prays for us and in us and is himself the object of our prayers.... Let us then recognize both our voice in his, and his voice in ours. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, Expositions of the Psalms 85:1, #KEYS
846:We must not be bewildered by appearances. Sri Aurobindo has not left us. Sri Aurobindo is here, as living and as present as ever and it is left to us to realise his work with all the sincerity, eagerness and concentration necessary. 15 December 1950 ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I, #KEYS
847:For whatever desires still trouble his being, he must, if he accepts the high aim of Yoga, put them away from him into the hands of the Lord within us. The supreme Power will deal with them for the good of the Sadhaka and for the good of all.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
848:Oneness unknown to us dwells in these millions of figures and faces,
Wars with itself in our battles, loves in our clinging embraces,
Inly the self and the substance of things and their cause and their mover ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ahana,#KEYS
849:The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us ~ there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation of a distant memory, as if we were falling from a great height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries. ~ Carl Sagan, #KEYS
850:What we are you cannot realise and it is a waste of time to try and do so but you can imagine (italics mine) us on the astral plane and we can contact you through your imagination, and though your mental picture is not real or actual, the results of it are real and actual.
~ Dion Fortune, The Cosmic Doctrine,#KEYS
851:The truest reason why we must seek liberation is not to be delivered, individually, from the sorrow of the world, though that deliverance too will be given to us, but that we may be one with the Divine, the Supreme, the Eternal. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Divine Work, #KEYS
852:We are commanded to live righteously, and the reward is set before us of our meriting to live happily in eternity. But who is able to live righteously and do good works unless he has been justified by faith? ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, Various Questions to Simplician 1:2:21, #KEYS
853:But if we learn to live within, we infallibly awaken to this presence within us which is our more real self, a presence profound, calm, joyous and puissant of which the world is not the master — a presence which, if it is not the Lord Himself, is the radiation of the Lord within. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine #KEYS
854:It's very important to understand what creates samsara, also called the realm of confusion. Samsara does not arise from external circumstances. It's not tied to any particular object in the world around us. What creates samsara is how the mind habitually clings to its misperceptions of reality. ~ Mingyur Rinpoche, #KEYS
855:We must find the Self, the Divine, then only can we know what is the work the Self or the Divine demands from us. Until then our life and action can only be a help or means towards finding the Divine and it ought not to have any other purpose. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, [T5], #KEYS
856:Near to the quiet truth of things we stand
In this grey moment. Neither happy light
Nor joyful sound deceives the listening heart,
Nor Night inarms, the Mother brooding vast,
To comfort us with sleep. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Chitrangada,#KEYS
857:The love for all that lives: all the religions teach it to us, the religion of the Brahmins, of the Bud- dhists, of the Hebrews, of the Chinese, of the Chris- tians, of the Mohammedans. Therefore the most necessary thing in the world is to learn to love. ~ Tolstoi, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
858:All this is Brahman immortal, naught else; Brahman is in front of us, Brahman behind us, and to the south of us and to the north of us and below us and above us; it stretches everywhere. All this is Brahman alone, all this magnificent universe.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Kena And Other Upanishads,#KEYS
859:the demand on us :::
This, in short, is the demand made on us, that we should turn our whole life into a conscious sacrifice. Every moment and every movement of our being is to be resolved into a continuous and devoted self-giving to the Eternal.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
860:In this investiture of fleshly life
A soul that is a spark of God survives
And sometimes it breaks through the sordid screen
And kindles a fire that makes us half-divine
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 02.05,#KEYS
861:Many Muslims ask what Tariqah is for. It is for our benefit, in order to strengthen our 'iman. Tariqah is the way that takes us to our Holy Prophet ﷺ. In order to be in the presence our Holy Prophetﷺ every minute. ~ Shaykh Mehmet Adil al-Haqqani Al-Naqshabandi, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
862:Nothing is so dangerous as the habit we have of referring to a common opinion. So long as one trusts other people without taking the trouble to judge for oneself, one lives by the faith of others, error is passed on from hand to hand and example destroys us. ~ Seneca, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
863:Tell us, Mother, why do things go against us?
You must not worry about these little things, and above all do not believe in fatality. These little failures always have a cause that can be avoided with a little more experience, which is sure to come.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
864:Just as when we were children, we were afraid to be alone in the dark and could only be assured by the presence of someone who loved us. Well this is exactly what happened on Holy Saturday, the voice of God resounded in the realm of death. The unimaginable occurred; namely, love penetrated Hell. ~ Robert Cardinal Sarah, #KEYS
865:We have to realize that science is a double-edged sword. One edge of the sword can cut against poverty, illness, disease and give us more democracies, and democracies never war with other democracies, but the other side of the sword could give us nuclear proliferation, biogerms and even forces of darkness. ~ Michio Kaku, #KEYS
866:These words are explained by our oneness with Christ, for he is our head and we are his body. No one ascended into heaven except Christ because we also are Christ: he is the Son of Man by his union with us, and we by our union with him are the sons of God. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
867:Above us dwells a superconscient God
Hidden in the mystery of his own light:
Around us is a vast of ignorance
Lit by the uncertain ray of human mind,
Below us sleeps the Inconscient dark and mute. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Parable of the Search for the Soul,#KEYS
868:Anyone who desires to be refreshed by the bread of the divine Word and by the body and blood of the Lord must pass from vices to virtues: "Our Passover, Christ, has been sacrificed, and so let us feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (1 Cor 5:7)., #KEYS
869:The disciples were amazed at the extraordinary gentleness and humility of Christ: for the Lord of the world stooped to speak with a poor woman, and for a long time, giving us an example of humility: 'Be friendly to the poor' ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Sir 4:7)(Commentary on Jn. 4 lect. 3)., #KEYS
870:If God is Love, He is, by definition, something more than mere kindness. And it appears, from all the records, that though He has often rebuked us and condemned us, He has never regarded us with contempt. He has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense. ~ C S Lewis, #KEYS
871:I love you. "I" is before "you" . I love you for what you bring to I. If the I is before you, that's a selfish love. Allah ta alaa teaches us a selfless love. That's why in the Fatiha you say "You we seek, You we beseech... Welcome to the Book of Love." ~ Shaykh Ninowy, @Sufi_Path #KEYS
872:Nature has given us strengths in sufficiency, if only we choose to avail ourselves of them and if we collect and employ them all to our profit instead of turning them against ourselves. Our ill will is the cause of what we attri bute to a pretended impossibility. ~ Seneca, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
873:God does not speak by these things, but by the truth itself—if anyone is prepared to hear with the mind rather than with the body. For he speaks to that part of us that is better than everything else in us. Only God, in fact, is better than that part of us. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
874:The Sruti tells us that it is no use taking refuge in suicide or the shortening of your life, because those who kill themselves instead of finding freedom, plunge by death into a worse prison of darkness - the Asuric worlds enveloped in blind gloom.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, [121 or 122],#KEYS
875:2. O knower of all things born, high-kindled, iron-tusked, touch with thy ray the demon-sorcerers; do violence to them with thy tongue of flame, the gods who kill,28 the eaters of flesh, putting them off from us shut them into thy mouth. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Hymns To The Mystic Fire, 2 - Other Hymns, #KEYS
876:If you wish to know why we must renounce all semblances, the reason is this that they are only mean to lead us to the simple and naked truth. If I wish, then, to arrive at that truth I must leave behind by little by little the road which leads me to it. ~ Tauler; Institutions, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
877:The life of men is painful only because they do not know that the soul which is in each of us lives in all men. It is thence that comes animosity, that some are rich, others poor, some are masters, others workers, thence that come envy, hatred and all human torments. ~ Tolstoi, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
878:There is one height of truth and there are those who approach from all sides, as many sides as there are radii in a circle, that is to say, by routes of an infinite variety. Let us work, then, with all our strength to arrive at this light of Truth which unites us all. ~ Tolstoi, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
879:Those who pursue attentively their contemplation have no sorrow to fear, nor can any vicissitude of Fate affect them . They contemplate this history written in ourselves to guide us in the execution of the divine laws which, equally, are engraved in our hearts. ~ Giordano Bruno, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
880:In the language of the Vedic Rishis, as infinite Existence, Consciousness and Bliss are the three highest and hidden Names of the Nameless, so this Supermind is the fourth Name5 - fourth to That in its descent, fourth to us in our ascension. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Sevenfold Chord of Being, #KEYS
881:Through thousands of years of chiseling & modelling, the lives of the great prophets of yore come down to us; & yet, in my opinion, not one stands so high in brilliance as that life which I saw with my own eyes, at whose feet I have learnt everything —the life of Sri Ramakrishna~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
882:Who will presume that he's living in such a way that he has no need to say to God, Forgive us our debts? Only an arrogant person... not someone who is truly great but someone puffed up with pride, who is justly resisted by the one who pours out his grace and humble. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
883:Behold, my son, the plenitude of the good which follows the appearance of the Truth, for envy removes far from us and by the truth the good arrives with life and light and there no longer remain in us any executioners or darkness; all withdraw vanquished. ~ Hermes "On the Rebirth", the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
884:I read [in certain Platonic books] that God the Word was born not of flesh nor of blood, nor of the will of man nor of the will of the flesh, but of God (Jn 1.13). But that the Word was made flesh and lived among us (Jn 1.14) I did not read there. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, Confessions 13.9.14, #KEYS
885:No little part of the torment of existence lies in this, that time is continually pressing upon us, never letting us take breath, but always coming after us, like a taskmaster with a whip. If at any moment time stays his hand, it is only when we are delivered over to the misery of boredom. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, Studies in Pessimism, #KEYS
886:The Holy Spirit is given in measure, not in respect to his ESSENCE or POWER, according to which he is infinite, but in respect to his GIFTS, which are given in a measured way: "Grace has been given to each of us according to measure" ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Eph 4:7)(Commentary on John 3, lect. 6)., #KEYS
887:To be at our most efficient, we need to be able to switch backwards and forward between the two modes. But ~ here's the problem ~ we too often get stuck in the closed mode. Under the pressures which are all too familiar to us, we tend to maintain tunnel vision at times when we really need to step back and contemplate the wider view., #KEYS
888:Let us sing alleluia here on earth, while we still live in anxiety, so that we may sing it one day in heaven in full security...Sing now, not in order to enjoy a life of leisure, but in order to lighten our labors. Sing as wayfarers do ~ sing, but continue your journey. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
889:Anyone who desires to be refreshed by the bread of the divine Word and by the body and blood of the Lord must pass from vices to virtues: "Our Passover, Christ, has been sacrificed, and so let us feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (1 Cor 5:7)(In Jn 6 lect 1)., #KEYS
890:Knowledge comes not to us as a guest
Called into our chamber from the outer world;
A friend and inmate of our secret self,
It hid behind our minds and fell asleep
And slowly wakes beneath the blows of life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Mind,#KEYS
891:Our Lord wants us to become sharers of his joy by our observing his commandments. He says, that my joy, the joy I take in my divinity and that of my Father, may be in you. This is nothing else than eternal life, which as Augustine says, is joy in the truth ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Commentary on Jn. 15)., #KEYS
892:Beyond a given point man is not helped by more "knowing," but only by living and doing in a partly self-forgetful way. As Goethe put it, we must plunge into experience and then reflect on the meaning of it. All reflection and no plunging drives us mad; all plunging and no reflection, and we are brutes. ~ Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death, #KEYS
893:That which causes us trials shall yield us triumph: and that which make our hearts ache shall fill us with gladness. The only true happiness is to learn, to advance, and to improve: which could not happen unless we had commenced with error, ignorance, and imperfection. We must pass through the darkness, to reach the light.
~ Albert Pike,#KEYS
894:Death makes me realize how deeply I have internalized the agnosticism I preach in all my books. I consider dogmatic belief and dogmatic denial very childish forms of conceit in a world of infinitely whirling complexity. None of us can see enough from one corner of space-time to know "all" about the rest of space-time. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, #KEYS
895:All we have to believe with is our senses, the tools we use to perceive the world: our sight, our touch, our memory. If they lie to us, then nothing can be trusted. And even if we do not believe, then still we cannot travel in any other way than the road our senses show us; and we must walk that road to the end. ~ Neil Gaiman in American Gods, #KEYS
896:Everything must be given to the Divine within us, to the universal All and to the transcendent Supreme. An absolute concentration of our will, our heart and our thought on that one and manifold Divine, an unreserved self-consecration of our whole being to the Divine alone
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 89,#KEYS
897:Beyond mind on spiritual and supramental levels dwells the Presence, the Truth, the Power, the Bliss that can alone deliver us from these illusions, display the Light of which our ideals are tarnished disguises and impose the harmony that shall at once transfigure and reconcile all the parts of our nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine and Human #KEYS
898:Our greater self of knowledge waits for us,
A supreme light in the truth-conscious Vast:
It sees from summits beyond thinking mind,
It moves in a splendid air transcending life.
It shall descend and make earth's life divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Parable of the Search for the Soul,#KEYS
899:Men must sow earth with their hearts and their tears that their country may prosper;
Earth who bore and devours us that life may be born from our remnants.
Then shall the Sacrifice gather its fruits when the war-shout is silent,
Nor shall the blood ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion,#KEYS
900:Thus we draw near to the All-Wonderful
Following his rapture in things as sign and guide;
Beauty is his footprint showing us where he has passed,
Love is his heart-beats' rhythm in mortal breasts,
Happiness the smile on his adorable face. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Kingdom of Subtle Matter,#KEYS
901:God is our wise and perfect friend, because he knows when to smite and when to fondle; when to slay us no less then when to save and to succour... There must be faith in the love and wisdom of God,... working out all for our good even when it is apparently veiled in evil. ~ Sri Aurobindo, 1984 Ashram Diary, July 3 and Augst 22, #KEYS
902:The ideal attitude is to belong only to the Divine, to work only for the Divine and above all to expect only from the Divine strength, peace and satisfaction. The Divine is all-merciful and gives us all that we need to lead us as quickly as possible to the goal.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, The Divine Is with You, [15],#KEYS
903:This is the burden of man that he acts from his heart and his passions,
Stung by the goads of the gods he hews at the ties that are dearest.
Lust was the guide they sent us, wrath was a whip for his coursers,
Madness they made the heart's comrade, r ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion,#KEYS
904:His flute with its sweetness ensnaring
Sounds in our ears in the night and our souls of their teguments baring
Hales us out naked and absolute, out to his woodlands eternal,
Out to his moonlit dances, his dalliance sweet and supernal,
And we go st ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ahana,#KEYS
905:Though the people hear us not, yet are we bound to our nation:
Over the people the gods are; over a man is his country;
This is the deity first adored by the hearths of the noble.
For by our nation's will we are ruled in the home and the battle
An ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion,#KEYS
906:I would take it for granted that everyone who becomes a Christian would undertake [our New Testament regimental orders]. It is enjoined upon us by Our Lord; and since they are his commands, I believe in following them. It is always just possible that Jesus Christ meant what he said when He told us to seek the secret place and to close the door. ~ C S Lewis, #KEYS
907:Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly and wants to rip to shreds all your erroneous notions of the truth that make you fight within yourself, dear one, and with others, causing the world to weep on too many fine days... The Beloved sometimes wants to do us a great favor: Hold us upside down and shake all the nonsense out. ~ Hafiz, #KEYS
908:The master of existence lurks in us
And plays at hide-and-seek with his own Force;
In Nature's instrument loiters secret God.
The immanent lives in man as his house;
He has made the universe his pastime's field,
A vast gymnasium of his works of might.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Secret Knowledge,#KEYS
909:It is not, in verity, yea, for the sake of the creature that the creature is dear to us, it is for the sake of the Self in all that the creature is dear. It is not, in verity, yea, for the sake of the all that the all is dear to us, it is for the sake of the one that the all is dear. ~ Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
910:The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be, and that which is done, it is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? It hath been already of old time which was before us. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Ecclesiastes, VIII. 9, 18, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
911:Let us say this clearly, my brothers, that we cannot reach unto God but by the intermediary of one who is like unto ourselves, by striving to love: God is not there where we think him to be, he is in ourselves. He dispenses love to us, he is love itself. Let us love then by him our neighbour. ~ Antoine the Healer, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
912:THOU whom we must know, understand, realise, absolute Consciousness, eternal Law, Thou who guidest and illuminest us, who movest and inspirest us, grant that these weak souls may be strengthened and those who fear be reassured. To Thee I entrust them, even as I entrust to Thee our entire destiny.
~ The Mother, Prayers And Meditations, 127,#KEYS
913:The presence of a thought is like the presence of our beloved. We imagine we shall never forget this thought, and that this loved one could never be indifferent to us. But out of sight out of mind! The finest thought runs the risk of being irrevocably forgotten if it is not written down, and the dear one of being forsaken if we do not marry her. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #KEYS
914:God's Tread
Once we have chosen to be as the gods, we must follow that motion.
Knowledge must grow in us, might like a Titan's, bliss like an ocean,
Calmness and purity born of the spirit's gaze on the Real,
Rapture of his oneness embracing the soul in a clasp ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ahana,#KEYS
915:Vainly the divine whispers seek us; the heights are rejected.
Man to his earth drawn always prefers his nethermost promptings,
Man, devouring, devoured who is slayer and slain through the ages
Since by the beast he soars held and exceeds not that pedestals measure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion,#KEYS
916:A beginner must look on himself as one setting out to make a garden for his Lord's pleasure, on most unfruitful soil which abounds in weeds. His Majesty roots up the weeds and will put in good plants instead. Let us reckon that this is already done when the soul decides to practice prayer and has begun to do so. ~ Saint Teresa of Avila, #KEYS
917:All was gold and gold and gold, a torrent of golden light pouring down in an uninterrupted flow and bringing with it the consciousness that the path of the gods is a sunlit path in which difficulties lose all reality.
Such is the path open before us if we choose to take it.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, The Path of Yoga, The Path, [T5],#KEYS
918:Sometimes we say that we met people at the wrong time. But maybe we meet them when we are the wrong person, when we have not yet met and fallen in love with ourselves. We are only half of a thing~even if we can imagine that there is a better version of us out there~and we are hoping that someone else will fill in the missing parts so that we don't have to. ~ Chelsea Fagan, #KEYS
919:Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us. ~ John F. Kennedy, #KEYS
920:Be absolutely convinced that everything that happens, happens in order to give us precisely the lesson we needed, and if we are sincere in the sadhana, the lesson should be accepted with joy and gratitude. For one who aspires to the divine life, what can the actions of a blind and ignorant humanity matter to him?
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
921:Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl through the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen. ~ Pope Leo XIII, Leonine Prayers, Prayer to Saint Michael, #KEYS
922:In order to live a happy life, man should understand what life is and what he can or cannot do. The best and wisest men in all nations have taught it to us from all times. All the doctrines of the sages meet in their foundation and it is this general sum of their doctrines, revealing the aim of human life and the conduct to be pursued, that constitutes real religion. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #KEYS
923:In fact, however, the divine 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.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Synthesis of the Systems, 46,#KEYS
924:Everything good is costly, and the development of personality is one of the most costly of all things. I t is a matter of saying yea to oneself, of taking oneself as the most serious of tasks, of being conscious of everything one does, and keeping it constantly before one's eyes in all its dubious aspects-truly a task that taxes us to the utmost. ~ Carl Jung, Psychological Reflections, #KEYS
925:I know how Gods begin, Roger. We start as Dreams. Then we walk out of Dreams into the Land. We are worshiped and loved, and take power to ourselves.
And then, one day, there's no one left to worship us.
And in the end, each little God and Goddess takes its last journey back into Dreams... and what comes after, not even WE know.
I'm going to dance now, I'm afraid.
~ Neil Gaiman,#KEYS
926:He should sanctify his soul, for it is there that there sits the eternal Beloved; he should deliver his mind from all that is the water and mire of things without reality, vain shadows, so as to keep in himself no trace of love or hatred; for love may lead into the evil way and hatred prevents us from following the good path. ~ Bahu-ullah, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
927:The book exists for us perchance which will explain our miracles and and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered. These same questions that disturb and puzzle and confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men; not one has been omitted; and each has answered them, according to his ability, by his words and his life. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #KEYS
928:The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars.
Here we face a critical branch point in history, what we do with our world, right now, will propagate down through the centuries and powerfully affect the destiny of our descendants.
In the vastness of the Cosmos there must be other civilizations far older and more advanced than ours. ~ Carl Sagan,#KEYS
929:Stronger than every obstacle and counter-argument is the instinct which tells us that, to be faithful to Life, we must know; we must know more and still more; we must tirelessly and increasingly search for Something, we know not what, which will appear in the end to those who have penetrated to the very heart of reality.
~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,#KEYS
930:We brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out,-and having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil. ~ Timothy VI.7, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
931:Let us not believe that it is enough to read without unction, to speculate without devotion, to investigate without wonder, to observe without joy, to act without godly zeal, to know without love, to understand without humility, to strive without divine grace, or to reflect as a mirror without divinely inspired wisdom. ~ Saint Bonaventure, The Journey of the Mind into God / Feast Day July 15th, #KEYS
932:People say like that [the Transcendent is something beyond Sachchidananda] because the transcendent Absolute is not only what to us is existence but also what to us is non-existence. But there is really no such thing as non-existence. So the Transcendent can be conceived as transcendent Sat, transcendent Chit, transcendent Ananda. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I, #KEYS
933:The crisis we are experiencing is unique in history. It is a world which must burst out of a crucible in which so many different energies are working. Let us thank God that He makes us live among the present problems... it is no longer permitted to anyone to be mediocre. All men have the imperative duty to remember that they have a mission to fulfill, that of doing the impossible. ~ Pope Pius XII, #KEYS
934:three knots binding us to our lower nature :::
Again our renunciation must obviously be an inward renunciation; especially and above all, a renunciation of attachment and the craving of desire in the senses and the heart, of self-will in the thought and action and of egoism in the centre of the consciousness.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Renunciation, [T5],#KEYS
935:Ultimately there is light and love and intelligence in this universe. And we are it, we carry that within us, it's not just something out there, it is within us and this is what we are trying to reconnect with, our original light and love and intelligence, which is who we are, so do not get so distracted by all this other stuff, you know, really remember what we are here on this planet for. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #KEYS
936:The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. No big laboratory is needed in which to think. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born. That is why many of the earthly miracles have had their genesis in humble surroundings. ~ Nikola Tesla, #KEYS
937:A practice that is suitable for one person is not necessarily suitable for someone else, and a practice that is appropriate for one person at one time is not necessarily appropriate for that same person at another time. Buddha did not expect us to put all his teachings into practice right away--they are intended for a great variety of practitioners of different levels and dispositions. ~ Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, #KEYS
938:Bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations. Weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us...No longer is the quest for disarmament a sign of weakness, (nor) the destruction of arms a dream - it is a practical matter of life or death. The risks inherent in disarmament pale in comparison to the risks inherent in an unlimited arms race. ~ John F Kennedy, #KEYS
939:468 - I may question God, my guide and teacher, and ask Him, 'Am I right or hast Thou in thy love and wisdom suffered my mind to deceive me?' Doubt thy mind, if thou wilt, but doubt not that God leads thee.
Life is given to us to find the Divine and unite with Him. The mind tries to persuade us that it is not so. Shall we believe this liar?
~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms,#KEYS
940:Not every story has a happy ending, ... but the discoveries of science, the teachings of the heart, and the revelations of the soul all assure us that no human being is ever beyond redemption. The possibility of renewal exists so long as life exists. How to support that possibility in others and in ourselves is the ultimate question. ~ Gabor Mate, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, #KEYS
941:When you give us a subject for meditation, what should we do about it? Keep thinking of it?
Keep your thought focused upon it in a concentrated way.
And when no subject is given, is it enough to concentrate on your Presence in the heart-centre? Should we avoid a formulated prayer?
Yes, concentration on the Presence is enough.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
942:All of us cherish our beliefs. They are, to a degree, self-defining. When someone comes along who challenges our belief system as insufficiently well-based - or who, like Socrates, merely asks embarrassing questions that we haven't thought of, or demonstrates that we've swept key underlying assumptions under the rug - it becomes much more than a search for knowledge. It feels like a personal assault. ~ Carl Sagan, #KEYS
943:The striking discoveries of contemporary science are continually telling us new things about how material creation came to be and how it continues to evolve. Although we do not have all the answers, we are clearly going in a direction that transcends the cosmology in which the great world religions came into existence. Our vision, understanding, and our attitudes about God inevitably must change. ~ Thomas Keating, #KEYS
944:The force of attention properly guided and directed towards the inner life allows us to analyse our soul and will shed light on many things. The forces of the mind resemble scattered rays; concentrate them and they illumine everything. That is the sole source of knowledge we possess. To conquer this knowledge there is only one method, concentration. ~ Vivekananda, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
945:In the past, destruction of your neighbour might have been considered a victory, but today we are all interdependent. We live in a global economy; we face problems like climate change that affect us all. The 7 billion human beings alive today belong to one human family. In the context that others' interests are in our interest and our interest is in their interest, the use of force is self-destructive. ~ Dalai Lama, #KEYS
946:Look again at that dot That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives...
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate... Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. ~ Carl Sagan,#KEYS
947:The gods we worship write their names on our faces, be sure of that. And a man will worship something have no doubt about that, either. He may think that his tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of his heart, but it will out. That which dominates will determine his life and character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #KEYS
948:A writer - and, I believe, generally all persons - must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art. ~ Jorge Luis Borges, #KEYS
949:God made Himself totally a man but a man to the point of infamy, a man to the point of reprobation and the abyss. To save us, He could have chosen *any* of the destinies which make up the complex web of history; He could have been Alexander or Pythagoras or Rurik or Jesus; He chose the vilest destiny of all: He was Judas.~ Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths, Selected Stories and Other Writings, #KEYS
950:To put it all very plainly, evolution can continue. It has already brought forth humans from amoebas- why on earth should we think that after that prodigious feat lasting billions of years, evolution just petered out and wound down? And if the ratio "amoeba to human" is repeated, the result could only be God. The mystics simply show us the stages of higher evolution leading to that Summit. ~ Ken Wilber, The Atman Project, #KEYS
951:There is nothing to fear - all is the Lord-there is nothing else than the Lord; the Lord alone exists and all that tries to frighten us is only a silly and meaningless disguise of the Lord. Cheer up - the way is open before you, shake off this obsession of illness and bring down the Divine Calm. Then everything will be all right. With love and blessings.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, [T1],#KEYS
952:A DEVOTEE: "You say that your spiritual experiences are for others to refer to. Tell us what we should do."
MASTER: "If you want to realize God, then you must cultivate intense dispassion. You must renounce immediately what you feel to be standing in your way. You should not put it off till the future. 'Woman and gold' is the obstruction. The mind must be withdrawn from it. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,#KEYS
953:We cannot counteract the harm done by mental faith in the need for drugs by any external measures. Only by escaping from the mental prison and emerging consciously into the light of the spirit, by a conscious union with the Divine, can we enable Him to give back to us the balance and health we have lost.The supramental transformation is the only true remedy.
~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms,#KEYS
954:But imagine this same vital power of expression, with the inspiration coming from far above-the highest inspiration possible, when all the heavens open before us-then that becomes wonderful. There are certain passages of César Franck, certain passages of Beethoven, certain passages of Bach, there are pieces by others also which have this inspiration and power.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953,#KEYS
955:In order to live a happy life, man should understand what life is and what he can or cannot do. The best and wisest men in all nations have taught it to us from all times. All the doctrines of the sages meet in their foundation and it is this general sum of their doctrines, revealing the aim of human life and the conduct to be pursued, that constitutes real religion. ~ Tolstoi, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
956:Our object is to change into the divine nature, but the divine nature is not a mental or moral but a spiritual condition, difficult to achieve, difficult even to conceive by our intelligence. The Master of our work and our Yoga knows the thing to be done, and we must allow him to do it in us by his own means and in his own manner.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Master of the Work, 247 [T6],#KEYS
957:The guru is the equal of all the buddhas. To make any connection with him, whether through seeing him, hearing his voice, remembering him or being touched by his hand, will lead us toward liberation. To have full confidence in him is the sure way to progress toward enlightenment. The warmth of his wisdom and compassion will melt the ore of our being and release the gold of the buddha-nature within. ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, #KEYS
958:The law is not in heaven, that thou shouldst say, "Who shall go up for us to heaven and bring it into us that we may hear it and do it?" Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldst say "Who shall go over the sea and bring it into us that we may hear it and do it?" But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that thou mayst do it. ~ Deuteronomy XXX. 12-14, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
959:We believe often that the greatest force existent in the world is material force. We so think because our body, whether we will or no, feels always that force. But spiritual force, the force of thought seems to us insignificant and we do not recognise it as a force at all. Nevertheless it is there that true force resides, that which modifies our life and the life of others. ~ Tolstoi, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
960:People use drugs, legal and illegal, because their lives are intolerably painful or dull. They hate their work and find no rest in their leisure. They are estranged from their families and their neighbors. It should tell us something that in healthy societies drug use is celebrative, convivial, and occasional, whereas among us it is lonely, shameful, and addictive. We need drugs, apparently, because we have lost each other. ~ Wendell Berry, #KEYS
961:the one thing needful ::: To know, be and possess the Divine is the one thing needful and it includes or leads up to all the rest; towards the sole good we have to drive and this attained, all the rest that the divine Will chooses for us, all the necessary form and manifestation, will be added.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Synthesis of the Systems, 41 [T1],#KEYS
962:All work, the genuine work which we must achieve, is that which is most difficult and painful: the work on ourselves. If we do not freely take upon ourselves this pre-acceptance of the pain and torment, they will be visited upon us in an otherwise necessary individual and universal collapse. Anyone disassociated from his origin and his spiritually sensed task acts against origin. Anyone who acts against it has neither a today nor a tomorrow. ~ Jean Gebser, #KEYS
963:Our human consciousness has windows that open on the Infinite but generally men keep these windows carefully shut. They have to be opened wide and allow the Infinite freely to enter into us and transform us.
Two conditions are necessary for opening the windows:
1) ardent aspiration;
2) progressive dissolution of the ego.
The Divine help is assured to those who set to work sincerely. ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
964:The soul of each man contains the potential divinity. Our aim must be to make apparent this divinity within us by subduing our inner and outer nature. Attain to him by works or by adoration, by physical mastery, by philosophy, by one, by several or by all of these methods and be free. That is the whole of religion. Doctrines, dogmas, rituals, books, temples, forms are only secondary details. ~ Vivekananda, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
965:In his book: 'Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us', Daniel Pink narrows motivation down to 3 key elements: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Without a genuine interest in what we do, we will never be proud of it, we will never master it, and we will never feel purposed for it. In short, if you are not interested, you are not motivated, and without motivation, you will not succeed.
~ Marcus Tomlinson, How to become an Expert Software Engineer,#KEYS
966:Augustine had written that Jesus is the straight path that saves us from the circular labyrinth followed by the impious; these Aurelian, laboriously trivial, compared with Ixion, with the liver of Prometheus, with Sisyphus, with the king of Thebes who saw two suns, with stuttering, with parrots, with mirrors, with echoes, with the mules of a noria and with two-horned syllogisms. ~ Jorge Luis Borges, Labryinths, The Theologians, #KEYS
967:We in the richest societies have too many calories even as we starve for beautiful, fresh food; we have overlarge houses but lack spaces that truly embody our individuality and connectedness; media surround us everywhere while we starve for authentic communication. We are offered entertainment every second of the day but lack the chance to play. In the ubiquitous realm of money, we hunger for all that is intimate, personal, and unique.
~ Charles Eisenstein,#KEYS
968:It is impossible to lay down precise rules by which a man may attain to the knowledge and conversation of His Holy Guardian Angel; for that is the particular secret of each one of us; a secret not to be told or even divined by any other, whatever his grade. It is the Holy of Holies, whereof each man is his own High Priest, and none knoweth the Name of his brother's God, or the Rite that invokes Him. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, #KEYS
969:Without you, without your onslaughts, without your uprootings of us, we should remain all our lives inert, stagnant, puerile, ignorant both of ourselves and of God. You who batter us and then dress our wounds, you who resist us and yield to us, you who wreck and build, you who shackle and liberate, the sap of our souls, the hand of God, the flesh of Christ: it is you, matter, that I bless. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #KEYS
970:A hundred times I wanted to kill myself, but still I loved life. This ridiculous weakness for living is perhaps one of our most fatal tendencies. For can anything be sillier than to insist on carrying a burden one would continually much rather throw to the ground? Sillier than to feel disgust at one's own existence and yet cling to it? Sillier, in short, than to clasp to our bosom the serpent that devours us until it has gnawed away our heart? ~ Voltaire, Candide, #KEYS
971:Heaven's Gates
Heaven mocks us with the brilliance of its gifts,
For Death is a cupbearer of the wine
Of too brief joy held up to mortal lips
For a passionate moment by the careless gods. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Word of Fate
Heaven's Gifts
A highest flight climbs to a deepest view: ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Dream Twilight of the Earthly Real,#KEYS
972:This is our time ~ to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can! ~ Barack Obama (2008), #KEYS
973:Agni is the power of conscious Being, called by us will, effective behind the workings of mind and body. Agni is the strong God within (maryah, the strong, the masculine) who puts out his strength against all assailing powers, who forbids inertia, who repels every failing of heart and force, who spurns out all lack of manhood. Agni actualises what otherwise remain as an ineffectual thought or aspiration.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Secret Of The Veda,#KEYS
974:If Confucius can serve as the Patron Saint of Chinese education, let me propose Socrates as his equivalent in a Western educational context - a Socrates who is never content with the initial superficial response, but is always probing for finer distinctions, clearer examples, a more profound form of knowing. Our concept of knowledge has changed since classical times, but Socrates has provided us with a timeless educational goal - ever deeper understanding. ~ Howard Gardner, #KEYS
975:St. Teresa of Avila wrote: 'All difficulties in prayer can be traced to one cause: praying as if God were absent.' This is the conviction that we bring with us from early childhood and apply to everyday life and to our lives in general. It gets stronger as we grow up, unless we are touched by the Gospel and begin the spiritual journey. This journey is a process of dismantling the monumental illusion that God is distant or absent. ~ Thomas Keating, Fruits & Gifts of the Spirit, #KEYS
976:We on Earth have just awakened to the great oceans of space and time from which we have emerged. We are the legacy of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution. We have a choice: We can enhance life and come to know the universe that made us, or we can squander our 15 billion-year heritage in meaningless self-destruction. What happens in the first second of the next cosmic year depends on what we do, here and now, with our intelligence and our knowledge of the cosmos. ~ Carl Sagan, #KEYS
977:Scientists, therefore, are responsible for their research, not only intellectually but also morally. This responsibility has become an important issue in many of today's sciences, but especially so in physics, in which the results of quantum mechanics and relativity theory have opened up two very different paths for physicists to pursue. They may lead us - to put it in extreme terms - to the Buddha or to the Bomb, and it is up to each of us to decide which path to take. ~ Fritjof Capra, #KEYS
978:fundamentally, all pain and suffering are the result of an insufficient consciousness-force in the surface being which makes it unable to deal rightly with self and Nature or unable to assimilate and to harmonise itself with the contacts of the universal Energy; they would not exist if in us there were an integral presence of the luminous Consciousness and the divine Force of an integral Being.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Origin of Falsehood and Evil [623],#KEYS
979:In that daily effort in which intelligence and passion mingle and delight each other, the absurd man discovers a discipline that will make up the greatest of his strengths. The required diligence and doggedness and lucidity thus resemble the conqueror's attitude. To create is likewise to give a shape to one's fate. For all these characters, their work defines them at least as much as it is defined by them. The actor taught us this: There is no frontier between being and appearing. ~ Albert Camus, #KEYS
980:Our sense by its incapacity has invented darkness. In truth there is nothing but Light, only it is a power of light either above or below our poor human vision's limited range.
For do not imagine that light is created by the Suns. The Suns are only physical concentrations of Light, but the splendour they concentrate for us is self-born and everywhere.
God is everywhere and wherever God is, there is Light. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine And Human,#KEYS
981:You only know the universe according to the amount you know the shadows, and you are ignorant of the Real according to what you do not know of the person on which that shadow depends. Inasmuch as He has a shadow, He is known, and inasmuch as one is ignorant of what is in the essence of the shadow of the form which projects the shadow, he is ignorant of Allah. For that reason, we say that Allah is known to us from one aspect and not known to us from another aspect. ~ Ibn Arabi, #KEYS
982:The faith in which I was brought up assured me that I was better than other people; I was saved, they were damned ...Our hymns were loaded with arrogance -- self-congratulation on how cozy we were with the Almighty and what a high opinion he had of us, what hell everybody else would catch come Judgment Day.
~ Robert Heinlein, from Laurence J. Peter, Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time, also James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years Of Disbelief, Famous People with the Courage to Doubt.Quotes About Priests,#KEYS
983:In India the mother is the center of the family and our highest ideal. She is to us the representative of God, as God is the mother of the universe. It was a female sage who first found the unity of God, and laid down this doctrine in one of the first hy mns of the Vedas. Our God is both personal and absolute, the absolute is male, the personal, female. And thus it comes that we now say: 'The first manifestation of God is the hand that rocks the cradle'. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
984:The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs. There is not one of them which will not make us into devils if we set it up as an absolute guide. You might think love of humanity in general was safe, but it is not. If you leave out justice you will find yourself breaking agreements and faking evidence in trials 'for the sake of humanity', and become in the end a cruel and treacherous man. ~ C S Lewis, Mere Christianity, #KEYS
985:I,40: Who calls us Thelemites will do no wrong, if he look but close into the word. For there are therein Three Grades, the Hermit, and the Lover, and the man of Earth. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I,41: The word of Sin is Restriction. O man! refuse not thy wife, if she will! O lover, if thou wilt, depart! There is no bond that can unite the divided but love: all else is a curse. Accursed! Accursed be it to the aeons! ~ Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Law,#KEYS
986:The sadhana of this Yoga does not proceed through any set mental teaching or prescribed forms of meditation, mantras or others, but by aspiration, by a self-concentration inwards or upwards, by self-opening to an Influence, to the Divine Power above us and its workings, to the Divine Presence in the heart, and by the rejection of all that is foreign to these things. It is only by faith, aspiration and surrender that this self-opening can come.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, [T3],#KEYS
987:All that the Light from above asks of us that it may begin its work is a call from the soul and a sufficient point of support in the mind. This support can be reached through an insistent idea of the Divine in the thought, a corresponding will in the dynamic parts, an aspiration, a faith, a need in the heart. Any one of these may lead or predominate, if all cannot move in unison or in an equal rhythm.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Consecration, 81,#KEYS
988:Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, 'What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.' Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope. ~ Vincent van Gogh, #KEYS
989:The three of them knew it. She was Kafka's mistress. Kafka had dreamt her. The three of them knew it. He was Kafka's friend. Kafka had dreamt him. The three of them knew it. The woman said to the friend, Tonight I want you to have me. The three of them knew it. The man replied: If we sin, Kafka will stop dreaming us. One of them knew it. There was no longer anyone on earth. Kafka said to himself Now the two of them have gone, I'm left alone. I'll stop dreaming myself. ~ Jorge Luis Borges, #KEYS
990:Help yourself during this troubled period by reading holy books. This reading provides excellent food for the soul and conduces to great progress along the path of perfection. By no means is it inferior to what we obtain through prayer and holy meditation. In prayer and meditation it is ourselves who speak to the Lord, while in holy reading it is God who speaks to us. Before beginning to read, raise your mind to the Lord and implore Him to guide your mind Himself, to speak to your heart and move your will. ~ Saint Padre Pio, #KEYS
991:And Thou, O Lord, who art all this made one and much more, O sovereign Master, extreme limit of our thought, who standest for us at the threshold of the Unknown, make rise from that Unthinkable some new splendour, some possibility of a loftier and more integral realisation, that Thy work may be accomplished and the universe take one step farther towards the sublime Identity, the supreme Manifestation.
And now my pen falls mute and I adore Thee in silence.*
~ The Mother, Prayers And Meditations, 270,#KEYS
992:Threefold are those supreme births of this divine force that is in the world, they are true, they are desirable; he moves there wide-overt within the Infinite and shines pure, luminous and fulfilling. . . . That which is immortal in mortals and possessed of the truth, is a god and established inwardly as an energy working out in our divine powers. . . . Become high-uplifted, O Strength, pierce all veils, manifest in us the things of the Godhead. Vamadeva - Rig Veda.2 ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, #KEYS
993:But if we desire to make the most of the opportunity that this life gives us, if we wish to respond adequately to the call we have received and to attain to the goal we have glimpsed, not merely advance a little towards it, it is essential that there should be an entire self-giving. The secret of success in Yoga is to regard it not as one of the aims to be pursued in life, but as the one and only aim, not as an important part of life, but as the whole of life.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
994:Far be it from us to doubt that all number is known to Him 'Whose understanding is infinite' (Ps. 147:5). The infinity of number, though there be no numbering of infinite numbers, is yet not incomprehensible by Him Whose understanding is infinite. And thus, if everything which is comprehended is defined or made finite by the comprehension of him who knows it, then all infinity is in some ineffable way made finite to God, for it is comprehensible by His knowledge. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
995:MESSAGES FOR CENTRES AND ORGANISATIONS (Suggested programme for a study group)
1. Prayer (Sri Aurobindo, Mother - grant us your help in our endeavour to understand your teaching.)
2. Reading of Sri Aurobindo's book.
3. A moment of silence.
4. One question can be put by whoever wants to put a question on what has been read.
5. Answer to the question.
6. No general discussion. This is not the meeting of a group but simply a class for studying Sri Aurobindo's books. 31 October 1942
~ The Mother,#KEYS
996:A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. ~ Albert Einstein, #KEYS
997:An ancient philosopher once said that the bee extracts honey from the pollen of the flower, while from the same source the spider extracts poison. The problem which then confronts us is: are we bees or spiders ? Do we transform the experiences of life into honey, or do we change them into poison ? Do they lift us, or do we eternally rebel against the pricks? Many people become soured by experience, but the wise one takes the honey and builds it into the beehive of his own spiritual nature.
~ Manly P Hall, The Occult Anatomy Of Man,#KEYS
998:We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming 'sub-creator' and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien #KEYS
999:A human being is part of a whole, called by us the 'Universe' -a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings, as something separated from the rest-a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
~ Albert Einstein,#KEYS
1000:This gesture of the Divine Mother teaches us also what should be the approach and attitude of human beings in all their activities. In all our movements we should always remember Him, refer to Him, consider that in the last analysis each and every movement comes from Him and we must always offer them to Him, return them to the parent-source from where they come, therein lies freedom, the divine detachment which the individual must possess always in order to be one with Him, feel one's identity with Him. ~ Nolini Kanta Gupta, On Savitri, 12, #KEYS
1001:That all opposites-such as mass and energy, subject and object, life and death-are so much each other that they are perfectly inseparable, still strikes most of us as hard to believe. But this is only because we accept as real the boundary line between the opposites. It is, recall, the boundaries themselves which create the seeming existence of separate opposites. To put it plainly, to say that 'ultimate reality is a unity of opposites' is actually to say that in ultimate reality there are no boundaries. Anywhere.
~ Ken Wilber, No Boundary,#KEYS
1002:An integral intuition into the nature of conscious being shows us that it is indeed one in essence, but also that it is capable of an infinite potential complexity and multiplicity in self-experience. The working of this potential complexity and multiplicity in the One is what we call from our point of view manifestation or creation or world or becoming - (bhuvana, bhava). Without it no world-existence is possible. The agent of this becoming is always the self-conscience of the Being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, #KEYS
1003:The life of God is above the past, the present, and the future; it is measured by the single instant of immobile eternity... [However] forgetfulness of God leaves us in this banal and horizontal view of things on the line of time which passes; the contemplation of God is like a vertical view of things which pass, and of their bond with God who does not pass. To be immersed in time, is to forget the value of time, that is to say, its relation to eternity. ~ Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life: Prelude of Eternal Life, #KEYS
1004:What is history? What is its significance for humanity? Dr. J. H. Robinson gives us a precise answer: "Man's abject dependence on the past gives rise to the continuity of history. Our convictions, opinions, prejudices, intellectual tastes; our knowledge, our methods of learning and of applying for information we owe, with slight exceptions, to the past-often to the remote past. History is an expansion of memory, and like memory it alone can explain the present and in this lies its most unmistakable value. ~ Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity, #KEYS
1005:Devotee: "That is all right, Swami. But, however much we try, this mind does not get under control and envelopes the Swarupa so that it is not perceptible to us. What is to be done?"
Bhagavan with a smile placed his little finger over his eye and said, "Look. This little finger covers the eye and prevents the whole world from being seen. In the same way this small mind covers the whole universe and prevents the Brahman from being seen. See how powerful it is!" ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Letters from Sri Ramanasramam,#KEYS
1006:Too seldom is the shadow of what must come
Cast in an instant on the secret sense
Which feels the shock of the invisible,
And seldom in the few who answer give
The mighty process of the cosmic Will
Communicates its image to our sight,
Identifying the world’s mind with ours. ||11.30||
Our range is fixed within the crowded arc
Of what we observe and touch and thought can guess
And rarely dawns the light of the Unknown
Waking in us the prophet and the seer. ||11.31|| ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 1:4, || 11.30 - 11.31 ||,#KEYS
1007:Fantasy imposes order on the universe. Or, at least, it superimposes order on the universe. And it is a human order. Reality tells us that we exist for a brief, beleaguered span in a cold infinity; fantasy tells us that the figures in the foreground are important. Fantasy peoples the alien Outside, and it doesn't matter a whole lot if it peoples it with good guys or bad guys. Putting 'Hy-Brasil' on the map is a step in the right direction, but if you can't manage that, then 'Here Be Dragons is better than nothing. Better than the void. ~ Terry Pratchett, #KEYS
1008:Our struggle to put first things first can be characterized by the contrast between two powerful tools that direct us: the clock and the compass. The clock represents our commitments, appointments, schedules, goals, activities - what we do with, and how we manage our time. The compass represents our vision, values, principles, mission, conscience, direction - what we feel is important and how we lead our lives. In an effort to close the gap between the clock and the compass in our lives, many of us turn to the field of "time management." ~ Stephen Covey, #KEYS
1009: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.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
1010:Beneath the surface level of conditioned thinking in every one of us there is a single living spirit. The still small voice whispering to me in the depths of my consciousness is saying exactly the same thing as the voice whispering to you in your consciousness. 'I want an earth that is healthy, a world at peace, and a heart filled with love.' It doesn't matter if your skin is brown or white or black, or whether you speak English, Japanese, or Malayalam - the voice, says the Gita, is the same in every creature, and it comes from your true self. ~ Eknath Easwaran, #KEYS
1011:Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace. ~ Bill Hicks, #KEYS
1012:Few of us can escape being neurotic or character disordered to at least some degree (which is why essentially everyone can benefit from psychotherapy if he or she is seriously willing to participate in the process). The reason for this is that the problem of distinguishing what we are and what we are not responsible for in this life is one of the greatest problems of human existence. It is never completely solved; for the entirety of our lives we must continually assess and reassess where our responsibilities lie in the ever-changing course of events. ~ M Scott Peck, #KEYS
1013:From the morning there has been a feeling of nearness to the Mother, almost as if there were no difference between us. But how can that be possible, as there is such a great gulf between her and me? I am on the mental plane and she is on the highest Supramental.
But the Mother is there not only on the Supramental but on all the planes. And especially she is close to everyone in the psychic part (the inner heart), so when that opens, the feeling of nearness naturally comes. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, [T4],#KEYS
1014:By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us and moulds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning layers. In eo vivimus. As Jacob said, awakening from his dream, the world, this palpable world, which we were wont to treat with the boredom and disrespect with which we habitually regard places with no sacred association for us, is in truth a holy place, and we did not know it. Venite, adoremus. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu, #KEYS
1015:To take symbolism seriously is to accept the 'analogy of being' between different levels of reality... More than the sum of its parts, the figure is the appearing-to-us of an infinite depth that cannot be fully revealed in time. Every symbol is a kind of gestalt, in which a universal meaning can be glimpsed. Eventually, every created thing can be seen as a manifestation of its own interior essence, and the world is transformed into a radiant book to be read with eyes sensitive to spiritual light. ~ Stratford Caldecott, Beauty for Truth's Sake: On the Re-enchantment of Education, #KEYS
1016:Difficulties are sent to us exclusively to make the realisation more perfect. Each time we try to realise something and meet with a resistance or an obstacle or even a failure - what seems to be a failure - we should know, we should never forget that it is exclusively, absolutely, so that the realisation may be more perfect. So this habit of cringing, of getting discouraged or even of feeling uncomfortable, or of abusing yourself and telling yourself: There! Again I have made a mistake - all that is absolute foolishness.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
1017: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 her ordinary pastures.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine And Human, Jnana, [6], [T5],#KEYS
1018:When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
~ Henri J M Nouwen, Out Of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life,#KEYS
1019:The Mantra in other words is a direct and most heightened, an intensest and most divinely burdened rhythmic word which embodies an intuitive and revelatory inspiration and ensouls the mind with the sight and the presence of the very self, the inmost reality of things and with its truth and with the divine soul-forms of it, the Godheads which are born from the living Truth. Or, let us say, it is a supreme rhythmic language which seizes hold upon all that is finite and brings into each the light and voice of its own infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, #KEYS
1020:To live, to love are signs of infinite things,
Love is a glory from eternity's spheres.
Abased, disfigured, mocked by baser mights
That steal his name and shape and ecstasy,
He is still the Godhead by which all can change.
A mystery wakes in our inconscient stuff,
A bliss is born that can remake our life.
Love dwells in us like an unopened flower
Awaiting a rapid moment of the soul,
Or he roams in his charmed sleep mid thoughts and things;
The child-god is at play, he seeks himself
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Satyavan,#KEYS
1021:Don't depend on death to liberate you from your imperfections. You are exactly the same after death as you were before. Nothing changes; you only give up the body. If you are a thief or a liar or a cheater before death, you don't become an angel merely by dying. If such were possible, then let us all go and jump in the ocean now and become angels at once! Whatever you have made of yourself thus far, so will you be hereafter. And when you reincarnate, you will bring that same nature with you. To change, you have to make the effort. This world is the place to do it.
~ Paramahansa Yogananda,#KEYS
1022:The Master always encouraged us to practise spiritual disciplines. He would tell us: "Pray unceasingly. Be sincere. Don't show your spiritual disciplines to others. If the character is not good, what good will japam do? Young women should be very careful. Be pure. The trees suck water from the earth through their roots, unperceived. Likewise, some people show a religious nature outwardly but secretly enjoy lustful things. Don't be a hypocrite."
One time he said to me: "If you cannot remember God, think of me. That will do." ~ Sri Ramakrishna, [Post#KEYS
1023:I believe faith is a human universal. We are endowed at birth with nascent capacities for faith. How these capacities are activated and grow depends to a large extent on how we are welcomed into the world and what kinds of environments we grow in. Faith is interactive and social; it requires community, language, ritual and nurture. Faith is also shaped by initiatives from beyond us and other people, initiatives of spirit or grace. How these latter initiatives are recognized and imaged, or unperceived and ignored, powerfully affects the shape of faith in our lives.
~ James W Fowler, Stages Of Faith,#KEYS
1024:Perfection is one way to approach the Divine; Unity is another. But Perfection is a global approach: all is there and all is as it should be-that is to say, the perfect expression of the Divine (you can't even say 'of His Will,' because that still implies something apart, something emanating from Him!).
It could be put like this (but it brings it down considerably): He is what He is and exactly as He wants to be. The 'exactly as He wants to be' takes us down quite a few steps, but it still gives an idea of what I mean by 'perfection'!
~ The Mother, Agenda Vol 02, Satprem,#KEYS
1025:When we look at existence in itself, Time and Space disappear. If there is any extension, it is not a spatial but a psychological extension; if there is any duration, it is not a temporal but a psychological duration; and it is then easy to see that this extension and duration are only symbols which represent to the mind something not translatable into intellectual terms, an eternity which seems to us the same all-containing ever-new moment, an infinity which seems to us the same all-containing all-pervading point without magnitude. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine 1.09-06, #KEYS
1026:[...] Thus the sedentary peoples create the plastic arts (architecture, sculpture, painting), the arts consisting of forms developed in space; the nomads create the phonetic arts (music, poetry), the arts consisting of forms unfolded in time; for, let us say it again, all art is in its origin essentially symbolical and ritual, and only through a late degeneration, indeed a very recent degeneration, has it lost its sacred character so as to become at last the purely profane 'recreation' to which it has been reduced among our contemporaries. ~ Rene Guenon, The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times #KEYS
1027:Purusha and Prakriti :::
... On one side he becomes aware of a witness recipient observing experiencing Consciousness which does not appear to act but for which all these activities inside and outside us seem to be undertaken and continue. On the other side he is aware at the same time of an executive Force or an energy of Process which is seen to constitute, drive and guide all conceivable activities and to create a myraid form visible to us and invisible and use them as stable supports for its incessant flux of action and creation.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
1028:The Good, the True, and the Beautiful, then, are simply the faces of Spirit as it shines in this world. Spirit seen subjectively is Beauty, and I of Spirit. Spirit seen intersubjectively is the Good, the We of Spirit. And Spirit seen objectively is the True, the It of Spirit....And whenever we pause, and enter the quiet, and rest in the utter stillness, we can hear that whispering voice calling to us still: never forgot the Good, and never forgot the True, and never forget the Beautiful, for these are the faces of your own deepest Self, freely shown to you. ~ Ken Wilber, Marriage of Sense and Soul, p. 201, #KEYS
1029:The Temple represents the external Universe. The Magician must take it as he finds it, so that it is of no particular shape; yet we find written, \Liber VII,\ V:I:2 \We made us a temple of stones in the shape of the Universem even ashou didst wear openly and I concealed.\ This shape is the vesica piscis; but it is only the greeatest Magicians who can thus fashion the Temple. There may, however, be some choice of rooms; this refers to the power of the Magician to reincarnate in a suitable body.
~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 04: Magick, Part II, Chapter 1, The Temple [49],#KEYS
1030:At best we have only the poor relative freedom which by us is ignorantly called free-will. But that is at bottom illusory, since it is the modes of Nature that express themselves through our personal will; it is force of Nature, grasping us, ungrasped by us that determines what we shall will and how we shall will it. Nature, not an independent ego, chooses what object we shall seek, whether by reasoned will or unreflecting impulse, at any moment of our existence.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, [95-96],#KEYS
1031:Television, radio, and all the sources of amusement and information that surround us in our daily lives are also artificial props. They can give us the impression that our minds are active, because we are required to react to stimuli from the outside. But the power of those external stimuli to keep us going is limited. They are like drugs. We grow used to them, and we continuously need more and more of them. Eventually, they have little or no effect. Then, if we lack resources within ourselves, we cease to grow intellectually, morally, and spiritually. And we we cease to grow, we begin to die. ~ Mortimer J Adler, #KEYS
1032:Let us therefore learn while there is yet time, let us learn to do good. Let us raise our eyes to Heaven for the sake of our honor, for the very love of virtue, or, to speak wisely, for the love and praise of God Almighty, who is the infallible witness of our deeds and the just judge of our faults. As for me, I truly believe I am right, since there is nothing so contrary to a generous and loving God as tyranny---I believe He has reserved, in a separate spot in Hell, some very special punishment for tyrants and their accomplices" ~ Étienne de La Boétie, The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude #KEYS
1033:Now let us return to our beautiful and charming castle and discover how to enter it. This appears incongruous: if this castle is the soul, clearly no one can have to enter it, for it is the person himself: one might as well tell some one to go into a room he is already in! There are, however, very different ways of being in this castle; many souls live in the courtyard of the building where the sentinels stand, neither caring to enter farther, nor to know who dwells in that most delightful place, what is in it and what rooms it contains. ~ Saint Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, #KEYS
1034:Man came silently into the world. As a matter of fact he trod so softly that, when we first catch sight of him as revealed by those indestructible stone instruments, we find him sprawling all over the old world from the Cape of Good Hope to Peking. Without doubt he already speaks and lives in groups ; he already makes fire. After all, this is surely what we ought to expect. As we know, each time a new living form rises up before us out of the depths of history, it is always complete and already legion. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon Of Man, The Birth of Thought, 186, #KEYS
1035:It is the devil's greatest triumph when he can deprive us of the joy of the Spirit. He carries fine dust with him in little boxes and scatters it through the cracks in our conscience in order to dim the soul's pure impulses and its luster. But the joy that fills the heart of the spiritual person destroys the deadly poison of the serpent. But if any are gloomy and think that they are abandoned in their sorrow, gloominess will continuously tear at them or else they will waste away in empty diversions. When gloominess takes root, evil grows. If it is not dissolved by tears, permanent damage is done. ~ Saint Francis of Assisi, #KEYS
1036:The event of falling in love is of such a nature that we are right to reject as intolerable the idea that it should be transitory. In one high bound it has overleaped the massive of our selfhood; it has made appetite itself altruistic, tossed personal happiness aside as a triviality and planted the interests of another in the centre of our being. Spontaneously and without effort we have fulfilled the law (towards one person) by loving our neighbour as ourselves. It is an image, a foretaste, of what we must become to all if Love Himself rules in us without a rival. It is even (well used) a preparation for that. ~ C S Lewis, #KEYS
1037:I had forgotten what fiction was to me as a boy, forgotten what it was like in the library: fiction was an escape from the intolerable, a doorway into impossibly hospitable worlds where things had rules and could be understood; stories had been a way of learning about life without experiencing it, or perhaps of experiencing it as an eighteenth-century poisoner dealt with poisons, taking them in tiny doses, such that the poisoner could cope with ingesting things that would kill someone who was not inured to them. Sometimes fiction is a way of coping with the poison of the world in a way that lets us survive it. ~ Neil Gaiman, #KEYS
1038:The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
~ H P Lovecraft, The Call Of Cthulhu,#KEYS
1039:Whenever we moderns pause for a moment, and enter the silence, and listen very carefully, the glimmer of our deepest nature begins to shine forth, and we are introduced to the mysteries of the deep, the call of the within, the infinite radiance of a splendor that time and space forgot - we are introduced to the all-pervading Spiritual domain that the growing tip of our honored ancestors were the first to discover. And they were good enough to leave us a general map to that infinite domain, a map called the Great Nest of Being, a map of our own interiors, an archeology of our own Spirit. ~ Ken Wilber, Integral Psychology, p. 190, #KEYS
1040:Faith is a coat against ... nakedness. For most of us, most of the time, faith functions so as to screen off the abyss of mystery that surrounds us. But we all at certain times call upon faith to provide nerve to stand in the presence of the abyss--naked, stripped of life supports, trusting only in the being, the mercy and the power of the Other in the darkness. Faith helps us form a dependable 'life space,' an ultimate environment. At a deeper level, faith undergirds us when our life space is punctured and collapses, when the felt reality of our ultimate environment proves to be less than ultimate.
~ James W Fowler, Stages Of Faith,#KEYS
1041:The poet-philosopher or the philosopher-poet, whichever way we may put it, is a new formation of the human consciousness that is coming upon us. A wide and rationalising (not rationalistic) intelligence deploying and marshalling out a deep intuitive and direct Knowledge that is the pattern of human mind developing in the new age. Bergson's was a harbinger, a definite landmark on the way. Sri Aurobindo's The Life Divine arrives and opens the very portals of the marvellous temple city of a dynamic integral knowledge. ~ Nolini Kanta Gupta, Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, The Philosopher as an Artist and Philosophy as an Art, #KEYS
1042:I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.
~ Franz Kafka,#KEYS
1043:Alive in a dead rotating universe
We whirl not here upon a casual globe
Abandoned to a task beyond our force;
Even through the tangled anarchy called Fate
And through the bitterness of death and fall
An outstretched Hand is felt upon our lives. (12:26)
It is near us in unnumbered bodies and births;
In its unshaken grasp it keeps for us safe
The one inevitable supreme result
No will can take away and no doom change,
The crown of conscious Immortality
The godhead promised to our struggling souls
When first man%u2019s heart dared death and suffered life. (12:27) ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 1:4, 12:26-27#KEYS
1044:The Effort for Progress :::
...As with everything in yoga, the effort for progress must be made for the love of the effort for progress. The joy of effort, the aspiration for progress must be enough in themselves, quite independent of the result. Everything one does in yoga must be done for the joy of doing it, and not in view of the result one wants to obtain.... Indeed, in life, always, in all things, the result does not belong to us. And if we want to keep the right attitude, we must act, feel, think, strive spontaneously, for that is what we must do, and not in view of the result to be obtained. ... ~ The Mother,#KEYS
1045:Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels' hierarchies?
And even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart:
I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure,
And we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Every angel is terrifying.
And so I hold myself back and swallow the call-note of my dark sobbing.
Ah, whom can we ever turn to in our need?
Not angels, not humans, and already the knowing animals are aware
That we are not really at home in our interpreted world. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,#KEYS
1046:8. Now let us turn at last to our castle with its many mansions. You must not think of a suite of rooms placed in succession, but fix your eyes on the keep, the court inhabited by the King.23' Like the kernel of the palmito,24' from which several rinds must be removed before coming to the eatable part, this principal chamber is surrounded by many others. However large, magnificent, and spacious you imagine this castle to be, you cannot exaggerate it; the capacity of the soul is beyond all our understanding, and the Sun within this palace enlightens every part of it. ~ Saint Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, #KEYS
1047:For the conscious appreciation of beauty reaches its height of enlightenment and enjoyment not by analysis of the beauty enjoyed or even by a right and intelligent understanding of it, - these things are only a preliminary clarifying of our first unenlightened sense of the beautiful, - but by an exaltation of the soul in which it opens itself entirely to the light and power and joy of the creation. The soul of beauty in us identifies itself with the soul of beauty in the thing created and feels in appreciation the same divine intoxication and uplifting which the artist felt in creation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, #KEYS
1048:It is the same thing for the ego, the self. In order to pass on to a higher plane, one must first exist; and to exist one must become a conscious, separate individual, and to become a conscious separate individual, the ego is indispensable, otherwise one remains mingled with all that lies around us. But once the individuality is formed, if one wants to rise to a higher level and live a spiritual life, if one wants even to become simply a higher type of man, the limitations of the ego are the worst obstacles, and the ego must be surpassed in order to enter the true consciousness. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1956, 367, #KEYS
1049:Mahasamadhi
[facsimile]
Lord, this morning Thou hast given me the assurance that Thou wouldst stay with us until Thy work is achieved, not only as a consciousness which guides and illumines but also as a dynamic Presence in action. In unmistakable terms Thou hast promised that all of Thyself would remain here and not leave the earth atmosphere until earth is transformed. Grant that we may be worthy of this marvellous Presence and that henceforth everything in us be concentrated on the one will to be more and more perfectly consecrated to the fulfilment of Thy sublime Work. 7 December 1950
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I,#KEYS
1050:How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people ~ first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving., #KEYS
1051:I've always been keenly aware of the passing of time. I've always thought that I was old. Even when I was twelve, I thought it was awful to be thirty. I felt that something was lost. At the same time, I was aware of what I could gain, and certain periods of my life have taught me a great deal. But, in spite of everything, I've always been haunted by the passing of time and by the fact that death keeps closing in on us. For me, the problem of time is linked up with that of death, with the thought that we inevitably draw closer and closer to it, with the horror of decay. It's that, rather than the fact that things disintegrate, that love peters out. ~ Simone de Beauvoir, #KEYS
1052:[the third aid, the inner guide, guru :::
It is he who destroys our darkness by the resplendent light of his knowledge; that light becomes within us the increasing glory of his own self-revelation. He discloses progressively in us his own nature of freedom, bliss, love, power, immortal being. He sets above us his divine example as our ideal and transforms the lower existence into a reflection of that which it contemplates. By the inpouring of his own influence and presence into us he enables the individual being to attain to identity with the universal and transcendent.~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Four Aids, 61 [T1],#KEYS
1053:The Yoga must start with an effort or at least a settled turn towards this total concentration. A constant and unfailing will of consecration of all ourselves to the Supreme is demanded of us, an offering of our whole being and our many-chambered nature to the Eternal who is the All. The effective fullness of our concentration on the one thing needful to the exclusion of all else will be the measure of our self-consecration to the One who is alone desirable. But this exclusiveness will in the end exclude nothing except the falsehood of our way of seeing the world and our will's ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, [T5], #KEYS
1054:It may yet be said that a logical succession of the states of progress would be very much in this order. First, there is a large turning in which all the natural mental activities proper to the individual nature are taken up or referred to a higher standpoint and dedicated by the soul in us, the psychic being, the priest of the sacrifice, to the divine service; next, there is an attempt at an ascent of the being and a bringing down of the Light and Power proper to some new height of consciousness gained by its upward effort into the whole action of the knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent Of The Sacrifice - I, [T1],#KEYS
1055:Sri Aurobindo came upon earth to announce the manifestation of the supramental world and not merely did he announce this manifestation but embodied also in part the supramental force and showed by example what one must do to prepare oneself for manifesting it. The best thing we can do is to study all that he has told us and endeavour to follow his example and prepare ourselves for the new manifestation.
This gives life its real sense and will help us to overcome all obstacles.
Let us live for the new creation and we shall grow stronger and stronger by remaining young and progressive. 30 January 1972
*
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I,#KEYS
1056:the lord of the sacrifice and the measure of our works :::
The Divine, the Eternal is the Lord of our sacrifice of works and union with him in all our being and consciousness and in its expressive instruments is the one object of the sacrifice; the steps of the sacrifice of works must therefore be measured, first, by the growth in our nature of something that brings us nearer to the Divine Nature, but secondly also by an experience of the Divine, his presence, his manifestation to us, an increasing closeness and union with that Presence.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Sacrifice, The Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice,#KEYS
1057:It is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles. And yet when King Laugh come, he make them all dance to the tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall, all dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth of him. Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn tight with strain that pull us different ways. Then tears come, and like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain become too great, and we break. But King Laugh he come like the sunshine, and he ease off the strain again, and we bear to go on with our labor, what it may be.
~ Bram Stoker,#KEYS
1058:
Sweet Mother, how can we find the Divine who is hidden in us?
... This we have explained many, many times. But the first thing is to want it, and know precisely that this comes first, before all other things, that this is the important thing. That is the first condition; all the rest may come later, this is the essential condition. You see, if once in a while, from time to time, when you have nothing to do and all goes well and you are unoccupied, suddenly you tell yourself, Ah, I would like so much to find the Divine! - well, this
- it may take a hundred thousand years, in this way. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1954, [T2],#KEYS
1059:There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking. The majority take the line of least resistance, preferring to have their thinking done for them; they accept ready-made individual, private doctrines as their own and follow them more or less blindly. Every generation looks upon its own creeds as true and permanent and has a mingled smile of pity and contempt for the prejudices of the past. For two hundred or more generations of our historical past this attitude has been repeated two hundred or more times, and unless we are very careful our children will have the same attitude toward us. ~ Alfred Korzybski, #KEYS
1060:Now as always-humility and terror. Fear that the working of my pen cannot capture the grinding of my brain. It is so easy to understand why the ancients prayed for the help of a Muse. And the Muse came and stood beside them, and we, heaven help us, do not believe in Muses. We have nothing to fall back on but our craftsmanship and it, as modern literature attests, is inadequate. May I be honest; may I be decent; may I be unaffected by the technique of hucksters. If invocation is required, let this be my invocation-may I be strong and yet gentle, tender and yet wise, wise and yet tolerant. May I for a little while, only for a little while, see with the inflamed eyes of a God. ~ John Steinbeck, #KEYS
1061:the inability to know :::
In sum, it may be safely affirmed that no solution offered can be anything but provisional until a supramental Truth-consciousness is reached by which the appearances of things are put in their place and their essence revealed and that in them which derives straight from the spiritual essence. In the meanwhile our only safety is to find a guiding law of spiritual experience - or else to liberate a light within that can lead us on the way until that greater direct Truth-consciousness is reached above us or born within us.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1, The Works of Knowledge - The Psychic Being,#KEYS
1062:The obstacles that we may face include having expectations, lack of self-confidence, indifference, and unwholesome distractions and activities. If we keep entertaining these negative acts and not believing in ourselves, thinking, "I'm not doing the practice well enough," "I'm not capable," "Everything is fated, so why should I try?"-at best, these acts and thoughts will divert us from our goal and slow down our spiritual progress. At worst, indulging in distractions, unwholesome activities, and negative attitudes will drag us on the wrong track and slowly lead us into the worst possible way of living, destroying all the possible fruits that this amazing human life could bring us.~ Tulku Thondup, #KEYS
1063:Don't confuse having no violence in your heart with having no violence in the real world, if required. Your duty may or may not include violence, but let us not forget that there are indeed occasions where violence ends violence or, I should say, reflecting the messiness and microscopically incremental nature of Eros: there are occasions where violence replaces a grosser violence with a subtler violence, a lesser devil on the way to a vaguely greater good. The Zen-inspired code of the Samurai warrior is still as good a guide as any: the best fight is not to fight; the real sword is no sword-but if you think that means a Samurai warrior never used his sword, you are tad naive, I fear. ~ Ken Wilber?, #KEYS
1064:Sweet Mother,
It is much easier for me to approach You than to 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 him?
You yourself have answered your own question. I am for you a mother who is very close to you, who loves and understands 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 of Yoga. 3 July 1960
~ The Mother, Some Answers From The Mother, 243,#KEYS
1065:But while it is difficult for man to believe in something unseen within himself, it is easy for him to believe in something which he can image as extraneous to himself. The spiritual progress of most human beings demands an extraneous support, an object of faith outside us. It needs an external image of God; or it needs a human representative, - Incarnation, Prophet or Guru; or it demands both and receives them. For according to the need of the human soul the Divine manifests himself as deity, as human divine or in simple humanity - using that thick disguise, which so successfully conceals the Godhead, for a means of transmission of his guidance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, #KEYS
1066: But we now come to speak of the holy and sacred Pentacles and Sigils. Now these pentacles, are as it were certain holy signes preserving us from evil chances and events, and helping and assisting us to binde, exterminate, and drive away evil spirits, and alluring the good spirits, and reconciling them unto us. And these pentacles do consist either of Characters of the good spirits of the superiour order, or of sacred pictures of holy letters or revelations, with apt and fit versicles, which are composed either of Geometrical figures and holy names of God, according to the course and maner of many of them; or they are compounded of all of them, or very many of them mixt. ~ Agrippa, A Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, #KEYS
1067:People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that's bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they're afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It's all in how you carry it. That's what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you're letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain. ~ Jim Morrison, #KEYS
1068:The Kingdom is most powerful where we least expect to find it. God does not take away our problems and trials but rather joins us in them. Such is the profound meaning of the incarnation: God becoming a human being. The Kingdom will manifest itself, not because of our efforts to keep trying, even when all effort seems hopeless, but because God loves us so much that God won't be able to stand seeing us struggle and always failing. God will do the impossible. He will give us a new attitude toward suffering. Such is the heart of the Christian ascesis, or self-discipline, and the mystery of transformation. It is the meaning of the Gospel as Therese perceived it. ~ Thomas Keating, St. Therese of Lisieux: A Transformation in Christ, #KEYS
1069:Why do we go through the struggle to be educated? Is it merely in order to pass some examinations and get a job? Or is it the function of education to prepare us while we are young to understand the whole process of life?
And what does life mean? Is not life an extraordinary thing? The birds, the flowers, the flourishing trees, the heavens, the stars, the rivers and the fish therein-all this is life. Life is the poor and the rich; life is the constant battle between groups, races and nations; life is meditation; life is what we call religion, and it is also the subtle, hidden things of the mind-the envies, the ambitions, the passions, the fears, fulfilments and anxieties. All this and much more is life. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti,#KEYS
1070:The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky. ~ Carl Sagan, #KEYS
1071:Consider laughter: it is the highest emotion, for it can contain any of the others from ecstacy to grief. It has no opposite. Crying is merely an underdeveloped form of it which cleanses the eyes and summons assistance to infants. Laughter is the only tenable attitude in a universe which is a joke played upon itself. The trick is to see that joke played out even in the neutral and ghastly events which surround one. It is not for us to question the universes apparent lack of taste. Seek the emotion of laughter at what delights and amuses, seek it in whatever is neutral or meaningless, seek it even in what is horrific and revolting. Though it may be forced at first, one can learn to smile inwardly at all things.
~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,#KEYS
1072:If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for . . . To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him.
Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference. ~ Thomas Merton,#KEYS
1073:And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 Pray then like this:
"Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Matthew, 6:7-14,#KEYS
1074:At one stage in the initiation procedure, Christian tells us...the postulant climbs down an iron ladder, with seventy-eight rungs, and enters a hall on either side of which are twelve statues, and, between each pair of statues, a painting. These twenty-two paintings, he is told, are Arcana or symbolic hieroglyphs; the Science of Will, the principle of all wisdom and source of all power, is contained in them. Each corresponds to a "letter of the sacred language" and to a number, and each expresses a reality of the divine world, a reality of the intellectual world and a reality of the physical world. The secret meanings of these twenty-two Arcana are then expounded to him. ~ Ronald Decker and Thierry Depaulis and Michael Dummett, A Wicked Pack of Cards - The Origins of the Occult Tarot, #KEYS
1075:But in what circumstances does our reason teach us that there is vice or virtue? How does this continual mystery work? Tell me, inhabitants of the Malay Archipelago, Africans, Canadians and you, Plato, Cicero, Epictetus! You all feel equally that it is better to give away the superfluity of your bread, your rice or your manioc to the indigent than to kill him or tear out his eyes. It is evident to all on earth that an act of benevolence is better than an outrage, that gentleness is preferable to wrath. We have merely to use our Reason in order to discern the shades which distinguish right and wrong. Good and evil are often close neighbours and our passions confuse them. Who will enlighten us? We ourselves when we are calm. ~ Voltaire, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1076:189 - Live within; be not shaken by outward happenings.
190 - Fling not thy alms abroad everywhere in an ostentation of charity; understand and love where thou helpest. Let thy soul grow within thee.
191 - Help the poor while the poor are with thee; but study also and strive that there may be no poor for thy assistance.
To live within in a constant aspiration for the Divine enables us to look at life with a smile and to remain peaceful whatever the outer circumstances may be.
As for the poor, Sri Aurobindo says that to come to their help is good, provided that it is not a vain ostentation of charity, but that it is far nobler to seek a remedy for poverty so that there may be no poor left on earth.
31 October 1969 ~ The Mother, Thoughts And Aphorisms,#KEYS
1077:Sweet Mother,
One day in class you said, with your hands wide 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?
One keeps one's defects because one hangs on to them as if they were something precious; one clings to one's vices as one clings to a part of one's body, and pulling out a bad habit hurts as much as pulling out a tooth. That is why one does not progress.
Whereas if one generously makes an offering of one's defect, vice or bad habit, then one has the joy of making an offering and one receives in exchange the force to replace what has been given, by a better and truer vibration. 13 June 1960 ~ The Mother, Some Answers From The Mother,#KEYS
1078:The surest way towards this integral fulfilment is to find the Master of the secret who dwells within us, open ourselves constantly to the divine Power which is also the divine Wisdom and Love and trust to it to effect the conversion. But it is difficult for the egoistic consciousness to do this at all at the beginning. And, if done at all, it is still difficult to do it perfectly and in every strand of our nature. It is difficult at first because our egoistic habits of thought, of sensation, of feeling block up the avenues by which we can arrive at the perception that is needed. It is difficult afterwards because the faith, the surrender, the courage requisite in this path are not easy to the ego-clouded soul.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, [63] [T7],#KEYS
1079:We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.
~ R Buckminster Fuller,#KEYS
1080: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 Word - reaches 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 a clothing, though a luminous clothing - hiranmayam pair am. 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.
~ Nolini Kanta Gupta, The Approach To Mysticism,#KEYS
1081:We see then that there are three terms of the one existence, transcendent, universal and individual, and that each of these always contains secretly or overtly the two others. The Transcendent possesses itself always and controls the other two as the basis of its own temporal possibilities; that is the Divine, the eternal all-possessing God-consciousness, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, which informs, embraces, governs all existences. The human being is here on earth the highest power of the third term, the individual, for he alone can work out at its critical turning-point that movement of self-manifestation which appears to us as the involution and evolution of the divine consciousness between the two terms of the Ignorance and the Knowledge. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, #KEYS
1082:We cannot perceive Chaos directly, for it simultaneously contains the opposite to anything we might think it is. We can, however, occasionally glimpse and make use of partially formed matter which has only probablistic and indeterministic existence. This stuff we can call the aethers.
* If it makes us feel any better we can call this Chaos, the Tao, or God, and imagine it to be benevolent and human-hearted. There are two schools of thought in magic. One considers the formative agent of the universe to be random and chaotic, and the other considers that it is a force of spiritual consciousness. As they have only themselves on which to base their speculations, they are basically saying that their own natures are either random and chaotic or spiritually conscious.
~ Peter J Carroll, Miscellaneous Excerpts Part 2,#KEYS
1083:O DIVINE Force, supreme Illuminator, hearken to our prayer, move not away from us, do not withdraw, help us to fight the good fight, make firm our strength for the struggle, give us the force to conquer!
O my sweet Master, Thou whom I adore without being able to know Thee, Thou who I am without being able to realise Thee, my entire conscious individuality prostrates itself before Thee and implores, in the name of the workers in their struggle, and of the earth in her agony, in the name of suffering humanity and of striving Nature;
O my sweet Master, O marvellous Unknowable, O Dispenser of all boons, Thou who makest light spring forth in the darkness and strength to arise out of weakness, support our effort, guide our steps, lead us to victory.
~ The Mother, Prayers And Meditations, 211,#KEYS
1084:The full recognition of this inner Guide, Master of the Yoga, lord, light, enjoyer and goal of all sacrifice and effort, is of the utmost importance in the path of integral perfection. It is immaterial whether he is first seen as an impersonal Wisdom, Love and Power behind all things, as an Absolute manifesting in the relative and attracting it, as one's highest Self and the highest Self of all, as a Divine Person within us and in the world, in one of his-or her-numerous forms and names or as the ideal which the mind conceives. In the end we perceive that he is all and more than all these things together. The mind's door of entry to the conception of him must necessarily vary according to the past evolution and the present nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Four Aids, 62,#KEYS
1085:But it is evident that all analogies of this kind depend on principles of a more fundamental nature; and that, if we had a true mathematical classification of quantities, we should be able at once to detect the analogy between any system of quantities presented to us and other systems of quantities in known sciences, so that we should lose no time in availing ourselves of the mathematical labors of those who had already solved problems essentially the same. [...] At the same time, I think that the progress of science, both in the way of discovery, and in the way of diffusion, would be greatly aided if more attention were paid in a direct way to the classification of quantities. ~ James Clerk Maxwell, Remarks on the mathematical classification of physical quantities, Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, 1871, #KEYS
1086:From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. ~ Carl Sagan, #KEYS
1087:Q: I always had the impression that Lucifer and Satan was one and the same, you know, that Lucifer fell and became Satan. Would you clarify that for me?
A: There is a difference between Lucifer and Satan. The word satan comes from the word Shatan in Hebrew which means 'adversary'. Lucifer is Latin for "the bearer of light," and is the cosmic force that carries the fire. That fire is Kundalini, but when that fire becomes trapped in the ego, that fire is polarized negatively and becomes Satan, the adversary or the opposite of God. As long as that fire is trapped in desire, in ego, it is Satan, it is the devil. It is not outside of us. It is our mind. But when that force is liberated, it is the bearer of light. It is the greatest angel in the hierarchy of our own Consciousness. So it is our best friend.~ Samael Aun Weor,#KEYS
1088:the fundamental experience :::
There must awake in us a constant indwelling and enveloping nearness, a vivid perception, a close feeling and communion, a concrete sense and contact of a true and infinite Presence always and everywhere. That Presence must remain with us as the living, pervading Reality in which we and all things exist and move and act, and we must feel it always and everywhere, concrete, visible, inhabiting all things; it must be patent to us as closely as their inmost Spirit. To see, to feel, to sense, to contact in every way and not merely to conceive this Self and Spirit here in all existences and to feel with the same vividness all existences in this Self and Spirit, is the fundamental experience which must englobe all other knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
1089:We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors; if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us; if there are dangers, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience. How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, #KEYS
1090:the central notion of the Veda :::
The sense of the first two verses is clear enough when we know Saraswati to be that power of the Truth which we call inspiration. Inspiration from the Truth purifies by getting rid of all falsehood, for all sin according to the Indian idea is merely falsehood, wrongly inspired emotion, wrongly directed will and action. The central idea of life and ourselves from which we start is a falsehood and all else is falsified by it. Truth comes to us as a light, a voice, compelling a change of thought, imposing a new discernment of ourselves and all around us. Truth of thought creates truth of vision and truth of vision forms in us truth of being, and out of truth of being (satyam) flows naturally truth of emotion, will and action. This is indeed the central notion of the Veda.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Secret Of The Veda,#KEYS
1091:the soul alone ensures sincerity :::
It is here that the emergence of the secret psychic being in us as the leader of the sacrifice is of the utmost importance; for this inmost being alone can bring with it the full power of the spirit in the act, the soul in the symbol. It alone can assure, even while the spiritual consciousness is incomplete, the perennial freshness and sincerity and beauty of the symbol and prevent it from becoming a dead form or a corrupted and corrupting magic; it alone can preserve for the act its power with its significance. All the other members of our being, mind, life-force, physical or body consciousness, are too much under the control of the Ignorance to be a sure instrumentation and much less can they be a guide or the source of an unerring impulse. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 166,#KEYS
1092: There are also female energies; for the Deva is both Male and Female and the gods also are either activising souls or passively executive and methodising energies. Aditi, infinite Mother of the Gods, comes first; and there are besides five powers of the Truthconsciousness, - Mahi or Bharati, the vast Word that brings us all things out of the divine source; Ila, the strong primal word of the Truth who gives us its active vision; Saraswati, its streaming current and the word of its inspiration; Sarama, the Intuition, hound of heaven who descends into the cavern of the subconscient and finds there the concealed illuminations; Dakshina, whose function is to discern rightly, dispose the action and the offering and distri bute in the sacrifice to each godhead its portion. Each god, too, has his female energy. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Hymns to the Mystic Fire, 1.02 - The Doctrine of the Mystics, #KEYS
1093:To study, to contemplate, to understand - by these processes we grow, we enrich, and we ennoble ourselves. If we can learn from the experiences of others we do not need to have all these miseries brought upon our own flesh. If we are able to learn from the common experience of the world we can free ourselves from the necessity of learning what every other man from the beginning of time has had to learn the hard way. Every human being has had to learn that fear, anger, greed, overambition all end in pain, misery, and in the loss of natural growth. All have had to learn that prejudice is wrong; compromise leads to corruption - which is wrong. Everyone has to learn this, yet how does it happen that after so many thousands of years each human being has to learn again. Can we learn nothing from observing the conduct of those around us? ~ Manly P Hall, Sensory Perceptions Cannot Think, 1972, p.10), #KEYS
1094:The transformation of our superficial, narrow and fragmentary human way of thinking, seeing, feeling and being into a deep and wide spiritual consciousness and an integrated inner and outer existence and of our ordinary human living into the divine way of life must be its central purpose. The means towards this supreme end is a self-giving of all our nature to the Divine. Everything must be given to the Divine within us, to the universal All and to the transcendent Supreme. An absolute concentration of our will, our heart and our thought on that one and manifold Divine, an unreserved self-consecration of our whole being to the Divine alone - this is the decisive movement, the turning of the ego to That which is infinitely greater than itself, its self-giving and indispensable surrender
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, 89,#KEYS
1095:It is not enough to devote ourselves by the reading of Scriptures or by the stress of philosophic reasoning to an intellectual understanding of the Divine; for at the end of our long mental labour we might know all that has been said of the Eternal, possess all that can be thought about the Infinite and yet we might not know him at all. This intellectual preparation can indeed be the first stage in a powerful Yoga, but it is not indispensable: it is not a step which all need or can be called upon to take. Yoga would be impossible, except for a very few, if the intellectual figure of knowledge arrived at by the speculative or meditative Reason were its indispensable condition or a binding preliminary. All that the Light from above asks of us that it may begin its work is a call from the soul and a sufficient point of support in the mind.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, [T5],#KEYS
1096:This is the integral knowledge, for we know that everywhere and in all conditions all to the eye that sees is One, to a divine experience all is one block of the Divine. It is only the mind which for the temporary convenience of its own thought and aspiration seeks to cut an artificial line of rigid division, a fiction of perpetual incompatibility between one aspect and another of the eternal oneness. The liberated knower lives and acts in the world not less than the bound soul and ignorant mind but more, doing all actions, sarvakrt, only with a true knowledge and a greater conscient power. And by so doing he does not forfeit the supreme unity nor falls from the supreme consciousness and highest knowledge. For the Supreme, however hidden now to us, Is here in the world no less than he could be in the most utter and Ineffable self-extinction, the most intolerant Nirvana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 2:1, #KEYS
1097:What then are the lines of Karmayoga laid down by the Gita? Its key principle, its spiritual method, can be summed up as the union of two largest and highest states or powers of consciousness, equality and oneness. The kernel of its method is an unreserved acceptance of the Divine in our life as in our inner self and spirit. An inner renunciation of personal desire leads to equality, accomplishes our total surrender to the Divine, supports a delivery from dividing ego which brings us oneness. The kernal of its method is an unreserved acceptance of the Divine in our life as in our inner self and spirit. An inner renunciation of personal desire leads to equality, accomplishes our total surrender to the Divine, supports a delivery from dividing ego which brings us oneness.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, [95],#KEYS
1098:
There is no darkness, we only close our eyes
and shut out the Light;
There is no pain, it is only our shrinking
from an intense and unwelcome Delight;
There is no death, it is only our dread of the Life Eternal
that comes back upon us and smites us.
Our senses are tremulous and fearsome
and cling to the empty littlenesses of the surface moment,
they heed not the vast surges of Infinitude
that sweep and pass by.
Calm, calm, my soul! Sink down and deep:
Fashion the crystal bowl of thy heart
with all the serene profundity of the unknown spaces -
And drop by drop will gather there
a bliss immortals only can taste,
And ray by ray will dawn the Light supernal....
Or - be prepared for this too, soul, my soul -
the down-rush of a myriad undyked cataracts,
the sudden bursting of a whole stellar conflagration
March 17, 1935 ~ Nolini Kanta Gupta, , To the Heights,#KEYS
1099:Ordinarily, the Word from without, representative of the Divine, is needed as an aid in the work of self-unfolding; andit may be either a word from the past or the more powerful word of the living Guru. In some cases this representative wordis only taken as a sort of excuse for the inner power to awakenand manifest; it is, as it were, a concession of the omnipotent andomniscient Divine to the generality of a law that governs Nature The usual agency of this revealing is the Word, the thing heard (sruta ´ ). The Word may come to us from within; it may come to us from without. But in either case, it is only an agency for setting the hidden knowledge to work. The word within maybe the utterance of the inmost soul in us which is always opento the Divine; or it may be the word of the secret and universal Teacher who is seated in the hearts of all.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Four Aids,#KEYS
1100:Thou must teach us the path to be followed and Thou must give us the power to follow it to the very end. . . .
O Thou source of all love and all light, Thou whom we cannot know in Thyself but can manifest ever more completely and perfectly, Thou whom we cannot conceive but can approach in profound silence, to complete Thy incommensurable boons Thou must come to our help until we have gained Thy victory. . . .
Let that true love be born which soothes all suffering; establish that immutable peace wherein resides true power; give us the sovereign knowledge which dispels all darkness. . . .
From the infinite depths to this most external body, in its smallest elements, Thou dost move and live and vibrate and set all in motion, and the whole being is now only a single block, infinitely multiple yet absolutely coherent, animated by one tremendous vibration: Thou.
~ The Mother, Prayers And Meditations,#KEYS
1101:Prudence and Balance
Vigilance: indispensable for all true progress.
*
In each human being there is a beast crouching ready to manifest at the slightest unwatchfulness. The only remedy is a constant vigilance. 18 August 1954
*
Prudence: very useful for weakness because weakness needs prudence; strength does not need it.
*
Common sense: it is very practical and avoids any mistakes, but it lacks light.
*
Sobriety has never done harm to anyone.
** *
Equanimity: immutable peace and calm.
*
In the deep peace of equanimity the love will grow to its full
blossoming in a sense of pure and constant unity. 5 October 1934
*
All mischief comes from a lack of balance.
So, let us keep our balance carefully, always, in all circumstances. 10 August 1954
*
Perfect balance: one of the most important conditions of a growing peace. ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
1102:... if we conceive of a being whose faculties are so sharpened that he can follow every molecule in its course, such a being, whose attributes are as essentially finite as our own, would be able to do what is impossible to us. For we have seen that molecules in a vessel full of air at uniform temperature are moving with velocities by no means uniform, though the mean velocity of any great number of them, arbitrarily selected, is almost exactly uniform. Now let us suppose that such a vessel is divided into two portions, A and B, by a division in which there is a small hole, and that a being, who can see the individual molecules, opens and closes this hole, so as to allow only the swifter molecules to pass from A to B, and only the slower molecules to pass from B to A. He will thus, without expenditure of work, raise the temperature of B and lower that of A, in contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics. ~ James Clerk Maxwell, #KEYS
1103:And He will judge and will forgive all, the good and the evil, the wise and the meek . . . And when He has done with all of them, then He will summon us. 'You too come forth,' He will say, 'Come forth ye drunkards, come forth, ye weak ones, come forth, ye children of shame!' And we shall all come forth, without shame and shall stand before him. And He will say unto us, 'Ye are swine, made in the Image of the Beast and with his mark; but come ye also!' And the wise ones and those of understanding will say, 'Oh Lord, why dost Thou receive these men?' And He will say, 'This is why I receive them, oh ye wise, this is why I receive them, oh ye of understanding, that not one of them believed himself to be worthy of this.' And He will hold out His hands to us and we shall fall down before him . . . and we shall weep . . . and we shall understand all things! Then we shall understand everything! . . . and all will understand ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, #KEYS
1104:10.: I do not know whether I have put this clearly; self-knowledge is of such consequence that I would not have you careless of it, though you may be lifted to heaven in prayer, because while on earth nothing is more needful than humility. Therefore, I repeat, not only a good way, but the best of all ways, is to endeavour to enter first by the room where humility is practised, which is far better than at once rushing on to the others. This is the right road;-if we know how easy and safe it is to walk by it, why ask for wings with which to fly? Let us rather try to learn how to advance quickly. I believe we shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavouring to know God, for, beholding His greatness we are struck by our own baseness, His purity shows our foulness, and by meditating on His humility we find how very far we are from being humble. ~ Saint Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, 1.02, #KEYS
1105: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. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine #KEYS
1106:But if in passing from one domain to another we renounce what has already been given us from eagerness for our new attainment, if in reaching the mental life we cast away or belittle the physical life which is our basis, or if we reject the mental and physical in our attraction to the spiritual, we do not fulfil God integrally, nor satisfy the conditions of His selfmanifestation. We do not become perfect, but only shift the field of our imperfection or atmost attain a limited altitude. However high we may climb, even though it be to the Non-Being itself, we climb ill if we forget our base. Not to abandon the lower to itself, but to transfigure it in the light of the higher to which we have attained, is true divinity of nature. Brahman is integral and unifies many states of consciousness at a time; we also, manifesting the nature of Brahman, should become integral and all-embracing. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, #KEYS
1107:Drugs are able to bring humans into the neighborhood of divine experience and can thus carry us up from our personal fate and the everyday circumstances of our life into a higher form of reality. It is, however, necessary to understand precisely what is meant by the use of drugs. We do not mean the purely physical craving...That of which we speak is something much higher, namely the knowledge of the possibility of the soul to enter into a lighter being, and to catch a glimpse of deeper insights and more magnificent visions of the beauty, truth, and the divine than we are normally able to spy through the cracks in our prison cell. But there are not many drugs which have the power of stilling such craving. The entire catalog, at least to the extent that research has thus far written it, may include only opium, hashish, and in rarer cases alcohol, which has enlightening effects only upon very particular characters. ~ The Hashish Eater, (1857) pg. 181 #KEYS
1108: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, so that in a sense God Himself, the real Person in us, becomes the Sadhaka of the sadhana as well as the Master of the Yoga by whom the lower personality is used as the centre of a divine transfiguration and the instrument of its own perfection. In effect, the pressure of the Tapas, the force of consciousness in us dwelling in the Idea of the divine Nature upon that which we are in our entirety, produces its own realisation. The divine and all-knowing and all-effecting descends upon the limited and obscure, progressively illumines and energises the whole lower nature and substitutes its own action for all the terms of the inferior human light and mortal activity.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Synthesis of the Systems, 45,#KEYS
1109:55: A similar rejection is a necessary self-restraint and a spiritual discipline for the immature seeker, since such powers may be a great, even a deadly peril; for their supernormality may easily feed in him an abnormal exaggeration of the ego. Power in itself may be dreaded as a temptation by the aspirant to perfection, because power can abase as well as elevate; nothing is more liable to misuse. But when new capacities come as an inevitable result of the growth into a greater consciousness and a greater life and that growth is part of the very aim of the spiritual being within us, this bar does not operate; for a growth of the being into supernature and its life in supernature cannot take place or cannot be complete without bringing with it a greater power of consciousness and a greater power of life and the spontaneous development of an instrumentation of knowledge and force normal to that supernature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 2.08, #KEYS
1110:This now leads us to elucidate more precisely the error of the idea that the majority should make the law, because, even though this idea must remain theoretical - since it does not correspond to an effective reality - it is necessary to explain how it has taken root in the modern outlook, to which of its tendencies it corresponds, and which of them - at least in appearance - it satisfies. Its most obvious flaw is the one we have just mentioned: the opinion of the majority cannot be anything but an expression of incompetence, whether this be due to lack of intelligence or to ignorance pure and simple; certain observations of 'mass psychology' might be quoted here, in particular the widely known fact that the aggregate of mental reactions aroused among the component individuals of a crowd crystallizes into a sort of general psychosis whose level is not merely not that of the average, but actually that of the lowest elements present. ~ Rene Guenon, The Crisis of the Modern World, #KEYS
1111:renunciation as a means :::
Therefore renunciation must be for us merely an instrument and not an object; nor can it be the only or the chief instrument since our object is the fulfilment of the Divine in the human being, a positive aim which cannot be reached by negative means. The negative means can only be for the removal of that which stands in the way of the positive fulfilment. It must be a renunciation, a complete renunciation of all that is other than and opposed to the divine self-fulfilment and a progressive renunciation of all that is a lesser or only a partial achievement. We shall have no attachment to our life in the world; if that attachment exists, we must renounce it and renounce utterly; but neither shall we have any attachment to the escape from the world, to salvation, to the great self-annihilation; if that attachment exists, that also we must renounce and renounce it utterly.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Renunciation, 329,#KEYS
1112:The hostile forces have a certain self-chosen function: it is to test the condition of the individual, of the work, of the earth itself and their readiness for the spiritual descent and fulfilment. At every step of the journey, they are there attacking furiously, criticising, suggesting, imposing despondency or inciting to revolt, raising unbelief, amassing difficulties. No doubt, they put a very exaggerated interpretation on the rights given them by their function, making mountains even out of what seems to us a mole-hill. A little trifling false step or mistake and they appear on the road and clap a whole Himalaya as a barrier across it. But this opposition has been permitted from of old not merely as a test or ordeal, but as a compulsion on us to seek a greater strength, a more perfect self-knowledge, an intenser purity and force of aspiration, a faith that nothing can crush, a more powerful descent of the Divine Grace.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,#KEYS
1113:the best we can conceive as the thing to be done :::
The work itself is at first determined by the best light we can command in our ignorance. It is that which we conceive as the thing that should be done. And whether it be shaped by our sense of duty, by our feeling for our fellow-creatures, by our idea of what is for the good of others or the good of the world or by the direction of one whom we accept as a human Master, wiser than ourselves and for us the representative of that Lord of all works in whom we believe but whom we do not yet know, the principle is the same. The essential of the sacrifice of works must be there and the essential is the surrender of all desire for the fruit of our works, the renunciation of all attachment to the result for which yet we labour. For so long as we work with attachment to the result, the sacrifice is offered not to the Divine, but to our ego...
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Equality and the Annihilation of Ego,#KEYS
1114:burden and advantage to an Integral Yoga; :::
...The hope of an integral transformation forbids us to take a short cut or to make ourselves light for the race by throwing away our impedimenta. For we have set out to conquer all ourselves and the world for God; ... Our compensation is that even if the path is that even if the path is more rugged, the effort more complex and baffling arduous, yet after a certain point we gain an immense advantage. For once our minds are reasonably fixed in the central vision and our wills are on the whole converted to the single pursuit, Life becomes our helper. Intent, vigilant, integrally conscious, we can take every detail of its forms and every incident of its movements as food for the sacrificial Fire within us. Victorious in the struggle, we can compel Earth herself to be an aid towards our perfection and can enrich our realisation with the booty torn from the Powers that oppose us.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 74,#KEYS
1115:Elric: We are dreamers, shapers, singers, and makers. We study the mysteries of laser and circuit, crystal and scanner, holographic demons and invocation of equations. These are the tools we employ, and we know many things.
John Sheridan: Such as?
Elric: The true secrets, the important things. Fourteen words to make someone fall in love with you forever. Seven words to make them go without pain. How to say good-bye to a friend who is dying. How to be poor. How to be rich. How to rediscover dreams when the world has stolen them. That is why we are going away-to preserve that knowledge.
Sheridan: From what?
Elric: There is a storm coming, a black and terrible storm. We would not have our knowledge lost or used to ill purpose. From this place we will launch ourselves into the stars. With luck, you will never see our kind again in your lifetime. I know you have your orders, Captain. Detain us if you wish. But I cannot tell you where we are going. I can only ask you to trust us. ~ J Michael Straczynski,#KEYS
1116:Ah, yeah. We're gonna go to Mars. And then of course we're gonna colonize deep space. With our microwave hot dogs and plastic vomit, fake dog shit and cinnamon dental floss, lemon-scented toilet paper and sneakers with lights in the heels. And all these other impressive things we've done down here. But let me ask you this: what are we gonna tell the intergalactic council of ministers the first time one of our teenage mothers throws their newborn baby into a dumpster? How are we gonna explain that to the space people? How are we gonna let them know that our ambassador was only late for the meeting because his breakfast was cold and he had to spend half an hour punching his wife around the kitchen? And what are they gonna think when they find out, its just a local custom, that over 80 million women in the Third world have had their clitorises forcibly removed in order to reduce their sexual pleasure so they won't cheat on their husbands? Can't you just sense how eager the rest of the universe is for us to show up? ~ George Carlin, #KEYS
1117:All that the Light from above asks of us that it may begin its work is a call from the soul and a sufficient point of support in the mind. This support can be reached through an insistent idea of the Divine in the thought, a corresponding will in the dynamic parts, an aspiration, a faith, a need in the heart. Any one of these may lead or predominate, if all cannot move in unison or in an equal rhythm. The idea may be and must in the beginning be inadequate; the aspiration may be narrow and imperfect, the faith poorly illumined or even, as not surely founded on the rock of knowledge, fluctuating, uncertain, easily diminished; often even it may be extinguished and need to be lit again with difficulty like a torch in a windy pass. But if once there is a resolute self-consecration from deep within, if there is an awakening to the souls call, these inadequate things can be a sufficient instrument for the divine purpose.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Consecration, 81,#KEYS
1118:In the terrestrial formulation of Knowledge and Power, this correlation is not altogether apparent because there consciousness itself is concealed in an original Inconscience and the natural strength and rhythm of its powers in their emergence are diminished and disturbed by the discordances and the veils of the Ignorance. The Inconscient there is the original, potent and automatically effective Force, the conscious mind is only a small labouring agent; but that is because the conscious mind in us has a limited individual action and the Inconscient is an immense action of a universal concealed Consciousness: 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. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 2.28 - The Divine Life, #KEYS
1119:a sevenfold self-revelation within our consciousness: - it will mean the knowledge of the Absolute as the origin of all things; the knowledge of the Self, the Spirit, the Being and of the cosmos as the Self's becoming, the becoming of the Being, a manifestation of the Spirit; the knowledge of the world as one with us in the consciousness of our true self, thus cancelling our division from it by the separative idea and life of ego; the knowledge of our psychic entity and its immortal persistence in Time beyond death and earth-existence; the knowledge of our greater and inner existence behind the surface; the knowledge of our mind, life and body in its true relation to the self within and the superconscient spiritual and supramental being above them; the knowledge, finally, of the true harmony and true use of our thought, will and action and a change of all our nature into a conscious expression of the truth of the Spirit, the Self, the Divinity, the integral spiritual Reality.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
1120:The Teacher of the integral Yoga will follow as far as he may the method of the Teacher within us. He will lead the disciple through the nature of the disciple. Teaching, example, influence, - these are the three instruments of the Guru. But the wise Teacher will not seek to impose himself or his opinions on the passive acceptance of the receptive mind; he will throw in only what is productive and sure as a seed which will grow under the divine fostering within. He will seek to awaken much more than to instruct; he will aim at the growth of the faculties and the experiences by a natural process and free expansion. He will give a method as an aid, as a utilisable device, not as an imperative formula or a fixed routine. And he will be on his guard against any turning of the means into a limitation, against the mechanising of process. His whole business is to awaken the divine light and set working the divine force of which he himself is only a means and an aid, a body or a channel. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, #KEYS
1121:Gaya, the Rishi, prays to Agni, Lord of Tapas, the representative in Nature of the Divine Power that builds the worlds & works in them towards our soul's fulfilment in and beyond heaven - Agni, as játavedas, the self-existent luminosity of knowledge in this Cosmic Force - for Force is only Chitshakti, working power of the Divine Consciousness & therefore Cosmic Force is always self-luminous, all-knowing force. Agni Jatavedas then is the ray of divine knowledge in this embodied state of existence; - he is Adhrigu - the Light in our embodied being. For this reason all action offered by us to Agni as a work of divine tapas becomes in its nature a self-luminous activity guiding itself whether consciously in our minds or super-consciously, guháhitam, to the divine goal. All Tapas is self-effective and God-effective. As Adhrigu, the divine Light in our embodied being, Agni is to bring to us an illumination of knowledge in our mentality which is ojistha, most full of ojas, superabundant ... ~ Sri Aurobindo, Hymns To The Mystic Fire, #KEYS
1122:When man's thoughts rise upon the wings of aspiration, when he pushes back the darkness with the strength of reason and logic, then indeed the builder is liberated from his dungeon and the light pours in, bathing him with life and power. This light enables us to seek more clearly the mystery of creation and to find with greater certainty our place in the Great Plan, for as man unfolds his bodies he gains talents with which he can explore the mysteries of Nature and search for the hidden workings of the Divine. Through these powers the Builder is liberated and his consciousness goes forth conquering and to conquer. These higher ideals, these spiritual concepts, these altruistic, philanthropic, educative applications of thought power glorify the Builder; for they give the power of expression and those who can express themselves are free. When man can mold his thoughts, his emotions, and his actions into faithful expressions of his highest ideals then liberty is his, for ignorance is the darkness of Chaos and knowledge is the light of Cosmos.
~ Manly P Hall,#KEYS
1123:THE MASTER and Mover of our works is the One, the Universal and Supreme, the Eternal and Infinite. He is the transcendent unknown or unknowable Absolute, the unexpressed and unmanifested Ineffable above us; but he is also the Self of all beings, the Master of all worlds, transcending all worlds, the Light and the Guide, the All-Beautiful and All-Blissful, the Beloved and the Lover. He is the Cosmic Spirit and all-creating Energy around us; he is the Immanent within us. All that is is he, and he is the More than all that is, and we ourselves, though we know it not, are being of his being, force of his force, conscious with a consciousness derived from his; even our mortal existence is made out of his substance and there is an immortal within us that is a spark of the Light and Bliss that are for ever. No matter whether by knowledge, works, love or any other means, to become aware of this truth of our being, to realise it, to make it effective here or elsewhere is the object of all Yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, [T1],#KEYS
1124:But what then of that silent Self, inactive, pure, self-existent, self-enjoying, which presented itself to us as the abiding justification of the ascetic? Here also harmony and not irreconcilable opposition must be the illuminative truth. The silent and the active Brahman are not different, opposite and irreconcilable entities, the one denying, the other affirming a cosmic illusion; they are one Brahman in two aspects, positive and negative, and each is necessary to the other. It is out of this Silence that the Word which creates the worlds for ever proceeds; for the Word expresses that which is self-hidden in the Silence. It is an eternal passivity which makes possible the perfect freedom and omnipotence of an eternal divine activity in innumerable cosmic systems. For the becomings of that activity derive their energies and their illimitable potency of variation and harmony from the impartial support of the immutable Being, its consent to this infinite fecundity of its own dynamic Nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Reality Omnipresent, #KEYS
1125:8. The Woman As Temptress:The crux of the curious difficulty lies in the fact that our conscious views of what life ought to be seldom correspond to what life really is. Generally we refuse to admit within ourselves, or within our friends, the fullness of that pushing, self-protective, malodorous, carnivorous, lecherous fever which is the very nature of the organic cell. Rather, we tend to perfume, whitewash, and reinterpret; meanwhile imagining that all the flies in the ointment, all the hairs in the soup, are the faults of some unpleasant someone else. But when it suddenly dawns on us, or is forced to our attention that everything we think or do is necessarily tainted with the odor of the flesh, then, not uncommonly, there is experienced a moment of revulsion: life, the acts of life, the organs of life, woman in particular as the great symbol of life, become intolerable to the pure, the pure, pure soul. The seeker of the life beyond life must press beyond (the woman), surpass the temptations of her call, and soar to the immaculate ether beyond. ~ Joseph Campbell, #KEYS
1126:There is only one thing painful in the beginning to a raw or turbid part of the surface nature; it is the indispensable discipline demanded, the denial necessary for the merging of the incomplete ego. But for that there can be a speedy and enormous compensation in the discovery of a real greater or ultimate completeness in others, in all things, in the cosmic oneness, in the freedom of the transcendent Self and Spirit, in the rapture of the touch of the Divine. Our sacrifice is not a giving without any return or any fruitful acceptance from the other side; it is an interchange between the embodied soul and conscious Nature in us and the eternal Spirit. For even though no return is demanded, yet there is the knowledge deep within us that a marvellous return is inevitable. The soul knows that it does not give itself to God in vain; claiming nothing, it yet receives the infinite riches of the divine Power and Presence.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, The Sacrifice, the Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice [109],#KEYS
1127:What you write is no doubt true and it is necessary to see it so as to be able to comprehend and grasp the true attitude necessary for the sadhana. But, as I have said, one must not be distressed or depressed by perceiving the weaknesses inherent in human nature and the difficulty of getting them out. The difficulty is natural, for they have been there for thousands of lives and are the very nature of man's vital and mental ignorance. It is not surprising that they should have a power to stick and take time to disappear. But there is a true being and a true consciousness that is there in us hidden by these surface formations of nature and which can shake them off once it emerges. By taking the right attitude of selfless devotion within and persisting in it in spite of the surface nature's troublesome self-repetitions one enables this inner being and consciousness to emerge and with the Mother's Force working in it deliver the being from all return of the movements of the old nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV, Dealing with Depression and Despondency, #KEYS
1128:The path of seeking truth within and without is not an easy one. It goes literally against everything we've been told and taught by society and governments. The indoctrination of lies, the conditioning and programming is deep and far reaching. It has been going on for millennia. It takes tremendous effort to wake up from the hypnotic slumber, where most people dream to be awake. At this time of transition, as more and more knowledge is coming to the surface, there is the potential to create a new earth. However, this is also the age of deception for there are forces at work that do not want this to happen. They do their best to vector us away from truth and the most effective way to swallow a lie is to sandwich it between some truth with some emotional hooks. As mentioned many times before, lies are mixed with truth, hence discernment is essential. We need to engage our higher emotional center connecting us to divine intuition and also activate our higher intellect, engaging in sincere, open minded critical thinking, fusing the heart and the mind, mysticism and science. ~ Bernhard Guenther, #KEYS
1129:
But why does the Divine want to manifest Himself on earth in this chaos?
Because this is why He has created the earth, not for any other motive; the earth is He Himself in a deformation and He wants to establish it back again in its truth. Earth is not something separated from Him and alien to Him. It is a deformation of Himself which must once again become what it was in its essence, that is, the Divine.
Then why is He a stranger to us?
But He is not a stranger, my child. You fancy that He is a stranger, but He is not, not in the least. He is the essence of your being - not at all alien. You may not know Him, but He is not a stranger; He is the very essence of your being. Without the Divine you would not exist. Without the Divine you could not exist even for the millionth part of a second. Only, because you live in a kind of false illusion and deformation, you are not conscious. You are not conscious of yourself, you are conscious of something which you think to be yourself, but which isn't you.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1955,#KEYS
1130:[invocation] Let us describe the magical method of identification. The symbolic form of the god is first studied with as much care as an artist would bestow upon his model, so that a perfectly clear and unshakeable mental picture of the god is presented to the mind. Similarly, the attributes of the god are enshrined in speech, and such speeches are committed perfectly to memory. The invocation will then begin with a prayer to the god, commemorating his physical attributes, always with profound understanding of their real meaning. In the second part of the invocation, the voice of the god is heard, and His characteristic utterance is recited. In the third portion of the invocation the Magician asserts the identity of himself with the god. In the fourth portion the god is again invoked, but as if by Himself, as if it were the utterance of the will of the god that He should manifest in the Magician. At the conclusion of this, the original object of the invocation is stated.
~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick, Part 3, The Formuale of the Elemental Weapons [149] [T4],#KEYS
1131:The tide of materialistic thoughts is always on the watch, waiting for the least weakness, and if we relax but one moment from our vigilance, if we are even slightly negligent, it rushes in and invades us from all sides, submerging under its heavy flood the result sometimes of numberless efforts. Then the being enters a sort of torpor, its physical needs of food and sleep increase, its intelligence is clouded, its inner vision veiled, and in spite of the little interest it really finds in such superficial activities, they occupy it almost exclusively. This state is extremely painful and tiring, for nothing is more tiring then materialistic thoughts, and the mind, worn out, suffers like a caged bird which cannot spread its wings and yet longs to be able to soar freely.
But perhaps this state has its own use which I do not see.... In any case, I do not struggle; and like a child in its mother's arms, like a fervent disciple at the feet of his master, I trust myself to Thee and surrender to Thy guidance, sure of Thy victory.
~ The Mother, Prayers And Meditations, January 4th, 1914,#KEYS
1132:On the back part of the step, toward the right, I saw a small iridescent sphere of almost unbearable brilliance. At first I thought it was revolving; then I realised that this movement was an illusion created by the dizzying world it bounded. The Aleph's diameter was probably little more than an inch, but all space was there, actual and undiminished. Each thing (a mirror's face, let us say) was infinite things, since I distinctly saw it from every angle of the universe. I saw the teeming sea; I saw daybreak and nightfall; I saw the multitudes of America; I saw a silvery cobweb in the center of a black pyramid; I saw a splintered labyrinth (it was London); I saw, close up, unending eyes watching themselves in me as in a mirror; I saw all the mirrors on earth and none of them reflected me; I saw in a backyard of Soler Street the same tiles that thirty years before I'd seen in the entrance of a house in Fray Bentos; I saw bunches of grapes, snow, tobacco, lodes of metal, steam; I saw convex equatorial deserts and each one of their grains of sand... ~ Jorge Luis Borges, The Aleph, #KEYS
1133:
Sweet Mother, Sri Aurobindo has said somewhere that if one surrenders to the Divine Grace, it will do everything for us. Therefore, what value has tapasya?
If you want to know what Sri Aurobindo has said on a given subject, you must at least read all that he has written on that subject. You will then see that he has apparently said the most contradictory things. But when one has read everything, and understood a little, one perceives that all the contradictions complement each other and are organised and unified into an integral synthesis. Here is another quotation from Sri Aurobindo which will show you that your question is based on ignorance. There are many others which you can read with interest and which will make your intelligence more supple: 'If there is not a complete surrender, then it is not possible to adopt the baby cat attitude; it becomes mere tamasic passivity calling itself surrender. If a complete surrender is not possible in the beginning, it follows that personal effort is necessary.' 16 December 1964
~ The Mother, Some Answers From The Mother, 308,#KEYS
1134:To know, possess and be the divine being in an animal and egoistic consciousness, to convert our twilit or obscure physical men- tality into the plenary supramental illumination, to build peace and a self-existent bliss where there is only a stress of transitory satisfactions besieged by physical pain and emotional suffering, to establish an infinite freedom in a world which presents itself as a group of mechanical necessities, to discover and realise the immortal life in a body subjected to death and constant mutation, - this is offered to us as the manifestation of God in Matter and the goal of Nature in her terrestrial evolution. To the ordinary material intellect which takes its present organisation of consciousness for the limit of its possibilities, the direct contradiction of the unrealised ideals with the realised fact is a final argument against their validity. But if we take a more deliberate view of the world's workings, that direct opposition appears rather as part of Nature's profoundest method and the seal of her completest sanction. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 1.01, #KEYS
1135:Sails across the sea of life in the twinkling of an eye.' One attains the vision of God if Mahamaya steps aside from the door. Mahamaya's grace is necessary: hence the worship of Sakti. You see, God is near us, but it is not possible to know Him because Mahamaya stands between. Rama, Lakshmana, and Sita were walking along. Rama walked ahead, Sita in the middle, and Lakshmana last. Lakshmana was only two and a half cubits away from Rama, but he couldn't see Rama because Sita - Mahamaya - was in the way.
"While worshipping God, one should assume a definite attitude. I have three attitudes: the attitude of a child, the attitude or a maidservant, and the attitude of a friend. For a long time I regarded myself as a maidservant and a woman companion of God; at that time I used to wear skirts and ornaments, like a woman. The attitude of a child is very good.
"The attitude of a 'hero' is not good. Some people cherish it. They regard themselves as Purusha and woman as Prakriti; they want to propitiate woman through intercourse with her. But this method often causes disaster. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,#KEYS
1136:This concentration proceeds by the Idea, using thought, form and name as keys which yield up to the concentrating mind the Truth that lies concealed behind all thought, form and name; for it is through the Idea that the mental being rises beyond all expression to that which is expressed, to that of which the Idea itself is only the instrument. By concentration upon the Idea the mental existence which at present we are breaks open the barrier of our mentality and arrives at the state of consciousness, the state of being, the state of power of conscious-being and bliss of conscious-being to which the Idea corresponds and of which it is the symbol, movement and rhythm. Concentration by the Idea is, then, only a means, a key to open to us the superconscient planes of our existence; a certain self-gathered state of our whole existence lifted into that superconscient truth, unity and infinity of self-aware, self-blissful existence is the aim and culmination; and that is the meaning we shall give to the term Samadhi.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Integral Knowledge, Concentration [321],#KEYS
1137:The matter of definition, I have said, is very important. I am not now speaking of nominal definitions, which for convenience merely give names to known objects. I am speaking of such definitions of phenomena as result from correct analysis of the phenomena. Nominal definitions are mere conveniences and are neither true nor false; but analytic definitions are definitive propositions and are true or else false. Let us dwell upon the matter a little more.
In the illustration of the definitions of lightning, there were three; the first was the most mistaken and its application brought the most harm; the second was less incorrect and the practical results less bad; the third under the present conditions of our knowledge, was the "true one" and it brought the maximum benefit. This lightning illustration suggests the important idea of relative truth and relative falsehood-the idea, that is, of degrees of truth and degrees of falsehood. A definition may be neither absolutely true nor absolutely false; but of two definitions of the same thing' one of them may be truer or falser than the other. ~ Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity, 49,#KEYS
1138:THE PROGRESSIVE revelation of a great, a transcendent, a luminous Reality with the multitudinous relativities of this world that we see and those other worlds that we do not see as means and material, condition and field, this would seem then to be the meaning of the universe, - since meaning and aim it has and is neither a purposeless illusion nor a fortuitous accident.
For the same reasoning which leads us to conclude that world-existence is not a deceptive trick of Mind, justifies equally the certainty that it is no blindly and helplessly self-existent mass of separate phenomenal existences clinging together and struggling together as best they can in their orbit through eternity, no tremendous self-creation and self-impulsion of an ignorant Force without any secret Intelligence within aware of its starting-point and its goal and guiding its process and its motion.
An existence, wholly self-aware and therefore entirely master of itself, possesses the phenomenal being in which it is involved, realises itself in form, unfolds itself in the individual. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine 1.6-1,#KEYS
1139:Yes, from thenceforward, is there any suffering for one who sees this unity of the universe, this unity of life, this unity of the All? The separation between man and man, man and woman, man and child; nation and nation, that is the real cause of all the misery of the world. Now this separation is not at all real ; it is only apparent, it is only on the surface. In the very heart of things is the unity which is for ever. Go into yourself and you will find this unity between man and man, women and children, race and race, the great and the little, the rich and the poor, gods and men : all of us are one, even the animals, if you go down to a sufficient depth. And to the man who goes so far nothing can cause any illusion. ..where can there exist for him any illusion ? What can deceive him ? He knows the reality of everything, the secret of everything. Where can there exist any misery for him ? What can he desire ? He has discovered the reality of everything in the Lord who is the centre, the unity of all and who is the eternal felicity, the eternal knowledge, the eternal existence. ~ Virekananda, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
1140:The Palace
The Palace is not infinite.
The walls, the ramparts, the gardens, the labyrinths, the staircases, the terraces, the parapets, the doors, the galleries, the circular or rectangular patios, the cloisters, the intersections, the cisterns, the anterooms, the chambers, the alcoves, the libraries, the attics, the dungeons, the sealed cells and the vaults, are not less in quantity than the grains of sand in the Ganges, but their number has a limit. From the roofs, towards sunset, many people can make out the forges, the workshops, the stables, the boatyards and the huts of the slaves.
It is granted to no one to traverse more than an infinitesimal part of the palace. Some know only the cellars. We can take in some faces, some voices, some words, but what we perceive is of the feeblest. Feeble and precious at the same time. The date which the chisel engraves in the tablet, and which is recorded in the parochial registers, is later than our own death; we are already dead when nothing touches us, neither a word nor a yearning nor a memory. I know that I am not dead. ~ Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Sand,#KEYS
1141:A major part of the book is devoted to poetry. It opens with Sri Aurobindo's Savitri. The author has a novel way of appreciating this most wonderful epic, which continually overwhelms and bewilders us. He has taken this bewilderment as the subject of the chapter "An Uninitiated Reader's Response to Savitri". This is a rarely explored area, namely the magical poetic beauty of Savitri that casts a spell on the reader even when he does not always understand its content. For the lover of poetry is attracted by its "beauty and strength", "he is overawed by the grandeur of the animated spirituality". Any time spent with Savitri thus becomes a special moment in his life. Later in the book we find another kind of appreciation of the epic in the chapter on K. D. Sethna as a "crusader of aesthetic yoga". There the author calls Savitri the "Odyssey of Integral Yoga" where yoga and poetry come together. He also appreciates the "sensitive analysis of stylistic effect" by Sethna, who uses wonderful quotations from Savitri as examples of adequate style, effective style, illumined style, etc. (From the Near to Far by Dr. Saurendranth Basu) ~ Nandita Chatterjee, review of the book, #KEYS
1142:...the present terms are there not as an unprofitable recurrence, but in active pregnant gestation of all that is yet to be unfolded by the spirit, no irrational decimal recurrence helplessly repeating for ever its figures, but an expanding series of powers of the Infinite. What is in front of us is the greater potentialities, the steps yet unclimbed, the intended mightier manifestations. Why we are here is to be this means of the spirit's upward self-unfolding. What we have to do with ourselves and our significances is to grow and open them to greater significances of divine being, divine consciousness, divine power, divine delight and multiplied unity, and what we have to do with our environment is to use it consciously for increasing spiritual purposes and make it more and more a mould for the ideal unfolding of the perfect nature and self-conception of the Divine in the cosmos. This is surely the Will in things which moves, great and deliberate, unhasting, unresting, through whatever cycles, towards a greater and greater informing of its own finite figures with its own infinite Reality.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays In Philosophy And Yoga,#KEYS
1143:It can be expected that the orthodox Christian will at first reject the theories about the Christ which occultism presents; at the same time, this same orthodox Christian will find it increasingly difficult to induce the intelligent masses of people to accept the impossible Deity and the feeble Christ, which historical Christianity has endorsed. A Christ Who is present and living, Who is known to those who follow Him, Who is a strong and able executive, and not a sweet and sentimental sufferer, Who has never left us but Who has worked for two thousand years through the medium of His disciples, the inspired men and women of all faiths, all religions, and all religious persuasions; Who has no use for fanaticism or hysterical devotion, but Who loves all men persistently, intelligently and optimistically, Who sees divinity in them all, and Who comprehends the techniques of the evolutionary development of the human consciousness (mental, emotional and physical, producing civilizations and cultures appropriate to a particular point in evolution) - these ideas the intelligent public can and will accept. p. 589/90 ~ Alice Bailey, in The Externalization of the Hierarchy (1957) #KEYS
1144:Prayer helps to prepare this relation for us at first on the lower plane even while it is there consistent with much that is mere egoism and self-delusion; but afterwards we can draw towards the spiritual truth which is behind it. It is not then the giving of the thing asked for that matters, but the relation itself, the contact of mans life with God, the conscious interchange. In spiritual matters and in the seeking of spiritual gains, this conscious relation is a great power; it is a much greater power than our own entirely self-reliant struggle and effort and it brings a fuller spiritual growth and experience. Necessarily, in the end prayer either ceases in the greater thing for which it prepared us, -- in fact the form we call prayer is not itself essential so long as the faith, the will, the aspiration are there, -- or remains only for the joy of the relation. Also its objects, the artha or interest it seeks to realise, become higher and higher until we reach the highest motiveless devotion, which is that of divine love pure and simple without any other demand or longing.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Love,#KEYS
1145:DEFEAT
Defeat, my Defeat, my solitude and my aloofness;
You are dearer to me than a thousand triumphs,
And sweeter to my heart than all world-glory.
Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance,
Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot
And not to be trapped by withering laurels.
And in you I have found aloneness
And the joy of being shunned and scorned.
Defeat, my Defeat, my shining sword and shield,
In your eyes I have read
That to be enthroned is to be enslaved,
And to be understood is to be leveled down,
And to be grasped is but to reach one's fullness
And like a ripe fruit to fall and be consumed.
Defeat, my Defeat, my bold companion,
You shall hear my songs and my cries and my silences,
And none but you shall speak to me of the beating of wings,
And urging of seas,
And of mountains that burn in the night,
And you alone shall climb my steep and rocky soul.
Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage,
You and I shall laugh together with the storm,
And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us,
And we shall stand in the sun with a will,
And we shall be dangerous. ~ Kahlil Gibran,#KEYS
1146:The Lord sees in his omniscience the thing that has to be done. This seeing is his Will, it is a form of creative Power, and that which he sees the all-conscious Mother, one with him, takes into her dynamic self and embodies, and executive Nature-Force carries it out as the mechanism of their omnipotent omniscience.
But this vision of what is to be and therefore of what is to be done arises out of the very being, pours directly out of the consciousness and delight of existence of the Lord, spontaneously, like light from the Sun. It is not our mortal attempt to see, our difficult arrival at truth of action and motive or just demand of Nature. When the individual soul is entirely at one in its being and knowledge with the Lord and directly in touch with the original Shakti, the transcendent Mother, the supreme Will can then arise in us too in the high divine manner as a thing that must be and is achieved by the spontaneous action of Nature. There is then no desire, no responsibility, no reaction; all takes place in the peace, calm, light, power of the supporting and enveloping and inhabiting Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 218,#KEYS
1147:But for the knowledge of the Self it is necessary to have the power of a complete intellectual passivity, the power of dismissing all thought, the power of the mind to think not at all which the Gita in one passage enjoins. This is a hard saying for the occidental mind to which thought is the highest thing and which will be apt to mistake the power of the mind not to think, its complete silence for the incapacity of thought. But this power of silence is a capacity and not an incapacity, a power and not a weakness. It is a profound and pregnant stillness. Only when the mind is thus entirely still, like clear, motionless and level water, in a perfect purity and peace of the whole being and the soul transcends thought, can the Self which exceeds and originates all activities and becomings, the Silence from which all words are born, the Absolute of which all relativities are partial reflections manifest itself in the pure essence of our being. In a complete silence only is the Silence heard; in a pure peace only is its Being revealed. Therefore to us the name of That is the Silence and the Peace.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Purified Understanding, 302,#KEYS
1148:Find That Something :::
We can, simply by a sincere aspiration, open a sealed door in us and find... that Something which will change the whole significance of life, reply to all our questions, solve all our problems and lead us to the perfection we aspire for without knowing it, to that Reality which alone can satisfy us and give us lasting joy, equilibrium, strength, life.
All have heard it - Oh! there are even some here who are so used to it that for them it seems to be the same thing as drinking a glass of water or opening a window to let in the sunlight....
We have tried a little, but now we are going to try seriously!
The starting-point: to want it, truly want it, to need it. The next step: to think, above all, of that. A day comes, very quickly, when one is unable to think of anything else.
That is the one thing which counts. And then... One formulates one's aspiration, lets the true prayer spring up from one's heart, the prayer which expresses the sincerity of the need. And then... well, one will see what happens.
Something will happen. Surely something will happen. For each one it will take a different form.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1957-1958,#KEYS
1149:One perceives the true nature of existence. One discovers the why and the raison d'être of existence, not by the mind and the scientific pursuit, but by the knowledge of the self and the discovery of one's soul which is all-powerful.
This is the true method for knowing, for understanding and for realising the secrets of Nature, of the universe and the path which leads to the Divine. One can do everything with this realisation, one can know everything and finally become the master of one's existence. Nothing will be impossible … nothing will be left out. One has only to see with another sense which is within us, develop another faculty by a rigourous sadhana, to discover the secrets of all existence. Voilà.
The means are in you, the path opens up more and more, gets clearer and clearer, and with the help which is at your disposal, you have only to make an effort and you shall be crowned with a Knowledge, a Light and an Ananda which surpass all existence. Whether it be to see the functioning of the atom, or to know the process of thought or the flights of imagination or even the unknown … to know oneself is to know all. It is this that one must find. ~ The Mother,#KEYS
1150:The Transcendent Mother and the Higher Hemisphere
"At the summit of this manifestation of which we are a part there are worlds of infinite existence, consciousness, force and bliss over which the Mother stands as the unveiled eternal Power."1 The Transcendent Mother thus stands above the Ananda plane.There are then four steps of the Divine Shakti:
(1) The Transcendent Mahashakti who stands above the Ananda plane and who bears the Supreme Divine in her eternal consciousness.
(2) The Mahashakti immanent in the worlds of SatChit-Ananda where all beings live and move in an ineffable completeness.
(3) The Supramental Mahashakti immanent in the worlds of Supermind.
(4) The Cosmic Mahashakti immanent in the lower hemisphere.
Yes; that is all right. One speaks often however of all above the lower hemisphere as part of the transcendence. This is because the Supermind and Ananda are not manifested in our universe at present, but are planes above it. For us the higher hemisphere is pr [para], the Supreme Transcendence is prA(pr [paratpara]. The Sanskrit terms are here clearer than the English.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, Three Aspects of the Mother, 52,#KEYS
1151:God reveals himself everywhere, beneath our groping efforts, as a universal milieu, only because he is the ultimate point upon which all realities converge. Each element of the world, whatever it may be, only subsists, hic et nunc, in the manner of a cone whose generatrices meet in God who draws them together-(meeting at .the term of their individual perfection and at the term of the general perfection of the world which contains them). It follows that all created things, every one of them, cannot be looked at, in their nature and action, without the same reality being found in their innermost being-like sunlight in the fragments of a broken mirror-one beneath its multiplicity, unattainable beneath its proximity, and spiritual beneath its materiality. No object can influence us by its essence without our being touched by the radiance of the focus of the universe. Our minds are incapable of grasping a reality, our hearts and hands of seizing the essentially desirable in it, without our being compelled by the very structure of things to go back to the first source of its perfections. This focus, this source, is thus everywhere. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu, #KEYS
1152:It proceeds by a personal effort to a conversion through a divine influence and possession; but this divine grace, if we may so call it, 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 conversion its action will effect is an integral conversion of our ethical being into the Truth and Right of the divine nature, of our intellectual into the illumination of divine knowledge, our emotional into the divine love and unity, our dynamic and volitional into a working of the divine power, our aesthetic into a plenary reception and a creative enjoyment of divine beauty, not excluding even in the end a divine conversion of the vital and physical being. It regards all the previous life as an involuntary and unconscious or half-conscious preparatory growing towards this change and Yoga as the voluntary and conscious
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
1153:To us poetry is a revel of intellect and fancy, imagination a plaything and caterer for our amusement, our entertainer, the nautch-girl of the mind. But to the men of old the poet was a seer, a revealer of hidden truths, imagination no dancing courtesan but a priestess in God's house commissioned not to spin fictions but to image difficult and hidden truths; even the metaphor or simile in the Vedic style is used with a serious purpose and expected to convey a reality, not to suggest a pleasing artifice of thought. The image was to these seers a revelative symbol of the unrevealed and it was used because it could hint luminously to the mind what the precise intellectual word, apt only for logical or practical thought or to express the physical and the superficial, could not at all hope to manifest. To them this symbol of the Creator's body was more than an image, it expressed a divine reality. Human society was for them an attempt to express in life the cosmic Purusha who has expressed himself otherwise in the material and the supraphysical universe. Man and the cosmos are both of them symbols and expressions of the same hidden Reality.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, Chapter 1, The Cycle of Society,#KEYS
1154:the first necessity :::
An entire self-consecration, a complete equality, an unsparing effacement of the ego, a transforming deliverance of the nature from its ignorant modes of action are the steps by which the surrender of all the being and nature to the Divine Will can be prepared and achieved, -- a self-giving true, total and without reserve. The first necessity is an entire spirit of self-consecration in our works; it must become first the constant will, then the ingrained need in all the being, finally its automatic but living and conscious habit, the self-existent turn to do all action as a sacrifice to the Supreme and to the veiled Power present in us and in all beings and in all the workings of the universe. Life is the altar of this sacrifice, works are our offerings; a transcendent and universal Power and Presence as yet rather felt or glimpsed than known or seen by us is the Deity to whom they are offered. This sacrifice, this self-consecration has two sides to it; there is the work itself and there is the spirit in which it is done, the spirit of worship to the Master of Works in all that we see, think and experience.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Equality and the Annihilation of Ego,#KEYS
1155:the three results of effective practice: devotion, the central liberating knowledge and purification of ego; :::
...it leads straight and inevitably towards the highest devotion possible;.. There is bound up a growing sense of the Divine in all things, a deepening communion with the Divine in all our through, will and action and at every moment of our lives, a more and more moved conscecration to the Divine of the totality of our being....
...next, the practice of this Yoga demands a constant inward remembrance of the one central liberating knowledge, ... In all is the one Self, the one Divine is all; all are in the Divine, all are the Divine and there is nothing else in the universe, - this thought or this faith is the whole background until it becomes the whole substance of the consciousness of the worker. ...
Lastly, the practice of this Yoga of sacrifice compels us to renounce all the inner supports of egoism, casting them out of our mind and will and actions, and to eliminate its seed, its presence, its influence out of our nature. All must be done for the Divine; all must be directed towards the Divine.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Sacrifice, The Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice [T1],#KEYS
1156:In order to strengthen the higher knowledge-faculty in us we have to effect the same separation between the intuitive and intellectual elements of our thought as we have already effected between the understanding and the sense-mind; and this is no easy task, for not only do our intuitions come to us incrusted in the intellectual action, but there are a great number of mental workings which masquerade and ape the appearances of the higher faculty. The remedy is to train first the intellect to recognise the true intuilion, to distinguish it from the false and then to accustom it, when it arrives at an intellectual perception or conclusion, to attach no final value to it, but rather look upward, refer all to the divine principle and wait in as complete a silence as it can command for the light from above. In this way it is possible to transmute a great part of our intellectual thinking into the luminous truth-conscious vision, -- the ideal would be a complete transition, -- or at least to increase greatly the frequency, purity and conscious force of the ideal knowledge working behind the intellect. The latter must learn to be subject and passive to the ideal faculty.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Purified Understanding, 316,#KEYS
1157:The pure existent is then a fact and no mere concept; it is the fundamental reality. But, let us hasten to add, the movement, the energy, the becoming are also a fact, also a reality. The supreme intuition and its corresponding experience may correct the other, may go beyond, may suspend, but do not abolish it. We have therefore two fundamental facts of pure existence and of worldexistence, a fact of Being, a fact of Becoming. To deny one or the other is easy; to recognise the facts of consciousness and find out their relation is the true and fruitful wisdom.
Stability and movement, we must remember, are only our psychological representations of the Absolute, even as are oneness and multitude. The Absolute is beyond stability and movement as it is beyond unity and multiplicity. But it takes its eternal poise in the one and the stable and whirls round itself infinitely, inconceivably, securely in the moving and multitudinous. World-existence is the ecstatic dance of Shiva which multiplies the body of the God numberlessly to the view: it leaves that white existence precisely where and what it was, ever is and ever will be; its sole absolute object is the joy of the dancing. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Pure Existent, 85,#KEYS
1158:all is the method of God's workings; all life is Yoga :::
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 recognize in ourselves with opened eyes the method of God in the world, His purpose of light in the obscure, of the 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 Nature, in the other it becomes swift and self-conscious and the instrument confesses the hand of the Master. All life is a Yoga of Nature seeking to manifest God within itself. Yoga marks the stage at which this effort becomes capable of self-awareness and there for right completion in the individual. It is a gathering up and concentration of the movements dispersed and loosely combined in the lower evolution.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Conditions of the Synthesis [47] [T1],#KEYS
1159:
Mother, you told us one day that all that happens to us has been decided in advance. What does that mean?
This is but a way of speaking. This happens because to express a thing I can't be saying all the words at the same time, can I? I am obliged to say them one after another. Otherwise, if all the words were spoken at the same time, it would make a big noise and nobody would understand anything! Well, when you try to explain the universe, you do as you would when you speak. You say one thing after another, but to tell the truth, you must say everything at one go. Now, how can that be done?... Indeed, since you repeat it to me, it is very likely that I must have said that somewhere.... I must have said the contrary also! But if you put it in this way, that everything that happens has been decided in advance, then with the consciousness of time that you have now, it is as if you said: yesterday it was decided what would happen today; and this year it is decided what will happen next year. It is in this way that the thing is translated in your consciousness - naturally, because it is thus that we see, think, understand and above all speak and express ourselves. But it is not like that. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953,#KEYS
1160:Considered from this point of view, the fact that some of the theories which we know to be false give such amazingly accurate results is an adverse factor. Had we somewhat less knowledge, the group of phenomena which these "false" theories explain would appear to us to be large enough to "prove" these theories. However, these theories are considered to be "false" by us just for the reason that they are, in ultimate analysis, incompatible with more encompassing pictures and, if sufficiently many such false theories are discovered, they are bound to prove also to be in conflict with each other. Similarly, it is possible that the theories, which we consider to be "proved" by a number of numerical agreements which appears to be large enough for us, are false because they are in conflict with a possible more encompassing theory which is beyond our means of discovery. If this were true, we would have to expect conflicts between our theories as soon as their number grows beyond a certain point and as soon as they cover a sufficiently large number of groups of phenomena. In contrast to the article of faith of the theoretical physicist mentioned before, this is the nightmare of the theorist. ~ Eugene Paul Wigner, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences, #KEYS
1161:Therefore the age of intuitive knowledge, represented by the early Vedantic thinking of the Upanishads, had to give place to the age of rational knowledge; inspired Scripture made room for metaphysical philosophy, even as afterwards metaphysical philosophy had to give place to experimental Science.
Intuitive thought which is a messenger from the superconscient and therefore our highest faculty, was supplanted by the pure reason which is only a sort of deputy and belongs to the middle heights of our being; pure reason in its turn was supplanted for a time by the mixed action of the reason which lives on our plains and lower elevations and does not in its view exceed the horizon of the experience that the physical mind and senses or such aids as we can invent for them can bring to us.
And this process which seems to be a descent, is really a circle of progress.
For in each case the lower faculty is compelled to take up as much as it can assimilate of what the higher had already given and to attempt to re-establish it by its own methods.
By the attempt it is itself enlarged in its scope and arrives eventually at a more supple and a more ample selfaccommodation to the higher faculties. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 1.08-13,#KEYS
1162:If we are religious-minded, perhaps we will see the gods who inhabit this world. Beings, forces, sounds, lights, and rhythms are just so many true forms of the same indefinable, but not unknowable, Essence we call God; we have spoken of God, and made temples, laws or poems to try to capture the one little pulsation filling us with sunshine, but it is free as the wind on foam-flecked shores. We may also enter the world of music, which in fact is not different from the others but a special extension of this same, great inexpressible Vibration. If once, only once, even for a few moments in a lifetime, we can hear that Music, that Joy singing above, we will know what Beethoven and Bach heard; we will know what God is because we will have heard God. We will probably not say anything grandiose; we will just know that That exists, whereupon all the suffering in the world will seem redeemed.
At the extreme summit of the overmind, there only remain great waves of multi-hued light, says the Mother, the play of spiritual forces, which later translate - sometimes much later - into new ideas, social changes, or earthly events, after crossing one by one all the layers of consciousness and suffering a considerable distortion and loss of light...
~ Satprem, Sri Aurobindo Or The Adventure Of Consciousness,#KEYS
1163:on cultivating equality :::
For it is certain that so great a result cannot be arrived at immediately and without any previous stages. At first we have to learn to bear the shocks of the world with the central part of our being untouched and silent, even when the surface mind, heart, life are strongly shaken; unmoved there on the bedrock of our life, we must separate the soul watching behind or immune deep within from these outer workings of our nature. Afterwards, extending this calm and steadfastness of the detached soul to its instruments, it will become slowly possible to radiate peace from the luminous centre to the darker peripheries. In this process we may take the passing help of many minor phases; a certain stoicism, a certain calm philosophy, a certain religious exaltation may help us towards some nearness to our aim, or we may call in even less strong and exalted but still useful powers of our mental nature. In the end we must either discard or transform them and arrive instead at an entire equality, a perfect self-existent peace within and even, if we can, a total unassailable, self-poised and spontaneous delight in all our members.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, [103-104],#KEYS
1164:Our highest insights must - and should! - sound like stupidities, or possibly crimes, when they come without permission to people whose ears have no affinity for them and were not predestined for them. The distinction between the exoteric and the esoteric, once made by philosophers, was found among the Indians as well as among Greeks, Persians, and Muslims. Basically, it was found everywhere that people believed in an order of rank and not in equality and equal rights. The difference between these terms is not that the exoteric stands outside and sees, values, measures, and judges from this external position rather than from some internal one.What is more essential is that the exoteric sees things up from below - while the esoteric sees them down from above! There are heights of the soul from whose vantage point even tragedy stops having tragic effects; and who would dare to decide whether the collective sight of the world's many woes would necessarily compel and seduce us into a feeling of pity, a feeling that would only serve to double these woes?... What helps feed or nourish the higher type of man must be almost poisonous to a very different and lesser type. The virtues of a base man could indicate vices and weaknesses in a philosopher. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, The Free Spirit, #KEYS
1165:Ordinarily, man is limited in all these parts of his being and he can grasp at first only so much of the divine truth as has some large correspondence to his own nature and its past development and associations. Therefore God meets us first in different limited affirmations of his divine qualities and nature; he presents himself to the seeker as an absolute of the things he can understand and to which his will and heart can respond; he discloses some name and aspect of his Godhead.
This is what is called in Yoga the is.t.a-devata, the name and form elected by our nature for its worship. In order that the human being may embrace this Godhead with every part of himself, it is represented with a form that answers to its aspects and qualities and which becomes the living body of God to the adorer. These are those forms of Vishnu, Shiva, Krishna, Kali, Durga, Christ, Buddha, which the mind of man seizes on for adoration. Even the monotheist who worships a formless Godhead, yet gives to him some form of quality, some mental form or form of Nature by which he envisages and approaches him. But to be able to see a living form, a mental body, as it were, of the Divine gives to the approach a greater closeness and sweetness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Mystery of Love,#KEYS
1166:Truly speaking, I have no opinion. According to a vision of truth, everything is still terribly mixed, a more or less favourable combination of light and darkness, truth and falsehood, knowledge and ignorance, and so long as decisions are made and action is undertaken according to opinions, it will always be like that.
We want to give the example of an action that is undertaken in accordance with a vision of truth, but unfortunately we are still very far from realising this ideal, and even if the vision of truth expresses itself, it is immediately distorted in its implementation.
So, in the present state of affairs, it is impossible to say, "This is true and that is false, this leads us away from the goal and that brings us nearer the goal."
Everything can be used for the progress to be made; everything can be useful if we know how to use it.
The important thing is never to lose sight of the ideal we want to realise and to make use of all circumstances in view of this goal.
And finally, it is always better not to make an arbitrary decision for or against things, and to watch the unfolding of events with the impartiality of a witness, relying on the Divine Wisdom which will decide for the best and do what is necessary. 29 July 1961 ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother I, [T8],#KEYS
1167:A poet once said, 'The whole universe is in a glass of wine.' We will probably never know in what sense he meant it, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe. There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflection in the glass; and our imagination adds atoms. The glass is a distillation of the earth's rocks, and in its composition we see the secrets of the universe's age, and the evolution of stars. What strange array of chemicals are in the wine? How did they come to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in wine is found the great generalization; all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering, as did Louis Pasteur, the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it! If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts -- physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on -- remember that nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let it give us one more final pleasure; drink it and forget it all! ~ Richard P Feynman, #KEYS
1168:Equally must the sense-mind be stilled and taught to leave the function of thought to the mind that judges and understands. When the understanding in us stands back from the action of the sense-mind and repels its intermiscence, the latter detaches itself from the understanding and can be watched in its separate action. It then reveals itself as a constantly swirling and eddying undercurrent of habitual concepts, associations, perceptions, desires without any real sequence, order or principle of light. It is a constant repetition in a circle unintelligent and unfruitful. Ordinarily the human understanding accepts this undercurrent and tries to reduce it to a partial order and sequence; but by so doing it becomes itself subject to it and partakes of that disorder, restlessness, unintelligent subjection to habit and blind purposeless repetition which makes the ordinary human reason a misleading, limited and even frivolous and futile instrument. There is nothing to be done with this fickle, restless, violent and disturbing factor but to get rid of it whether by detaching it and then reducing it to stillness or by giving a concentration and singleness to the thought by which it will of itself reject this alien and confusing element.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Purified Understanding,#KEYS
1169:For this is the other face of the psychic: not only is it joy and sweetness, but also quiet strength, as if it were forever above every possible tragedy - an invulnerable master. In this case, too, the details of a scene can be indelibly engraved. But what passes on to the next life is not so much the details as the essence of the scene: we will be struck by certain repetitive patterns of events or deadlocked situations that have an air of déjà vu and seem surrounded by an aura of fatality - for what has not been overcome in the past returns again and again, each time with a slightly different appearance, but basically always identical, until we confront the old knot and untie it. Such is the law of inner progress. Generally, however, the memory of actual physical circumstances does not remain, because, although our small surface consciousness makes much of them, they are, after all, of little significance. There is even a spontaneous mechanism that erases the profusion of useless past memories, just as those of the present life soon become eradicated. If we glance behind us, without thinking, what is actually left of our present life? A nebulous mass with perhaps two or three outstanding images; all the rest is blotted out. This is likewise the case for the soul and its past lives.
~ Satprem, Sri Aurobindo Or The Adventure Of Consciousness,#KEYS
1170:He is the friend, the adviser, helper, saviour in trouble and distress, the defender from enemies, the hero who fights our battles for us or under whose shield we fight, the charioteer, the pilot of our ways. And here we come at once to a closer intimacy; he is the comrade and eternal companion, the playmate of the game of living. But still there is so far a certain division, however pleasant, and friendship is too much limited by the appearance of beneficence. The lover can wound, abandon, be wroth with us, seem to betray, yet our love endures and even grows by these oppositions; they increase the joy of reunion and the joy of possession; through them the lover remains the friend, and all that he does, we find in the end, has been done by the lover and helper of our being for our souls perfection as well as for his joy in us. These contradictions lead to a greater intimacy. He is the father and mother too of our being, its source and protector and its indulgent cherisher and giver of our desires. He is the child born to our desire whom we cherish and rear. All these things the lover takes up; his love in its intimacy and oneness keeps in it the paternal and maternal care and lends itself to our demands upon it. All is unified in that deepest many-sided relation.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Love,#KEYS
1171:Sometimes when an adverse force attacks us and we come out successful, why are we attacked once again by the same force?
Because something was left inside. We have said that the force can attack only when there is something which responds in the nature - however slight it may be. There is a kind of affinity, something corresponding, there is a disorder or an imperfection which attracts the adverse force by responding to it. So, if the attack comes, you must keep perfectly quiet and send it back, but it does not necessarily follow that you have got rid of that small part in you which allows the attack to come.
You have something in you which attracts this force; take, for example (it is one of the most frequent things), the force of depression, that kind of attack of a wave of depression that falls upon you: you lose confidence, you lose hope, you have the feeling you will never be able to do anything, you are cast down.
It means there is in your vital being something which is naturally egoistic, surely a little vain, which needs encouragement to remain in a good state. So it is like a little signal for those forces which intimates to them: "You can come, the door is open." But there is another part in the being that was watching when these forces arrived; instead of allowing them to enter, the part which... ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953,#KEYS
1172:... although there is almost nothing I can say that will help you, and I can harly find one useful word. You have had many sadnesses, large ones, which passed. And you say that even this passing was difficult and upsetting for you. But please, ask yourself whether these large sadnesses haven't rather gone right through you. Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you were sad. The only sadnesses that are dangerous and unhealthy are the ones that we carry around in public in order to drown them out with the noise; like diseases that are treated superficially and foolishly, they just withdraw and after a short interval break out again all the more terribly; and gather inside us and are life, are life that is unlived, rejected, lost, life that we can die of. If only it were possible for us to see farther than our knowledge reaches, and even a little beyond the outworks of our presentiment, perhaps we would bear our sadnesses with greater trust than we have in our joys. For they are the moments when something new has entered us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy embarrassment, everything in us withdraws, a silence arises, and the new experience, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it all and says nothing. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, August 12, 1904, #KEYS
1173:keep faith :::
We must have faith that always what is for the best happens. We may for the moment not consider it as the best because we are ignorant and also blind, because we do not see the consequences of things and what will happen later. But we must keep the faith that if it is like that, if we rely on the Divine, if we give Him the full charge of ourselves, if we let Him decide everything for us, well, we must know that it is always what is best for us that happens. This is an absolute fact. To the extent to which you surrender, the best happens to you. This may not be in conformity with what you would like, your preferences or desire, because these things are blind: it is the best from thespiritual point of view, the best for your progress, your development, your spiritual growth, your true life. It is always that. And you must keep this faith, because faith is the expression of a trust in the Divine and the full self-giving you make to the Divine. And when you make it, it is something absolutely marvellous. That's a fact, these are not just words, you understand, it is a fact. When you look back, all kinds of things which you did not understand when they happened to you, you realise as just the thing which was necessary in order to compel you to make the needed progress. Always, without exception. It is our blindness which prevents us from seeing it. ~ The Mother,#KEYS
1174:What is one to do to prepare oneself for the Yoga?
To be conscious, first of all. We are conscious of only an insignificant portion of our being; for the most part we are unconscious.
It is this unconsciousness that keeps us down to our unregenerate nature and prevents change and transformation in it. It is through unconsciousness that the undivine forces enter into us and make us their slaves. You are to be conscious of yourself, you must awake to your nature and movements, you must know why and how you do things or feel or think them; you must understand your motives and impulses, the forces, hidden and apparent, that move you; in fact, you must, as it were, take to pieces the entire machinery of your being. Once you are conscious, it means that you can distinguish and sift things, you can see which are the forces that pull you down and which help you on. And when you know the right from the wrong, the true from the false, the divine from the undivine, you are to act strictly up to your knowledge; that is to say, resolutely reject one and accept the other. The duality will present itself at every step and at every step you will have to make your choice. You will have to be patient and persistent and vigilant - "sleepless", as the adepts say; you must always refuse to give any chance whatever to the undivine against the divine. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931,#KEYS
1175:The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity ~ in all this vastness ~ there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known. ~ Carl Sagan, #KEYS
1176:A book like this, a problem like this, is in no hurry; we both, I just as much as my book, are friends of lento. It is not for nothing that I have been a philologist, perhaps I am a philologist still, that is to say, A TEACHER OF SLOW READING:- in the end I also write slowly. Nowadays it is not only my habit, it is also to my taste - a malicious taste, perhaps? - no longer to write anything which does not reduce to despair every sort of man who is 'in a hurry'. For philology is that venerable art which demands of its votaries one thing above all: to go aside, to take time, to become still, to become slow - it is a goldsmith's art and connoisseurship of the WORD which has nothing but delicate, cautious work to do and achieves nothing if it does not achieve it lento. But precisely for this reason it is more necessary than ever today, by precisely this means does it entice and enchant us the most, in the midst of an age of 'work', that is to say, of hurry, of indecent and perspiring haste, which wants to 'get everything done' at once, including every old or new book:- this art does not so easily get anything done, it teaches to read WELL, that is to say, to read slowly, deeply, looking cautiously before and aft, with reservations, with doors left open, with delicate eyes and fingers...My patient friends, this book desires for itself only perfect readers and philologists: LEARN to read me well! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #KEYS
1177:I examined the poets, and I look on them as people whose talent overawes both themselves and others, people who present themselves as wise men and are taken as such, when they are nothing of the sort.
From poets, I moved to artists. No one was more ignorant about the arts than I; no one was more convinced that artists possessed really beautiful secrets. However, I noticed that their condition was no better than that of the poets and that both of them have the same misconceptions. Because the most skillful among them excel in their specialty, they look upon themselves as the wisest of men. In my eyes, this presumption completely tarnished their knowledge. As a result, putting myself in the place of the oracle and asking myself what I would prefer to be - what I was or what they were, to know what they have learned or to know that I know nothing - I replied to myself and to the god: I wish to remain who I am.
We do not know - neither the sophists, nor the orators, nor the artists, nor I- what the True, the Good, and the Beautiful are. But there is this difference between us: although these people know nothing, they all believe they know something; whereas, I, if I know nothing, at least have no doubts about it. As a result, all this superiority in wisdom which the oracle has attributed to me reduces itself to the single point that I am strongly convinced that I am ignorant of what I do not know. ~ Socrates,#KEYS
1178:Shouldn't we consider in every nation major changes in the traditional ways of doing things, a fundamental restructuring of economic political social and religious institutions. We've reached a point where there can be no more special interests or special cases, nuclear arms threaten every person on the Earth. Fundamental changes in society are sometimes labelled impractical or contrary to human nature, as if nuclear war were practical or as if there's only one human nature. But fundamental changes can clearly be made, we're surrounded by them. In the last two centuries abject slavery which was with us for thousands of years has almost entirely been eliminated in a stirring worldwide revolution. Women, systematically mistreated for millennia are gradually gaining the political and economic power traditionally denied them and some wars of aggression have recently been stopped or curtailed because of a revulsion felt by the people in the aggressor nations. The old appeals to racial sexual religious chauvinism and to rabid nationalist fervor are beginning not to work. A new consciousness is developing which sees the earth as a single organism and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed. We are one planet. One of the great revelations of the age of space exploration is the image of the earth finite and lonely, somehow vulnerable, bearing the entire human species through the oceans of space and time. ~ Carl Sagan, #KEYS
1179:CHAPTER V
The Actual Practice:The Yoga of Meditative Equipoise
Part II
The Yoga of the Speech Recitation
The next section explains the yoga of vajra recitation in seven parts:
(1) general understanding, (2) the particular necessity for practice, (3) the actual nature of the recitation, (4) different types of recitation, (5) the manner of reciting the mantra, (6) number of recitations and (7) activity upon completion.
General Understanding
A general understanding of the yoga of vajra recitation is approached by considering the object that needs to be purified by the yoga, the means of purification and the result. The object that needs to be purified through the yoga of speech is the habit of perceiving all sounds-names, words, syllables and anything that is spoken-as merely ordinary sounds with ordinary meanings.
Simply stated, the object to purify is your present, obscured experience of speech and the habitual instincts that accompany it.
The practice of mantra recitation purifies this impure experience and results in pure, vajra-like speech. One achieves the Sambhogakaya and becomes imbued with the sixty qualities of the Buddha's speech. All of one's words become pleasing, meaningful and helpful. The means of purification is to recite the mantra, the pure sounds which the buddhas have given to us, over and over until they are like a spinning wheel of sound. ~ Gyatrul Rinpoche, Generating the DeityZ,#KEYS
1180:38 - Strange! The Germans have disproved the existence of Christ; yet his crucifixion remains still a greater historic fact than the death of Caesar. - Sri Aurobindo.
To what plane of consciousness did Christ belong?
In the Essays on the Gita Sri Aurobindo mentions the names of three Avatars, and Christ is one of them. An Avatar is an emanation of the Supreme Lord who assumes a human body on earth.
I heard Sri Aurobindo himself say that Christ was an emanation of the Lord's aspect of love.
The death of Caesar marked a decisive change in the history of Rome and the countries dependent on her. It was therefore an important event in the history of Europe.
But the death of Christ was the starting-point of a new stage in the evolution of human civilisation. This is why Sri Aurobindo tells us that the death of Christ was of greater historical significance, that is to say, it has had greater historical consequences than the death of Caesar. The story of Christ, as it has been told, is the concrete and dramatic enactment of the divine sacrifice: the Supreme Lord, who is All-Light, All-Knowledge, All-Power, All-Beauty, All-Love, All-Bliss, accepting to assume human ignorance and suffering in matter, in order to help men to emerge from the falsehood in which they live and because of which they die.
16 June 1960 ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms, volume-10, page no.61-62),#KEYS
1181:Last, there is to be considered the recipient of the sacrifice and the manner of the sacrifice. The sacrifice may be offered to others or it may be offered to divine Powers; it may be offered to the cosmic All or it may be offered to the transcendent Supreme. The worship given may take any shape from the dedication of a leaf or flower, a cup of water, a handful of rice, a loaf of bread, to consecration of all that we possess and the submission of all that we are. Whoever the recipient, whatever the gift, it is the Supreme, the Eternal in things, who receives and accepts it, even if it be rejected or ignored by the immediate recipient. For the Supreme who transcends the universe, is yet here too, however veiled, in us and in the world and in its happenings; he is there as the omniscient Witness and Receiver of all our works and their secret Master. All our actions, all our efforts, even our sins and stumblings and sufferings and struggles are obscurely or consciously, known to us and seen or else unknown and in a disguise, governed in their last result by the One. All is turned towards him in his numberless forms and offered through them to the single Omnipresence. In whatever form and with whatever spirit we approach him, in that form and with that spirit he receives the sacrifice.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, The Sacrifice, the Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice [109-110],#KEYS
1182:the fourth aid, time, kala :::
The sadhaka who has all these aids is sure of his goal. Even a fall will be for him only a means of rising and death a passage towards fulfilment. For once on this path, birth and death become only processes in the development of his being and the stages of his journey.
Time is the remaining aid needed for the effectivity of the process. Time presents itself to human effort as an enemy or a friend, as a resistance, a medium or an instrument. But always it is really the instrument of the soul.
Time is a field of circumstances and forces meeting and working out a resultant progression whose course it measures. To the ego it is a tyrant or a resistance, to the Divine an instrument. Therefore, while our effort is personal, Time appears as a resistance, for it presents to us all the obstruction of the forces that conflict with our own. When the divine working and the personal are combined in our consciousness, it appears as a medium and a condition. When the two become one, it appears as a servant and instrument.
The ideal attitude of the sadhaka towards Time is to have an endless patience as if he had all eternity for his fulfilment and yet to develop the energy that shall realise now and with an ever-increasing mastery and pressure of rapidity till it reaches the miraculous instantaneousness of the supreme divine Transformation.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Four Aids,#KEYS
1183:the one entirely acceptable sacrifice :::
And the fruit also of the sacrifice of works varies according to the work, according to the intention in the work and according to the spirit that is behind the intention. But all other sacrifices are partial, egoistic, mixed, temporal, incomplete, - even those offered to the highest Powers and Principles keep this character: the result too is partial, limited, temporal, mixed in its reactions, effective only for a minor or intermediate purpose. The one entirely acceptable sacrifice is a last and highest and uttermost self-giving, - it is that surrender made face to face, with devotion and knowledge, freely and without any reserve to One who is at once our immanent Self, the environing constituent All, the Supreme Reality beyond this or any manifestation and, secretly, all these together, concealed everywhere, the immanent Transcendence. For to the soul that wholly gives itself to him, God also gives himself altogether. Only the one who offers his whole nature, finds the Self. Only the one who can give everything, enjoys the Divine All everywhere. Only a supreme self-abandonment attains to the Supreme. Only the sublimation by sacrifice of all that we are, can enable us to embody the Highest and live here in the immanent consciousness of the transcendent Spirit.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, The Sacrifice, the Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice [110],#KEYS
1184: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 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 vital, then into the navel and other vital centres 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, assistance, 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. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #KEYS
1185:Behind the traditional way of Knowledge, justifying its thought-process of elimination and withdrawal, stands an over-mastering spiritual experience. Deep, intense, convincing, common to all who have overstepped a certain limit of the active mind-belt into the horizonless inner space, this is the great experience of liberation, the consciousness of something within us that is behind and outside of the universe and all its forms, interests, aims, events and happenings, calm, untouched, unconcerned, illimitable, immobile, free, the uplook to something above us indescribable and unseizable into which by abolition of our personality we can enter, the presence of an omnipresent eternal witness Purusha, the sense of an Infinity or a Timelessness that looks down on us from an august negation of all our existence and is alone the one thing Real. This experience is the highest sublimation of spiritualised mind looking resolutely beyond its own existence. No one who has not passed through this liberation can be entirely free from the mind and its meshes, but one is not compelled to linger in this experience for ever. Great as it is, it is only the Mind's overwhelming experience of what is beyond itself and all it can conceive. It is a supreme negative experience, but beyond it is all the tremendous light of an infinite consciousness, an illimitable Knowledge, an affirmative absolute Presence.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Object of Knowledge, 278-279,#KEYS
1186:the first necessity; :::
The first necessity is to dissolve that central faith and vision in the mind which concentrate it on its development and satisfaction and interests in the old externalised order of things. It is imperative to exchange this surface orientation for the deeper faith and vision which see only the Divine and seek only after the Divine. The next need is to compel all our lower being to pay homage to this new faith and greater vision. All our nature must make an integral surrender; it must offer itself in every part and every movement to that which seems to the unregenerated sensemind so much less real than the material world and its objects. Our whole being - soul, mind, sense, heart, will, life, body - must consecrate all its energies so entirely and in such a way that it shall become a fit vehicle for the Divine. This is no easy task; for everything in the world follows the fixed habit which is to it a law and resists a radical change. And no change can be more radical than the revolution attempted in the integral Yoga. Everything in us has constantly to be called back to the central faith and will and vision. Every thought and impulse has to be reminded in the language of the Upanishad that That is the divine Brahman and not this which men here adore. Every vital fibre has to be persuaded to accept an entire renunciation of all that hitherto represented to it its own existence.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration, 72,#KEYS
1187:Here the formula of the supreme knowledge comes to our help; we have nothing to do in our essential standpoint with these distinctions, for there is no I nor thou, but only one divine Self equal in all embodiments, equal in the individual and the group, and to realise that, to express that, to serve that, to fulfil that is all that matters. Self-satisfaction and altruism, enjoyment and indifference are not the essential thing. If the realisation, fulfilment, service of the one Self demands from us an action that seems to others self-service or self-assertion in the egoistic sense or seems egoistic enjoyment and self-indulgence, that action we must do; we must be governed by the guide within rather than by the opinions of men. The influence of the environment works often with great subtlety; we prefer and put on almost unconsciously the garb which will look best in the eye that regards us from outside and we allow a veil to drop over the eye within; we are impelled to drape ourselves in the vow of poverty, or in the garb of service, or in outward proofs of indifference and renunciation and a spotless sainthood because that is what tradition and opinion demand of us and so we can make best an impression on our environment. But all this is vanity and delusion. We may be called upon to assume these things, for that may be the uniform of our service; but equally it may not. The eye of man outside matters nothing; the eye within is all.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
1188:So," she said. "I've been thinking of it as a computing problem. If the virus or nanomachine or protomolecule or whatever was designed, it has a purpose, right?"
"Definitely," Holden said.
"And it seems like it's trying to do something-something complex. It doesn't make sense to go to all that trouble just to kill people. Those changes it makes look intentional, just... not complete, to me."
"I can see that," Holden said. Alex and Amos nodded along with him but stayed quiet.
"So maybe the issue is that the protomolecule isn't smart enough yet. You can compress a lot of data down pretty small, but unless it's a quantum computer, processing takes space. The easiest way to get that processing in tiny machines is through distribution. Maybe the protomolecule isn't finishing its job because it just isn't smart enough to. Yet."
"Not enough of them," Alex said.
"Right," Naomi said, dropping the towel into a bin under the sink. "So you give them a lot of biomass to work with, and see what it is they are ultimately made to do."
"According to that guy in the video, they were made to hijack life on Earth and wipe us out," Miller said.
"And that," Holden said, "is why Eros is perfect. Lots of biomass in a vacuum-sealed test tube. And if it gets out of hand, there's already a war going on. A lot of ships and missiles can be used for nuking Eros into glass if the threat seems real. Nothing to make us forget our differences like a new player butting in." ~ James S A Corey, Leviathan Wakes,#KEYS
1189:There must be accepted and progressively accomplished a surrender of our capacities of working into the hands of a greater Power behind us and our sense of being the doer and worker must disappear. All must be given for a more direct use into the hands of the divine Will which is hidden by these frontal appearances; for by that permitting Will alone is our action possible. A hidden Power is the true Lord and overruling Observer of our acts and only he knows through all the ignorance and perversion and deformation brought in by the ego their entire sense and ultimate purpose. There must be effected a complete transformation of our limited and distorted egoistic life and works into the large and direct outpouring of a greater divine Life, Will and Energy that now secretly supports us. This greater Will and Energy must be made conscious in us and master; no longer must it remain, as now, only a superconscious, upholding and permitting Force. There must be achieved an undistorted transmission through us of the all-wise purpose and process of a now hidden omniscient Power and omnipotent Knowledge which will turn into its pure, unobstructed, happily consenting and participating channel all our transmuted nature. This total consecration and surrender and this resultant entire transformation and free transmission make up the whole fundamental means and the ultimate aim of an integral Karmayoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, [92],#KEYS
1190:Why God sometimes allows people who are genuinely good to be hindered in the good that they do. God, who is faithful, allows his friends to fall frequently into weakness only in order to remove from them any prop on which they might lean. For a loving person it would be a great joy to be able to achieve many great feats, whether keeping vigils, fasting, performing other ascetical practices or doing major, difficult and unusual works. For them this is a great joy, support and source of hope so that their works become a prop and a support upon which they can lean. But it is precisely this which our Lord wishes to take from them so that he alone will be their help and support. This he does solely on account of his pure goodness and mercy, for God is prompted to act only by his goodness, and in no way do our works serve to make God give us anything or do anything for us. Our Lord wishes his friends to be freed from such an attitude, and thus he removes their support from them so that they must henceforth find their support only in him. For he desires to give them great gifts, solely on account of his goodness, and he shall be their comfort and support while they discover themselves to be and regard themselves as being a pure nothingness in all the great gifts of God. The more essentially and simply the mind rests on God and is sustained by him, the more deeply we are established in God and the more receptive we are to him in all his precious gifts - for human kind should build on God alone. ~ Meister Eckhart, #KEYS
1191:It is, then, in the highest mind of thought and light and will or it is in the inner heart of deepest feeling and emotion that we must first centre our consciousness, -in either of them or, if we are capable, in both together,- and use that as our leverage to lift the nature wholly towards the Divine. The concentration of an enlightened thought, will and heart turned in unison towards one vast goal of our knowledge, one luminous and infinite source of our action, one imperishable object of our emotion is the starting-point of the Yoga. And the object of our seeking must be the very fount of the Light which is growing in us, the very origin of the Force which we are calling to move our members. our one objective must be the Divine himself to whom, knowingly or unknowingly, something always aspires in our secret nature. There must be a large, many-sided yet single concentration of the thought on the idea, the perception, the vision, the awakening touch, the souls realisation of the one Divine. There must be a flaming concentration of the heart on the All and Eternal -and, when once we have found him, a deep plunging and immersion in the possession and ecstasy of the All-Beautiful. There must be a strong and immovable concentration of the will on the attainment and fulfilment of all that the Divine is and a free and plastic opening of it to all that he intends to manifest in us. This is the triple way of the Yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Consecration, 80 [where to concentrate?],#KEYS
1192:On a thousand bridges and paths they shall throng to the future, and ever more war and inequality shall divide them: thus does my great love make me speak.
In their hostilities they shall become inventors of images and ghosts, and with their images and ghosts they shall yet fight the highest fight against one another. Good and evil, and rich and poor, and high and low, and all the names of values-arms shall they be and clattering signs that life must overcome itself again and again.
Life wants to build itself up into the heights with pillars and steps; it wants to look into vast distances and out toward stirring beauties: therefore it requires height. And because it requires height, it requires steps and contradiction among the steps and the climbers.
Life wants to climb and to overcome itself climbing.
And behold, my friends: here where the tarantula has its hole, the ruins of an ancient temple rise; behold it with enlightened eyes Verily, the man who once piled his thoughts to the sky in these stones-he, like the wisest, knew the secret of all life. That struggle and inequality are present even in beauty, and also war for power and more power: that is what he teaches us here in the plainest parable. How divinely vault and arches break through each other in a wrestling match; how they strive against each other with light and shade, the godlike strivers-with such assurance and beauty let us be enemies too, my friends Let us strive against one another like gods. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. Fred Kaufmann,#KEYS
1193:the psychic being :::
... it is in the true invisible heart hidden in some luminous cave of the nature: there under some infiltration of the divine Light is our soul, a silent inmost being of which few are even aware; for if all have a soul, few are conscious of their true soul or feel its direct impulse. There dwells the little spark of the Divine which supports this obscure mass of our nature and around it grows the psychic being, the formed soul or the real Man within us. It is as this psychic being in him grows and the movements of the heart reflect its divinations and impulsions that man becomes more and more aware of his soul, ceases to be a superior animal, and, awakening to glimpses of the godhead within him, admits more and more its intimations of a deeper life and consciousness and an impulse towards things divine. It is one of the decisive moments of the integral Yoga when this psychic being liberated, brought out from the veil to the front, can pour the full flood of its divinations, seeings and impulsions on the mind, life and body of man and begin to prepare the upbuilding of divinity in the earthly nature.
As in the works of knowledge, so in dealing with the workings of the heart, we are obliged to make a preliminary distinction between two categories of movements, those that are either moved by the true soul or aid towards its liberation and rule in the nature and those that are turned to the satisfaction of the unpurified vital nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1, 150,#KEYS
1194:The great men of the past have given us glimpses of what is possible in the way of personality, of intellectual understanding, of spiritual achievement, of artistic creation. But these are scarcely more than Pisgah glimpses. We need to explore and map the whole realm of human possibility, as the realm of physical geography has been explored and mapped. How to create new possibilities for ordinary living? What can be done to bring out the latent capacities of the ordinary man and woman for understanding and enjoyment; to teach people the techniques of achieving spiritual experience (after all, one can acquire the technique of dancing or tennis, so why not of mystical ecstasy or spiritual peace?)...
The zestful but scientific exploration of possibilities and of the techniques for realizing them will make our hopes rational, and will set our ideals within the framework of reality, by showing how much of them are indeed realizable. Already, we can justifiably hold the belief that these lands of possibility exist, and that the present limitations and miserable frustrations of our existence could be in large measure surmounted. We are already justified in the conviction that human life as we know it in history is a wretched makeshift, rooted in ignorance; and that it could be transcended by a state of existence based on the illumination of knowledge and comprehension, just as our modern control of physical nature based on science transcends the tentative fumblings of our ancestors, that were rooted in superstition and professional secrecy. ~ Julian Huxley, Transhumanism,#KEYS
1195:The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly colored, and it's very loud, and it's fun for a while. Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, "Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, "Hey, don't worry; don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride." And we ... kill those people. "Shut him up! I've got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real." It's just a ride. But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok ... But it doesn't matter, because it's just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace. ~ Bill Hicks, #KEYS
1196:But what has fixed the modes of Nature? Or who has originated and governs the movements of Force? There is a Consciousness - or a Conscient - behind that is the lord, witness, knower, enjoyer, upholder and source of sanction for her works; this consciousness is Soul or Purusha. Prakriti shapes the action in us; Purusha in her or behind her witnesses, assents, bears and upholds it. Prakriti forms the thought in our minds; Purusha in her or behind her knows the thought and the truth in it. Prakriti determines the result of the action; Purusha in her or behind her enjoys or suffers the consequence. Prakriti forms mind and body, labours over them, develops them; Purusha upholds the formation and evolution and sanctions each step of her works. Prakriti applies the Will-force which works in things and men; Purusha sets that Will-force to work by his vision of that which should be done. This Purusha is not the surface ego, but a silent Self, a source of Power, an originator and receiver of Knowledge behind the ego. Our mental "I" is only a false reflection of this Self, this Power, this Knowledge. This Purusha or supporting Consciousness is therefore the cause, recipient and support of all Nature's works, but he is not himself the doer. Prakriti, NatureForce, in front and Shakti, Conscious-Force, Soul-Force behind her, - for these two are the inner and outer faces of the universal Mother, - account for all that is done in the universe. The universal Mother, Prakriti-Shakti, is the one and only worker. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 214, #KEYS
1197:So too we can rise to a consciousness above and observe the various parts of our being, inner and outer, mental, vital and physical and the subconscient below all, and act upon one or other or the whole from that higher status. It is possible also to go down from that height or from any height into any of these lower states and take its limited light or its obscurity as our place of working while the rest that we are is either temporarily put away or put behind or else kept as a field of reference from which we can get support, sanction or light and influence or as a status into which we can ascend or recede and from it observe the inferior movements. Or we can plunge into trance, get within ourselves and be conscious there while all outward things are excluded; or we can go beyond even this inner awareness and lose ourselves in some deeper other consciousness or some high superconscience. There is also a pervading equal consciousness into which we can enter and see all ourselves with one enveloping glance or omnipresent awareness one and indivisible. All this which looks strange and abnormal or may seem fantastic to the surface reason acquainted only with our normal status of limited ignorance and its movements divided from our inner higher and total reality, becomes easily intelligible and admissible in the light of the larger reason and logic of the Infinite or by the admission of the greater illimitable powers of the Self, the Spirit in us which is of one essence with the Infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 1.2.02 #KEYS
1198:need for the soul's spiritualization :::
And yet even the leading of the inmost psychic being is not found sufficient until it has succeeded in raising itself out of this mass of inferior Nature to the highest spiritual levels and the divine spark and flame descended here have rejoined themselves to their original fiery Ether. For there is there no longer a spiritual consciousness still imperfect and half lost to itself in the thick sheaths of human mind, life and body, but the full spiritual consciousness in its purity, freedom and intense wideness. There, as it is the eternal Knower that becomes the Knower in us and mover and user of all knowledge, so it is the eternal All-Blissful who is the Adored attracting to himself the eternal divine portion of his being and joy that has gone out into the play of the universe, the infinite Lover pouring himself out in the multiplicity of his own manifested selves in a happy Oneness. All Beauty in the world is there the beauty of the Beloved, and all forms of beauty have to stand under the light of that eternal Beauty and submit themselves to the sublimating and transfiguring power of the unveiled Divine Perfection. All Bliss and Joy are there of the All-Blissful, and all inferior forms of enjoyment, happiness or pleasure are subjected to the shock of the intensity of its floods or currents and either they are broken to pieces as inadequate things under its convicting stress or compelled to transmute themselves into the forms of the Divine Ananda. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 168,#KEYS
1199:I have spoken of Sri Aurobindo's life as a series of radical turns that changed the movement, the mode of life, almost radically every time the turn came. The turn meant a break with the past and a moving into the future. We have a word for this phenomenon of radical and unforeseen change. You know the word, it is intervention. Intervention means, as the Mother has explained to us more than once, the entry of a higher, a greater force from another world into the already existent world. Into the familiar established mode of existence that runs on the routine of some definite rules and regulations, the Law of the present, there drops all on a sudden another mode of being and consciousness and force, a Higher Law which obliterates or changes out of recognition the familiar mode of living; it is thus that one rises from level to level, moves out into wider ranges of being, otherwise one stands still, remains for ever what he is, stagnant, like an unchanging clod or at the most a repetitive animal. The higher the destiny, the higher also the source of intervention, that is to say, more radical - more destructive yet more creative - destructive of the past, creative of the future.
I have spoken of the passing away of Sri Aurobindo as a phenomenon of intervention, a great decisive event in view of the work to be done. Even so we may say that his birth too was an act of intervention, a deliberate divine intervention. The world needed it, the time was ripe and the intervention happened and that was his birth as an embodied human being - to which we offer our salutation and obeisance today. ~ Nolini Kanta Gupta,#KEYS
1200:the powers of concentration :::
By concentration on anything whatsoever we are able to know that thing, to make it deliver up its concealed secrets; we must use this power to know not things, but the one Thing-in-itself. By concentration again the whole will can be gathered up for the acquisition of that which is still ungrasped, still beyond us; this power, if it is sufficiently trained, sufficiently single-minded, sufficiently sincere, sure of itself, faithful to itself alone, absolute in faith, we can use for the acquisition of any object whatsoever; but we ought to use it not for the acquisition of the many objects which the world offers to us, but to grasp spiritually that one object worthy of pursuit which is also the one subject worthy of knowledge. By concentration of our whole being on one status of itself, we can become whatever we choose; we can become, for instance, even if we were before a mass of weaknesses and fear, a mass instead of strength and courage, or we can become all a great purity, holiness and peace or a single universal soul of Love; but we ought, it is said, to use this power to become not even these things, high as they may be in comparison with what we now are, but rather to become that which is above all things and free from all action and attributes, the pure and absolute Being. All else, all other concentration can only be valuable for preparation, for previous steps, for a gradual training of the dissolute and self-dissipating thought, will and being towards their grand and unique object.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Concentration, [318],#KEYS
1201:Some young men who had come with an introduction from the Ramakrishna Mission at Madras asked Bhagavan, "Which is the proper path for us to follow?"
Bhagavan: When you speak of a path, where are you now? and where do you want to go? If these are known, then we can talk of the path. Know first where you are and what you are. There is nothing to be reached. You are always as you really are. But you don't realise it. That is all.
A little while after, one of the visitors asked Bhagavan, "I am now following the path of japa. Is that all right?"
Bhagavan: Yes. It is quite good. You can continue in that. The gentleman who asked about creation said, "I never thought I was going to have the good fortune of visiting Bhagavan. But circumstances have brought me here and I find in his presence, without any effort on my part, I am having santi. Apparently, getting peace does not depend on our effort.
It seems to come only as the result of grace!" Bhagavan was silent. Meanwhile, another visitor remarked, "No. Our effort is also necessary, though no one can do without grace." After some time, Bhagavan remarked, "Mantra japa, after a time, leads to a stage when you become Mantra maya i.e., you become that whose name you have been repeating or chanting.
First you repeat the mantra by mouth; later you do it mentally.
First, you do this dhyana with breaks. Later, you do it without any break. At that stage you realise you do dhyana without any effort on your part, that dhyana is your real nature. Till then, effort is necessary." ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Day By Day,#KEYS
1202:This ego or "I" is not a lasting truth, much less our essential part; it is only a formation of Nature, a mental form of thought centralisation in the perceiving and discriminating mind, a vital form of the centralisation of feeling and sensation in our parts of life, a form of physical conscious reception centralising substance and function of substance in our bodies. All that we internally are is not ego, but consciousness, soul or spirit. All that we externally and superficiallyare and do is not ego but Nature. 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 Sadhaka in his progress towards truth and self-knowledge must come to a point where the soul opens its eyes of vision and recognises this truth of ego and this truth of works. He gives up the idea of a mental, vital, physical, "I" that acts or governs action; he recognises that Prakriti, Force of cosmic nature following her fixed modes, is the one and only worker in him and in all things and creatures.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 214,#KEYS
1203:These are the conditions of our effort and they point to an ideal which can be expressed in these or in equivalent formulae. To live in God and not in the ego; to move, vastly founded, not in the little egoistic consciousness, but in the consciousness of the All-Soul and the Transcendent. To be perfectly equal in all happenings and to all beings, and to see and feel them as one with oneself and one with the Divine; to feel all in oneself and all in God; to feel God in all, oneself in all. To act in God and not in the ego. And here, first, not to choose action by reference to personal needs and standards, but in obedience to the dictates of the living highest Truth above us. Next, as soon as we are sufficiently founded in the spiritual consciousness, not to act any longer by our separate will or movement, but more and more to allow action to happen and develop under the impulsion and guidance of a divine Will that surpasses us. And last, the supreme result, to be exalted into an identity in knowledge, force, consciousness, act, joy of existence with the Divine Shakti; to feel a dynamic movement not dominated by mortal desire and vital instinct and impulse and illusive mental free-will, but luminously conceived and evolved in an immortal self-delight and an infinite self-knowledge. For this is the action that comes by a conscious subjection and merging of the natural man into the divine Self and eternal Spirit; it is the Spirit that for ever transcends and guides this world-Nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, [101],#KEYS
1204:In a traditional German toilet, the hole into which shit disappears after we flush is right at the front, so that shit is first laid out for us to sniff and inspect for traces of illness. In the typical French toilet, on the contrary, the hole is at the back, i.e. shit is supposed to disappear as quickly as possible. Finally, the American (Anglo-Saxon) toilet presents a synthesis, a mediation between these opposites: the toilet basin is full of water, so that the shit floats in it, visible, but not to be inspected.
It is clear that none of these versions can be accounted for in purely utilitarian terms: each involves a certain ideological perception of how the subject should relate to excrement. Hegel was among the first to see in the geographical triad of Germany, France and England an expression of three different existential attitudes: reflective thoroughness (German), revolutionary hastiness (French), utilitarian pragmatism (English). In political terms, this triad can be read as German conservatism, French revolutionary radicalism and English liberalism.
The point about toilets is that they enable us not only to discern this triad in the most intimate domain, but also to identify its underlying mechanism in the three different attitudes towards excremental excess: an ambiguous contemplative fascination; a wish to get rid of it as fast as possible; a pragmatic decision to treat it as ordinary and dispose of it in an appropriate way. It is easy for an academic at a round table to claim that we live in a post-ideological universe, but the moment he visits the lavatory after the heated discussion, he is again knee-deep in ideology.
~ Slavoj Žižek,#KEYS
1205:The second condition of consciousness is potential only to the human being and gained by an inner enlightening and transformation of the mind of ignorance; it is that in which the mind seeks for its source of knowledge rather within than without and becomes to its own feeling and self-experience, by whatever means, a mind, not of original ignorance, but of self-forgetful knowledge. This mind is conscious that the knowledge of all things is hidden within it or at least somewhere in the being, but as if veiled and forgotten, and the knowledge comes to it not as a thing acquired from outside, but always secretly there and now remembered and known at once to be true, - each thing in its own place, degree, manner and measure. This is its attitude to knowledge even when the occasion of knowing is some external experience, sign or indication, because that is to it only the occasion and its reliance for the truth of the knowledge is not on the external indication or evidence but on the inner confirming witness. The true mind is the universal within us and the individual is only a projection on the surface, and therefore this second state of consciousness we have either when the individual mind goes more and more inward and is always consciously or subconsciously near and sensitive to the touches of the universal mentality in which all is contained, received, capable of being made manifest, or, still more powerfully, when we live in the consciousness of universal mind with the personal mentality only as a projection, a marking board or a communicating switch on the surface. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Towards the Supramental Time Vision, 887, #KEYS
1206:For invincible reasons of homogeneity and coherence, the fibers of cosmogenesis require to be prolonged in ourselves far more deeply than flesh and bone. We are not being tossed about and drawn along in the vital current merely by the material surface of our being. But like a subtle fluid, space-time, having drowned our bodies, penetrates our soul. It fills it and impregnates it. It mingles with its powers, until the soul soon no longer knows how to distinguish space-time from its own thoughts. Nothing can escape this flux any longer, for those who know how to see, even though it were the summit of our being, because it can only be defined in terms of increases of consciousness. For is not the very act by which the fine point of our mind penetrates the absolute a phenomenon of emergence? In short, recognized at first in a single point of things, then inevitably having spread to the whole of the inorganic and organic volume of matter, whether we like it or not evolution is now starting to invade the psychic zones of the world.... The human discovers that, in the striking words of Julian Huxley, we are nothing else than evolution become conscious of itself. It seems to me that until it is established in this perspective, the modern mind...will always be restless. For it is on this summit and this summit alone that a resting place and illumination await us.... All evolution becomes conscious of itself deep within us.... Not only do we read the secret of its movements in our slightest acts, but to a fundamental extent we hold it in our own hands: responsible for its past and its future. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, #KEYS
1207:You say that you feel you have returned to your old life and that you have fallen from that state of spiritual consciousness in which you remained for some time. And you ask whether it comes from the fact that Sri Aurobindo and myself have withdrawn our protection and our help because you had been unable to fulfil your promise.
It is a mistake to think that anything at all has been withdrawn by us. Our help and our protection are with you as always, but it would be more correct to say that both your inability to feel our help and your inability to keep your promise are the simultaneous effects of the same cause.
Remember what I wrote to you when you went to Calcutta to fetch your family: do not let any influence come in between you and the Divine. You did not pay sufficient attention to this warning: you have allowed an influence to interfere strongly between you and your spiritual life; your devotion and your faith have been seriously shaken by this. As a consequence, you became afraid and you did not find the same joy in your offering to the Divine Cause; and also, quite naturally, you fell back into your ordinary consciousness and your old life.
You are quite right, nevertheless, not to let yourself be discouraged. Whatever the fall, it is always possible not only to get up again but also to rise higher and to reach the goal. Only a strong aspiration and a constant will are needed.
You have to take a firm resolution to let nothing interfere with your ascent towards the Divine Realisation. And then the success is certain.
Be assured of our unfailing help and protection. 3 February 1931 ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother - I,#KEYS
1208:The Lord has veiled himself and his absolute wisdom and eternal consciousness in ignorant Nature-Force and suffers her to drive the individual being, with its complicity, as the ego; this lower action of Nature continues to prevail, often even in spite of man's half-lit imperfect efforts at a nobler motive and a purer self-knowledge. Our human effort at perfection fails, or progresses very incompletely, owing to the force of Nature's past actions in us, her past formations, her long-rooted associations; it turns towards a true and high-climbing success only when a greater Knowledge and Power than our own breaks through the lid of our ignorance and guides or takes up our personal will. For our human will is a misled and wandering ray that has parted from the supreme Puissance. The period of slow emergence out of this lower working into a higher light and purer force is the valley of the shadow of death for the striver after perfection; it is a dreadful passage full of trials, sufferings, sorrows, obscurations, stumblings, errors, pitfalls. To abridge and alleviate this ordeal or to penetrate it with the divine delight faith is necessary, an increasing surrender of the mind to the knowledge that imposes itself from within and, above all, a true aspiration and a right and unfaltering and sincere practice. "Practise unfalteringly," says the Gita, "with a heart free from despondency," the Yoga; for even though in the earlier stage of the path we drink deep of the bitter poison of internal discord and suffering, the last taste of this cup is the sweetness of the nectar of immortality and the honey-wine of an eternal Ananda. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 219, #KEYS
1209:Thoughts are forms and have an individual life, independent of their author: sent out from him into the world, they move in it towards the realisation of their own purpose of existence. When you think of anyone, your thought takes a form and goes out to find him; and, if your thinking is associated with some will that is behind it, the thought-form that has gone out from you makes an attempt to realise itself. Let us say, for instance, that you have a keen desire for a certain person to come and that, along with this vital impulse of desire, a strong imagination accompanies the mental form you have made; you imagine, "If he came, it would be like this or it would be like that." After a time you drop the idea altogether, and you do not know that even after you have forgotten it, your thought continues to exist. For it does still exist and is in action, independent of you, and it would need a great power to bring it back from its work. It is working in the atmosphere of the person touched by it and creates in him the desire to come. And if there is a sufficient power of will in your thought-form, if it is a well-built formation, it will arrive at its own realisation. But between the formation and the realisation there is a certain lapse of time, and if in this interval your mind has been occupied with quite other things, then when there happens this fulfilment of your forgotten thought, you may not even remember that you once harboured it; you do not know that you were the instigator of its action and the cause of what has come about. And it happens very often too that when the result does come, you have ceased to desire or care for it.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931,#KEYS
1210:Sweet Mother, how can we cut the knot of the ego?
How to cut it? Take a sword and strike it (laughter), when one becomes conscious of it. For usually one is not; we think it quite normal, what happens to us; and in fact it is very normal but we think it quite good also.So to begin with one must have a great clear-sightedness to become aware that one is enclosed in all these knots which hold one in bondage. And then, when one is aware that there's something altogether tightly closed in there - so tightly that one has tried in vain to move it - then one imagines one's will to be a very sharp sword-blade, and with all one's force one strikes a blow on this knot (imaginary, of course, one doesn't take up a sword in fact), and this produces a result. Of course you can do this work from the psychological point of view, discovering all the elements constituting this knot, the whole set of resistances, habits, preferences, of all that holds you narrowly closed in. So when you grow aware of this, you can concentrate and call the divine Force and the Grace and strike a good blow on this formation, these things so closely held, like that, that nothing can separate them. And at that moment you must resolve that you will no longer listen to these things, that you will listen only to the divine Consciousness and will do no other work except the divine work without worrying about personal results, free from all attachment, free from all preference, free from all wish for success, power, satisfaction, vanity, all this.... All this must disappear and you must see only the divine Will incarnated in your will and making you act. Then, in this way, you are cured.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1954,#KEYS
1211:We have all a ruling defect, which is for our soul as the umbilical cord of its birth in sin, and it is by this that the enemy can always lay hold upon us: for some it is vanity, for others idleness, for the majority egotism. Let a wicked and crafty mind avail itself of this means and we are lost; we may not go mad or turn idiots, but we become positively alienated, in all the force of the expression - that is, we are subjected to a foreign suggestion. In such a state one dreads instinctively everything that might bring us back to reason, and will not even listen to representations that are opposed to our obsession. Here is one of the most dangerous disorders which can affect the moral nature. The sole remedy for such a bewitchment is to make use of folly itself in order to cure folly, to provide the sufferer with imaginary satisfactions in the opposite order to that wherein he is now lost. Endeavour, for example, to cure an ambitious person by making him desire the glories of heaven - mystic remedy; cure one who is dissolute by true love - natural remedy; obtain honourable successes for a vain person; exhibit unselfishness to the avaricious and procure for them legitimate profit by honourable participation in generous enterprises, etc. Acting in this way upon the moral nature, we may succeed in curing a number of physical maladies, for the moral affects the physical in virtue of the magical axiom: "That which is above is like unto that which is below." This is why the Master said, when speaking of the paralyzed woman: "Satan has bound her." A disease invariably originates in a deficiency or an excess, and ever at the root of a physical evil we shall find a moral disorder. This is an unchanging law of Nature. ~ Eliphas Levi, Transcendental Magic, #KEYS
1212:Sweet Mother, how can we cut the knot of the ego?
How to cut it? Take a sword and strike it (laughter), when one becomes conscious of it. For usually one is not; we think it quite normal, what happens to us; and in fact it is very normal but we think it quite good also.So to begin with one must have a great clear-sightedness to become aware that one is enclosed in all these knots which hold one in bondage. And then, when one is aware that there's something altogether tightly closed in there - so tightly that one has tried in vain to move it - then one imagines one's will to be a very sharp sword-blade, and with all one's force one strikes a blow on this knot (imaginary, of course, one doesn't take up a sword in fact), and this produces a result. Of course you can do this work from the psychological point of view, discovering all the elements constituting this knot, the whole set of resistances, habits, preferences, of all that holds you narrowly closed in. So when you grow aware of this, you can concentrate and call the divine Force and the Grace and strike a good blow on this formation, these things so closely held, like that, that nothing can separate them. And at that moment you must resolve that you will no longer listen to these things, that you will listen only to the divine Consciousness and will do no other work except the divine work without worrying about personal results, free from all attachment, free from all preference, free from all wish for success, power, satisfaction, vanity, all this.... All this must disappear and you must see only the divine Will incarnated in your will and making you act. Then, in this way, you are cured.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1954,#KEYS
1213:[the first aid, shastra, the lotus of the eternal knowledge:]
The supreme Shastra of the Integral Yoga is the eternal Veda secret in the heart of every thinking and living being. The lotus of the eternal knowledge and the eternal perfection is a bud closed and folded up within us. It opens swiftly or gradually, petal by petal, through successive realisations, once the mind of man begins to turn towards the Eternal, once his heart, no longer compressed and confined by attachment to finite appearances, becomes enamoured, in whatever degree, of the Infinite. All life, all thought, all energising of the faculties, all experiences passive or active, become thenceforward so many shocks which disintegrate the teguments of the soul and remove the obstacles to the inevitable efflorescence. He who chooses the Infinite has been chosen by the Infinite. He has received the divine touch without which there is no awakening, no opening of the spirit; but once it is received, attainment is sure, whether conquered swiftly in the course of one human life or pursued patiently through many stadia of the cycle of existence in the manifested universe.
Nothing can be taught to the mind which is not already concealed as potential knowledge in the unfolding soul of the creature. So also all perfection of which the outer man is capable, is only a realising of the eternal perfection of the Spirit within him. We know the Divine and become the Divine, because we are That already in our secret nature. All teaching is a revealing, all becoming is an unfolding. Self-attainment is the secret; self-knowledge and an increasing consciousness are the means and the process.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Four Aids [53] [T1],#KEYS
1214:THE PSYCHOLOGY OF YOGA
Initial Definitions and Descriptions
Yoga has four powers and objects, purity, liberty, beatitude and perfection. Whosoever has consummated these four mightinesses in the being of the transcendental, universal, lilamaya and individual God is the complete and absolute Yogin.
All manifestations of God are manifestations of the absolute Parabrahman.
The Absolute Parabrahman is unknowable to us, not because It is the nothingness of all that we are, for rather whatever we are in truth or in seeming is nothing but Parabrahman, but because It is pre-existent & supra-existent to even the highest & purest methods and the most potent & illimitable instruments of which soul in the body is capable.
In Parabrahman knowledge ceases to be knowledge and becomes an inexpressible identity. Become Parabrahman, if thou wilt and if That will suffer thee, but strive not to know It; for thou shalt not succeed with these instruments and in this body.
In reality thou art Parabrahman already and ever wast and ever will be. To become Parabrahman in any other sense, thou must depart utterly out of world manifestation and out even of world transcendence.
Why shouldst thou hunger after departure from manifestation as if the world were an evil? Has not That manifested itself in thee & in the world and art thou wiser & purer & better than the Absolute, O mind-deceived soul in the mortal? When That withdraws thee, then thy going hence is inevitable; until Its force is laid on thee, thy going is impossible, cry thy mind never so fiercely & wailingly for departure. Therefore neither desire nor shun the world, but seek the bliss & purity & freedom & greatness of God in whatsoever state or experience or environment.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine And Human,#KEYS
1215:Sweet Mother, You have asked the teachers "to think with ideas instead of with words".4 You have also said that later on you will ask them to think with experiences. Will you throw some light on these three ways of thinking?
Our house has a very high tower; at the very top of this tower there is a bright and bare room, the last before we emerge into the open air, into the full light.
Sometimes, when we are free to do so, we climb up to this bright room, and there, if we remain very quiet, one or more visitors come to call on us; some are tall, others small, some single, others in groups; all are bright and graceful.
Usually, in our joy at their arrival and our haste to welcome them, we lose our tranquillity and come galloping down to rush 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, assemble, combine, disarrange, rearrange all the words in our 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 visitor is more like a caricature than a portrait.
And yet if we were wiser, we would remain up above, at the summit of the tower, quite calm, in joyful contemplation.
Then, after a certain length of time, we would see the visitors themselves slowly, gracefully, calmly descend, without losing anything of their elegance or beauty and, as they cross the storeroom of words, clothe themselves effortlessly, automatically, with the words needed to make themselves perceptible even in the material house.
This is what I call thinking with ideas.
When this process is no longer mysterious to you, I shall explain what is meant by thinking with experiences. ~ The Mother, Some Answers From The Mother,#KEYS
1216:What your reasoning ignores is that which is absolute or tends towards the absolute in man and his seeking as well as in the Divine - something not to be explained by mental reasoning or vital motive. A motive, but a motive of the soul, not of vital desire; a reason not of the mind, but of the self and spirit. An asking too, but the asking that is the soul's inherent aspiration, not a vital longing. That is what comes up when there is the sheer self-giving, when "I seek you for this, I seek you for that" changes to a sheer "I seek you for you." It is that marvellous and ineffable absolute in the Divine that Krishnaprem means when he says, "Not knowledge nor this nor that, but Krishna."
The pull of that is indeed a categorical imperative, the self in us drawn to the Divine because of the imperative call of its greater Self, the soul ineffably drawn towards the object of its adoration, because it cannot be otherwise, because it is it and He is He. That is all about it.
I have written all that only to explain what we mean whenwe speak of seeking the Divine for himself and not for anything else - so far as it is explicable. Explicable or not, it is one of the most dominant facts of spiritual experience. The call to selfgiving is only an expression of this fact. But this does not mean that I object to your asking for Ananda. Ask for that by all means, so long as to ask for it is a need of any part of your being - for these are the things that lead on towards the Divine so long as the absolute inner call that is there all the time does not push itself to the surface. But it is really that that has drawn from the beginning and is there behind - it is the categorical spiritual imperative, the absolute need of the soul for the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, Seeking the Divine,#KEYS
1217:The link between the spiritual and the lower planes of the mental being is that which is called in the old Vedantic phraseology the vijnana and which we may term the Truth-plane or the ideal mind or supermind where the One and the Many meet and our being is freely open to the revealing light of the divine Truth and the inspiration of the divine Will and Knowledge. If we can break down the veil of the intellectual, emotional, sensational mind which our ordinary existence has built between us and the Divine, we can then take up through the Truth-mind all our mental, vital and physical experience and offer it up to the spiritual -- this was the secret or mystic sense of the old Vedic "sacrifice" -- to be converted into the terms of the infinite truth of Sachchidananda, and we can receive the powers and illuminations of the infinite Existence in forms of a divine knowledge, will and delight to be imposed on our mentality, vitality, physical existence till the lower is transformed into the perfect vessel of the higher. This was the double Vedic movement of the descent and birth of the gods in the human creature and the ascent of the human powers that struggle towards the divine knowledge, power and delight and climb into the godheads, the result of which was the possession of the One, the Infinite, the beatific existence, the union with God, the Immortality. By possession of this ideal plane we break down entirely the opposition of the lower and the higher existence, the false gulf created by the Ignorance between the finite and the Infinite, God and Nature, the One and the Many, open the gates of the Divine, fulfil the individual in the complete harmony of the cosmic consciousness and realise in the cosmic being the epiphany of the transcendent Sachchidananda. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 2.15, #KEYS
1218:The obsession clouds all reason, impairs the ability to act, makes anything secondary to it seem unimportant. It's a double-bind tug o'war. The desire to maintain the fantasy may be stronger than the desire to make it real.
In classical occult terms I am describing a thought-form, a monster bred from the darker reccesses of mind, fed by psychic energy, clothed in imagination and nurtured by umbilical cords which twist through years of growth. we all have our personal Tunnels of Set; set in our ways through habit and patterns piling on top of each other. The thought-form rides us like a monkey; it's tail wrapped firmly about the spine of a self lost to us years ago; an earlier version threshing blindly in a moment of fear, pain, or desire.
Thus we are formed; and in a moment of loss we feel the monster's hot breath against our backs, it's claws digging into muscle and flesh. we dance to the pull of strings that were woven years ago, and in a lightning flash of insight, or better yet, the gentle admonitions of a friend, we may see the lie; the program. it is first necessary to see that there is a program. To say perhaps, this creature is mine, but not wholly me. What follows then is that the prey becomes the hunter, pulling apart the obsession, naming its parts, searching for fragments of understanding in its entrails. Shrinking it, devouring it, peeling the layers of onion-skin.
This is in itself a magick as powerful as any sorcery. Unbinding the knots that we have tied and tangled; sorting out the threads of experience and colour-coding the chains of chance. It may leave us freer, more able to act effectively and less likely to repeat old mistakes. The thing has a chinese puzzle-like nature. We can perceive only the present, and it requires intense sifting through memory to see the scaffolding beneath.
~ Phil Hine, Oven Ready Chaos,#KEYS
1219:There is, indeed, a higher form of the buddhi that can be called the intuitive mind or intuitive reason, and this by its intuitions, its inspirations, its swift revelatory vision, its luminous insight and discrimination can do the work of the reason with a higher power, a swifter action, a greater and spontaneous certitude. It acts in a self-light of the truth which does not depend upon the torch-flares of the sense-mind and its limited uncertain percepts; it proceeds not by intelligent but by visional concepts: It is a kind of truth-vision, truth-hearing, truth-memory, direct truth-discernment. This true and authentic intuition must be distinguished from a power of the ordinary mental reason which is too easily confused with it, that power of Involved reasoning that reaches its conclusion by a bound and does not need the ordinary steps of the logical mind. The logical reason proceeds pace after pace and tries the sureness of each step like a marl who is walking over unsafe ground and has to test by the hesitating touch of his foot each span of soil that he perceives with his eye. But this other supralogical process of the reason is a motion of rapid insight or swift discernment; it proceeds by a stride or leap, like a man who springs from one sure spot to another point of sure footing, -- or at least held by him to be sure. He sees this space he covers in one compact and flashing view, but he does not distinguish or measure either by eye or touch its successions, features and circumstances. This movement has something of the sense of power of the intuition, something of its velocity, some appearance of its light and certainty, arid we always are apt to take it for the intuition. But our assumption is an error and, if we trust to it, it may lead us into grievous blunders.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
1220:Hence, it's obvious to see why in AA the community is so important; we are powerless over ourselves. Since we don't have immediate awareness of the Higher Power and how it works, we need to be constantly reminded of our commitment to freedom and liberation. The old patterns are so seductive that as they go off, they set off the association of ideas and the desire to give in to our addiction with an enormous force that we can't handle. The renewal of defeat often leads to despair. At the same time, it's a source of hope for those who have a spiritual view of the process. Because it reminds us that we have to renew once again our total dependence on the Higher Power. This is not just a notional acknowledgment of our need. We feel it from the very depths of our being. Something in us causes our whole being to cry out, "Help!" That's when the steps begin to work. And that, I might add, is when the spiritual journey begins to work. A lot of activities that people in that category regard as spiritual are not communicating to them experientially their profound dependence on the grace of God to go anywhere with their spiritual practices or observances. That's why religious practice can be so ineffective. The real spiritual journey depends on our acknowledging the unmanageability of our lives. The love of God or the Higher Power is what heals us. Nobody becomes a full human being without love. It brings to life people who are most damaged. The steps are really an engagement in an ever-deepening relationship with God. Divine love picks us up when we sincerely believe nobody else will. We then begin to experience freedom, peace, calm, equanimity, and liberation from cravings for what we have come to know are damaging-cravings that cannot bring happiness, but at best only momentary relief that makes the real problem worse. ~ Thomas Keating, Divine Therapy and Addiction, #KEYS
1221:the aim of our yoga :::
The aim set before our Yoga is nothing less than to hasten this supreme object of our existence here. Its process leaves behind the ordinary tardy method of slow and confused growth through the evolution of Nature. For the natural evolution is at its best an uncertain growth under cover, partly by the pressure of the environment, partly by a groping education and an ill-lighted purposeful effort, an only partially illumined and half-automatic use of opportunities with many blunders and lapses and relapses; a great portion of it is made up of apparent accidents and circumstances and vicissitudes, - though veiling a secret divine intervention and guidance. In Yoga we replace this confused crooked crab-motion by a rapid, conscious and self-directed evolution which is planned to carry us, as far as can be, in a straight line towards the goal set before us. In a certain sense it may be an error to speak of a goal anywhere in a progression which may well be infinite. Still we can conceive of an immediate goal, an ulterior objective beyond our present achievement towards which the soul in man can aspire. There lies before him the possibility of a new birth; there can be an ascent into a higher and wider plane of being and its descent to transform his members. An enlarged and illumined consciousness is possible that shall make of him a liberated spirit and a perfected force - and, if spread beyond the individual, it might even constitute a divine humanity or else a new, a supramental and therefore a superhuman race. It is this new birth that we make our aim: a growth into a divine consciousness is the whole meaning of our Yoga, an integral conversion to divinity not only of the soul but of all the parts of our nature.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, 89-90,#KEYS
1222:There is the one door in us that sometimes swings open upon the splendour of a truth beyond and, before it shuts again, allows a ray to touch us, - a luminous intimation which, if we have the strength and firmness, we may hold to in our faith and make a starting-point for another play of consciousness than that of the sense-mind, for the play of Intuition. For if we examine carefully, we shall find that Intuition is our first teacher. Intuition always stands veiled behind our mental operations. Intuition brings to man those brilliant messages from the Unknown which are the beginning of his higher knowledge. Reason only comes in afterwards to see what profit it can have of the shining harvest. Intuition gives us that idea of something behind and beyond all that we know and seem to be which pursues man always in contradiction of his lower reason and all his normal experience and impels him to formulate that formless perception in the more positive ideas of God, Immortality, Heaven and the rest by which we strive to express it to the mind. For Intuition is as strong as Nature herself from whose very soul it has sprung and cares nothing for the contradictions of reason or the denials of experience. It knows what is because it is, because itself it is of that and has come from that, and will not yield it to the judgment of what merely becomes and appears. What the Intuition tells us of, is not so much Existence as the Existent, for it proceeds from that one point of light in us which gives it its advantage, that sometimes opened door in our own self-awareness. Ancient Vedanta seized this message of the Intuition and formulated it in the three great declarations of the Upanishads, I am He, Thou art That, O Swetaketu, All this is the Brahman; this Self is the Brahman.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Methods of Vedantic Knowledge,#KEYS
1223:Though the supermind is suprarational to our intelligence and its workings occult to our apprehension, it is nothing irrationally mystic, but rather its existence and emergence is a logical necessity of the nature of existence, always provided we grant that not matter or mind alone but spirit is the fundamental reality and everywhere a universal presence. All things are a manifestation of the infinite spirit out of its own being, out of its own consciousness and by the self-realising, self-determining, self-fulfilling power of that consciousness. The Infinite, we may say, organises by the power of its self-knowledge the law of its own manifestation of being in the universe, not only the material universe present to our senses, but whatever lies behind it on whatever planes of existence. All is organised by it not under any inconscient compulsion, not according to a mental fantasy or caprice, but in its own infinite spiritual freedom according to the self-truth of its being, its infinite potentialities and its will of self-creation out of those potentialities, and the law of this self-truth is the necessity that compels created things to act and evolve each according to its own nature. The Intelligence- to give it an inadequate name-the Logos that thus organises its own manifestation is evidently something infinitely greater, more extended in knowledge, compelling in self-power, large both in the delight of its self-existence and the delight of its active being and works than the mental intelligence which is to us the highest realised degree and expression of consciousness. It is to this intelligence infinite in itself but freely organising and self-determiningly organic in its self-creation and its works that we may give for our present purpose the name of the divine supermind or gnosis.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 785-86,#KEYS
1224:To analyse the classes of life we have to consider two very different kinds of phenomena: the one embraced under the collective name-Inorganic chemistry-the other under the collective nameOrganic chemistry, or the chemistry of hydro-carbons. These divisions are made because of the peculiar properties of the elements chiefly involved in the second class. The properties of matter are so distributed among the elements that three of them- Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Carbon-possess an ensemble of unique characteristics. The number of reactions in inorganic chemistry are relatively few, but in organic chemistry-in the chemistry of these three elements the number of different compounds is practically unlimited. Up to 1910, we knew of more than 79 elements of which the whole number of reactions amounted to only a few hundreds, but among the remaining three elements-Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen-the reactions were known to be practically unlimited in number and possibilities; this fact must have very far reaching consequences. As far as energies are concerned, we have to take them as nature reveals them to us. Here more than ever, mathematical thinking is essential and will help enormously. The reactions in inorganic chemistry always involve the phenomenon of heat, sometimes light, and in some instances an unusual energy is produced called electricity. Until now, the radioactive elements represent a group too insufficiently known for an enlargement here upon this subject.
The organic compounds being unlimited in number and possibilities and with their unique characteristics, represent of course, a different class of phenomena, but being, at the same time, chemical they include the basic chemical phenomena involved in all chemical reactions, but being unique in many other respects, they also have an infinitely vast field of unique characteristics. ~ Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity, 53,#KEYS
1225:19 - When I had the dividing reason, I shrank from many things; after I had lost it in sight, I hunted through the world for the ugly and the repellent, but I could no longer find them. - Sri Aurobindo
Is there really nothing ugly and repellent in the world? Is it our reason alone that sees things in that way?
To understand truly what Sri Aurobindo means here, you must yourself have had the experience of transcending reason and establishing your consciousness in a world higher than the mental intelligence. For from up there you can see, firstly, that everything that exists in the universe is an expression of Sachchidananda (Being-Consciousness-Bliss) and therefore behind any appearance whatever, if you go deeply enough, you can perceive Sachchidananda, which is the principle of Supreme Beauty.
Secondly, you see that everything in the manifested universe is relative, so much so that there is no beauty which may not appear ugly in comparison with a greater beauty, no ugliness which may not appear beautiful in comparison with a yet uglier ugliness.
When you can see and feel in this way, you immediately become aware of the extreme relativity of these impressions and their unreality from the absolute point of view. However, so long as we dwell in the rational consciousness, it is, in a way, natural that everything that offends our aspiration for perfection, our will for progress, everything we seek to transcend and surmount, should seem ugly and repellent to us, since we are in search of a greater ideal and we want to rise higher.
And yet it is still only a half-wisdom which is very far from the true wisdom, a wisdom that appears wise only in the midst of ignorance and unconsciousness.
In the Truth everything is different, and the Divine shines in all things. 17 February 1960 ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms,#KEYS
1226:principle of Yogic methods :::
Yogic methods have something of the same relation to the customary psychological workings of man as has the scientific handling of the force of electricity or of steam to their normal operations in Nature. And they, too, like the operations of Science, are formed upon a knowledge developed and confirmed by regular experiment, practical analysis and constant result. All 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 function 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 raionale 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.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Introduction - The Conditions of the Synthesis, Life and Yoga,#KEYS
1227:A distinction has to be firmly seized in our consciousness, the capital distinction between mechanical Nature and the free Lord of Nature, between the Ishwara or single luminous divine Will and the many executive modes and forces of the universe. Nature, - not as she is in her divine Truth, the conscious Power of the Eternal, but as she appears to us in the Ignorance, - is executive Force, mechanical in her steps, not consciously intelligent to our experience of her, although all her works are instinct with an absolute intelligence. Not in herself master, she is full of a self-aware Power which has an infinite mastery and, because of this Power driving her, she rules all and exactly fulfils the work intended in her by the Ishwara. Not enjoying but enjoyed, she bears in herself the burden of all enjoyments. Nature as Prakriti is an inertly active Force, - for she works out a movement imposed upon her; but within her is One that knows,
- some Entity sits there that is aware of all her motion and process. Prakriti works containing the knowledge, the mastery, the delight of the Purusha, the Being associated with her or seated within her; but she can participate in them only by subjection and reflection of that which fills her. Purusha knows and is still and inactive; he contains the action of Prakriti within his consciousness and knowledge and enjoys it. He gives the sanction to Prakriti's works and she works out what is sanctioned by him for his pleasure. Purusha himself does not execute; he maintains Prakriti in her action and allows her to express in energy and process and formed result what he perceives in his knowledge. This is the distinction made by the Sankhyas; and although it is not all the true truth, not in any way the highest truth either of Purusha or of Prakriti, still it is a valid and indispensable practical knowledge in the lower hemisphere of existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
1228:More often, he listened to the voice of Eros. Sometimes he watched the video feeds too, but usually, he just listened. Over the hours and days, he began to hear, if not patterns, at least common structures. Some of the voices spooling out of the dying station were consistent-broadcasters and entertainers who were overrepresented in the audio files archives, he guessed. There seemed to be some specific tendencies in, for want of a better term, the music of it too. Hours of random, fluting static and snatched bits of phrases would give way, and Eros would latch on to some word or phrase, fixating on it with greater and greater intensity until it broke apart and the randomness poured back in.
"... are, are, are, ARE, ARE, ARE... "
Aren't, Miller thought, and the ship suddenly shoved itself up, leaving Miller's stomach about half a foot from where it had been. A series of loud clanks followed, and then the brief wail of a Klaxon. "Dieu! Dieu!" someone shouted. "Bombs son vamen roja! Going to fry it! Fry us toda!"
There was the usual polite chuckle that the same joke had occasioned over the course of the trip, and the boy who'd made it-a pimply Belter no more than fifteen years old-grinned with pleasure at his own wit. If he didn't stop that shit, someone was going to beat him with a crowbar before they got back to Tycho. But Miller figured that someone wasn't him.
A massive jolt forward pushed him hard into the couch, and then gravity was back, the familiar 0.3 g. Maybe a little more. Except that with the airlocks pointing toward ship's down, the pilot had to grapple the spinning skin of Eros' belly first. The spin gravity made what had been the ceiling the new floor; the lowest rank of couches was now the top; and while they rigged the fusion bombs to the docks, they were all going to have to climb up onto a cold, dark rock that was trying to fling them off into the vacuum.
Such were the joys of sabotage. ~ James S A Corey, Leviathan Wakes,#KEYS
1229:A distinction has to be firmly seized in our consciousness, the capital distinction between mechanical Nature and the free Lord of Nature, between the Ishwara or single luminous divine Will and the many executive modes and forces of the universe. Nature, - not as she is in her divine Truth, the conscious Power of the Eternal, but as she appears to us in the Ignorance, - is executive Force, mechanical in her steps, not consciously intelligent to our experience of her, although all her works are instinct with an absolute intelligence. Not in herself master, she is full of a self-aware Power which has an infinite mastery and, because of this Power driving her, she rules all and exactly fulfils the work intended in her by the Ishwara. Not enjoying but enjoyed, she bears in herself the burden of all enjoyments. Nature as Prakriti is an inertly active Force, - for she works out a movement imposed upon her; but within her is One that knows, - some Entity sits there that is aware of all her motion and process. Prakriti works containing the knowledge, the mastery, the delight of the Purusha, the Being associated with her or seated within her; but she can participate in them only by subjection and reflection of that which fills her. Purusha knows and is still and inactive; he contains the action of Prakriti within his consciousness and knowledge and enjoys it. He gives the sanction to Prakriti's works and she works out what is sanctioned by him for his pleasure. Purusha himself does not execute; he maintains Prakriti in her action and allows her to express in energy and process and formed result what he perceives in his knowledge. This is the distinction made by the Sankhyas; and although it is not all the true truth, not in any way the highest truth either of Purusha or of Prakriti, still it is a valid and indispensable practical knowledge in the lower hemisphere of existence.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Surrender in Works,#KEYS
1230:I have already told you this several times. When you are in a particular set of circumstances and certain events take place, these events often oppose your desire or what seems best to you, and often you happen to regret this and say to yourself, "Ah! how good it would have been if it were otherwise, if it had been like this or like that", for little things and big things.... Then years pass by, events are unfolded; you progress, become more conscious, understand better, and when you look back, you notice―first with astonishment, then later with a smile―that those very circumstances which seemed to you quite disastrous or unfavourable, were exactly the best thing that could have happened to you to make you progress as you should have. And if you are the least bit wise you tell yourself, "Truly, the divine Grace is infinite."
So, when this sort of thing has happened to you a number of times, you begin to understand that in spite of the blindness of man and deceptive appearances, the Grace is at work everywhere, so that at every moment it is the best possible thing that happens in the state the world is in at that moment. It is because our vision is limited or even because we are blinded by our own preferences that we cannot discern that things are like this.
But when one begins to see it, one enters upon a state of wonder which nothing can describe. For behind the appearances one perceives this Grace―infinite, wonderful, all-powerful―which knows all, organises all, arranges all, and leads us, whether we like it or not, whether we know it or not, towards the supreme goal, that is, union with the Divine, the awareness of the Godhead and union with Him.
Then one lives in the Action and Presence of the Grace a life full of joy, of wonder, with the feeling of a marvellous strength, and at the same time with a trust so calm, so complete, that nothing can shake it any longer. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1956, 8 August 1956,#KEYS
1231:mastering the lower self and leverage for the march towards the Divine :::
In proportion as he can thus master and enlighten his lower self, he is man and no longer an animal. When he can begin to replace desire altogether by a still greater enlightened thought and sight and will in touch with the Infinite, consciously subject to a diviner will than his own, linked to a more universal and transcendent knowledge, he has commenced the ascent towards tile superman; he is on his upward march towards the Divine.
It is, then, in the highest mind of thought and light and will or it is in the inner heart of deepest feeling and emotion that we must first centre our consciousness, -- in either of them or, if we are capable, in both together, -- and use that as our leverage to lift the nature wholly towards the Divine. The concentration of an enlightened thought, will and heart turned in unison towards one vast goal of our knowledge, one luminous and infinite source of our action, one imperishable object of our emotion is the starting-point of the Yoga. And the object of our seeking must be the very fount of the Light which is growing in us, the very origin of the Force which we are calling to move our members. Our one objective must be the Divine himself to whom, knowingly or unknowingly, something always aspires in our secret nature. There must be a large, many-sided yet single concentration of the thought on the idea, the perception, the vision, the awakening touch, the soul's realisation of the one Divine. There must be a flaming concentration of the heart on the All and Eternal and, when once we have found him, a deep plunging and immersion in the possession and ecstasy of the All-Beautiful. There must be a strong and immovable concentration of the will on the attainment and fulfilment of all that the Divine is and a free and plastic opening of it to all that he intends to manifest in us. This is the triple way of the Yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration, 80-81,#KEYS
1232:This inner Guide is often veiled at first by the very intensity of our personal effort and by the ego's preoccupation with itself and its aims. As we gain in clarity and the turmoil of egoistic effort gives place to a calmer self-knowledge, we recognise the source of the growing light within us. We recognise it retrospectively as we realise how all our obscure and conflicting movements have been determined towards an end that we only now begin to perceive, how even before our entrance into the path of the Yoga the evolution of our life has been designedly led towards its turning point. For now we begin to understand the sense of our struggles and efforts, successes and failures. At last we are able to seize the meaning of our ordeals and sufferings and can appreciate the help that was given us by all that hurt and resisted and the utility of our very falls and stumblings. We recognise this divine leading afterwards, not retrospectively but immediately, in the moulding of our thoughts by a transcendent Seer, of our will and actions by an all-embracing Power, of our emotional life by an all-attracting and all-assimilating Bliss and Love. We recognise it too in a more personal relation that from the first touched us or at the last seizes us; we feel the eternal presence of a supreme Master, Friend, Lover, Teacher. We recognise it in the essence of our being as that develops into likeness and oneness with a greater and wider existence; for we perceive that this miraculous development is not the result of our own efforts; an eternal Perfection is moulding us into its own image. One who is the Lord or Ishwara of the Yogic philosophies, the Guide in the conscious being ( caitya guru or antaryamin ), the Absolute of the thinker, the Unknowable of the Agnostic, the universal Force of the materialist, the supreme Soul and the supreme Shakti, the One who is differently named and imaged by the religions, is the Master of our Yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Four Aids, 62 [T1],#KEYS
1233:Why are some people intelligent and others not? Why can some people do certain things while others can't?"
It is as though you asked why everybody was not the same! Then it would mean that there would only be one single thing, one single thing indefinitely repeated which would constitute the whole universe.... I don't know, but it seems to me that it wouldn't be worth the trouble having a universe for that, it would be enough to have just one thing!
But the moment one admits the principle of multiplicity and that no two things are alike in the universe, how can you ask why they are not the same! It is just because they are not, because no two things are alike.
Behind that there is something else which one is not conscious of, but which is very simple and very childish. It is this: "Since there is an infinite diversity, since some people are of one kind and others of a lesser kind, well" - here of course one doesn't say this to oneself but it is there, hidden in the depths of the being, in the depths of the ego - "why am I not of the best kind?" There we are. In fact it amounts to complaining that perhaps one is not of the best kind! If you look attentively at questions like this: "Why do some have much and others little?" "Why are some wise and not others? Why are some intelligent and not others?" etc., behind that there is "Why don't I have all that can be had and why am I not all that one can be?..." Naturally, one doesn't say this to oneself, because one would feel ridiculous, but it is there.
There then. Now has anyone anything to add to what we have just said?... Have you all understood quite well? Everything I have said? Nobody wants to say...
(A teacher) Our daily routine seems a little "impossible" to us.
Well, wait a century or two and it will become possible! (Laughter)
You are told that today's impossibility is the possibility of tomorrow - but these are very great tomorrows! ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers, Volume-8, page no. 387-388,#KEYS
1234:It doesnt interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your hearts longing. It doesnt interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive. It doesnt interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by lifes betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human. It doesnt interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithlessand therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty even when its not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, Yes! It doesnt interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesnt interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesnt interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer,#KEYS
1235:... The first opening is effected by a concentration in the heart, a call to the Divine to manifest within us and through the psychic to take up and lead the whole nature. Aspiration, prayer, bhakti, love, surrender are the main supports of this part of the sadhana - accompanied by a rejection of all that stands in the way of what we aspire for. The second opening is effected by a concentration of the consciousness in the head (afterwards, above it) and an aspiration and call and a sustained will for the descent of the divine Peace, Power, Light, Knowledge, Ananda into the being - the Peace first or the Peace and Force together. Some indeed receive Light first or Ananda first or some sudden pouring down of knowledge. With some there is first an opening which reveals to them a vast infinite Silence, Force, Light or Bliss above them and afterwards either they ascend to that or these things begin to descend into the lower nature. With others there is either the descent, first into the head, then down to the heart level, then to the navel and below and through the whole body, or else an inexplicable opening - without any sense of descent - of peace, light, wideness or power or else a horizontal opening into the cosmic consciousness or, in a suddenly widened mind, an outburst of knowledge. Whatever comes has to be welcomed - for there is no absolute rule for all, - but if the peace has not come first, care must be taken not to swell oneself in exultation or lose the balance. The capital movement however is when the Divine Force or Shakti, the power of the Mother comes down and takes hold, for then the organisation of the consciousness begins and the larger foundation of the Yoga.
The result of the concentration is not usually immediate - though to some there comes a swift and sudden outflowering; but with most there is a time longer or shorter of adaptation or preparation, especially if the nature has not been prepared already to some extent by aspiration and tapasya. ... ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother,#KEYS
1236:the omnipresent Trinity :::
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 and the Individual. If the individual and Nature are left to themselves, the one is bound to the other and unable to exceed appreciably her lingering march. Something transcendent is needed, free from her and greater, which will act upon us and her, attracting us upward to Itself and securing from her by good grace or by force her consent to the individual ascension. 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. 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 maybe our intellectual conception of the highest truth of things, in practice we are compelled to accept this omnipresent Trinity.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Introduction - The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Systems of Yoga,#KEYS
1237:The way of integral knowledge supposes that we are intended to arrive at an integral self-fulfilment and the only thing that is to be eliminated is our own unconsciousness, the Ignorance and the results of the Ignorance. Eliminate the falsity of the being which figures as the ego; then our true being can manifest in us. Eliminate the falsity of the life which figures as mere vital craving and the mechanical round of our corporeal existence; our true life in the power of the Godhead and the joy of the Infinite will appear. Eliminate the falsity of the senses with their subjection to material shows and to dual sensations; there is a greater sense in us that can open through these to the Divine in things and divinely reply to it. Eliminate the falsity of the heart with its turbid passions and desires and its dual emotions; a deeper heart in us can open with its divine love for all creatures and its infinite passion and yearning for the responses of the Infinite. Eliminate the falsity of the thought with its imperfect mental constructions, its arrogant assertions and denials, its limited and exclusive concentrations; a greater faculty of knowledge is behind that can open to the true Truth of God and the soul and Nature and the universe. An integral self-fulfilment, - an absolute, a culmination for the experiences of the heart, for its instinct of love, joy, devotion and worship; an absolute, a culmination for the senses, for their pursuit of divine beauty and good and delight in the forms of things; an absolute, a culmination for the life, for its pursuit of works, of divine power, mastery and perfection; an absolute, a culmination beyond its own limits for the thought, for its hunger after truth and light and divine wisdom and knowledge. Not something quite other than themselves from which they are all cast away is the end of these things in our nature, but something supreme in which they at once transcend themselves and find their own absolutes and infinitudes, their harmonies beyond measure.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Object of Knowledge,#KEYS
1238:the spiritual force behind adoration :::
All love, indeed, that is adoration has a spiritual force behind it, and even when it is offered ignorantly and to a limited object, something of that splendor appears through the poverty of the rite and the smallness of its issues. For love that is worship is at once an aspiration and a preparation: it can bring even within its small limits in the Ignorance a glimpse of a still more or less blind and partial but surprising realisation; for there are moments when it is not we but the One who loves and is loved in us, and even a human passion can be uplifted and glorified by a slight glimpse of this infinite Love and Lover. It is for this reason that the worship of the god, the worship of the idol, the human magnet or ideal are not to be despised; for these are steps through which the human race moves towards that blissful passion and ecstasy of the Infinite which, even in limiting it, they yet represent for our imperfect vision when we have still to use the inferior steps Nature has hewn for our feet and admit the stages of our progress. Certain idolatries are indispensable for the development of our emotional being, nor will the man who knows be hasty at any time to shatter this image unless he can replace it in the heart of the worshipper by the Reality it figures. Moreover, they have this power because there is always something in them that is greater than their forms and, even when we reach the supreme worship, that abides and becomes a prolongation of it or a part of its catholic wholeness. our knowledge is still imperfect in us, love incomplete if even when we know That which surpasses all forms and manifestations, we cannot still accept the Divine in creature and object, in man, in the kind, in the animal, in the tree, in the flower, in the work of our hands, in the Nature-Force which is then no longer to us the blind action of a material machinery but a face and power of the universal Shakti: for in these things too is the presence of the Eternal.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, The Works of Love - The Works of Life, 159,#KEYS
1239:For centuries and centuries humanity has waited for this time. It is come. But it is difficult.
I don't simply tell you we are here upon earth to rest and enjoy ourselves, now is not the time for that. We are here..... to prepare the way for the new creation.
The body has some difficulty, so I can't be active, alas. It is not because I am old, I am not old, I am younger than most of you. If I am here inactive, it is because the body has given itself definitely to prepare the transformation. But the consciousness is clear and we are here to work - rest and enjoyment will come afterwards. Let us do our work here.
So I have called you to tell you that. Take what you can, do what you can, my help will be with you. All sincere effort will be helped to the maximum.
It is the hour to be the heroic. Heroism is not what it is said to be; it is to become wholly unified - and the Divine help will always be with those who have resolved to be heroic in full sincerity.
There!
You are here at this moment that is to say upon earth, because you chose it at one time - you do not remember it any more, but I know it - that is why you are here. Well, you must rise to the height of the task. You must strive, you must conquer all weakness and limitations; above all you must tell your ego: "Your hour is gone." We want a race that has no ego, that has in place of the ego the Divine Consciousness. It is that which we want: the Divine Consciousness which will allow the race to develop itself and the Supramental being to take birth.
If you believe that I am here because I am bound - it is not true. I am not bound, I am here because my body has been given for the first attempt at transformation. Sri Aurobindo told me so. Well, I am doing it. I do not wish anyone to do it for me because.... Because it is not very pleasant, but I do it willingly because of the result; everybody will be able to benefit from it. I ask only one thing: do not listen to the ego.
If there is in your hearts a sincere Yes, you will satisfy me completely. I do not need words, I need the sincere adhesion of your hearts. That's all. ~ The Mother, (This talk was given by the Mother on April 2,1972,#KEYS
1240:Accumulating Prostrations
Why Prostrate at All?
Why fling yourself full-length on an often filthy floor, then get up and do it again hundreds of thousands of times?
Prostrations are a very immediate method for taking refuge and one of the best available for destroying pride. They are an outer gesture of surrender to the truth of dharma, and an expression of our intention to give up and expose our pride.
So, as we take refuge, we prostrate to demonstrate our complete surrender by throwing ourselves at the feet of our guru and pressing the five points of our body — forehead, hands and knees — to the floor as many times as we can.
(In the Tibetan tradition there are two ways of doing prostrations: one is the full-length and the other the half-length prostration, and we usually accumulate the full-length version.)
Prostrations are said to bring a number of benefits, such as being reborn with an attractive appearance, or our words carry weight and are valued, or our influence over friends and colleagues is positive, or that we are able to manage those who work for us.
It is said that practitioners who accumulate prostrations will one day keep company with sublime beings and as a result become majestic, wealthy, attain a higher rebirth and eventually attain liberation.
For worldly beings, though, to contemplate all the spiritual benefits of prostrations and the amount of merit they accumulate is not necessarily the most effective way of motivating ourselves. The fact that prostrations are good for our health, on the other hand, is often just the incentive we need to get started.
It's true, doing prostrations for the sake of taking healthy exercise is a worldly motivation, but not one I would ever discourage.
In these degenerate times, absolutely anything that will inspire you to practise dharma has some value, so please go ahead and start your prostrations for the sake of the exercise. If you do, not only will you save money on your gym membership, you will build up muscle and a great deal of merit.
~ Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, Not for Happiness - A Guide to the So-Called Preliminary Practises, Shambhala Publications,#KEYS
1241:And therefore, all of those for whom authentic transformation has deeply unseated their souls must, I believe, wrestle with the profound moral obligation to shout form the heart-perhaps quietly and gently, with tears of reluctance; perhaps with fierce fire and angry wisdom; perhaps with slow and careful analysis; perhaps by unshakable public example-but authentically always and absolutely carries a a demand and duty: you must speak out, to the best of your ability, and shake the spiritual tree, and shine your headlights into the eyes of the complacent. You must let that radical realization rumble through your veins and rattle those around you.
Alas, if you fail to do so, you are betraying your own authenticity. You are hiding your true estate. You don't want to upset others because you don't want to upset your self. You are acting in bad faith, the taste of a bad infinity.
Because, you see, the alarming fact is that any realization of depth carries a terrible burden: those who are allowed to see are simultaneously saddled with the obligation to communicate that vision in no uncertain terms: that is the bargain. You were allowed to see the truth under the agreement that you would communicate it to others (that is the ultimate meaning of the bodhisattva vow). And therefore, if you have seen, you simply must speak out. Speak out with compassion, or speak out with angry wisdom, or speak out with skillful means, but speak out you must.
And this is truly a terrible burden, a horrible burden, because in any case there is no room for timidity. The fact that you might be wrong is simply no excuse: You might be right in your communication, and you might be wrong, but that doesn't matter. What does matter, as Kierkegaard so rudely reminded us, is that only by investing and speaking your vision with passion, can the truth, one way or another, finally penetrate the reluctance of the world. If you are right, or if you are wrong, it is only your passion that will force either to be discovered. It is your duty to promote that discovery-either way-and therefore it is your duty to speak your truth with whatever passion and courage you can find in your heart. You must shout, in whatever way you can. ~ Ken Wilber, One Taste,#KEYS
1242:As Korzybski and the general semanticists have pointed out, our words, symbols, signs, thoughts and ideas are merely maps of reality, not reality itself, because "the map is not the territory." The word "water" won't satisfy your thirst.
But we live in the world of maps and words as if it were the real world. Following in the footsteps of Adam, we have become totally lost in a world of purely fantasy maps and boundaries. And these illusory boundaries, with the opposites they create, have become our impassioned battles.
Most of our "problems of living," then, are based on the illusion that the opposites can and should be separated and isolated from one another. But since all opposites are actually aspects of one underlying reality, this is like trying to totally separate the two ends of a single rubber band. All you can do is pull harder and harder-until something violently snaps. Thus we might be able to understand that, in all the mystical traditions the world over, one who sees through the illusion of the opposites is called "liberated." Because he is "freed from the pairs" of opposites, he is freed in this life from the fundamentally nonsensical problems and conflicts involved in the war of opposites. He no longer manipulates the opposites one against the other in his search for peace, but instead transcends them both. Not good vs. evil but beyond good and evil. Not life against death but a center of awareness that transcends both. The point is not to separate the opposites and make "positive progress," but rather to unify and harmonize the opposites, both positive and negative, by discovering a ground which transcends and encompasses them both. And that ground, as we will soon see, is unity consciousness itself. In the meantime, let us note, as does the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita, that liberation is not freedom from the negative, but freedom from the pairs altogether:
Content with getting what arrives of itself
Passed beyond the pairs, free from envy,
Not attached to success nor failure,
Even acting, he is not bound.
He is to be recognized as eternally free
Who neither loathes nor craves;
For he that is freed from the pairs,
Is easily freed from conflict.
~ Ken Wilber, No Boundary,#KEYS
1243:I know perfectly well that pain and suffering and struggle and excesses of despair are natural - though not inevitable - on the way, - not because they are helps, but because they are imposed on us by the darkness of this human nature out of which we have to struggle into the Light. . . .
The dark path is there and there are many who make like the Christians a gospel of spiritual suffering; many hold it to be the unavoidable price of victory. It may be so under certain circumstances, as it has been in so many lives at least at the beginning, or one may choose to make it so. But then the price has to be paid with resignation, fortitude or a tenacious resilience. I admit that if borne in that way the attacks of the Dark Forces or the ordeals they impose have a meaning. After each victory gained over them, there is then a sensible advance; often they seem to show us the difficulties in ourselves which we have to overcome and to say, "Here you must conquer us and here."
But all the same it is a too dark and difficult way which nobody should follow on whom the necessity does not lie.
In any case one thing can never help and that is to despond always and say, "I am unfit; I am not meant for the Yoga." And worse still are these perilous mental formations such as you are always accepting that you must fare like X (one whose difficulty of exaggerated ambition was quite different from yours) and that you have only six years etc. These are clear formations of the Dark Forces seeking not only to sterilise your aspiration but to lead you away and so prevent your sharing in the fruit of the victory hereafter. I do not know what Krishnaprem has said but his injunction, if you have rightly understood it, is one that cannot stand as valid, since so many have done Yoga relying on tapasya or anything else but not confident of any Divine Grace. It is not that, but the soul's demand for a higher Truth or a higher life that is indispensable. Where that is, the Divine Grace whether believed in or not, will intervene. If you believe, that hastens and facilitates things; if you cannot yet believe, still the soul's aspiration will justify itself with whatever difficulty and struggle. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - IV,#KEYS
1244:The most disconcerting discovery is to find that every part of us -- intellect, will, sense-mind, nervous or desire self, the heart, the body-has each, as it were, its own complex individuality and natural formation independent of the rest; it neither agrees with itself nor with the others nor with the representative ego which is the shadow cast by some central and centralising self on our superficial ignorance. We find that we are composed not of one but many personalities and each has its own demands and differing nature. Our being is a roughly constituted chaos into which we have to introduce the principle of a divine order. Moreover, we find that inwardly too, no less than outwardly, we are not alone in the world; the sharp separateness of our ego was no more than a strong imposition and delusion; we do not exist in ourselves, we do not really live apart in an inner privacy or solitude. Our mind is a receiving, developing and modifying machine into which there is being constantly passed from moment to moment a ceaseless foreign flux, a streaming mass of disparate materials from above, from below, from outside. Much more than half our thoughts and feelings are not our own in the sense that they take form out of ourselves; of hardly anything can it be said that it is truly original to our nature. A large part comes to us from others or from the environment, whether as raw material or as manufactured imports; but still more largely they come from universal Nature here or from other worlds and planes and their beings and powers and influences; for we are overtopped and environed by other planes of consciousness, mind planes, life planes, subtle matter planes, from which our life and action here are fed, or fed on, pressed, dominated, made use offer the manifestation of their forms and forces. The difficulty of our separate salvation is immensely increased by this complexity and manifold openness and subjection to tile in-streaming energies of the universe. Of all this we have to take account, to deal with it, to know what is the secret stuff of our nature and its constituent and resultant motions and to create in it all a divine centre and a true harmony and luminous order. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 1.02, #KEYS
1245:If we analyse the classes of life, we readily find that there are three cardinal classes which are radically distinct in function. A short analysis will disclose to us that, though minerals have various activities, they are not "living." The plants have a very definite and well known function-the transformation of solar energy into organic chemical energy. They are a class of life which appropriates one kind of energy, converts it into another kind and stores it up; in that sense they are a kind of storage battery for the solar energy; and so I define THE PLANTS AS THE CHEMISTRY-BINDING class of life.
The animals use the highly dynamic products of the chemistry-binding class-the plants-as food, and those products-the results of plant-transformation-undergo in animals a further transformation into yet higher forms; and the animals are correspondingly a more dynamic class of life; their energy is kinetic; they have a remarkable freedom and power which the plants do not possess-I mean the freedom and faculty to move about in space; and so I define ANIMALS AS THE SPACE-BINDING CLASS OF LIFE.
And now what shall we say of human beings? What is to be our definition of Man? Like the animals, human beings do indeed possess the space-binding capacity but, over and above that, human beings possess a most remarkable capacity which is entirely peculiar to them-I mean the capacity to summarise, digest and appropriate the labors and experiences of the past; I mean the capacity to use the fruits of past labors and experiences as intellectual or spiritual capital for developments in the present; I mean the capacity to employ as instruments of increasing power the accumulated achievements of the all-precious lives of the past generations spent in trial and error, trial and success; I mean the capacity of human beings to conduct their lives in the ever increasing light of inherited wisdom; I mean the capacity in virtue of which man is at once the heritor of the by-gone ages and the trustee of posterity. And because humanity is just this magnificent natural agency by which the past lives in the present and the present for the future, I define HUMANITY, in the universal tongue of mathematics and mechanics, to be the TIME-BINDING CLASS OF LIFE. ~ Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity,#KEYS
1246:The guiding law of spiritual experience can only come by an opening of human consciousness to the Divine Consciousness; there must be the power to receive in us the working and command and dynamic presence of the Divine Shakti and surrender ourselves to her control; it is that surrender and that control which bring the guidance. But the surrender is not sure, there is no absolute certitude of the guidance so long as we are besieged by mind formations and life impulses and instigations of ego which may easily betray us into the hands of a false experience. This danger can only be countered by the opening of a now nine-tenths concealed inmost soul or psychic being that is already there but not commonly active within us. That is the inner light we must liberate; for the light of this inmost soul is our one sure illumination so long as we walk still amidst the siege of the Ignorance and the Truth-consciousness has not taken up the entire control of our Godward endeavour. The working of the Divine Force in us under the conditions of the transition and the light of the psychic being turning us always towards a conscious and seeing obedience to that higher impulsion and away from the demands and instigations of the Forces of the Ignorance, these between them create an ever progressive inner law of our action which continues till the spiritual and supramental can be established in our nature. In the transition there may well be a period in which we take up all life and action and offer them to the Divine for purification, change and deliverance of the truth within them, another period in which we draw back and build a spiritual wall around us admitting through its gates only such activities as consent to undergo the law of the spiritual transformation, a third in which a free and all-embracing action, but with new forms fit for the utter truth of the Spirit, can again be made possible. These things, however, will be decided by no mental rule but in the light of the soul within us and by the ordaining force and progressive guidance of the Divine Power that secretly or overtly first impels, then begins clearly to control and order and finally takes up the whole burden of the Yoga. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1, 138, #KEYS
1247:And for the same reason, because that which we are seeking through beauty is in the end that which we are seeking through religion, the Absolute, the Divine. The search for beauty is only in its beginning a satisfaction in the beauty of form, the beauty which appeals to the physical senses and the vital impressions, impulsions, desires. It is only in the middle a satisfaction in the beauty of the ideas seized, the emotions aroused, the perception of perfect process and harmonious combination. Behind them the soul of beauty in us desires the contact, the revelation, the uplifting delight of an absolute beauty in all things which it feels to be present, but which neither the senses and instincts by themselves can give, though they may be its channels, - for it is suprasensuous, - nor the reason and intelligence, though they too are a channel, - for it is suprarational, supra-intellectual, - but to which through all these veils the soul itself seeks to arrive. When it can get the touch of this universal, absolute beauty, this soul of beauty, this sense of its revelation in any slightest or greatest thing, the beauty of a flower, a form, the beauty and power of a character, an action, an event, a human life, an idea, a stroke of the brush or the chisel or a scintillation of the mind, the colours of a sunset or the grandeur of the tempest, it is then that the sense of beauty in us is really, powerfully, entirely satisfied. It is in truth seeking, as in religion, for the Divine, the All-Beautiful in man, in nature, in life, in thought, in art; for God is Beauty and Delight hidden in the variation of his masks and forms. When, fulfilled in our growing sense and knowledge of beauty and delight in beauty and our power for beauty, we are able to identify ourselves in soul with this Absolute and Divine in all the forms and activities of the world and shape an image of our inner and our outer life in the highest image we can perceive and embody of the All-Beautiful, then the aesthetic being in us who was born for this end, has fulfilled himself and risen to his divine consummation. To find highest beauty is to find God; to reveal, to embody, to create, as we say, highest beauty is to bring out of our souls the living image and power of God. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, 144, #KEYS
1248:There I waited day and night for the voice of God within me, to know what He had to say to me, to learn what I had to do. In this seclusion the earliest realisation, the first lesson came to me. I remembered then that a month or more before my arrest, a call had come to me to put aside all activity, to go in seclusion and to look into myself, so that I might enter into closer communion with Him. I was weak and could not accept the call. My work was very dear to me and in the pride of my heart I thought that unless I was there, it would suffer or even fail and cease; therefore I would not leave it. It seemed to me that He spoke to me again and said, The bonds you had not the strength to break, I have broken for you, because it is not my will nor was it ever my intention that that should continue. I have had another thing for you to do and it is for that I have brought you here, to teach you what you could not learn for yourself and to train you for my work. Then He placed the Gita in my hands. His strength entered into me and I was able to do the sadhana of the Gita. I was not only to understand intellectually but to realise what Sri Krishna demanded of Arjuna and what He demands of those who aspire to do His work, to be free from repulsion and desire, to do work for Him without the demand for fruit, to renounce self-will and become a passive and faithful instrument in His hands, to have an equal heart for high and low, friend and opponent, success andfailure, yet not to do His work negligently. I realised what the Hindu religion meant. We speak often of the Hindureligion, of the Sanatan Dharma, but few of us really know what that religion is. Other religions are preponderatingly religions of faith and profession, but the Sanatan Dharma is life itself; it is a thing that has not so much to be believed as lived. This is the Dharma that for the salvation of humanity was cherished in the seclusion of this peninsula from of old. It is to give this religion that India is rising. She does not rise as other countries do, for self or when she is strong, to trample on the weak. She is rising to shed the eternal light entrusted to her over the world. India has always existed for humanity and not for herself and it is for humanity and not for herself that she must be great.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Karmayogin,#KEYS
1249:The majority of Buddhists and Buddhist teachers in the West are green postmodern pluralists, and thus Buddhism is largely interpreted in terms of the green altitude and the pluralistic value set, whereas the greatest Buddhist texts are all 2nd tier, teal (Holistic) or higher (for example, Lankavatara Sutra, Kalachakra Tantra, Longchenpa's Kindly Bent to Ease Us, Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka treatises, and so forth).
This makes teal (Holistic), or Integral 2nd tier in general, the lowest deeply adequate level with which to interpret Buddhism, ultimate Reality, and Suchness itself. Thus, interpreting Suchness in pluralistic terms (or lower) would have to be viewed ultimately as a dysfunction, certainly a case of arrested development, and one requiring urgent attention in any Fourth Turning.
These are some of the problems with interpreting states (in this case, Suchness states) with a too-low structure (in short, a severe misinterpretation and thus misunderstanding of the Ultimate). As for interpreting them with dysfunctional structures (of any altitude), the problem more or less speaks for itself. Whether the structure in itself is high enough or not, any malformation of the structure will be included in the interpretation of any state (or any other experience), and hence will deform the interpretation itself, usually in the same basic ways as the structure itself is deformed. Thus, for example, if there is a major Fulcrum-3 (red altitude) repression of various bodily states (sex, aggression, power, feelings), those repressions will be interpreted as part of the higher state itself, and so the state will thus be viewed as devoid of (whereas this is actually a repression of) any sex, aggression, power, feelings, or whatever it is that is dis-owned and pushed into the repressed submergent unconscious. If there is an orange altitude problem with self-esteem (Fulcrum-5), that problem will be magnified by the state experience, and the more intense the state experience, the greater the magnification. Too little self-esteem, and even profound spiritual experiences can be interpreted as "I'm not worthy, so this state-which seems to love me unconditionally-must be confused." If too much self-esteem, higher experiences are misinterpreted, not as a transcendence of the self, but as a reward for being the amazing self I am-"the wonder of being me." ~ Ken Wilber, The Religion Of Tomorrow,#KEYS
1250:the three stages of the ascent :::
There are three stages of the ascent, -at the bottom the bodily life enslaved to the pressure of necessity and desire, in the middle the mental, the higher emotional and psychic rule that feels after greater interests, aspirations, experiences, ideas, and at the summits first a deeper psychic and spiritual state and then a supramental eternal consciousness in which all our aspirations and seekings discover their own intimate significance.In the bodily life first desire and need and then the practical good of the individual and the society are the governing consideration, the dominant force. In the mental life ideas and ideals rule, ideas that are half-lights wearing the garb of Truth, ideals formed by the mind as a result of a growing but still imperfect intuition and experience. Whenever the mental life prevails and the bodily diminishes its brute insistence, man the mental being feels pushed by the urge of mental Nature to mould in the sense of the idea or the ideal the life of the individual, and in the end even the vaguer more complex life of the society is forced to undergo this subtle process.In the spiritual life, or when a higher power than Mind has manifested and taken possession of the nature, these limited motive-forces recede, dwindle, tend to disappear. The spiritual or supramental Self, the Divine Being, the supreme and immanent Reality, must be alone the Lord within us and shape freely our final development according to the highest, widest, most integral expression possible of the law of our nature. In the end that nature acts in the perfect Truth and its spontaneous freedom; for it obeys only the luminous power of the Eternal. The individual has nothing further to gain, no desire to fulfil; he has become a portion of the impersonality or the universal personality of the Eternal. No other object than the manifestation and play of the Divine Spirit in life and the maintenance and conduct of the world in its march towards the divine goal can move him to action. Mental ideas, opinions, constructions are his no more; for his mind has fallen into silence, it is only a channel for the Light and Truth of the divine knowledge. Ideals are too narrow for the vastness of his spirit; it is the ocean of the Infinite that flows through him and moves him for ever.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will,#KEYS
1251:But this is not always the manner of the commencement. The sadhaka is often led gradually and there is a long space between the first turning of the mind and the full assent of the nature to the thing towards which it turns. There may at first be only a vivid intellectual interest, a forcible attraction towards the idea and some imperfect form of practice. Or perhaps there is an effort not favoured by the whole nature, a decision or a turn imposed by an intellectual influence or dictated by personal affection and admiration for someone who is himself consecrated and devoted to the Highest. In such cases, a long period of preparation may be necessary before there comes the irrevocable consecration; and in some instances it may not come. There may be some advance, there may be a strong effort, even much purification and many experiences other than those that are central or supreme; but the life will either be spent in preparation or, a certain stage having been reached, the mind pushed by an insufficient driving-force may rest content at the limit of the effort possible to it. Or there may even be a recoil to the lower life, - what is called in the ordinary parlance of Yoga a fall from the path. This lapse happens because there is a defect at the very centre. The intellect has been interested, the heart attracted, the will has strung itself to the effort, but the whole nature has not been taken captive by the Divine. It has only acquiesced in the interest, the attraction or the endeavour. There has been an experiment, perhaps even an eager experiment, but not a total self-giving to an imperative need of the soul or to an unforsakable ideal. Even such imperfect Yoga has not been wasted; for no upward effort is made in vain. Even if it fails in the present or arrives only at some preparatory stage or preliminary realisation, it has yet determined the soul's future.
But if we desire to make the most of the opportunity that this life gives us, if we wish to respond adequately to the call we have received and to attain to the goal we have glimpsed, not merely advance a little towards it, it is essential that there should be an entire self-giving. The secret of success in Yoga is to regard it not as one of the aims to be pursued in life, but as the one and only aim, not as an important part of life, but as the whole of life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration,#KEYS
1252:complexity of the human constitution :::
There is another direction in which the ordinary practice of Yoga arrives at a helpful but narrowing simplification which is denied to the Sadhaka of the integral aim. The practice of Yoga brings us face to face with the extraordinary complexity of our own being, the stimulating but also embarrassing multiplicity of our personality, the rich endless confusion of Nature. To the ordinary man who lives upon his own waking surface, ignorant of the self's depths and vastnesses behind the veil, his psychological existence is fairly simple. A small but clamorous company of desires, some imperative intellectual and aesthetic cravings, some tastes, a few ruling or prominent ideas amid a great current of unconnected or ill-connected and mostly trivial thoughts, a number of more or less imperative vital needs, alternations of physical health and disease, a scattered and inconsequent succession of joys and griefs, frequent minor disturbances and vicissitudes and rarer strong searchings and upheavals of mind or body, and through it all Nature, partly with the aid of his thought and will, partly without or in spite of it, arranging these things in some rough practical fashion, some tolerable disorderly order, -- this is the material of his existence. The average human being even now is in his inward existence as crude and undeveloped as was the bygone primitive man in his outward life. But as soon as we go deep within ourselves, -- and Yoga means a plunge into all the multiple profundities of' the soul, -- we find ourselves subjectively, as man in his growth has found himself objectively, surrounded by a whole complex world which we have to know and to conquer.
The most disconcerting discovery is to find that every part of us -- intellect, will, sense-mind, nervous or desire self, the heart, the body-has each, as it were, its own complex individuality and natural formation independent of the rest; it neither agrees with itself nor with the others nor with the representative ego which is the shadow cast by some central and centralising self on our superficial ignorance. We find that we are composed not of one but many personalities and each has its own demands and differing nature. Our being is a roughly constituted chaos into which we have to introduce the principle of a divine order.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration, 74-75,#KEYS
1253:Imperial Maheshwari is seated in the wideness above the thinking mind and will and sublimates and greatens them into wisdom and largeness or floods with a splendour beyond them. For she is the mighty and wise One who opens us to supramental infinities and the cosmic vastness, to the grandeur of the supreme Light, to a treasure-house of miraculous knowledge, to the measureless movement of the Mother's eternal forces. Tranquil is she and wonderful, great and calm for ever. Nothing can move her because all wisdom is in her; nothing is hidden from her that she chooses to know; she comprehends all things and all beings and their nature and what moves them and the law of the world and its times and how all was and is and must be. A strength is in her that meets everything and masters and none can prevail in the end against her vast intangible wisdom and high tranquil power. Equal, patient, unalterable in her will she deals with men according to their nature and with things and happenings according to their Force and truth that is in them. Partiality she has none, but she follows the decrees of the Supreme and some she raises up and some she casts down or puts away into the darkness. To the wise she gives a greater and more luminous wisdom; those that have vision she admits to her counsels; on the hostile she imposes the consequence of their hostility; the ignorant and foolish she leads them according to their blindness. In each man she answers and handles the different elements of his nature according to their need and their urge and the return they call for, puts on them the required pressure or leaves them to their cherished liberty to prosper in the ways of the Ignorance or to perish. For she is above all, bound by nothing, attached to nothing in the universe. Yet she has more than any other the heart of the universal Mother. For her compassion is endless and inexhaustible; all are to her eyes her children and portions of the One, even the Asura and Rakshasa and Pisacha and those that are revolted and hostile. Even her rejections are only a postponement, even her punishments are a grace. But her compassion does not blind her wisdom or turn her action from the course decreed; for the Truth of things is her one concern, knowledge her centre of power and to build our soul and our nature into the divine Truth her mission and her labour.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, [39],#KEYS
1254:The object of spiritual knowledge is the Supreme, the Divine, the Infinite and the Absolute. This Supreme has its relations to our individual being and its relations to the universe and it transcends both the soul and the universe. Neither the universe nor the individual are what they seem to be, for the report of them which our mind and our senses give us, is, so long as they are unenlightened by a faculty of higher supramental and suprasensuous knowledge, a false report, an imperfect construction, an attenuated and erroneous figure. And yet that which the universe and the individual seem to be is still a figure of what they really are, a figure that points beyond itself to the reality behind it. Truth proceeds by a correction of the values our mind and senses give us, and first by the action of a higher intelligence that enlightens and sets right as far as may be the conclusions of the ignorant sense-mind and limited physical intelligence; that is the method of all human knowledge and science. But beyond it there is a knowledge, a Truth-Consciousness, that exceeds our intellect and brings us into the true light of which it is a refracted ray.
There the abstract terms of pure reason and the constructions .of the mind disappear or are converted into concrete soul-vision and the tremendous actuality of spiritual experience. This knowledge can turn away to the absolute Eternal and lose vision of the soul and the universe; but it can too see that existence from that Eternal. When that is done, we find that the ignorance of the mind and the senses and all the apparent futilities of human life were not an useless excursion of the conscious being, an otiose blunder. Here they were planned as a rough ground for the self-expression of the Soul that comes from the Infinite, a material foundation for its self-unfolding and self-possessing in the terms of the universe. It is true that in themselves they and all that is here have no significance, and to build separate significances for them is to live in an illusion, Maya; but they have a supreme significance in the Supreme, an absolute Power in the Absolute and it is that that assigns to them and refers to that Truth their present relative values. This is the all-uniting experience that is the foundation of the deepest integral and most intimate self-knowledge and world-knowledge
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Object of Knowledge, 293, 11457,#KEYS
1255:But even before that highest approach to identity is achieved, something of the supreme Will can manifest in us as an imperative impulsion, a God-driven action; we then act by a spontaneous self-determining Force but a fuller knowledge of meaning and aim arises only afterwards. Or the impulse to action may come as an inspiration or intuition, but rather in the heart and body than in the mind; here an effective sight enters in but the complete and exact knowledge is still deferred and comes, if at all, lateR But the divine Will may descend too as a luminous single command or a total perception or a continuous current of perception of what is to be done into the will or into the thought or as a direction from above spontaneously fulfilled by the lower members. When the Yoga is imperfect, only some actions can be done in this way, or else a general action may so proceed but only during periods of exaltation and illumination. When the Yoga is perfect, all action becomes of this character. We may indeed distinguish three stages of a growing progress by which, first, the personal will is occasionally or frequently enlightened or moved by a supreme Will or conscious Force beyond it, then constantly replaced and, last, identified and merged in that divine Power-action. The first is the stage when we are still governed by the intellect, heart and senses; these have to seek or wait for the divine inspiration and guidance and do not always find or receive it. The second is the stage when human intelligence is more and more replaced by a high illumined or intuitive spiritualised mind, the external human heart by the inner psychic heart, the senses by a purified and selfless vital force. The third is the stage when we rise even above spiritualised mind to the supramental levels. In all three stages the fundamental character of the liberated action is the same, a spontaneous working of Prakriti no longer through or for the ego but at the will and for the enjoyment of the supreme Purusha. At a higher level this becomes the Truth of the absolute and universal Supreme expressed through the individual soul and worked out consciously through the nature, - no longer through a half-perception and a diminished or distorted effectuation by the stumbling, ignorant and all-deforming energy of lower nature in us but by the all-wise transcendent and universal Mother. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 218, #KEYS
1256:The poet-seer sees differently, thinks in another way, voices himself in quite another manner than the philosopher or the prophet. The prophet announces the Truth as the Word, the Law or the command of the Eternal, he is the giver of the message; the poet shows us Truth in its power of beauty, in its symbol or image, or reveals it to us in the workings of Nature or in the workings of life, and when he has done that, his whole work is done; he need not be its explicit spokesman or its official messenger. The philosopher's business is to discriminate Truth and put its parts and aspects into intellectual relation with each other; the poet's is to seize and embody aspects of Truth in their living relations, or rather - for that is too philosophical a language - to see her features and, excited by the vision, create in the beauty of her image.
No doubt, the prophet may have in him a poet who breaks out often into speech and surrounds with the vivid atmosphere of life the directness of his message; he may follow up his injunction "Take no thought for the morrow," by a revealing image of the beauty of the truth he enounces, in the life of Nature, in the figure of the lily, or link it to human life by apologue and parable. The philosopher may bring in the aid of colour and image to give some relief and hue to his dry light of reason and water his arid path of abstractions with some healing dew of poetry. But these are ornaments and not the substance of his work; and if the philosopher makes his thought substance of poetry, he ceases to be a philosophic thinker and becomes a poet-seer of Truth. Thus the more rigid metaphysicians are perhaps right in denying to Nietzsche the name of philosopher; for Nietzsche does not think, but always sees, turbidly or clearly, rightly or distortedly, but with the eye of the seer rather than with the brain of the thinker. On the other hand we may get great poetry which is full of a prophetic enthusiasm of utterance or is largely or even wholly philosophic in its matter; but this prophetic poetry gives us no direct message, only a mass of sublime inspirations of thought and image, and this philosophic poetry is poetry and lives as poetry only in so far as it departs from the method, the expression, the way of seeing proper to the philosophic mind. It must be vision pouring itself into thought-images and not thought trying to observe truth and distinguish its province and bounds and fences.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry,#KEYS
1257:the ways of the Bhakta and man of Knowledge :::
In the ordinary paths of Yoga the method used for dealing with these conflicting materials is direct and simple. One or another of the principal psychological forces in us is selected as our single means for attaining to the Divine; the rest is quieted into inertia or left to starve in its smallness. The Bhakta, seizing on the emotional forces of the being, the intense activities of the heart, abides concentrated in the love of God, gathered up as into a single one-pointed tongue of fire; he is indifferent to the activities of thought, throws behind him the importunities of the reason, cares nothing for the mind's thirst for knowledge. All the knowledge he needs is his faith and the inspirations that well up from a heart in communion with the Divine. He has no use for any will to works that is not turned to the direct worship of the Beloved or the service of the temple. The man of Knowledge, self-confined by a deliberate choice to the force and activities of discriminative thought, finds release in the mind's inward-drawn endeavour. He concentrates on the idea of the self, succeeds by a subtle inner discernment in distinguishing its silent presence amid the veiling activities of Nature, and through the perceptive idea arrives at the concrete spiritual experience. He is indifferent to the play of the emotions, deaf to the hunger-call of passion, closed to the activities of Life, -- the more blessed he, the sooner they fall away from him and leave him free, still and mute, the eternal non-doer. The body is his stumbling-block, the vital functions are his enemies; if their demands can be reduced to a minimum, that is his great good fortune. The endless difficulties that arise from the environing world are dismissed by erecting firmly against them a defence of outer physical and inner spiritual solitude; safe behind a wall of inner silence, he remains impassive and untouched by the world and by others. To be alone with oneself or alone with the Divine, to walk apart with God and his devotees, to entrench oneself in the single self-ward endeavour of the mind or Godward passion of the heart is the trend of these Yogas. The problem is solved by the excision of all but the one central difficulty which pursues the only chosen motive-force; into the midst of the dividing calls of our nature the principle of an exclusive concentration comes sovereignly to our rescue.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration. 76-77,#KEYS
1258:It is your birthday tomorrow?
Yes, Mother.
How old will you be?
Twenty-six, Mother.
I shall see you tomorrow and give you something special. You will see, I am not speaking of anything material- that, I shall give you a card and all that- but of something...You will see, tomorrow, now go home and prepare yourself quietly so that you may be ready to receive it.
Yes, Mother.
You know, my child, what "Bonne Fete" signifies, that is, the birthday we wish here?
Like that, I know what it means, Mother, but not the special significance you want to tell me.
Yes, it is truly a special day in one's life. It is one of those days in the year when the Supreme descends into us- or when we are face to face with the Eternal- one of those days when our soul comes in contact with the Eternal and, if we remain a little conscious, we can feel His Presence within us. If we make a little effort on this day, we accomplish the work of many lives as in a lightning flash. That is why I give so much importance to the birthday- because what one gains in one day is truly something incomparable. And it is for this that I also work to open the consciousness a little towards what is above so that one may come before the Eternal. My child, it is a very, very special day, for it is the day of decision, the day one can unite with the Supreme Consciousness. For the Lord lifts us on this day to the highest region possible so that our soul which is a portion of that Eternal Flame, may be united and identified with its Origin.
This day is truly an opportunity in life. One is so open and so receptive that one can assimilate all that is given. I can do many things, that is why it is important.
It is one of those days when the Lord Himself opens the doors wide for us. It is as though He were inviting us to rekindle more powerfully the flame of aspiration. It is one of those days which He gives us. We too, by our personal effort, could attain to this, but it would be long, hard and not so easy. And this- this is a real chance in life- the day of Grace.
It is an occult phenomenon that occurs invariably, without our knowledge, on this particular day of the year. The soul leaves behind the body and journeys up and up till it merges into the Source in order to replenish itself and absorb from the Supreme Its Power, Light and Ananda and comes down charged for a whole year to pass. Then again and again... it continues like this year after year. ~ The Mother, Sweet Mother, Mona Sarkar,#KEYS
1259:requirements for the psychic :::
At a certain stage in the Yoga when the mind is sufficiently quieted and no longer supports itself at every step on the sufficiency of its mental certitudes, when the vital has been steadied and subdued and is no longer constantly insistent on its own rash will, demand and desire, when the physical has been sufficiently altered not to bury altogether the inner flame under the mass of its outwardness, obscurity or inertia, an inmost being hidden within and felt only in its rare influences is able to come forward and illumine the rest and take up the lead of the sadhana. Its character is a one-pointed orientation towards the Divine or the Highest, one-pointed and yet plastic in action and movement; it does not create a rigidity of direction like the one-pointed intellect or a bigotry of the regnant idea or impulse like the one-pointed vital force; it is at every moment and with a supple sureness that it points the way to the Truth, automatically distinguishes the right step from the false, extricates the divine or Godward movement from the clinging mixture of the undivine. Its action is like a searchlight showing up all that has to be changed in the nature; it has in it a flame of will insistent on perfection, on an alchemic transmutation of all the inner and outer existence. It sees the divine essence everywhere but rejects the mere mask and the disguising figure. It insists on Truth, on will and strength and mastery, on Joy and Love and Beauty, but on a Truth of abiding Knowledge that surpasses the mere practical momentary truth of the Ignorance, on an inward joy and not on mere vital pleasure, -- for it prefers rather a purifying suffering and sorrow to degrading satisfactions, -- on love winged upward and not tied to the stake of egoistic craving or with its feet sunk in the mire, on beauty restored to its priesthood of interpretation of the Eternal, on strength and will and mastery as instruments not of the ego but of the Spirit. Its will is for the divinisation of life, the expression through it of a higher Truth, its dedication to the Divine and the Eternal.
But the most intimate character of the psychic is its pressure towards the Divine through a sacred love, joy and oneness. It is the divine Love that it seeks most, it is the love of the Divine that is its spur, its goal, its star of Truth shining over the luminous cave of the nascent or the still obscure cradle of the new-born godhead within us.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1,#KEYS
1260:Thus the eternal paradox and eternal truth of a divine life in an animal body, an immortal aspiration or reality inhabiting a mortal tenement, a single and universal consciousness representing itself in limited minds and divided egos, a transcendent, indefinable, timeless and spaceless Being who alone renders time and space and cosmos possible, and in all these the higher truth realisable by the lower term, justify themselves to the deliberate reason as well as to the persistent instinct or intuition of mankind. Attempts are sometimes made to have done finally with questionings which have so often been declared insoluble by logical thought and to persuade men to limit their mental activities to the practical and immediate problems of their material existence in the universe; but such evasions are never permanent in their effect. Mankind returns from them with a more vehement impulse of inquiry or a more violent hunger for an immediate solution. By that hunger mysticism profits and new religions arise to replace the old that have been destroyed or stripped of significance by a scepticism which itself could not satisfy because, although its business was inquiry, it was unwilling sufficiently to inquire. The attempt to deny or stifle a truth because it is yet obscure in its outward workings and too often represented by obscurantist superstition or a crude faith, is itself a kind of obscurantism. The will to escape from a cosmic necessity because it is arduous, difficult to justify by immediate tangible results, slow in regulating its operations, must turn out eventually to have been no acceptance of the truth of Nature but a revolt against the secret, mightier will of the great Mother. It is better and more rational to accept what she will not allow us as a race to reject and lift it from the sphere of blind instinct, obscure intuition and random aspiration into the light of reason and an instructed and consciously self-guiding will. And if there is any higher light of illumined intuition or self-revealing truth which is now in man either obstructed and inoperative or works with intermittent glancings as if from behind a veil or with occasional displays as of the northern lights in our material skies, then there also we need not fear to aspire. For it is likely that such is the next higher state of consciousness of which Mind is only a form and veil, and through the splendours of that light may lie the path of our progressive self-enlargement into whatever highest state is humanity's ultimate resting-place. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Human Aspiration, #KEYS
1261:Integral knowledge will then mean the cancelling of the sevenfold Ignorance by the discovery of what it misses and ignores, a sevenfold self-revelation within our consciousness:- it will mean the knowledge of the Absolute as the origin of all things; the knowledge of the Self, the Spirit, the Being and of the cosmos as the Self's becoming, the becoming of the Being, a manifestation of the Spirit; the knowledge of the world as one with us in the consciousness of our true self, thus cancelling our division from it by the separative idea and life of ego; the knowledge of our psychic entity and its immortal persistence in Time beyond death and earth-existence; the knowledge of our greater and inner existence behind the surface; the knowledge of our mind, life and body in its true relation to the self within and the superconscient spiritual and supramental being above them; the knowledge, finally, of the true harmony and true use of our thought, will and action and a change of all our nature into a conscious expression of the truth of the Spirit, the Self, the Divinity, the integral spiritual Reality. But this is not an intellectual knowledge which can be learned and completed in our present mould of consciousness; it must be an experience, a becoming, a change of consciousness, a change of being. This brings in the evolutionary character of the Becoming and the fact that our mental ignorance is only a stage in our evolution. The integral knowledge, then, can only come by an evolution of our being and our nature, and that would seem to signify a slow process in Time such as has accompanied the other evolutionary transformations. But as against that inference there is the fact that the evolution has now become conscious and its method and steps need not be altogether of the same character as when it was subconscious in its process. The integral knowledge, since it must result from a change of consciousness, can be gained by a process in which our will and endeavour have a part, in which they can discover and apply their own steps and method: its growth in us can proceed by a conscious self-transformation. It is necessary then to see what is likely to be the principle of this new process of evolution and what are the movements of the integral knowledge that must necessarily emerge in it,-or, in other words, what is the nature of the consciousness that must be the base of the life divine and how that life may be expected to be formed or to form itself, to materialise or, as one might say, to realise.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Reality and the Integral Knowledge, 681,#KEYS
1262:The Godhead, the spirit manifested in Nature appears in a sea of infinite quality, Ananta-guna. But the executive or mechanical prakriti is of the threefold Guna, Sattwa, Rajas, Tamas, and the Ananta-guna, the spiritual play of infinite quality, modifies itself in this mechanical nature into the type of these three gunas. And in the soul-force in man this Godhead in Nature represents itself as a fourfold effective Power, caturvyuha , a Power for knowledge, a Power for strength, a Power for mutuality and active and productive relation and interchange, a Power for works and labour and service, and its presence casts all human life into a nexus and inner and outer operation of these four things. The ancient thought of India conscious of this fourfold type of active human personality and nature, built out of it the four types of the Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Sudra, each with its spiritual turn, ethical ideal, suitable upbringing, fixed function in society and place in the evolutionary scale of the spirit. As always tends to be the case when we too much externalise and mechanise the more subtle truths of our nature, this became a hard and fast system inconsistent with the freedom and variability and complexity of the finer developing spirit in man. Nevertheless the truth behind it exists and is one of some considerable importance in the perfection of our power of nature; but we have to take it in its inner aspects, first, personality, character, temperament, soul-type, then the soul-force which lies behind them and wears these forms, and lastly the play of the free spiritual shakti in which they find their culmination and unity beyond all modes. For the crude external idea that a man is born as a Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya or Sudra and that alone, is not a psychological truth of our being. The psychological fact is that there are these four active powers and tendencies of the Spirit and its executive shakti within us and the predominance of one or the other in the more well-formed part of our personality gives us our main tendencies, dominant qualities and capacities, effective turn in action and life. But they are more or less present in an men, here manifest, there latent, here developed, there subdued and depressed or subordinate, and in the perfect man will be raised up to a fullness and harmony which in the spiritual freedom will burst out into the free play of the infinite quality of the spirit in the inner and outer life and in the self-enjoying creative play of the Purusha with his and the world's Nature-Power. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 4:15 - Soul-Force and the Fourfold Personality, #KEYS
1263:He continuously reflected on her image and attributes, day and night. His bhakti was such that he could not stop thinking of her. Eventually, he saw her everywhere and in everything. This was his path to illumination.
He was often asked by people: what is the way to the supreme? His answer was sharp and definite: bhakti yoga. He said time and time again that bhakti yoga is the best sadhana for the Kali Yuga (Dark Age) of the present.
His bhakti is illustrated by the following statement he made to a disciple:
To my divine mother I prayed only for pure love.
At her lotus feet I offered a few flowers and I prayed:
Mother! here is virtue and here is vice;
Take them both from me.
Grant me only love, pure love for Thee.
Mother! here is knowledge and here is ignorance;
Take them both from me.
Grant me only love, pure love for Thee.
Mother! here is purity and impurity;
Take them both from me.
Grant me only love, pure love for Thee.
Ramakrishna, like Kabir, was a practical man.
He said: "So long as passions are directed towards the world and its objects, they are enemies. But when they are directed towards a deity, then they become the best of friends to man, for they take him to illumination. The desire for worldly things must be changed into longing for the supreme; the anger which you feel for fellow man must be directed towards the supreme for not manifesting himself to you . . . and so on, with all other emotions. The passions cannot be eradicated, but they can be turned into new directions."
A disciple once asked him: "How can one conquer the weaknesses within us?" He answered: "When the fruit grows out of the flower, the petals drop off themselves. So when divinity in you increases, the weaknesses of human nature will vanish of their own accord." He emphasized that the aspirant should not give up his practices. "If a single dive into the sea does not bring you a pearl, do not conclude that there are no pearls in the sea. There are countless pearls hidden in the sea.
So if you fail to merge with the supreme during devotional practices, do not lose heart. Go on patiently with the practices, and in time you will invoke divine grace." It does not matter what form you care to worship. He said: "Many are the names of the supreme and infinite are the forms through which he may be approached. In whatever name and form you choose to worship him, through that he will be realized by you." He indicated the importance of surrender on the path of bhakti when he said:
~ Swami Satyananda Saraswati, A Systematic Course in the Ancient Tantric Techniques of Yoga and Kriya,#KEYS
1264:The Examiners
The integral yoga consists of an uninterrupted series of examinations that one has to undergo without any previous warning, thus obliging you to be constantly on the alert and attentive.
Three groups of examiners set us these tests. They appear to have nothing to do with one another, and their methods are so different, sometimes even so apparently contradictory, that it seems as if they could not possibly be leading towards the same goal. Nevertheless, they complement one another, work towards the same end, and are all indispensable to the completeness of the result.
The three types of examination are: those set by the forces of Nature, those set by spiritual and divine forces, and those set by hostile forces. These last are the most deceptive in their appearance and to avoid being caught unawares and unprepared requires a state of constant watchfulness, sincerity and humility.
The most commonplace circumstances, the events of everyday life, the most apparently insignificant people and things all belong to one or other of these three kinds of examiners. In this vast and complex organisation of tests, those events that are generally considered the most important in life are the easiest examinations to undergo, because they find you ready and on your guard. It is easier to stumble over the little stones in your path, because they attract no attention.
Endurance and plasticity, cheerfulness and fearlessness are the qualities specially needed for the examinations of physical nature.
Aspiration, trust, idealism, enthusiasm and generous self-giving, for spiritual examinations.
Vigilance, sincerity and humility for the examinations from hostile forces.
And do not imagine that there are on the one hand people who undergo the examinations and on the other people who set them. Depending on the circumstances and the moment we are all both examiners and examinees, and it may even happen that one is at the same time both examiner and examinee. And the benefit one derives from this depends, both in quality and in quantity, on the intensity of one's aspiration and the awakening of one's consciousness.
To conclude, a final piece of advice: never set yourself up as an examiner. For while it is good to remember constantly that one may be undergoing a very important examination, it is extremely dangerous to imagine that one is responsible for setting examinations for others. That is the open door to the most ridiculous and harmful kinds of vanity. It is the Supreme Wisdom which decides these things, and not the ignorant human will. ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
1265:PROTECTION
Going to sleep is a little like dying, a journey taken alone into the unknown. Ordinarily we are not troubled about sleep because we are familiar with it, but think about what it entails. We completely lose ourselves in a void for some period of time, until we arise again in a dream. When we do so, we may have a different identity and a different body. We may be in a strange place, with people we do not know, involved in baffling activities that may seem quite risky.
Just trying to sleep in an unfamiliar place may occasion anxiety. The place may be perfectly secure and comfortable, but we do not sleep as well as we do at home in familiar surroundings. Maybe the energy of the place feels wrong. Or maybe it is only our own insecurity that disturbs us,and even in familiar places we may feel anxious while waiting for sleep to come, or be frightenedby what we dream. When we fall asleep with anxiety, our dreams are mingled with fear and tension, sleep is less restful, and the practice harder to do. So it is a good idea to create a sense of protection before we sleep and to turn our sleeping area into a sacred space.
This is done by imagining protective dakinis all around the sleeping area. Visualize the dakinis as beautiful goddesses, enlightened female beings who are loving, green in color, and powerfully protective. They remain near as you fall asleep and throughout the night, like mothers watching over their child, or guardians surrounding a king or queen. Imagine them everywhere, guarding the doors and the windows, sitting next to you on the bed, walking in the garden or the yard, and so on, until you feel completely protected.
Again, this practice is more than just trying to visualize something: see the dakinis with your mind but also use your imagination to feel their presence. Creating a protective, sacred environment in this way is calming and relaxing and promotes restful sleep. This is how the mystic lives: seeing the magic, changing the environment with the mind, and allowing actions, even actions of the imagination, to have significance.
You can enhance the sense of peace in your sleeping environment by keeping objects of a sacred nature in the bedroom: peaceful, loving images, sacred and religious symbols, and other objects that direct your mind toward the path.
The Mother Tantra tells us that as we prepare for sleep we should maintain awareness of the causes of dream, the object to focus upon, the protectors, and of ourselves. Hold these together inawareness, not as many things, but as a single environment, and this will have a great effect in dream and sleep.
~ Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Yogas Of Dream And Sleep,#KEYS
1266:Vijnana, true ideation, called ritam, truth or vedas, knowledge in the Vedas, acts in human mind by four separate functions; revelation, termed drishti, sight; inspiration termed sruti,hearing; and the two faculties of discernment, smriti, memory,which are intuition, termed ketu, and discrimination, termed daksha, division, or viveka, separation. By drishti we see ourselves the truth face to face, in its own form, nature or self-existence; by sruti we hear the name, sound or word by which the truth is expressed & immediately suggested to the knowledge; by ketu we distinguish a truth presented to us behind a veil whether of result or process, as Newton discovered the law of gravitation hidden behind the fall of the apple; by viveka we distinguish between various truths and are able to put them in their right place, order and relation to each other, or, if presented with mingled truth & error, separate the truth from the falsehood. Agni Jatavedas is termed in the Veda vivichi, he who has the viveka, who separates truth from falsehood; but this is only a special action of the fourth ideal faculty & in its wider scope, it is daksha, that which divides & rightly distributes truth in its multiform aspects. The ensemble of the four faculties is Vedas or divine knowledge. When man is rising out of the limited & error-besieged mental principle, the faculty most useful to him, most indispensable is daksha or viveka. Drishti of Vijnana transmuted into terms of mind has become observation, sruti appears as imagination, intuition as intelligent perception, viveka as reasoning & intellectual judgment and all of these are liable to the constant touch of error. Human buddhi, intellect, is a distorted shadow of the true ideative faculties. As we return from these shadows to their ideal substance viveka or daksha must be our constant companion; for viveka alone can get rid of the habit of mental error, prevent observation being replaced by false illumination, imagination by false inspiration, intelligence by false intuition, judgment & reason by false discernment. The first sign of human advance out of the anritam of mind to the ritam of the ideal faculty is the growing action of a luminous right discernment which fixes instantly on the truth, feels instantly the presence of error. The fullness, the manhana of this viveka is the foundation & safeguard of Ritam or Vedas. The first great movement of Agni Jatavedas is to transform by the divine will in mental activity his lower smoke-covered activity into the bright clearness & fullness of the ideal discernment. Agne adbhuta kratw a dakshasya manhana.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Hymns To The Mystic Fire, 717,#KEYS
1267:10000 ::: The True Object of Spiritual Seeking:
To find the Divine is indeed the first reason for seeking the spiritual Truth and the spiritual life; it is the one thing indispensable and all the rest is nothing without it. The Divine once found, to manifest Him,-that is, first of all to transform one's own limited consciousness into the Divine Consciousness, to live in the infinite Peace, Light, Love, Strength, Bliss, to become that in one's essential nature and, as a consequence, to be its vessel, channel, instrument in one's active nature. To bring into activity the principle of oneness on the material plane or to work for humanity is a mental mistranslation of the Truth-these things cannot be the first or true object of spiritual seeking. We must find the Self, the Divine, then only can we know what is the work the Self or the Divine demands from us. Until then our life and action can only be a help or means towards finding the Divine and it ought not to have any other purpose. As we grow in the inner consciousness, or as the spiritual Truth of the Divine grows in us, our life and action must indeed more and more flow from that, be one with that. But to decide beforehand by our limited mental conceptions what they must be is to hamper the growth of the spiritual Truth within. As that grows we shall feel the Divine Light and Truth, the Divine Power and Force, the Divine Purity and Peace working within us, dealing with our actions as well as our consciousness, making use of them to reshape us into the Divine Image, removing the dross, substituting the pure gold of the Spirit. Only when the Divine Presence is there in us always and the consciousness transformed, can we have the right to say that we are ready to manifest the Divine on the material plane. To hold up a mental ideal or principle and impose that on the inner working brings the danger of limiting ourselves to a mental realisation or of impeding or even falsifying by a half-way formation the true growth into the full communion and union with the Divine and the free and intimate outflowing of His will in our life. This is a mistake of orientation to which the mind of today is especially prone. It is far better to approach the Divine for the Peace or Light or Bliss that the realisation of Him gives than to bring in these minor things which can divert us from the one thing needful. The divinisation of the material life also as well as the inner life is part of what we see as the Divine Plan, but it can only be fulfilled by an outflowing of the inner realisation, something that grows from within outward, not by the working out of a mental principle.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, [T1],#KEYS
1268:The Teacher of the integral Yoga will follow as far as he may the method of the Teacher within us. He will lead the disciple through the nature of the disciple. Teaching, example, influence, - these are the three instruments of the Guru. But the wise Teacher will not seek to impose himself or his opinions on the passive acceptance of the receptive mind; he will throw in only what is productive and sure as a seed which will grow under the divine fostering within. He will seek to awaken much more than to instruct; he will aim at the growth of the faculties and the experiences by a natural process and free expansion. He will give a method as an aid, as a utilisable device, not as an imperative formula or a fixed routine. And he will be on his guard against any turning of the means into a limitation, against the mechanising of process. His whole business is to awaken the divine light and set working the divine force of which he himself is only a means and an aid, a body or a channel.
The example is more powerful than the instruction; but it is not the example of the outward acts nor that of the personal character which is of most importance. These have their place and their utility; but what will most stimulate aspiration in others is the central fact of the divine realisation within him governing his whole life and inner state and all his activities. This is the universal and essential element; the rest belongs to individual person and circumstance. It is this dynamic realisation that the sadhaka must feel and reproduce in himself according to his own nature; he need not strive after an imitation from outside which may well be sterilising rather than productive of right and natural fruits.
Influence is more important than example. Influence is not the outward authority of the Teacher over his disciple, but the power of his contact, of his presence, of the nearness of his soul to the soul of another, infusing into it, even though in silence, that which he himself is and possesses. This is the supreme sign of the Master. For the greatest Master is much less a Teacher than a Presence pouring the divine consciousness and its constituting light and power and purity and bliss into all who are receptive around him.
And it shall also be a sign of the teacher of the integral Yoga that he does not arrogate to himself Guruhood in a humanly vain and self-exalting spirit. His work, if he has one, is a trust from above, he himself a channel, a vessel or a representative. He is a man helping his brothers, a child leading children, a Light kindling other lights, an awakened Soul awakening souls, at highest a Power or Presence of the Divine calling to him other powers of the Divine. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga,#KEYS
1269:One can learn how to identify oneself. One must learn. It is indispensable if one wants to get out of one's ego. For so long as one is shut up in one's ego, one can't make any progress.
How can it be done?
There are many ways. I'll tell you one.
When I was in Paris, I used to go to many places where there were gatherings of all kinds, people making all sorts of researches, spiritual (so-called spiritual), occult researches, etc. And once I was invited to meet a young lady (I believe she was Swedish) who had found a method of knowledge, exactly a method for learning. And so she explained it to us. We were three or four (her French was not very good but she was quite sure about what she was saying!); she said: "It's like this, you take an object or make a sign on a blackboard or take a drawing - that is not important - take whatever is most convenient for you. Suppose, for instance, that I draw for you... (she had a blackboard) I draw a design." She drew a kind of half-geometric design. "Now, you sit in front of the design and concentrate all your attention upon it - upon that design which is there. You concentrate, concentrate without letting anything else enter your consciousness - except that. Your eyes are fixed on the drawing and don't move at all. You are as it were hypnotised by the drawing. You look (and so she sat there, looking), you look, look, look.... I don't know, it takes more or less time, but still for one who is used to it, it goes pretty fast. You look, look, look, you become that drawing you are looking at. Nothing else exists in the world any longer except the drawing, and then, suddenly, you pass to the other side; and when you pass to the other side you enter a new consciousness, and you know."
We had a good laugh, for it was amusing. But it is quite true, it is an excellent method to practise. Naturally, instead of taking a drawing or any object, you may take, for instance, an idea, a few words. You have a problem preoccupying you, you don't know the solution of the problem; well, you objectify your problem in your mind, put it in the most precise, exact, succinct terms possible, and then concentrate, make an effort; you concentrate only on the words, and if possible on the idea they represent, that is, upon your problem - you concentrate, concentrate, concentrate until nothing else exists but that. And it is true that, all of a sudden, you have the feeling of something opening, and one is on the other side. The other side of what?... It means that you have opened a door of your consciousness, and instantaneously you have the solution of your problem. It is an excellent method of learning "how" to identify oneself.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 217 [T1],#KEYS
1270:The Mahashakti, the universal Mother, works out whatever is transmitted by her transcendent consciousness from the Supreme and enters into the worlds that she has made; her presence fills and supports them with the divine spirit and the divine all-sustaining force and delight without which they could not exist. That which we call Nature or Prakriti is only her most outward executive aspect; she marshals and arranges the harmony of her forces and processes, impels the operations of Nature and moves among them secret or manifest in all that can be seen or experienced or put into motion of life. Each of the worlds is nothing but one play of the Mahashakti of that system of worlds or universe, who is there as the cosmic Soul and Personality of the transcendent Mother. Each is something that she has seen in her vision, gathered into her heart of beauty and power and created in her Ananda.
But there are many planes of her creation, many steps of the Divine Shakti. At the summit of this manifestation of which we are a part there are worlds of infinite existence, consciousness, force and bliss over which the Mother stands as the unveiled eternal Power. All beings there live and move in an ineffable completeness and unalterable oneness, because she carries them safe in her arms for ever. Nearer to us are the worlds of a perfect supramental creation in which the Mother is the supramental Mahashakti, a Power of divine omniscient Will and omnipotent Knowledge always apparent in its unfailing works and spontaneously perfect in every process. There all movements are the steps of the Truth; there all beings are souls and powers and bodies of the divine Light; there all experiences are seas and floods and waves of an intense and absolute Ananda. But here where we dwell are the worlds of the Ignorance, worlds of mind and life and body separated in consciousness from their source, of which this earth is a significant centre and its evolution a crucial process. This too with all its obscurity and struggle and imperfection is upheld by the Universal Mother; this too is impelled and guided to its secret aim by the Mahashakti.
The Mother as the Mahashakti of this triple world of the Ignorance stands in an intermediate plane between the supramental Light, the Truth life, the Truth creation which has to be brought down here and this mounting and descending hierarchy of planes of consciousness that like a double ladder lapse into the nescience of Matter and climb back again through the flowering of life and soul and mind into the infinity of the Spirit. Determining all that shall be in this universe and in the terrestrial evolution by what she sees and feels and pours from her, she stands there... ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother,#KEYS
1271:Mother of Dreams :::
Goddess supreme, Mother of Dream, by thy ivory doors when thou standest,
Who are they then that come down unto men in thy visions that troop, group upon group, down the path of the shadows slanting?
Dream after dream, they flash and they gleam with the flame of the stars still around them;
Shadows at thy side in a darkness ride where the wild fires dance, stars glow and glance and the random meteor glistens;
There are voices that cry to their kin who reply; voices sweet, at the heart they beat and ravish the soul as it listens.
What then are these lands and these golden sands and these seas more radiant than earth can imagine?
Who are those that pace by the purple waves that race to the cliff-bound floor of thy jasper shore under skies in which mystery muses,
Lapped in moonlight not of our night or plunged in sunshine that is not diurnal?
Who are they coming thy Oceans roaming with sails whose strands are not made by hands, an unearthly wind advances?
Why do they join in a mystic line with those on the sands linking hands in strange and stately dances?
Thou in the air, with a flame in thy hair, the whirl of thy wonders watching,
Holdest the night in thy ancient right, Mother divine, hyacinthine, with a girdle of beauty defended.
Sworded with fire, attracting desire, thy tenebrous kingdom thou keepest,
Starry-sweet, with the moon at thy feet, now hidden now seen the clouds between in the gloom and the drift of thy tresses.
Only to those whom thy fancy chose, O thou heart-free, is it given to see thy witchcraft and feel thy caresses.
Open the gate where thy children wait in their world of a beauty undarkened.
High-throned on a cloud, victorious, proud I have espied Maghavan ride when the armies of wind are behind him;
Food has been given for my tasting from heaven and fruit of immortal sweetness;
I have drunk wine of the kingdoms divine and have healed the change of music strange from a lyre which our hands cannot master,
Doors have swung wide in the chambers of pride where the Gods reside and the Apsaras dance in their circles faster and faster.
For thou art she whom we first can see when we pass the bounds of the mortal;
There at the gates of the heavenly states thou hast planted thy wand enchanted over the head of the Yogin waving.
From thee are the dream and the shadows that seem and the fugitive lights that delude us;
Thine is the shade in which visions are made; sped by thy hands from celestial lands come the souls that rejoice for ever.
Into thy dream-worlds we pass or look in thy magic glass, then beyond thee we climb out of Space and Time to the peak of divine endeavour. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems,#KEYS
1272:If we look at this picture of the Self-Existence and its works as a unitary unlimited whole of vision, it stands together and imposes itself by its convincing totality: but to the analysis of the logical intellect it offers an abundance of difficulties, such as all attempts to erect a logical system out of a perception of an illimitable Existence must necessarily create; for any such endeavour must either effect consistency by an arbitrary sectioning of the complex truth of things or else by its comprehensiveness become logically untenable. For we see that the Indeterminable determines itself as infinite and finite, the Immutable admits a constant mutability and endless differences, the One becomes an innumerable multitude, the Impersonal creates or supports personality, is itself a Person; the Self has a nature and is yet other than its nature; Being turns into becoming and yet it is always itself and other than its becomings; the Universal individualises itself and the Individual universalises himself; Brahman is at once void of qualities and capable of infinite qualities, the Lord and Doer of works, yet a non-doer and a silent witness of the workings of Nature. If we look carefully at these workings of Nature, once we put aside the veil of familiarity and our unthinking acquiescence in the process of things as natural because so they always happen, we discover that all she does in whole or in parts is a miracle, an act of some incomprehensible magic. The being of the Self-existence and the world that has appeared in it are, each of them and both together, a suprarational mystery. There seems to us to be a reason in things because the processes of the physical finite are consistent to our view and their law determinable, but this reason in things, when closely examined, seems to stumble at every moment against the irrational or infrarational and the suprarational: the consistency, the determinability of process seems to lessen rather than increase as we pass from matter to life and from life to mentality; if the finite consents to some extent to look as if it were rational, the infinitesimal refuses to be bound by the same laws and the infinite is unseizable. As for the action of the universe and its significance, it escapes us altogether; if Self, God or Spirit there be, his dealings with the world and us are incomprehensible, offer no clue that we can follow. God and Nature and even ourselves move in a mysterious way which is only partially and at points intelligible, but as a whole escapes our comprehension. All the works of Maya look like the production of a suprarational magical Power which arranges things according to its wisdom or its phantasy, but a wisdom which is not ours and a phantasy which baffles our imagination. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 2.02, #KEYS
1273:It is then by a transformation of life in its very principle, not by an external manipulation of its phenomena, that the integral Yoga proposes to change it from a troubled and ignorant into a luminous and harmonious movement of Nature. There are three conditions which are indispensable for the achievement of this central inner revolution and new formation; none of them is altogether sufficient in itself, but by their united threefold power the uplifting can be done, the conversion made and completely made. For, first, life as it is is a movement of desire and it has built in us as its centre a desire-soul which refers to itself all the motions of life and puts in them its own troubled hue and pain of an ignorant, half-lit, baffled endeavour: for a divine living, desire must be abolished and replaced by a purer and firmer motive-power, the tormented soul of desire dissolved and in its stead there must emerge the calm, strength, happiness of a true vital being now concealed within us. Next, life as it is is driven or led partly by the impulse of the life-force, partly by a mind which is mostly a servant and abettor of the ignorant life-impulse, but in part also its uneasy and not too luminous or competent guide and mentor; for a divine life the mind and the life-impulse must cease to be anything but instruments and the inmost psychic being must take their place as the leader on the path and the indicator of a divine guidance. Last, life as it is is turned towards the satisfaction of the separative ego; ego must disappear and be replaced by the true spiritual person, the central being, and life itself must be turned towards the fulfilment of the Divine in terrestrial existence; it must feel a Divine Force awaking within it and become an obedient instrumentation of its purpose.
There is nothing that is not ancient and familiar in the first of these three transforming inner movements; for it has always been one of the principal objects of spiritual discipline. It has been best formulated in the already expressed doctrine of the Gita by which a complete renouncement of desire for the fruits as the motive of action, a complete annulment of desire itself, the complete achievement of a perfect equality are put forward as the normal status of a spiritual being. A perfect spiritual equality is the one true and infallible sign of the cessation of desire, - to be equal-souled to all things, unmoved by joy and sorrow, the pleasant and the unpleasant, success or failure, to look with an equal eye on high and low, friend and enemy, the virtuous and the sinner, to see in all beings the manifold manifestation of the One and in all things the multitudinous play or the slow masked evolution of the embodied Spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 176,#KEYS
1274:root of the falsification and withdrawl of divine love :::
At every moment they are moved to take egoistic advantage of the psychic and spiritual influences and can be detected using the power, joy or light these bring into us for a lower life-motive. Afterwards too, even when the seeker has opened to the Divine Love transcendental, universal or immanent, yet if he tries to pour it into life, he meets the power of obscuration and perversion of these lower Nature-forces. Always they draw away towards pitfalls, pour into that higher intensity their diminishing elements, seek to capture the descending Power for themselves and their interests and degrade it into an aggrandised mental, vital or physical instrumentation for desire and ego. Instead of a Divine Love creator of a new heaven and a new earth of Truth and Light, they would hold it here prisoner as a tremendous sanction and glorifying force of sublimation to gild the mud of the old earth and colour with its rose and sapphire the old turbid unreal skies of sentimentalising vital imagination and mental idealised chimera. If that falsification is permitted, the higher Light and Power and Bliss withdraw, there is a fall back to a lower status; or else the realisation remains tied to an insecure half-way and mixture or is covered and even submerged by an inferior exaltation that is not the true Ananda. It is for this reason that 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. It is only the inmost psychic being unveiled and emerging in its full power that can lead the pilgrim sacrifice unscathed through these ambushes and pitfalls; at each moment it catches, exposes, repels the mind's and the life's falsehoods, seizes hold on the truth of the Divine Love and Ananda and separates it from the excitement of the mind's ardours and the blind enthusiasms of the misleading life-force. But all things that are true at their core in mind and life and the physical being it extricates and takes with it in the journey till they stand on the heights, new in spirit and sublime in figure. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 166,#KEYS
1275:To Know How To Suffer
IF AT any time a deep sorrow, a searing doubt or an intense pain overwhelms you and drives you to despair, there is an infallible way to regain calm and peace.
In the depths of our being there shines a light whose brilliance is equalled only by its purity; a light, a living and conscious portion of a universal godhead who animates and nourishes and illumines Matter, a powerful and unfailing guide for those who are willing to heed his law, a helper full of solace and loving forbearance towards all who aspire to see and hear and obey him. No sincere and lasting aspiration towards him can be in vain; no strong and respectful trust can be disappointed, no expectation ever deceived.
My heart has suffered and lamented, almost breaking beneath a sorrow too heavy, almost sinking beneath a pain too strong.... But I have called to thee, O divine comforter, I have prayed ardently to thee, and the splendour of thy dazzling light has appeared to me and revived me.
As the rays of thy glory penetrated and illumined all my being, I clearly perceived the path to follow, the use that can be made of suffering; I understood that the sorrow that held me in its grip was but a pale reflection of the sorrow of the earth, of this abysm of suffering and anguish.
Only those who have suffered can understand the suffering of others; understand it, commune with it and relieve it. And I understood, O divine comforter, sublime Holocaust, that in order to sustain us in all our troubles, to soothe all our pangs, thou must have known and felt all the sufferings of earth and man, all without exception.
How is it that among those who claim to be thy worshippers, some regard thee as a cruel torturer, as an inexorable judge witnessing the torments that are tolerated by thee or even created by thy own will?
No, I now perceive that these sufferings come from the very imperfection of Matter which, in its disorder and crudeness, is unfit to manifest thee; and thou art the very first to suffer from it, to bewail it, thou art the first to toil and strive in thy ardent desire to change disorder into order, suffering into happiness, discord into harmony.
Suffering is not something inevitable or even desirable, but when it comes to us, how helpful it can be!
Each time we feel that our heart is breaking, a deeper door opens within us, revealing new horizons, ever richer in hidden treasures, whose golden influx brings once more a new and intenser life to the organism on the brink of destruction.
And when, by these successive descents, we reach the veil that reveals thee as it is lifted, O Lord, who can describe the intensity of Life that penetrates the whole being, the radiance of the Light that floods it, the sublimity of the Love that transforms it for ever! ~ The Mother, Words Of Long Ago, To Know How To Suffer, 1910,#KEYS
1276:Sri Aurobindo tells us that surrender is the first and absolute condition for doing the yoga. Therefore it is not merely one of the required qualities, it is the very first indispensable attitude for commencing the yoga.
If you are not decided to make a total surrender, you cannot begin. But to make your surrender total, all the other qualities are necessary: sincerity, faith, devotion and aspiration.
And I add another one : endurance. Because if you are not able to face difficulties without getting discouraged, without giving up under the pretext that it is too difficult, if you are not able to receive blows and continue all the same, to "pocket" them, as it is said,—you receive blows because of your defects : you put them into your pocket and continue to march on without faltering; if you cannot do that with endurance, you will not go very far; at the first turning, when you lose sight of the little habitual life, you despair and give up the game.
The most material form of endurance is perseverance. Unless you are resolved to begin the same thing over again a thousand times if needed, you will arrive nowhere.
People come to me in despair : "But I thought it had been done, and I have to begin again !" And if they are told, "But it is nothing, you have to begin probably a hundred times, two hundred times, a thousand times", they lose all courage.
You take one step forward and you believe you are solid, but there will be always something that will bring about the same difficulty a little farther ahead.
You believe you have solved the problem, but will have to solve it again, it will present itself with just a little difference in its appearance, but it will be the same problem.
Thus there are people who have a fine experience and they exclaim, "Now, it is done !" Then things settle down, begin to fade, go behind a veil, and all on a sudden, something quite unexpected, a thing absolutely commonplace, that appears to be of no interest at all, comes before them and closes up the road. Then you lament: "Of what use is this progress that I have made, if I am to begin again !
Why is it so? I made an effort, I succeeded, I arrived at something and now it is as if I had done nothing. It is hopeless". This is because there is still the "I" and this "I" has no endurance.
If you have endurance, you say : "All right, I will begin again and again as long as necessary, a thousand times, ten thousand times, a million times, if necessary, but I will go to the end and nothing can stop me on the way".
That is very necessary.
Now, to sum up, we will put at the head of our list surrender. That is to say, we accept the fact that one must, in order to do the integral yoga, take the resolution of surrendering oneself wholly to the Divine. There is no other way, it is the way. ~ The Mother,#KEYS
1277:the process of unification, the perfecting our one's instrumental being, the help one needs to reach the goal :::
If we truly want to progress and acquire the capacity of knowing the truth of our being, that is to say, what we are truly created for, what we can call our mission upon earth, then we must, in a very regular and constant manner, reject from us or eliminate in us whatever contradicts the truth of our existence, whatever is opposed to it. In this way, little by little, all the parts, all the elements of our being can be organised into a homogeneous whole around our psychic centre. This work of unification requires much time to be brought to some degree of perfection. Therefore, in order to accomplish it, we must arm ourselves with patience and endurance, with a determination to prolong our life as long as necessary for the success of our endeavor.
As you pursue this labor of purification and unification, you must at the same time take great care to perfect the external and instrumental part of your being. When the higher truth manifests, it must find in you a mind that is supple and rich enough to be able to give the idea that seeks to express itself a form of thought which preserves its force and clarity. This thought, again, when it seeks to clothe itself in words, must find in you a sufficient power of expression so that the words reveal the thought and do not deform it. And the formula in which you embody the truth should be manifested in all your feelings, all your acts of will, all your actions, in all movements of your being. Finally, these movements themselves should, by constant effort, attain their highest perfection. ... It is therefore of capital importance to become conscious of its presence in us [the psychic being], to concentrate on this presence until it becomes a living fact for us and we can identify ourselves with it.
In various times and places many methods have been prescribed for attaining this perfection and ultimately achieving this identification. Some methods are psychological, some religious, some even mechanical. In reality, everyone has to find the one which suits him best, and if one has an ardent and steadfast aspiration, a persistent and dynamic will, one is sure to meet, in one way or another - outwardly through reading and study, inwardly through concentration, meditation, revelation and experience - the help one needs to reach the goal. Only one thing is absolutely indispensable: the will to discover and to realize. This discovery and realization should be the primary preoccupation of our being, the pearl of great price which we must acquire at any cost. Whatever you do, whatever your occupations and activities, the will to find the truth of your being and to unite with it must be always living and present behind all that you do, all that you feel, all that you think.
~ The Mother, On Education, [T1],#KEYS
1278:- for every well-made and significant poem, picture, statue or building is an act of creative knowledge, a living discovery of the consciousness, a figure of Truth, a dynamic form of mental and vital self-expression or world-expression, - all that seeks, all that finds, all that voices or figures is a realisation of something of the play of the Infinite and to that extent can be made a means of God-realisation or of divine formation. But the Yogin has to see that it is no longer done as part of an ignorant mental life; it can be accepted by him only if by the feeling, the remembrance, the dedication within it, it is turned into a movement of the spiritual consciousness and becomes a part of its vast grasp of comprehensive illuminating knowledge.
For all must be done as a sacrifice, all activities must have the One Divine for their object and the heart of their meaning. The Yogin's aim in the sciences that make for knowledge should be to discover and understand the workings of the Divine Consciousness-Puissance in man and creatures and things and forces, her creative significances, her execution of the mysteries, the symbols in which she arranges the manifestation. The Yogin's aim in the practical sciences, whether mental and physical or occult and psychic, should be to enter into the ways of the Divine and his processes, to know the materials and means for the work given to us so that we may use that knowledge for a conscious and faultless expression of the spirit's mastery, joy and self-fulfilment. The Yogin's aim in the Arts should not be a mere aesthetic, mental or vital gratification, but, seeing the Divine everywhere, worshipping it with a revelation of the meaning of its own works, to express that One Divine in ideal forms, the One Divine in principles and forces, the One Divine in gods and men and creatures and objects. The theory that sees an intimate connection between religious aspiration and the truest and greatest Art is in essence right; but we must substitute for the mixed and doubtful religious motive a spiritual aspiration, vision, interpreting experience. For the wider and more comprehensive the seeing, the more it contains in itself the sense of the hidden Divine in humanity and in all things and rises beyond a superficial religiosity into the spiritual life, the more luminous, flexible, deep and powerful will the Art be that springs from that high motive. The Yogin's distinction from other men is this that he lives in a higher and vaster spiritual consciousness; all his work of knowledge or creation must then spring from there: it must not be made in the mind, - for it is a greater truth and vision than mental man's that he has to express or rather that presses to express itself through him and mould his works, not for his personal satisfaction, but for a divine purpose. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1, 142 [T4],#KEYS
1279:The modern distinction is that the poet appeals to the imagination and not to the intellect. But there are many kinds of imagination; the objective imagination which visualises strongly the outward aspects of life and things; the subjective imagination which visualises strongly the mental and emotional impressions they have the power to start in the mind; the imagination which deals in the play of mental fictions and to which we give the name of poetic fancy; the aesthetic imagination which delights in the beauty of words and images for their own sake and sees no farther. All these have their place in poetry, but they only give the poet his materials, they are only the first instruments in the creation of poetic style. The essential poetic imagination does not stop short with even the most subtle reproductions of things external or internal, with the richest or delicatest play of fancy or with the most beautiful colouring of word or image. It is creative, not of either the actual or the fictitious, but of the more and the most real; it sees the spiritual truth of things, - of this truth too there are many gradations, - which may take either the actual or the ideal for its starting-point. The aim of poetry, as of all true art, is neither a photographic or otherwise realistic imitation of Nature, nor a romantic furbishing and painting or idealistic improvement of her image, but an interpretation by the images she herself affords us, not on one but on many planes of her creation, of that which she conceals from us, but is ready, when rightly approached, to reveal.
This is the true, because the highest and essential aim of poetry; but the human mind arrives at it only by a succession of steps, the first of which seems far enough from its object. It begins by stringing its most obvious and external ideas, feelings and sensations of things on a thread of verse in a sufficient language of no very high quality. But even when it gets to a greater adequacy and effectiveness, it is often no more than a vital, an emotional or an intellectual adequacy and effectiveness. There is a strong vital poetry which powerfully appeals to our sensations and our sense of life, like much of Byron or the less inspired mass of the Elizabethan drama; a strong emotional poetry which stirs our feelings and gives us the sense and active image of the passions; a strong intellectual poetry which satisfies our curiosity about life and its mechanism, or deals with its psychological and other "problems", or shapes for us our thoughts in an effective, striking and often quite resistlessly quotable fashion. All this has its pleasures for the mind and the surface soul in us, and it is certainly quite legitimate to enjoy them and to enjoy them strongly and vividly on our way upward; but if we rest content with these only, we shall never get very high up the hill of the Muses.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry,#KEYS
1280:Concentration is a gathering together of the consciousness and either centralising at one point or turning on a single object, e.g., the Divine; there can be also be a gathered condition throughout the whole being, not at a point. In meditation it is not indispensable to gather like this, one can simply remain with a quiet mind thinking of one subject or observing what comes in the consciousness and dealing with it. ... Of this true consciousness other than the superficial there are two main centres, one in the heart (not the physical heart, but the cardiac centre in the middle of the chest), one in the head. The concentration in the heart opens within and by following this inward opening and going deep one becomes aware of the soul or psychic being, the divine element in the individual. This being unveiled begins to come forward, to govern the nature, to turn it and all its movements towards the Truth, towards the Divine, and to call down into it all that is above. It brings the consciousness of the Presence, the dedication of the being to the Highest and invites the descent into our nature of a greater Force and Consciousness which is waiting above us. To concentrate in the heart centre with the offering of oneself to the Divine and the aspiration for this inward opening and for the Presence in the heart is the first way and, if it can be done, the natural beginning; for its result once obtained makes the spiritual path far more easy and safe than if one begins the other ways.
That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre. This, if it brings about the silence of the surface mind, opens up an inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge. But once concentrated here one must open the silent mental consciousness upward and in the end it rises beyond the lid which has so long kept it tied in the body and finds a centre above the head where it is liberated into the Infinite. There it begins to come into contact with the universal Self, the Divine Peace, Light, Power, Knowledge, Bliss, to enter into that and become that, to feel the descent of these things into the nature. To concentrate in the head with the aspiration for quietude in the mind and the realisation of the Self and Divine above is the second way of concentration. It is important, however, to remember that the concentration of the consciousness in the head in only a preparation for its rising to the centre above; otherwise, one may get shut up in one's own mind and its experiences or at best attain only to a reflection of the Truth above instead of rising into the spiritual transcendence to live there. For some the mental concentration is easier, for some the concentration in the heart centre; some are capable of doing both alternatively - but to begin with the heart centre, if one can do it, is the most desirable.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,#KEYS
1281:There is one fundamental perception indispensable towards any integral knowledge or many-sided experience of this Infinite. It is to realise the Divine in its essential self and truth unaltered by forms and phenomena. Otherwise we are likely to remain caught in the net of appearances or wander confusedly in a chaotic multitude of cosmic or particular aspects, and if we avoid this confusion, it will be at the price of getting chained to some mental formula or shut up in a limited personal experience. The one secure and all-reconciling truth which is the very foundation of the universe is this that life is the manifestation of an uncreated Self and Spirit, and the key to life's hidden secret is the true relation of this Spirit with its own created existences. There is behind all this life the look of an eternal Being upon its multitudinous becomings; there is around and everywhere in it the envelopment and penetration of a manifestation in time by an unmanifested timeless Eternal. But this knowledge is valueless for Yoga if it is only an intellectual and metaphysical notion void of life and barren of consequence; a mental realisation alone cannot be sufficient for the seeker. For what Yoga searches after is not truth of thought alone or truth of mind alone, but the dynamic truth of a living and revealing spiritual experience. There must awake in us a constant indwelling and enveloping nearness, a vivid perception, a close feeling and communion, a concrete sense and contact of a true and infinite Presence always and everywhere. That Presence must remain with us as the living, pervading Reality in which we and all things exist and move and act, and we must feel it always and everywhere, concrete, visible, inhabiting all things; it must be patent to us as their true Self, tangible as their imperishable Essence, met by us closely as their inmost Spirit. To see, to feel, to sense, to contact in every way and not merely to conceive this Self and Spirit here in all existences and to feel with the same vividness all existences in this Self and Spirit, is the fundamental experience which must englobe all other knowledge. This infinite and eternal Self of things is an omnipresent Reality, one existence everywhere; it is a single unifying presence and not different in different creatures; it can be met, seen or felt in its completeness in each soul or each form in the universe. For its infinity is spiritual and essential and not merely a boundlessness in Space or an endlessness in Time; the Infinite can be felt in an infinitesimal atom or in a second of time as convincingly as in the stretch of the aeons or the stupendous enormity of the intersolar spaces. The knowledge or experience of it can begin anywhere and express itself through anything; for the Divine is in all, and all is the Divine.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, The Sacrifice, the Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice,#KEYS
1282:The madman.-
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place. and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!" -As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? -Thus they yelled and laughed.
The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him-you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward. forward. in all directions? be there still any up or down? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too. decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.
"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us-for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto."
Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then: "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the most distant stars-and yet they have done it themselves... It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his reqttiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. Kaufmann,#KEYS
1283:on purifying ego and desire :::
The elimination of all egoistic activity and of its foundation, the egoistic consciousness, is clearly the key to the consummation we desire. And since in the path of works action is the knot we have first to loosen, we must endeavour to loosen it where it is centrally tied, in desire and in ego; for otherwise we shall cut only stray strands and not the heart of our bondage.These are the two knots of our subjection to this ignorant and divided Nature, desire and ego-sense. And of these two desire has its native home in the emotions and sensations and instincts and from there affects thought and volition; ego-sense lives indeed in these movements, but it casts its deep roots also in the thinking mind and its will and it is there that it becomes fully self conscious. These are the twin obscure powers of the obsessing world-wide Ignorance that we have to enlighten and eliminate.
In the field of action desire takes many forms, but the most powerful of all is the vital selfs craving or seeking after the fruit of our works. The fruit we covet may be a reward of internal pleasure; it may be the accomplishment of some preferred idea or some cherished will or the satisfaction of the egoistic emotions, or else the pride of success of our highest hopes and ambitions. Or it may be an external reward, a recompense entirely material, -wealth, position, honour, victory, good fortune or any other fulfilment of vital or physical desire. But all alike are lures by which egoism holds us. Always these satisfactions delude us with the sense of mastery and the idea of freedom, while really we are harnessed and guided or ridden and whipped by some gross or subtle, some noble or ignoble, figure of the blind Desire that drives the world. Therefore the first rule of action laid down by the Gita is to do the work that should be done without any desire for the fruit, niskama karma. ...
The test it lays down is an absolute equality of the mind and the heart to all results, to all reactions, to all happenings. If good fortune and ill fortune, if respect and insult, if reputation and obloquy, if victory and defeat, if pleasant event and sorrowful event leave us not only unshaken but untouched, free in the emotions, free in the nervous reactions, free in the mental view, not responding with the least disturbance or vibration in any spot of the nature, then we have the absolute liberation to which the Gita points us, but not otherwise. The tiniest reaction is a proof that the discipline is imperfect and that some part of us accepts ignorance and bondage as its law and clings still to the old nature. Our self-conquest is only partially accomplished; it is still imperfect or unreal in some stretch or part or smallest spot of the ground of our nature. And that little pebble of imperfection may throw down the whole achievement of the Yoga
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, [102],#KEYS
1284:Something happened to you before you were born, and this is what it was:
STAGE ONE: THE CHIKHAI
The events of the 49-day Bardo period are divided into three major stages, the Chikhai, the Chonyid, and the Sidpa (in that order). Immediately following physical death, the soul enters the Chikhai, which is simply the state of the immaculate and luminous Dharmakaya, the ultimate Consciousness, the BrahmanAtman. This ultimate state is given, as a gift, to all individuals: they are plunged straight into ultimate reality and exist as the ultimate Dharmakaya. "At this moment," says the Bardo Thotrol, "the first glimpsing of the Bardo of the Clear Light of Reality, which is the Infallible Mind of the Dharmakaya, is experienced by all sentient beings.''110 Or, to put it a different way, the Thotrol tells us that "Thine own consciousness, shining, void, and inseparable from the Great Body of Radiance, hath no birth, nor death, and is the Immutable Light-Buddha Amitabha. Knowing this is sufficient. Recognizing the voidness of thine own intellect to be Buddhahood ... is to keep thyself in the Divine Mind."110 In short, immediately following physical death, the soul is absorbed in and as the ultimate-causal body (if we may treat them together).
Interspersed with this brief summary of the Bardo Thotrol, I will add my commentaries on involution and on the nature of the Atman project in involution. And we begin by noting that at the start of the Bardo experience, the soul is elevated to the utter heights of Being, to the ultimate state of Oneness-that is, he starts his Bardo career at the top. But, at the top is usually not where he remains, and the Thotrol tells us why. In Evans-Wentz's words, "In the realm of the Clear Light [the highest Chikhai stage] the mentality of a person . . . momentarily enjoys a condition of balance, of perfect equilibrium, and of [ultimate] oneness. Owing to unfamiliarity with such a state, which is an ecstatic state of non-ego, of [causal] consciousness, the . . . average human being lacks the power to function in it; karmic propensities becloud the consciousness-principle with thoughts of personality, of individualized being, of dualism, and, losing equilibrium, the consciousness-principle falls away from the Clear Light."
The soul falls away from the ultimate Oneness because "karmic propensities cloud consciousness"-"karmic propensities'' means seeking, grasping, desiring; means, in fact, Eros. And as this Erosseeking develops, the state of perfect Oneness starts to "break down" (illusorily). Or, from a different angle, because the individual cannot stand the intensity of pure Oneness ("owing to unfamiliarity with such a state"), he contracts away from it, tries to ''dilute it," tries to extricate himself from Perfect Intensity in Atman. Contracting in the face of infinity, he turns instead to forms of seeking, desire, karma, and grasping, trying to "search out" a state of equilibrium. Contraction and Eros-these karmic propensities couple and conspire to drive the soul away from pure consciousness and downwards into multiplicity, into less intense and less real states of being. ~ Ken Wilber, The Atman Project,#KEYS
1285:Apotheosis ::: One of the most powerful and beloved of the Bodhisattvas of the Mahayana Buddhism of Tibet, China, and Japan is the Lotus Bearer, Avalokiteshvara, "The Lord Looking Down in Pity," so called because he regards with compassion all sentient creatures suffering the evils of existence. To him goes the millionfold repeated prayer of the prayer wheels and temple gongs of Tibet: Om mani padme hum, "The jewel is in the lotus." To him go perhaps more prayers per minute than to any single divinity known to man; for when, during his final life on earth as a human being, he shattered for himself the bounds of the last threshold (which moment opened to him the timelessness of the void beyond the frustrating mirage-enigmas of the named and bounded cosmos), he paused: he made a vow that before entering the void he would bring all creatures without exception to enlightenment; and since then he has permeated the whole texture of existence with the divine grace of his assisting presence, so that the least prayer addressed to him, throughout the vast spiritual empire of the Buddha, is graciously heard. Under differing forms he traverses the ten thousand worlds, and appears in the hour of need and prayer. He reveals himself in human form with two arms, in superhuman forms with four arms, or with six, or twelve, or a thousand, and he holds in one of his left hands the lotus of the world.
Like the Buddha himself, this godlike being is a pattern of the divine state to which the human hero attains who has gone beyond the last terrors of ignorance. "When the envelopment of consciousness has been annihilated, then he becomes free of all fear, beyond the reach of change." This is the release potential within us all, and which anyone can attain-through herohood; for, as we read: "All things are Buddha-things"; or again (and this is the other way of making the same statement) : "All beings are without self."
The world is filled and illumined by, but does not hold, the Bodhisattva ("he whose being is enlightenment"); rather, it is he who holds the world, the lotus. Pain and pleasure do not enclose him, he encloses them-and with profound repose. And since he is what all of us may be, his presence, his image, the mere naming of him, helps. "He wears a garland of eight thousand rays, in which is seen fully reflected a state of perfect beauty.
The color of his body is purple gold. His palms have the mixed color of five hundred lotuses, while each finger tip has eighty-four thousand signet-marks, and each mark eighty-four thousand colors; each color has eighty-four thousand rays which are soft and mild and shine over all things that exist. With these jewel hands he draws and embraces all beings. The halo surrounding his head is studded with five hundred Buddhas, miraculously transformed, each attended by five hundred Bodhisattvas, who are attended, in turn, by numberless gods. And when he puts his feet down to the ground, the flowers of diamonds and jewels that are scattered cover everything in all directions. The color of his face is gold. While in his towering crown of gems stands a Buddha, two hundred and fifty miles high." - Amitayur-Dhyana Sutra, 19; ibid., pp. 182-183. ~ Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Apotheosis,#KEYS
1286:But still the greater and wider the moving idea-force behind the consecration, the better for the seeker; his attainment is likely to be fuller and more ample. If we are to attempt an integral Yoga, it will be as well to start with an idea of the Divine that is itself integral. There should be an aspiration in the heart wide enough for a realisation without any narrow limits. Not only should we avoid a sectarian religious outlook, but also all onesided philosophical conceptions which try to shut up the Ineffable in a restricting mental formula. The dynamic conception or impelling sense with which our Yoga can best set out would be naturally the idea, the sense of a conscious all-embracing but all-exceeding Infinite. Our uplook must be to a free, all-powerful, perfect and blissful One and Oneness in which all beings move and live and through which all can meet and become one. This Eternal will be at once personal and impersonal in his self-revelation and touch upon the soul. He is personal because he is the conscious Divine, the infinite Person who casts some broken reflection of himself in the myriad divine and undivine personalities of the universe. He is impersonal because he appears to us as an infinite Existence, Consciousness and Ananda and because he is the fount, base and constituent of all existences and all energies, -the very material of our being and mind and life and body, our spirit and our matter. The thought, concentrating on him, must not merely understand in an intellectual form that he exists, or conceive of him as an abstraction, a logical necessity; it must become a seeing thought able to meet him here as the Inhabitant in all, realise him in ourselves, watch and take hold on the movement of his forces. He is the one Existence: he is the original and universal Delight that constitutes all things and exceeds them: he is the one infinite Consciousness that composes all consciousnesses and informs all their movements; he is the one illimitable Being who sustains all action and experience; his will guides the evolution of things towards their yet unrealised but inevitable aim and plenitude. To him the heart can consecrate itself, approach him as the supreme Beloved, beat and move in him as in a universal sweetness of Love and a living sea of Delight. For his is the secret Joy that supports the soul in all its experiences and maintains even the errant ego in its ordeals and struggles till all sorrow and suffering shall cease. His is the Love and the Bliss of the infinite divine Lover who is drawing all things by their own path towards his happy oneness. On him the Will can unalterably fix as the invisible Power that guides and fulfils it and as the source of its strength. In the impersonality this actuating Power is a self-illumined Force that contains all results and calmly works until it accomplishes, in the personality an all wise and omnipotent Master of the Yoga whom nothing can prevent from leading it to its goal. This is the faith with which the seeker has to begin his seeking and endeavour; for in all his effort here, but most of all in his effort towards the Unseen, mental man must perforce proceed by faith. When the realisation comes, the faith divinely fulfilled and completed will be transformed into an eternal flame of knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration [83],#KEYS
1287:The supreme Truth aspect which thus manifests itself to us is an eternal and infinite and absolute self-existence, self-awareness, self-delight of being; this bounds all things and secretly supports and pervades all things. This Self-existence reveals itself again in three terms of its essential nature,-self, conscious being or spirit, and God or the Divine Being. The Indian terms are more satisfactory,-Brahman the Reality is Atman, Purusha, Ishwara; for these terms grew from a root of Intuition and, while they have a comprehensive preciseness, are capable of a plastic application which avoids both vagueness in the use and the rigid snare of a too limiting intellectual concept. The Supreme Brahman is that which in Western metaphysics is called the Absolute: but Brahman is at the same time the omnipresent Reality in which all that is relative exists as its forms or its movements; this is an Absolute which takes all relativities in its embrace. [...] Brahman is the Consciousness that knows itself in all that exists; Brahman is the force that sustains the power of God and Titan and Demon, the Force that acts in man and animal and the forms and energies of Nature; Brahman is the Ananda, the secret Bliss of existence which is the ether of our being and without which none could breathe or live. Brahman is the inner Soul in all; it has taken a form in correspondence with each created form which it inhabits. The Lord of Beings is that which is conscious in the conscious being, but he is also the Conscious in inconscient things, the One who is master and in control of the many that are passive in the hands of Force-Nature. He is the Timeless and Time; He is Space and all that is in Space; He is Causality and the cause and the effect: He is the thinker and his thought, the warrior and his courage, the gambler and his dice-throw. All realities and all aspects and all semblances are the Brahman; Brahman is the Absolute, the Transcendent and incommunicable, the Supracosmic Existence that sustains the cosmos, the Cosmic Self that upholds all beings, but It is too the self of each individual: the soul or psychic entity is an eternal portion of the Ishwara; it is his supreme Nature or Consciousness-Force that has become the living being in a world of living beings. The Brahman alone is, and because of It all are, for all are the Brahman; this Reality is the reality of everything that we see in Self and Nature. Brahman, the Ishwara, is all this by his Yoga-Maya, by the power of his Consciousness-Force put out in self-manifestation: he is the Conscious Being, Soul, Spirit, Purusha, and it is by his Nature, the force of his conscious self-existence that he is all things; he is the Ishwara, the omniscient and omnipotent All-ruler, and it is by his Shakti, his conscious Power, that he manifests himself in Time and governs the universe. These and similar statements taken together are all-comprehensive: it is possible for the mind to cut and select, to build a closed system and explain away all that does not fit within it; but it is on the complete and many-sided statement that we must take our stand if we have to acquire an integral knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Book 02: The Knowledge and the Ignorance - The Spiritual Evolution, Part I, The Infinite Consciousness and the Ignorance Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti [336-337],#KEYS
1288:Can it be said in justification of one's past that whatever has happened in one's life had to happen?
The Mother: Obviously, what has happened had to happen; it would not have been, if it had not been intended. Even the mistakes that we have committed and the adversities that fell upon us had to be, because there was some necessity in them, some utility for our lives. But in truth these things cannot be explained mentally and should not be. For all that happened was necessary, not for any mental reason, but to lead us to something beyond what the mind imagines. But is there any need to explain after all? The whole universe explains everything at every moment and a particular thing happens because the whole universe is what it is. But this does not mean that we are bound over to a blind acquiescence in Nature's inexorable law. You can accept the past as a settled fact and perceive the necessity in it, and still you can use the experience it gave you to build up the power consciously to guide and shape your present and your future.
Is the time also of an occurrence arranged in the Divine Plan of things?
The Mother: All depends upon the plane from which one sees and speaks. There is a plane of divine consciousness in which all is known absolutely, and the whole plan of things foreseen and predetermined. That way of seeing lives in the highest reaches of the Supramental; it is the Supreme's own vision. But when we do not possess that consciousness, it is useless to speak in terms that hold good only in that region and are not our present effective way of seeing things. For at a lower level of consciousness nothing is realised or fixed beforehand; all is in the process of making. Here there are no settled facts, there is only the play of possibilities; out of the clash of possibilities is realised the thing that has to happen. On this plane we can choose and select; we can refuse one possibility and accept another; we can follow one path, turn away from another. And that we can do, even though what is actually happening may have been foreseen and predetermined in a higher plane.
The Supreme Consciousness knows everything beforehand, because everything is realised there in her eternity. But for the sake of her play and in order to carry out actually on the physical plane what is foreordained in her own supreme self, she moves here upon earth as if she did not know the whole story; she works as if it was a new and untried thread that she was weaving. It is this apparent forgetfulness of her own foreknowledge in the higher consciousness that gives to the individual in the active life of the world his sense of freedom and independence and initiative. These things in him are her pragmatic tools or devices, and it is through this machinery that the movements and issues planned and foreseen elsewhere are realised here.
It may help you to understand if you take the example of an actor. An actor knows the whole part he has to play; he has in his mind the exact sequence of what is to happen on the stage. But when he is on the stage, he has to appear as if he did not know anything; he has to feel and act as if he were experiencing all these things for the first time, as if it was an entirely new world with all its chance events and surprises that was unrolling before his eyes. 28th April ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931,#KEYS
1289:[desire and its divine form:]
Into all our endeavour upward the lower element of desire will at first naturally enter. For what the enlightened will sees as the thing to be done and pursues as the crown to be conquered, what the heart embraces as the one thing delightful, that in us which feels itself limited and opposed and, because it is limited, craves and struggles, will seek with the troubled passion of an egoistic desire. This craving life-force or desire-soul in us has to be accepted at first, but only in order that it may be transformed. Even from the very beginning it has to be taught to renounce all other desires and concentrate itself on the passion for the Divine. This capital point gained, it has to be aught to desire, not for its own separate sake, but for God in the world and for the Divine in ourselves; it has to fix itself upon no personal spiritual gain, though of all possible spiritual gains we are sure, but on the great work to be done in us and others, on the high coming manifestation which is to be the glorious fulfilment of the Divine in the world, on the Truth that has to be sought and lived and enthroned for eveR But last, most difficult for it, more difficult than to seek with the right object, it has to be taught to seek in the right manner; for it must learn to desire, not in its own egoistic way, but in the way of the Divine. It must insist no longer, as the strong separative will always insists, on its own manner of fulfilment, its own dream of possession, its own idea of the right and the desirable; it must yearn to fulfil a larger and greater Will and consent to wait upon a less interested and ignorant guidance. Thus trained, Desire, that great unquiet harasser and troubler of man and cause of every kind of stumbling, will become fit to be transformed into its divine counterpart. For desire and passion too have their divine forms; there is a pure ecstasy of the soul's seeking beyond all craving and grief, there is a Will of Ananda that sits glorified in the possession of the supreme beatitudes.
When once the object of concentration has possessed and is possessed by the three master instruments, the thought, the heart and the will,-a consummation fully possible only when the desire-soul in us has submitted to the Divine Law,-the perfection of mind and life and body can be effectively fulfilled in our transmuted nature. This will be done, not for the personal satisfaction of the ego, but that the whole may constitute a fit temple for the Divine Presence, a faultless instrument for the divine work. For that work can be truly performed only when the instrument, consecrated and perfected, has grown fit for a selfless action,-and that will be when personal desire and egoism are abolished, but not the liberated individual. Even when the little ego has been abolished, the true spiritual Person can still remain and God's will and work and delight in him and the spiritual use of his perfection and fulfilment. Our works will then be divine and done divinely; our mind and life and will, devoted to the Divine, will be used to help fulfil in others and in the world that which has been first realised in ourselves,- all that we can manifest of the embodied Unity, Love, Freedom, Strength, Power, Splendour, immortal Joy which is the goal of the Spirit's terrestrial adventure.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration [83] [T1],#KEYS
1290:If this is the truth of works, the first thing the sadhaka has to do is to recoil from the egoistic forms of activity and get rid of the sense of an "I" that acts. He has to see and feel that everything happens in him by the plastic conscious or subconscious or sometimes superconscious automatism of his mental and bodily instruments moved by the forces of spiritual, mental, vital and physical Nature. There is a personality on his surface that chooses and wills, submits and struggles, tries to make good in Nature or prevail over Nature, but this personality is itself a construction of Nature and so dominated, driven, determined by her that it cannot be free. It is a formation or expression of the Self in her, - it is a self of Nature rather than a self of Self, his natural and processive, not his spiritual and permanent being, a temporary constructed personality, not the true immortal Person. It is that Person that he must become. He must succeed in being inwardly quiescent, detach himself as the observer from the outer active personality and learn the play of the cosmic forces in him by standing back from all blinding absorption in its turns and movements. Thus calm, detached, a student of himself and a witness of his nature, he realises that he is the individual soul who observes the works of Nature, accepts tranquilly her results and sanctions or withholds his sanction from the impulse to her acts. At present this soul or Purusha is little more than an acquiescent spectator, influencing perhaps the action and development of the being by the pressure of its veiled consciousness, but for the most part delegating its powers or a fragment of them to the outer personality, - in fact to Nature, for this outer self is not lord but subject to her, anı̄sa; but, once unveiled, it can make its sanction or refusal effective, become the master of the action, dictate sovereignly a change of Nature. Even if for a long time, as the result of fixed association and past storage of energy, the habitual movement takes place independent of the Purusha's assent and even if the sanctioned movement is persistently refused by Nature for want of past habit, still he will discover that in the end his assent or refusal prevails, - slowly with much resistance or quickly with a rapid accommodation of her means and tendencies she modifies herself and her workings in the direction indicated by his inner sight or volition. Thus he learns in place of mental control or egoistic will an inner spiritual control which makes him master of the Nature-forces that work in him and not their unconscious instrument or mechanic slave. Above and around him is the Shakti, the universal Mother and from her he can get all his inmost soul needs and wills if only he has a true knowledge of her ways and a true surrender to the divine Will in her. Finally, he becomes aware of that highest dynamic Self within him and within Nature which is the source of all his seeing and knowing, the source of the sanction, the source of the acceptance, the source of the rejection. This is the Lord, the Supreme, the One-in-all, Ishwara-Shakti, of whom his soul is a portion, a being of that Being and a power of that Power. The rest of our progress depends on our knowledge of the ways in which the Lord of works manifests his Will in the world and in us and executes them through the transcendent and universal Shakti. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 216, #KEYS
1291: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. Well, if it could always be, as it has been in the great period we are leaving, the faithful handmaid, severe, conscientious, clean-handed, luminous within its limits, a half-truth and not a reckless and presumptuous aberration.
A certain kind of Agnosticism is the final truth of all knowledge. For when we come to the end of whatever path, the universe appears as only a symbol or an appearance of an unknowable Reality which translates itself here into different systems of values, physical values, vital and sensational values, intellectual, ideal and spiritual values. The more That becomes real to us, the more it is seen to be always beyond defining thought and beyond formulating expression. "Mind attains not there, nor speech."3 And yet as it is possible to exaggerate, with the Illusionists, the unreality of the appearance, so it is possible to exaggerate the unknowableness of the Unknowable. When we speak of It as unknowable, we mean, really, that It escapes the grasp of our thought and speech, instruments which proceed always by the sense of difference and express by the way of definition; but if not knowable by thought, It is attainable by a supreme effort of consciousness. There is even a kind of Knowledge which is one with Identity and by which, in a sense, It can be known. Certainly, that Knowledge cannot be reproduced successfully in the terms of thought and speech, but when we have attained to it, the result is a revaluation of That in the symbols of our cosmic consciousness, not only in one but in all the ranges of symbols, which results in a revolution of our internal being and, through the internal, of our external life. Moreover, there is also a kind of Knowledge through which That does reveal itself by all these names and forms of phenomenal existence which to the ordinary intelligence only conceal It. It is this higher but not highest process of Knowledge to which we can attain by passing the limits of the materialistic formula and scrutinising Life, Mind and Supermind in the phenomena that are characteristic of them and not merely in those subordinate movements by which they link themselves to Matter.
The Unknown is not the Unknowable; it need not remain the unknown for us, unless we choose ignorance or persist in our first limitations. For to all things that are not unknowable, all things in the universe, there correspond in that universe faculties which can take cognisance of them, and in man, the microcosm, these faculties are always existent and at a certain stage capable of development. We may choose not to develop them; where they are partially developed, we may discourage and impose on them a kind of atrophy. But, fundamentally, all possible knowledge is knowledge within the power of humanity. And since in man there is the inalienable impulse of Nature towards self-realisation, no struggle of the intellect to limit the action of our capacities within a determined area can for ever prevail. When we have proved Matter and realised its secret capacities, the very knowledge which has found its convenience in that temporary limitation, must cry to us, like the Vedic Restrainers, 'Forth now and push forward also in other fields.'
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
1292:HOW CAN I READ SAVITRI?
An open reply by Dr Alok Pandey to a fellow devotee
A GIFT OF LOVE TO THE WORLD
Most of all enjoy Savitri. It is Sri Aurobindo's gift of Love to the world. Read it from the heart with love and gratitude as companions and drown in its fiery bliss. That is the true understanding rather than one that comes by a constant churning of words in the head.
WHEN
Best would be to fix a time that works for you. One can always take out some time for the reading, even if it be late at night when one is done with all the daily works. Of course, a certain receptivity is needed. If one is too tired or the reading becomes too mechanical as a ritual routine to be somehow finished it tends to be less effective, as with anything else. Hence the advice is to read in a quiet receptive state.
THE PACE
As to the pace of reading it is best to slowly build up and keep it steady. To read a page or a passage daily is better than reading many pages one day and then few lines or none for days. This brings a certain discipline in the consciousness which makes one receptive. What it means is that one should fix up that one would read a few passages or a page or two daily, and then if an odd day one is enjoying and spontaneously wants to read more then one can go by the flow.
COMPLETE OR SELECTIONS?
It is best to read at least once from cover to cover. But if one is not feeling inclined for that do read some of the beautiful cantos and passages whose reference one can find in various places. This helps us familiarise with the epic and the style of poetry. Later one can go for the cover to cover reading.
READING ALOUD, SILENTLY, OR WRITING DOWN?
One can read it silently. Loud reading is needed only if one is unable to focus with silent reading. A mantra is more potent when read subtly. I am aware that some people recommend reading it aloud which is fine if that helps one better. A certain flexibility in these things is always good and rigid rules either ways are not helpful.
One can also write some of the beautiful passages with which one feels suddenly connected. It is a help in the yoga since such a writing involves the pouring in of the consciousness of Savitri through the brain and nerves and the hand.
Reflecting upon some of these magnificent lines and passages while one is engaged in one\s daily activities helps to create a background state for our inner being to get absorbed in Savitri more and more.
HOW DO I UNDERSTAND THE MEANING? DO I NEED A DICTIONARY?
It is helpful if a brief background about the Canto is known. This helps the mind top focus and also to keep in sync with the overall scene and sense of what is being read.
But it is best not to keep referring to the dictionary while reading. Let the overall sense emerge. Specifics can be done during a detailed reading later and it may not be necessary at all. Besides the sense that Sri Aurobindo has given to many words may not be accurately conveyed by the standard dictionaries. A flexibility is required to understand the subtle suggestions hinted at by the Master-poet.
In this sense Savitri is in the line of Vedic poetry using images that are at once profound as well as commonplace. That is the beauty of mystic poetry. These are things actually experienced and seen by Sri Aurobindo, and ultimately it is Their Grace that alone can reveal the intrinsic sense of this supreme revelation of the Supreme. ~ Dr Alok Pandey,#KEYS
1293:It is thus by an integralisation of our divided being that the Divine Shakti in the Yoga will proceed to its object; for liberation, perfection, mastery are dependent on this integralisation, since the little wave on the surface cannot control its own movement, much less have any true control over the vast life around it. The Shakti, the power of the Infinite and the Eternal descends within us, works, breaks up our present psychological formations, shatters every wall, widens, liberates, presents us with always newer and greater powers of vision, ideation, perception and newer and greater life-motives, enlarges and newmodels increasingly the soul and its instruments, confronts us with every imperfection in order to convict and destroy it, opens to a greater perfection, does in a brief period the work of many lives or ages so that new births and new vistas open constantly within us. Expansive in her action, she frees the consciousness from confinement in the body; it can go out in trance or sleep or even waking and enter into worlds or other regions of this world and act there or carry back its experience. It spreads out, feeling the body only as a small part of itself, and begins to contain what before contained it; it achieves the cosmic consciousness and extends itself to be commensurate with the universe. It begins to know inwardly and directly and not merely by external observation and contact the forces at play in the world, feels their movement, distinguishes their functioning and can operate immediately upon them as the scientist operates upon physical forces, accept their action and results in our mind, life, body or reject them or modify, change, reshape, create immense new powers and movements in place of the old small functionings of the nature. We begin to perceive the working of the forces of universal Mind and to know how our thoughts are created by that working, separate from within the truth and falsehood of our perceptions, enlarge their field, extend and illumine their significance, become master of our own minds and active to shape the movements of Mind in the world around us. We begin to perceive the flow and surge of the universal life-forces, detect the origin and law of our feelings, emotions, sensations, passions, are free to accept, reject, new-create, open to wider, rise to higher planes of Life-Power. We begin to perceive too the key to the enigma of Matter, follow the interplay of Mind and Life and Consciousness upon it, discover more and more its instrumental and resultant function and detect ultimately the last secret of Matter as a form not merely of Energy but of involved and arrested or unstably fixed and restricted consciousness and begin to see too the possibility of its liberation and plasticity of response to higher Powers, its possibilities for the conscious and no longer the more than half-inconscient incarnation and self-expression of the Spirit. All this and more becomes more and more possible as the working of the Divine Shakti increases in us and, against much resistance or labour to respond of our obscure consciousness, through much struggle and movement of progress and regression and renewed progress necessitated by the work of intensive transformation of a half-inconscient into a conscious substance, moves to a greater purity, truth, height, range. All depends on the psychic awakening in us, the completeness of our response to her and our growing surrender. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 183, #KEYS
1294:
Sweet Mother, how can one feel the divine Presence constantly?
Why not?
But how can one do it?
But I am asking why one should not feel it. Instead of asking the question how to feel it, I ask the question: "What do you do that you don't feel it?" There is no reason not to feel the divine Presence. Once you have felt it, even once, you should be capable of feeling it always, for it is there. It is a fact. It is only our ignorance which makes us unaware of it. But if we become conscious, why should we not always be conscious? Why forget something one has learnt? When one has had the experience, why forget it? It is simply a bad habit, that's all.
You see, there is something which is a fact, that's to say, it is. But we are unaware of it and do not know it. But after we become conscious and know it, why should we still forget it? Does it make sense? It's quite simply because we are not convinced that once one has met the Divine one can't forget Him any more. We are, on the contrary, full of stupid ideas which say, "Oh! Yes, it's very well once like that, but the rest of the time it will be as usual." So there is no reason why it may not begin again.
But if we know that... we did not know something, we were ignorant, then the moment we have the knowledge... I am sincerely asking how one can manage to forget. One might not know something, that is a fact; there are countless things one doesn't know. But the moment one knows them, the minute one has the experience, how can one manage to forget? Within yourself you have the divine Presence, you know nothing about it - for all kinds of reasons, but still the chief reason is that you are in a state of ignorance. Yet suddenly, by a clicking of circumstances, you become conscious of this divine Presence, that is, you are before a fact - it is not imagination, it is a fact, it's something which exists. Then how do you manage to forget it once you have known it?
...
It is because something in us, through cowardice or defeatism, accepts this. If one did not accept it, it wouldn't happen.
Even when everything seems to be suddenly darkened, the flame and the Light are always there. And if one doesn't forget them, one has only to put in front of them the part which is dark; there will perhaps be a battle, there will perhaps be a little difficulty, but it will be something quite transitory; never will you lose your footing. That is why it is said - and it is something true - that to sin through ignorance may have fatal consequences, because when one makes mistakes, well, these mistakes have results, that's obvious, and usually external and material results; but that's no great harm, I have already told you this several times. But when one knows what is true, when one has seen and had the experience of the Truth, to accept the sin again, that is, fall back again into ignorance and obscurity - this is indeed an infinitely more serious mistake. It begins to belong to the domain of ill-will. In any case, it is a sign of slackness and weakness. It means that the will is weak.
So your question is put the other way round. Instead of asking yourself how to keep it, you must ask yourself: how does one not keep it? Not having it, is a state which everybody is in before the moment of knowing; not knowing - one is in that state before knowing. But once one knows one cannot forget. And if one forgets, it means that there is something which consents to the forgetting, it means there is an assent somewhere; otherwise one would not forget.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1955, 403,405,406,#KEYS
1295:THE WAND
THE Magical Will is in its essence twofold, for it presupposes a beginning and an end; to will to be a thing is to admit that you are not that thing.
Hence to will anything but the supreme thing, is to wander still further from it - any will but that to give up the self to the Beloved is Black Magick - yet this surrender is so simple an act that to our complex minds it is the most difficult of all acts; and hence training is necessary. Further, the Self surrendered must not be less than the All-Self; one must not come before the altar of the Most High with an impure or an imperfect offering. As it is written in Liber LXV, "To await Thee is the end, not the beginning."
This training may lead through all sorts of complications, varying according to the nature of the student, and hence it may be necessary for him at any moment to will all sorts of things which to others might seem unconnected with the goal. Thus it is not "a priori" obvious why a billiard player should need a file.
Since, then, we may want "anything," let us see to it that our will is strong enough to obtain anything we want without loss of time.
It is therefore necessary to develop the will to its highest point, even though the last task but one is the total surrender of this will. Partial surrender of an imperfect will is of no account in Magick.
The will being a lever, a fulcrum is necessary; this fulcrum is the main aspiration of the student to attain. All wills which are not dependent upon this principal will are so many leakages; they are like fat to the athlete.
The majority of the people in this world are ataxic; they cannot coordinate their mental muscles to make a purposed movement. They have no real will, only a set of wishes, many of which contradict others. The victim wobbles from one to the other (and it is no less wobbling because the movements may occasionally be very violent) and at the end of life the movements cancel each other out. Nothing has been achieved; except the one thing of which the victim is not conscious: the destruction of his own character, the confirming of indecision. Such an one is torn limb from limb by Choronzon.
How then is the will to be trained? All these wishes, whims, caprices, inclinations, tendencies, appetites, must be detected, examined, judged by the standard of whether they help or hinder the main purpose, and treated accordingly.
Vigilance and courage are obviously required. I was about to add self-denial, in deference to conventional speech; but how could I call that self-denial which is merely denial of those things which hamper the self? It is not suicide to kill the germs of malaria in one's blood.
Now there are very great difficulties to be overcome in the training of the mind. Perhaps the greatest is forgetfulness, which is probably the worst form of what the Buddhists call ignorance. Special practices for training the memory may be of some use as a preliminary for persons whose memory is naturally poor. In any case the Magical Record prescribed for Probationers of the A.'.A.'. is useful and necessary.
Above all the practices of Liber III must be done again and again, for these practices develop not only vigilance but those inhibiting centres in the brain which are, according to some psychologists, the mainspring of the mechanism by which civilized man has raised himself above the savage.
So far it has been spoken, as it were, in the negative. Aaron's rod has become a serpent, and swallowed the serpents of the other Magicians; it is now necessary to turn it once more into a rod.
~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, The Wand,#KEYS
1296:We have now completed our view of the path of Knowledge and seen to what it leads. First, the end of Yoga of Knowledge is God-possession, it is to possess God and be possessed by him through consciousness, through identification, through reflection of the divine Reality. But not merely in some abstraction away from our present existence, but here also; therefore to possess the Divine in himself, the Divine in the world, the Divine within, the Divine in all things and all beings. It is to possess oneness with God and through that to possess also oneness with the universal, with the cosmos and all existences; therefore to possess the infinite diversity also in the oneness, but on the basis of oneness and not on the basis of division. It is to possess God in his personality and his impersonality; in his purity free from qualities and in his infinite qualities; in time and beyond time; in his action and in his silence; in the finite and in the infinite. It is to possess him not only in pure self, but in all self; not only in self, but in Nature; not only in spirit, but in supermind, mind, life and body; to possess him with the spirit, with the mind, with the vital and the physical consciousness; and it is again for all these to be possessed by him, so that our whole being is one with him, full of him, governed and driven by him. It is, since God is oneness, for our physical consciousness to be one with the soul and the nature of the material universe; for our life, to be one with all life; for our mind, to be one with the universal mind; for our spirit, to be identified with the universal spirit. It is to merge in him in the absolute and find him in all relations. Secondly, it is to put on the divine being and the divine nature. And since God is Sachchidananda, it is to raise our being into the divine being, our consciousness into the divine consciousness, our energy into the divine energy, our delight of existence into the divine delight of being. And it is not only to lift ourselves into this higher consciousness, but to widen into it in all our being, because it is to be found on all the planes of our existence and in all our members, so that our mental, vital, physical existence shall become full of the divine nature. Our intelligent mentality is to become a play of the divine knowledge-will, our mental soul-life a play of the divine love and delight, our vitality a play of the divine life, our physical being a mould of the divine substance. This God-action in us is to be realised by an opening of ourselves to the divine gnosis and divine Ananda and, in its fullness, by an ascent into and a permanent dwelling in the gnosis and the Ananda. For though we live physically on the material plane and in normal outwardgoing life the mind and soul are preoccupied with material existence, this externality of our being is not a binding limitation. We can raise our internal consciousness from plane to plane of the relations of Purusha with prakriti, and even become, instead of the mental being dominated by the physical soul and nature, the gnostic being or the bliss-self and assume the gnostic or the bliss nature. And by this raising of the inner life we can transform our whole outward-going existence; instead of a life dominated by matter we shall then have a life dominated by spirit with all its circumstances moulded and determined by the purity of being, the consciousness infinite even in the finite, the divine energy, the divine joy and bliss of the spirit.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, The Higher and the Lower Knowledge [511] [T1],#KEYS
1297:
"The beings who were always appearing and speaking to Jeanne d'Arc would, if seen by an Indian, have quite a different appearance; for when one sees, one projects the forms of one's mind.... You have the vision of one in India whom you call the Divine Mother; the Catholics say it is the Virgin Mary, and the Japanese call it Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy; and others would give other names. It is the same force, the same power, but the images made of it are different in different faiths." Questions and Answers 1929 - 1931 (21 April 1929)
And then? You are not very talkative today! Is that all?
You say that "each person has his own world of dreamimagery peculiar to himself." Ibid.
Each individual has his own way of expressing, thinking, speaking, feeling, understanding. It is the combination of all these ways of being that makes the individual. That is why everyone can understand only according to his own nature. As long as you are shut up in your own nature, you can know only what is in your consciousness. All depends upon the height of the nature of your consciousness. Your world is limited to what you have in your consciousness. If you have a very small consciousness, you will understand only a few things. When your consciousness is very vast, universal, only then will you understand the world. If the consciousness is limited to your little ego, all the rest will escape you.... There are people whose brain and consciousness are smaller than a walnut. You know that a walnut resembles the brain; well these people look at things and don't understand them. They can understand nothing else except what is in direct contact with their senses. For them only what they taste, what they see, hear, touch has a reality, and all the rest simply does not exist, and they accuse us of speaking fancifully! "What I cannot touch does not exist", they say. But the only answer to give them is: "It does not exist for you, but there's no reason why it shouldn't exist for others." You must not insist with these people, and you must not forget that the smaller they are the greater is the audacity in their assertions.
One's cocksureness is in proportion to one's unconsciousness; the more unconscious one is, the more is one sure of oneself. The most foolish are always the most vain. Your stupidity is in proportion to your vanity. The more one knows... In fact, there is a time when one is quite convinced that one knows nothing at all. There's not a moment in the world which does not bring something new, for the world is perpetually growing. If one is conscious of that, one has always something new to learn. But one can become conscious of it only gradually. One's conviction that one knows is in direct proportion to one's ignorance and stupidity.
Mother, have the scientists, then, a very small consciousness?
Why? All scientists are not like that. If you meet a true scientist who has worked hard, he will tell you: "We know nothing. What we know today is nothing beside what we shall know tomorrow. This year's discoveries will be left behind next year." A real scientist knows very well that there are many more things he doesn't know than those he knows. And this is true of all branches of human activity. I have never met a scientist worthy of the name who was proud. I have never met a man of some worth who has told me: "I know everything." Those I have seen have always confessed: "In short, I know nothing." After having spoken of all that he has done, all that he has achieved, he tells you very quietly: "After all, I know nothing." ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, [T8],#KEYS
1298:(Nirodbaran:) "It was the first week of January 1930.
At about 3 p.m., I reached Dilip Kumar Roy's place. "Oh, you have come! Let us go," he said, and cutting a rose from his terrace-garden he added, "Offer this to the Mother." When we arrived at the Ashram he left me at the present Reading Room saying, "Wait here." My heart was beating nervously as if I were going to face an examination. A stately chair in the middle of the room attracted momentarily my attention. In a short while the Mother came accompanied by Nolini, Amrita and Dilip. She took her seat in the chair, the others stood by her side. I was dazzled by the sight. Was it a ‘visionary gleam’ or a reality? Nothing like it had I seen before. Her fair complexion, set off by a finely coloured sari and a headband, gave me the impression of a goddess such as we see in pictures or in the idols during the Durga Puja festival. She was all smiles and redolent with grace. I suppose this was the Mahalakshmi smile Sri Aurobindo had spoken of in his book The Mother. She bathed me in the cascade of her smile and heart-melting look. I stood before her, shy and speechless, made more so by the presence of the others who were enjoying the silent sweet spectacle. Minutes passed. Then I offered to her hand my rose and did my pranam at her feet which had gold anklets on them. She stooped and blessed me. On standing up, I got again the same enchanting smile like moonbeams from a magic sky. After a time she said to the others, "He is very shy." "[1]
(Amal Kiran:) "Now to come back to all the people, all – the undamned all who were there in the Ashram. Very soon after my coming Dilip Kumar Roy came with Sahana Devi. They came and settled down. And, soon after that, I saw the face of my friend Nirod. It was of course an unforgettable face. (laughter) I think he had come straight from England or via some place in Bengal, but he carried something of the air of England. (laughter) He had passed out as a doctor at Edinburgh. I saw him, we became friends and we have remained friends ever since. But when he came as a doctor he was not given doctoring work here. As far as I remember he was made the head of a timber godown! (laughter) All sorts of strange jobs were being given to people. Look at the first job I got. The Mother once told me, "I would like you to do some work." I said, "All right, I am prepared to do some work." Then she said,"Will you take charge of our stock of furniture?" (laughter)"[2]
(Amal Kiran:) "To return to my friend Nirod – it was after some time that he got the Dispensary. I don't know whether he wanted it, or liked it or not, but he established his reputation as the frowning physician. (laughter) People used to come to him with a cold and he would stand and glare at them, and say, "What? You have a cold!" Poor people, they would simply shiver (laughter) and this had a very salutary effect because they thought that it was better not to fall ill than face the doctor's drastic disapproval of any kind of illness which would give him any botheration. (laughter) But he did his job all right, and every time he frightened off a patient he went to his room and started trying to write poetry (laughter) – because that, he thought, was his most important job. And, whether he succeeded as a doctor or not, as a poet he has eminently succeeded. Sri Aurobindo has really made him a poet.
The doctoring as well as the poetry was a bond between us, because my father had been a doctor and medicine ran in my blood. We used to discuss medical matters sometimes, but more often the problems and pains of poetry."[3] ~ https://wiki.auroville.org.in/wiki/Nirodbaran#KEYS
1299: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. A downpour of inwardly visible Light very usually envelops this action; for it must be noted that, contrary to our ordinary conceptions, light is not primarily a material creation and the sense or vision of light accompanying the inner illumination is not merely a subjective visual image or a symbolic phenomenon: light is primarily a spiritual manifestation of the Divine Reality illuminative and creative; material light is a subsequent representation or conversion of it into Matter for the purposes of the material Energy. There is also in this descent the arrival of a greater dynamic, a golden drive, a luminous enthousiasmos of inner force and power which replaces the comparatively slow and deliberate process of the Higher Mind by a swift, sometimes a vehement, almost a violent impetus of rapid transformation.
But these two stages of the ascent enjoy their authority and can get their own united completeness only by a reference to a third level; for it is from the higher summits where dwells the intuitional being that they derive the knowledge which they turn into thought or sight and bring down to us for the mind's transmutation. Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity; for it is always something that leaps out direct from a concealed identity. It is when the consciousness of the subject meets with the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels or vibrates with the truth of what it contacts, that the intuition leaps out like a spark or lightning-flash from the shock of the meeting; or when the consciousness, even without any such meeting, looks into itself and feels directly and intimately the truth or the truths that are there or so contacts the hidden forces behind appearances, then also there is the outbreak of an intuitive light; or, again, when the consciousness meets the Supreme Reality or the spiritual reality of things and beings and has a contactual union with it, then the spark, the flash or the blaze of intimate truth-perception is lit in its depths. This close perception is more than sight, more than conception: it is the result of a penetrating and revealing touch which carries in it sight and conception as part of itself or as its natural consequence. A concealed or slumbering identity, not yet recovering itself, still remembers or conveys by the intuition its own contents and the intimacy of its self-feeling and self-vision of things, its light of truth, its overwhelming and automatic certitude. ... Intuition is always an edge or ray or outleap of a superior light; it is in us a projecting blade, edge or point of a far-off supermind light entering into and modified by some intermediate truth-mind substance above us and, so modified, again entering into and very much blinded by our ordinary or ignorant mind substance; but on that higher level to which it is native its light is unmixed and therefore entirely and purely veridical, and its rays are not separated but connected or massed together in a play of waves of what might almost be called in the Sanskrit poetic figure a sea or mass of stable lightnings.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
1300:There's an idea in Christianity of the image of God as a Trinity. There's the element of the Father, there's the element of the Son, and there's the element of the Holy Spirit. It's something like the spirit of tradition, human beings as the living incarnation of that tradition, and the spirit in people that makes relationship with the spirit and individuals possible. I'm going to bounce my way quickly through some of the classical, metaphorical attributes of God, so that we kind of have a cloud of notions about what we're talking about, when we return to Genesis 1 and talk about the God who spoke chaos into Being.
There's a fatherly aspect, so here's what God as a father is like. You can enter into a covenant with it, so you can make a bargain with it. Now, you think about that. Money is like that, because money is a bargain you make with the future. We structured our world so that you can negotiate with the future. I don't think that we would have got to the point where we could do that without having this idea to begin with. You can act as if the future's a reality; there's a spirit of tradition that enables you to act as if the future is something that can be bargained with. That's why you make sacrifices. The sacrifices were acted out for a very long period of time, and now they're psychological. We know that you can sacrifice something valuable in the present and expect that you're negotiating with something that's representing the transcendent future. That's an amazing human discovery. No other creature can do that; to act as if the future is real; to know that you can bargain with reality itself, and that you can do it successfully. It's unbelievable.
It responds to sacrifice. It answers prayers. I'm not saying that any of this is true, by the way. I'm just saying what the cloud of ideas represents. It punishes and rewards. It judges and forgives. It's not nature. One of the things weird about the Judeo-Christian tradition is that God and nature are not the same thing, at all. Whatever God is, partially manifest in this logos, is something that stands outside of nature. I think that's something like consciousness as abstracted from the natural world. It built Eden for mankind and then banished us for disobedience. It's too powerful to be touched. It granted free will. Distance from it is hell. Distance from it is death. It reveals itself in dogma and in mystical experience, and it's the law. That's sort of like the fatherly aspect.
The son-like aspect. It speaks chaos into order. It slays dragons and feeds people with the remains. It finds gold. It rescues virgins. It is the body and blood of Christ. It is a tragic victim, scapegoat, and eternally triumphant redeemer simultaneously. It cares for the outcast. It dies and is reborn. It is the king of kings and hero of heroes. It's not the state, but is both the fulfillment and critic of the state. It dwells in the perfect house. It is aiming at paradise or heaven. It can rescue from hell. It cares for the outcast. It is the foundation and the cornerstone that was rejected. It is the spirit of the law.
The spirit-like aspect. It's akin to the human soul. It's the prophetic voice. It's the still, small voice of conscience. It's the spoken truth. It's called forth by music. It is the enemy of deceit, arrogance, and resentment. It is the water of life. It burns without consuming. It's a blinding light.
That's a very well-developed set of poetic metaphors. These are all...what would you say...glimpses of the transcendent ideal. That's the right way of thinking about it. They're glimpses of the transcendent ideal, and all of them have a specific meaning. In part, what we're going to do is go over that meaning, as we continue with this series. What we've got now is a brief description, at least, of what this is. ~ Jordan Peterson, Biblical Series, 1,#KEYS
1301:Of course we do." Dresden's voice was cutting. "But you're thinking too small. Building humanity's greatest empire is like building the world's largest anthill. Insignificant. There is a civilization out there that built the protomolecule and hurled it at us over two billion years ago. They were already gods at that point. What have they become since then? With another two billion years to advance?"
With a growing dread, Holden listened to Dresden speak. This speech had the air of something spoken before. Perhaps many times. And it had worked. It had convinced powerful people. It was why Protogen had stealth ships from the Earth shipyards and seemingly limitless behind-the-scenes support.
"We have a terrifying amount of catching up to do, gentlemen," Dresden was saying. "But fortunately we have the tool of our enemy to use in doing it."
"Catching up?" a soldier to Holden's left said. Dresden nodded at the man and smiled.
"The protomolecule can alter the host organism at the molecular level; it can create genetic change on the fly. Not just DNA, but any stable replicatoR But it is only a machine. It doesn't think. It follows instructions. If we learn how to alter that programming, then we become the architects of that change."
Holden interrupted. "If it was supposed to wipe out life on Earth and replace it with whatever the protomolecule's creators wanted, why turn it loose?"
"Excellent question," Dresden said, holding up one finger like a college professor about to deliver a lecture. "The protomolecule doesn't come with a user's manual. In fact, we've never before been able to actually watch it carry out its program. The molecule requires significant mass before it develops enough processing power to fulfill its directives. Whatever they are."
Dresden pointed at the screens covered with data around them.
"We are going to watch it at work. See what it intends to do. How it goes about doing it. And, hopefully, learn how to change that program in the process."
"You could do that with a vat of bacteria," Holden said.
"I'm not interested in remaking bacteria," Dresden said.
"You're fucking insane," Amos said, and took another step toward Dresden. Holden put a hand on the big mechanic's shoulder.
"So," Holden said. "You figure out how the bug works, and then what?"
"Then everything. Belters who can work outside a ship without wearing a suit. Humans capable of sleeping for hundreds of years at a time flying colony ships to the stars. No longer being bound to the millions of years of evolution inside one atmosphere of pressure at one g, slaves to oxygen and water. We decide what we want to be, and we reprogram ourselves to be that. That's what the protomolecule gives us."
Dresden had stood back up as he'd delivered this speech, his face shining with the zeal of a prophet.
"What we are doing is the best and only hope of humanity's survival. When we go out there, we will be facing gods."
"And if we don't go out?" Fred asked. He sounded thoughtful.
"They've already fired a doomsday weapon at us once," Dresden said.
The room was silent for a moment. Holden felt his certainty slip. He hated everything about Dresden's argument, but he couldn't quite see his way past it. He knew in his bones that something about it was dead wrong, but he couldn't find the words. Naomi's voice startled him.
"Did it convince them?" she asked.
"Excuse me?" Dresden said.
"The scientists. The technicians. Everyone you needed to make it happen. They actually had to do this. They had to watch the video of people dying all over Eros. They had to design those radioactive murder chambers. So unless you managed to round up every serial killer in the solar system and send them through a postgraduate program, how did you do this?"
"We modified our science team to remove ethical restraints."
Half a dozen clues clicked into place in Holden's head. ~ James S A Corey, Leviathan Wakes,#KEYS
1302:The perfect supramental action will not follow any single principle or limited rule.It is not likely to satisfy the standard either of the individual egoist or of any organised group-mind. It will conform to the demand neither of the positive practical man of the world nor of the formal moralist nor of the patriot nor of the sentimental philanthropist nor of the idealising philosopher. It will proceed by a spontaneous outflowing from the summits in the totality of an illumined and uplifted being, will and knowledge and not by the selected, calculated and standardised action which is all that the intellectual reason or ethical will can achieve. Its sole aim will be the expression of the divine in us and the keeping together of the world and its progress towards the Manifestation that is to be. This even will not be so much an aim and purpose as a spontaneous law of the being and an intuitive determination of the action by the Light of the divine Truth and its automatic influence. It will proceed like the action of Nature from a total will and knowledge behind her, but a will and knowledge enlightened in a conscious supreme Nature and no longer obscure in this ignorant Prakriti. It will be an action not bound by the dualities but full and large in the spirit's impartial joy of existence. The happy and inspired movement of a divine Power and Wisdom guiding and impelling us will replace the perplexities and stumblings of the suffering and ignorant ego.
If by some miracle of divine intervention all mankind at once could be raised to this level, we should have something on earth like the Golden Age of the traditions, Satya Yuga, the Age of Truth or true existence. For the sign of the Satya Yuga is that the Law is spontaneous and conscious in each creature and does its own works in a perfect harmony and freedom. Unity and universality, not separative division, would be the foundation of the consciousness of the race; love would be absolute; equality would be consistent with hierarchy and perfect in difference; absolute justice would be secured by the spontaneous action of the being in harmony with the truth of things and the truth of himself and others and therefore sure of true and right result; right reason, no longer mental but supramental, would be satisfied not by the observation of artificial standards but by the free automatic perception of right relations and their inevitable execution in the act. The quarrel between the individual and society or disastrous struggle between one community and another could not exist: the cosmic consciousness imbedded in embodied beings would assure a harmonious diversity in oneness.
In the actual state of humanity, it is the individual who must climb to this height as a pioneer and precursor. His isolation will necessarily give a determination and a form to his outward activities that must be quite other than those of a consciously divine collective action. The inner state, the root of his acts, will be the same; but the acts themselves may well be very different from what they would be on an earth liberated from ignorance. Nevertheless his consciousness and the divine mechanism of his conduct, if such a word can be used of so free a thing, would be such as has been described, free from that subjection to vital impurity and desire and wrong impulse which we call sin, unbound by that rule of prescribed moral formulas which we call virtue, spontaneously sure and pure and perfect in a greater consciousness than the mind's, governed in all its steps by the light and truth of the Spirit. But if a collectivity or group could be formed of those who had reached the supramental perfection, there indeed some divine creation could take shape; a new earth could descend that would be a new heaven, a world of supramental light could be created here amidst the receding darkness of this terrestrial ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Standards of Conduct and Spiritual Freedom, 206,#KEYS
1303:PRATYAHARA
PRATYAHARA is the first process in the mental part of our task. The previous practices, Asana, Pranayama, Yama, and Niyama, are all acts of the body, while mantra is connected with speech: Pratyahara is purely mental.
And what is Pratyahara? This word is used by different authors in different senses. The same word is employed to designate both the practice and the result. It means for our present purpose a process rather strategical than practical; it is introspection, a sort of general examination of the contents of the mind which we wish to control: Asana having been mastered, all immediate exciting causes have been removed, and we are free to think what we are thinking about.
A very similar experience to that of Asana is in store for us. At first we shall very likely flatter ourselves that our minds are pretty calm; this is a defect of observation. Just as the European standing for the first time on the edge of the desert will see nothing there, while his Arab can tell him the family history of each of the fifty persons in view, because he has learnt how to look, so with practice the thoughts will become more numerous and more insistent.
As soon as the body was accurately observed it was found to be terribly restless and painful; now that we observe the mind it is seen to be more restless and painful still. (See diagram opposite.)
A similar curve might be plotted for the real and apparent painfulness of Asana. Conscious of this fact, we begin to try to control it: "Not quite so many thoughts, please!" "Don't think quite so fast, please!" "No more of that kind of thought, please!" It is only then that we discover that what we thought was a school of playful porpoises is really the convolutions of the sea-serpent. The attempt to repress has the effect of exciting.
When the unsuspecting pupil first approaches his holy but wily Guru, and demands magical powers, that Wise One replies that he will confer them, points out with much caution and secrecy some particular spot on the pupil's body which has never previously attracted his attention, and says: "In order to obtain this magical power which you seek, all that is necessary is to wash seven times in the Ganges during seven days, being particularly careful to avoid thinking of that one spot." Of course the unhappy youth spends a disgusted week in thinking of little else.
It is positively amazing with what persistence a thought, even a whole train of thoughts, returns again and again to the charge. It becomes a positive nightmare. It is intensely annoying, too, to find that one does not become conscious that one has got on to the forbidden subject until one has gone right through with it. However, one continues day after day investigating thoughts and trying to check them; and sooner or later one proceeds to the next stage, Dharana, the attempt to restrain the mind to a single object.
Before we go on to this, however, we must consider what is meant by success in Pratyahara. This is a very extensive subject, and different authors take widely divergent views. One writer means an analysis so acute that every thought is resolved into a number of elements (see "The Psychology of Hashish," Section V, in Equinox II).
Others take the view that success in the practice is something like the experience which Sir Humphrey Davy had as a result of taking nitrous oxide, in which he exclaimed: "The universe is composed exclusively of ideas."
Others say that it gives Hamlet's feeling: "There's nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so," interpreted as literally as was done by Mrs. Eddy.
However, the main point is to acquire some sort of inhibitory power over the thoughts. Fortunately there is an unfailing method of acquiring this power. It is given in Liber III. If Sections 1 and 2 are practised (if necessary with the assistance of another person to aid your vigilance) you will soon be able to master the final section. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,#KEYS
1304:The recurring beat that moments God in Time.
Only was missing the sole timeless Word
That carries eternity in its lonely sound,
The Idea self-luminous key to all ideas,
The integer of the Spirit's perfect sum
That equates the unequal All to the equal One,
The single sign interpreting every sign,
The absolute index to the Absolute.
There walled apart by its own innerness
In a mystical barrage of dynamic light
He saw a lone immense high-curved world-pile
Erect like a mountain-chariot of the Gods
Motionless under an inscrutable sky.
As if from Matter's plinth and viewless base
To a top as viewless, a carved sea of worlds
Climbing with foam-maned waves to the Supreme
Ascended towards breadths immeasurable;
It hoped to soar into the Ineffable's reign:
A hundred levels raised it to the Unknown.
So it towered up to heights intangible
And disappeared in the hushed conscious Vast
As climbs a storeyed temple-tower to heaven
Built by the aspiring soul of man to live
Near to his dream of the Invisible.
Infinity calls to it as it dreams and climbs;
Its spire touches the apex of the world;
Mounting into great voiceless stillnesses
It marries the earth to screened eternities.
Amid the many systems of the One
Made by an interpreting creative joy
Alone it points us to our journey back
Out of our long self-loss in Nature's deeps;
Planted on earth it holds in it all realms:
It is a brief compendium of the Vast.
This was the single stair to being's goal.
A summary of the stages of the spirit,
Its copy of the cosmic hierarchies
Refashioned in our secret air of self
A subtle pattern of the universe.
It is within, below, without, above.
Acting upon this visible Nature's scheme
It wakens our earth-matter's heavy doze
To think and feel and to react to joy;
It models in us our diviner parts,
Lifts mortal mind into a greater air,
Makes yearn this life of flesh to intangible aims,
Links the body's death with immortality's call:
Out of the swoon of the Inconscience
It labours towards a superconscient Light.
If earth were all and this were not in her,
Thought could not be nor life-delight's response:
Only material forms could then be her guests
Driven by an inanimate world-force.
Earth by this golden superfluity
Bore thinking man and more than man shall bear;
This higher scheme of being is our cause
And holds the key to our ascending fate;
It calls out of our dense mortality
The conscious spirit nursed in Matter's house.
The living symbol of these conscious planes,
Its influences and godheads of the unseen,
Its unthought logic of Reality's acts
Arisen from the unspoken truth in things,
Have fixed our inner life's slow-scaled degrees.
Its steps are paces of the soul's return
From the deep adventure of material birth,
A ladder of delivering ascent
And rungs that Nature climbs to deity.
Once in the vigil of a deathless gaze
These grades had marked her giant downward plunge,
The wide and prone leap of a godhead's fall.
Our life is a holocaust of the Supreme.
The great World-Mother by her sacrifice
Has made her soul the body of our state;
Accepting sorrow and unconsciousness
Divinity's lapse from its own splendours wove
The many-patterned ground of all we are.
An idol of self is our mortality.
Our earth is a fragment and a residue;
Her power is packed with the stuff of greater worlds
And steeped in their colour-lustres dimmed by her drowse;
An atavism of higher births is hers,
Her sleep is stirred by their buried memories
Recalling the lost spheres from which they fell.
Unsatisfied forces in her bosom move;
They are partners of her greater growing fate
And her return to immortality;
They consent to share her doom of birth and death;
They kindle partial gleams of the All and drive
Her blind laborious spirit to compose
A meagre image of the mighty Whole.
The calm and luminous Intimacy within
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The World-Stair,#KEYS
1305:All Yoga is a turning of the human mind and the human soul, not yet divine in realisation, but feeling the divine impulse and attraction in it, towards that by which it finds its greater being. Emotionally, the first form which this turning takes must be that of adoration. In ordinary religion this adoration wears the form of external worship and that again develops a most external form of ceremonial worship. This element is ordinarily necessary because the mass of men live in their physical minds, cannot realise anything except by the force of a physical symbol and cannot feel that they are living anything except by the force of a physical action. We might apply here the Tantric gradation of sadhana, which makes the way of the pasu, the herd, the animal or physical being, the lowest stage of its discipline, and say that the purely or predominantly ceremonial adoration is the first step of this lowest part of the way. It is evident that even real religion, - and Yoga is something more than religion, - only begins when this quite outward worship corresponds to something really felt within the mind, some genuine submission, awe or spiritual aspiration, to which it becomes an aid, an outward expression and also a sort of periodical or constant reminder helping to draw back the mind to it from the preoccupations of ordinary life. But so long as it is only an idea of the Godhead to which one renders reverence or homage, we have not yet got to the beginning of Yoga. The aim of Yoga being union, its beginning must always be a seeking after the Divine, a longing after some kind of touch, closeness or possession. When this comes on us, the adoration becomes always primarily an inner worship; we begin to make ourselves a temple of the Divine, our thoughts and feelings a constant prayer of aspiration and seeking, our whole life an external service and worship. It is as this change, this new soul-tendency grows, that the religion of the devotee becomes a Yoga, a growing contact and union. It does not follow that the outward worship will necessarily be dispensed with, but it will increasingly become only a physical expression or outflowing of the inner devotion and adoration, the wave of the soul throwing itself out in speech and symbolic act.
Adoration, before it turns into an element of the deeper Yoga of devotion, a petal of the flower of love, its homage and self-uplifting to its sun, must bring with it, if it is profound, an increasing consecration of the being to the Divine who is adored. And one element of this consecration must be a self-purifying so as to become fit for the divine contact, or for the entrance of the Divine into the temple of our inner being, or for his selfrevelation in the shrine of the heart. This purifying may be ethical in its character, but it will not be merely the moralist's seeking for the right and blameless action or even, when once we reach the stage of Yoga, an obedience to the law of God as revealed in formal religion; but it will be a throwing away, katharsis, of all that conflicts whether with the idea of the Divine in himself or of the Divine in ourselves. In the former case it becomes in habit of feeling and outer act an imitation of the Divine, in the latter a growing into his likeness in our nature. What inner adoration is to ceremonial worship, this growing into the divine likeness is to the outward ethical life. It culminates in a sort of liberation by likeness to the Divine,1 a liberation from our lower nature and a change into the divine nature.
Consecration becomes in its fullness a devoting of all our being to the Divine; therefore also of all our thoughts and our works. Here the Yoga takes into itself the essential elements of the Yoga of works and the Yoga of knowledge, but in its own manner and with its own peculiar spirit. It is a sacrifice of life and works to the Divine, but a sacrifice of love more than a tuning of the will to the divine Will. The bhakta offers up his life and all that he is and all that he has and all that he does to the Divine. This surrender may take the ascetic form, as when he leaves the ordinary life of men and devotes his days solely to prayer ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Way of Devotion, 571 [T1],#KEYS
1306:
What is the exact way of feeling that we belong to the Divine and that the Divine is acting in us?
You must not feel with your head (because you may think so, but that's something vague); you must feel with your sense-feeling. Naturally one begins by wanting it with the mind, because that is the first thing that understands. And then one has an aspiration here (pointing to the heart), with a flame which pushes you to realise it. But if you want it to be truly the thing, well, you must feel it.
You are doing something, suppose, for example, you are doing exercises, weight-lifting. Now suddenly without your knowing how it happened, suddenly you have the feeling that there is a force infinitely greater than you, greater, more powerful, a force that does the lifting for you. Your body becomes something almost non-existent and there is this Something that lifts. And then you will see; when that happens to you, you will no longer ask how it should be done, you will know. That does happen.
It depends upon people, depends upon what dominates in their being. Those who think have suddenly the feeling that it is no longer they who think, that there is something which knows much better, sees much more clearly, which is infinitely more luminous, more conscious in them, which organises the thoughts and words; and then they write. But if the experience is complete, it is even no longer they who write, it is that same Thing that takes hold of their hand and makes it write. Well, one knows at that moment that the little physical person is just a tiny insignificant tool trying to remain as quiet as possible in order not to disturb the experience.
Yes, at no cost must the experience be disturbed. If suddenly you say: "Oh, look, how strange it is!"...
How can we reach that state?
Aspire for it, want it. Try to be less and less selfish, but not in the sense of becoming nice to other people or forgetting yourself, not that: have less and less the feeling that you are a person, a separate entity, something existing in itself, isolated from the rest.
And then, above all, above all, it is that inner flame, that aspiration, that need for the light. It is a kind of - how to put it? - luminous enthusiasm that seizes you. It is an irresistible need to melt away, to give oneself, to exist only in the Divine.
At that moment you have the experience of your aspiration.
But that moment should be absolutely sincere and as integral as possible; and all this must occur not only in the head, not only here, but must take place everywhere, in all the cells of the body. The consciousness integrally must have this irresistible need.... The thing lasts for some time, then diminishes, gets extinguished. You cannot keep these things for very long. But then it so happens that a moment later or the next day or some time later, suddenly you have the opposite experience. Instead of feeling this ascent, and all that, this is no longer there and you have the feeling of the Descent, the Answer. And nothing but the Answer exists. Nothing but the divine thought, the divine will, the divine energy, the divine action exists any longer. And you too, you are no longer there.
That is to say, it is the answer to our aspiration. It may happen immediately afterwards - that is very rare but may happen. If you have both simultaneously, then the state is perfect; usually they alternate; they alternate more and more closely until the moment there is a total fusion. Then there is no more distinction. I heard a Sufi mystic, who was besides a great musician, an Indian, saying that for the Sufis there was a state higher than that of adoration and surrender to the Divine, than that of devotion, that this was not the last stage; the last stage of the progress is when there is no longer any distinction; you have no longer this kind of adoration or surrender or consecration; it is a very simple state in which one makes no distinction between the Divine and oneself. They know this. It is even written in their books. It is a commonly known condition in which everything becomes quite simple. There is no longer any difference. There is no longer that kind of ecstatic surrender to "Something" which is beyond you in every way, which you do not understand, which is merely the result of your aspiration, your devotion. There is no difference any longer. When the union is perfect, there is no longer any difference.
Is this the end of self-progress?
There is never any end to progress - never any end, you can never put a full stop there. ~ The Mother,#KEYS
1307:Coded Language
Whereas, breakbeats have been the missing link connecting the diasporic community to its drum woven past
Whereas the quantised drum has allowed the whirling mathematicians to calculate the ever changing distance between rock and stardom.
Whereas the velocity of the spinning vinyl, cross-faded, spun backwards, and re-released at the same given moment of recorded history , yet at a different moment in time's continuum has allowed history to catch up with the present.
We do hereby declare reality unkempt by the changing standards of dialogue.
Statements, such as, "keep it real", especially when punctuating or anticipating modes of ultra-violence inflicted psychologically or physically or depicting an unchanging rule of events will hence forth be seen as retro-active and not representative of the individually determined is.
Furthermore, as determined by the collective consciousness of this state of being and the lessened distance between thought patterns and their secular manifestations, the role of men as listening receptacles is to be increased by a number no less than 70 percent of the current enlisted as vocal aggressors.
Motherfuckers better realize, now is the time to self-actualize
We have found evidence that hip hops standard 85 rpm when increased by a number as least half the rate of it's standard or decreased at ¾ of it's speed may be a determining factor in heightening consciousness.
Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.
Equate rhyme with reason, Sun with season
Our cyclical relationship to phenomenon has encouraged scholars to erase the centers of periods, thus symbolizing the non-linear character of cause and effect
Reject mediocrity!
Your current frequencies of understanding outweigh that which as been given for you to understand.
The current standard is the equivalent of an adolescent restricted to the diet of an infant.
The rapidly changing body would acquire dysfunctional and deformative symptoms and could not properly mature on a diet of apple sauce and crushed pears
Light years are interchangeable with years of living in darkness.
The role of darkness is not to be seen as, or equated with, Ignorance, but with the unknown, and the mysteries of the unseen.
Thus, in the name of:
ROBESON, GOD'S SON, HURSTON, AHKENATON, HATHSHEPUT, BLACKFOOT, HELEN
LENNON, KHALO, KALI, THE THREE MARIAS, TARA, LILITH, LOURDE, WHITMAN
BALDWIN, GINSBERG, KAUFMAN, LUMUMBA, GHANDI, GIBRAN, SHABAZZ, SIDDHARTHA
MEDUSA, GUEVARA, GURDJIEFF, RAND, WRIGHT, BANNEKER, TUBMAN, HAMER, HOLIDAY
DAVIS, COLTRANE, MORRISON, JOPLIN, DUBOIS, CLARKE, SHAKESPEARE, RACHMANINOV
ELLINGTON, CARTER, GAYE, HATHAWAY, HENDRIX, KUTI, DICKINSON, RIPPERTON
MARY, ISIS, THERESA, HANSBURY, TESLA, PLATH, RUMI, FELLINI, MICHAUX, NOSTRADAMUS, NEFERTITI
LA ROCK, SHIVA, GANESHA, YEMAJA, OSHUN, OBATALA, OGUN, KENNEDY, KING, FOUR
LITTLE GIRLS, HIROSHIMA, NAGASAKI, KELLER, BIKO, PERÓN, MARLEY, MAGDALENE, COSBY
SHAKUR, THOSE WHO BURN, THOSE STILL AFLAME, AND THE COUNTLESS UNNAMED
We claim the present as the pre-sent, as the hereafter.
We are unraveling our navels so that we may ingest the sun.
We are not afraid of the darkness, we trust that the moon shall guide us.
We are determining the future at this very moment.
We now know that the heart is the philosophers' stone
Our music is our alchemy
We stand as the manifested equivalent of 3 buckets of water and a hand full of minerals, thus realizing that those very buckets turned upside down supply the percussion factor of forever.
If you must count to keep the beat then count.
Find you mantra and awaken your subconscious.
Curve you circles counterclockwise
Use your cipher to decipher, Coded Language, man made laws.
Climb waterfalls and trees, commune with nature, snakes and bees.
Let your children name themselves and claim themselves as the new day for today we are determined to be the channelers of these changing frequencies into songs, paintings, writings, dance, drama, photography, carpentry, crafts, love, and love.
We enlist every instrument: Acoustic, electronic.
Every so-called race, gender, and sexual preference.
Every per-son as beings of sound to acknowledge their responsibility to uplift the consciousness of the entire fucking World.
Any utterance will be un-aimed, will be disclaimed - two rappers slain
Any utterance will be un-aimed, will be disclaimed - two rappers slain
~ Saul Williams,#KEYS
1308:The ancient Mesopotamians and the ancient Egyptians had some very interesting, dramatic ideas about that. For example-very briefly-there was a deity known as Marduk. Marduk was a Mesopotamian deity, and imagine this is sort of what happened. As an empire grew out of the post-ice age-15,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago-all these tribes came together. These tribes each had their own deity-their own image of the ideal. But then they started to occupy the same territory. One tribe had God A, and one tribe had God B, and one could wipe the other one out, and then it would just be God A, who wins. That's not so good, because maybe you want to trade with those people, or maybe you don't want to lose half your population in a war. So then you have to have an argument about whose God is going to take priority-which ideal is going to take priority.
What seems to happen is represented in mythology as a battle of the gods in celestial space. From a practical perspective, it's more like an ongoing dialog. You believe this; I believe this. You believe that; I believe this. How are we going to meld that together? You take God A, and you take God B, and maybe what you do is extract God C from them, and you say, 'God C now has the attributes of A and B.' And then some other tribes come in, and C takes them over, too. Take Marduk, for example. He has 50 different names, at least in part, of the subordinate gods-that represented the tribes that came together to make the civilization. That's part of the process by which that abstracted ideal is abstracted. You think, 'this is important, and it works, because your tribe is alive, and so we'll take the best of both, if we can manage it, and extract out something, that's even more abstract, that covers both of us.'
I'll give you a couple of Marduk's interesting features. He has eyes all the way around his head. He's elected by all the other gods to be king God. That's the first thing. That's quite cool. They elect him because they're facing a terrible threat-sort of like a flood and a monster combined. Marduk basically says that, if they elect him top God, he'll go out and stop the flood monster, and they won't all get wiped out. It's a serious threat. It's chaos itself making its comeback. All the gods agree, and Marduk is the new manifestation. He's got eyes all the way around his head, and he speaks magic words. When he fights, he fights this deity called Tiamat. We need to know that, because the word 'Tiamat' is associated with the word 'tehom.' Tehom is the chaos that God makes order out of at the beginning of time in Genesis, so it's linked very tightly to this story. Marduk, with his eyes and his capacity to speak magic words, goes out and confronts Tiamat, who's like this watery sea dragon. It's a classic Saint George story: go out and wreak havoc on the dragon. He cuts her into pieces, and he makes the world out of her pieces. That's the world that human beings live in.
The Mesopotamian emperor acted out Marduk. He was allowed to be emperor insofar as he was a good Marduk. That meant that he had eyes all the way around his head, and he could speak magic; he could speak properly. We are starting to understand, at that point, the essence of leadership. Because what's leadership? It's the capacity to see what the hell's in front of your face, and maybe in every direction, and maybe the capacity to use your language properly to transform chaos into order. God only knows how long it took the Mesopotamians to figure that out. The best they could do was dramatize it, but it's staggeringly brilliant. It's by no means obvious, and this chaos is a very strange thing. This is a chaos that God wrestled with at the beginning of time.
Chaos is half psychological and half real. There's no other way to really describe it. Chaos is what you encounter when you're blown into pieces and thrown into deep confusion-when your world falls apart, when your dreams die, when you're betrayed. It's the chaos that emerges, and the chaos is everything it wants, and it's too much for you. That's for sure. It pulls you down into the underworld, and that's where the dragons are. All you've got at that point is your capacity to bloody well keep your eyes open, and to speak as carefully and as clearly as you can. Maybe, if you're lucky, you'll get through it that way and come out the other side. It's taken people a very long time to figure that out, and it looks, to me, that the idea is erected on the platform of our ancient ancestors, maybe tens of millions of years ago, because we seem to represent that which disturbs us deeply using the same system that we used to represent serpentile, or other, carnivorous predators. ~ Jordan Peterson, Biblical Series, 1,#KEYS
1309:A God's Labour
I have gathered my dreams in a silver air
Between the gold and the blue
And wrapped them softly and left them there,
My jewelled dreams of you.
I had hoped to build a rainbow bridge
Marrying the soil to the sky
And sow in this dancing planet midge
The moods of infinity.
But too bright were our heavens, too far away,
Too frail their ethereal stuff;
Too splendid and sudden our light could not stay;
The roots were not deep enough.
He who would bring the heavens here
Must descend himself into clay
And the burden of earthly nature bear
And tread the dolorous way.
Coercing my godhead I have come down
Here on the sordid earth,
Ignorant, labouring, human grown
Twixt the gates of death and birth.
I have been digging deep and long
Mid a horror of filth and mire
A bed for the golden river's song,
A home for the deathless fire.
I have laboured and suffered in Matter's night
To bring the fire to man;
But the hate of hell and human spite
Are my meed since the world began.
For man's mind is the dupe of his animal self;
Hoping its lusts to win,
He harbours within him a grisly Elf
Enamoured of sorrow and sin.
The grey Elf shudders from heaven's flame
And from all things glad and pure;
Only by pleasure and passion and pain
His drama can endure.
All around is darkness and strife;
For the lamps that men call suns
Are but halfway gleams on this stumbling life
Cast by the Undying Ones.
Man lights his little torches of hope
That lead to a failing edge;
A fragment of Truth is his widest scope,
An inn his pilgrimage.
The Truth of truths men fear and deny,
The Light of lights they refuse;
To ignorant gods they lift their cry
Or a demon altar choose.
All that was found must again be sought,
Each enemy slain revives,
Each battle for ever is fought and refought
Through vistas of fruitless lives.
My gaping wounds are a thousand and one
And the Titan kings assail,
But I dare not rest till my task is done
And wrought the eternal will.
How they mock and sneer, both devils and men!
"Thy hope is Chimera's head
Painting the sky with its fiery stain;
Thou shalt fall and thy work lie dead.
"Who art thou that babblest of heavenly ease
And joy and golden room
To us who are waifs on inconscient seas
And bound to life's iron doom?
"This earth is ours, a field of Night
For our petty flickering fires.
How shall it brook the sacred Light
Or suffer a god's desires?
"Come, let us slay him and end his course!
Then shall our hearts have release
From the burden and call of his glory and force
And the curb of his wide white peace."
But the god is there in my mortal breast
Who wrestles with error and fate
And tramples a road through mire and waste
For the nameless Immaculate.
A voice cried, "Go where none have gone!
Dig deeper, deeper yet
Till thou reach the grim foundation stone
And knock at the keyless gate."
I saw that a falsehood was planted deep
At the very root of things
Where the grey Sphinx guards God's riddle sleep
On the Dragon's outspread wings.
I left the surface gauds of mind
And life's unsatisfied seas
And plunged through the body's alleys blind
To the nether mysteries.
I have delved through the dumb Earth's dreadful heart
And heard her black mass' bell.
I have seen the source whence her agonies part
And the inner reason of hell.
Above me the dragon murmurs moan
And the goblin voices flit;
I have pierced the Void where Thought was born,
I have walked in the bottomless pit.
On a desperate stair my feet have trod
Armoured with boundless peace,
Bringing the fires of the splendour of God
Into the human abyss.
He who I am was with me still;
All veils are breaking now.
I have heard His voice and borne His will
On my vast untroubled brow.
The gulf twixt the depths and the heights is bridged
And the golden waters pour
Down the sapphire mountain rainbow-ridged
And glimmer from shore to shore.
Heaven's fire is lit in the breast of the earth
And the undying suns here burn;
Through a wonder cleft in the bounds of birth
The incarnate spirits yearn
Like flames to the kingdoms of Truth and Bliss:
Down a gold-red stairway wend
The radiant children of Paradise
Clarioning darkness' end.
A little more and the new life's doors
Shall be carved in silver light
With its aureate roof and mosaic floors
In a great world bare and bright.
I shall leave my dreams in their argent air,
For in a raiment of gold and blue
There shall move on the earth embodied and fair
The living truth of you.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, A God's Labour, 534,#KEYS
1310:GURU YOGA
Guru yoga is an essential practice in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism and Bon. This is true in sutra, tantra, and Dzogchen. It develops the heart connection with the masteR By continually strengthening our devotion, we come to the place of pure devotion in ourselves, which is the unshakeable, powerful base of the practice. The essence of guru yoga is to merge the practitioner's mind with the mind of the master.
What is the true master? It is the formless, fundamental nature of mind, the primordial awareness of the base of everything, but because we exist in dualism, it is helpful for us to visualize this in a form. Doing so makes skillful use of the dualisms of the conceptual mind, to further strengthen devotion and help us stay directed toward practice and the generation of positive qualities.
In the Bon tradition, we often visualize either Tapihritsa* as the master, or the Buddha ShenlaOdker*, who represents the union of all the masters. If you are already a practitioner, you may have another deity to visualize, like Guru Rinpoche or a yidam or dakini. While it is important to work with a lineage with which you have a connection, you should understand that the master you visualize is the embodiment of all the masters with whom you are connected, all the teachers with whom you have studied, all the deities to whom you have commitments. The master in guru yoga is not just one individual, but the essence of enlightenment, the primordial awareness that is your true nature.
The master is also the teacher from whom you receive the teachings. In the Tibetan tradition, we say the master is more important than the Buddha. Why? Because the master is the immediate messenger of the teachings, the one who brings the Buddha's wisdom to the student. Without the master we could not find our way to the Buddha. So we should feel as much devotion to the master as we would to the Buddha if the Buddha suddenly appeared in front of us.
Guru yoga is not just about generating some feeling toward a visualized image. It is done to find the fundamental mind in yourself that is the same as the fundamental mind of all your teachers, and of all the Buddhas and realized beings that have ever lived. When you merge with the guru, you merge with your pristine true nature, which is the real guide and masteR But this should not be an abstract practice. When you do guru yoga, try to feel such intense devotion that the hair stands upon your neck, tears start down your face, and your heart opens and fills with great love. Let yourself merge in union with the guru's mind, which is your enlightened Buddha-nature. This is the way to practice guru yoga.
The Practice
After the nine breaths, still seated in meditation posture, visualize the master above and in front of you. This should not be a flat, two dimensional picture-let a real being exist there, in three dimensions, made of light, pure, and with a strong presence that affects the feeling in your body,your energy, and your mind. Generate strong devotion and reflect on the great gift of the teachings and the tremendous good fortune you enjoy in having made a connection to them. Offer a sincere prayer, asking that your negativities and obscurations be removed, that your positive qualities develop, and that you accomplish dream yoga.
Then imagine receiving blessings from the master in the form of three colored lights that stream from his or her three wisdom doors- of body, speech, and mind-into yours. The lights should be transmitted in the following sequence: White light streams from the master's brow chakra into yours, purifying and relaxing your entire body and physical dimension. Then red light streams from the master's throat chakra into yours, purifying and relaxing your energetic dimension. Finally, blue light streams from the master's heart chakra into yours, purifying and relaxing your mind.
When the lights enter your body, feel them. Let your body, energy, and mind relax, suffused inwisdom light. Use your imagination to make the blessing real in your full experience, in your body and energy as well as in the images in your mind.
After receiving the blessing, imagine the master dissolving into light that enters your heart and resides there as your innermost essence. Imagine that you dissolve into that light, and remain inpure awareness, rigpa.
There are more elaborate instructions for guru yoga that can involve prostrations, offerings, gestures, mantras, and more complicated visualizations, but the essence of the practice is mingling your mind with the mind of the master, which is pure, non-dual awareness. Guru yoga can be done any time during the day; the more often the better. Many masters say that of all the practices it is guru yoga that is the most important. It confers the blessings of the lineage and can open and soften the heart and quiet the unruly mind. To completely accomplish guru yoga is to accomplish the path.
~ Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Yogas Of Dream And Sleep, [T3],#KEYS
1311:CHAPTER XIII
OF THE BANISHINGS: AND OF THE PURIFICATIONS.
Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and had better come first. Purity means singleness. God is one. The wand is not a wand if it has something sticking to it which is not an essential part of itself. If you wish to invoke Venus, you do not succeed if there are traces of Saturn mixed up with it.
That is a mere logical commonplace: in magick one must go much farther than this. One finds one's analogy in electricity. If insulation is imperfect, the whole current goes back to earth. It is useless to plead that in all those miles of wire there is only one-hundredth of an inch unprotected. It is no good building a ship if the water can enter, through however small a hole.
That first task of the Magician in every ceremony is therefore to render his Circle absolutely impregnable.
If one littlest thought intrude upon the mind of the Mystic, his concentration is absolutely destroyed; and his consciousness remains on exactly the same level as the Stockbroker's. Even the smallest baby is incompatible with the virginity of its mother. If you leave even a single spirit within the circle, the effect of the conjuration will be entirely absorbed by it.> {101}
The Magician must therefore take the utmost care in the matter of purification, "firstly", of himself, "secondly", of his instruments, "thirdly", of the place of working. Ancient Magicians recommended a preliminary purification of from three days to many months. During this period of training they took the utmost pains with diet. They avoided animal food, lest the elemental spirit of the animal should get into their atmosphere. They practised sexual abstinence, lest they should be influenced in any way by the spirit of the wife. Even in regard to the excrements of the body they were equally careful; in trimming the hair and nails, they ceremonially destroyed> the severed portion. They fasted, so that the body itself might destroy anything extraneous to the bare necessity of its existence. They purified the mind by special prayers and conservations. They avoided the contamination of social intercourse, especially the conjugal kind; and their servitors were disciples specially chosen and consecrated for the work.
In modern times our superior understanding of the essentials of this process enables us to dispense to some extent with its external rigours; but the internal purification must be even more carefully performed. We may eat meat, provided that in doing so we affirm that we eat it in order to strengthen us for the special purpose of our proposed invocation.> {102}
By thus avoiding those actions which might excite the comment of our neighbours we avoid the graver dangers of falling into spiritual pride.
We have understood the saying: "To the pure all things are pure", and we have learnt how to act up to it. We can analyse the mind far more acutely than could the ancients, and we can therefore distinguish the real and right feeling from its imitations. A man may eat meat from self-indulgence, or in order to avoid the dangers of asceticism. We must constantly examine ourselves, and assure ourselves that every action is really subservient to the One Purpose.
It is ceremonially desirable to seal and affirm this mental purity by Ritual, and accordingly the first operation in any actual ceremony is bathing and robing, with appropriate words. The bath signifies the removal of all things extraneous to antagonistic to the one thought. The putting on of the robe is the positive side of the same operation. It is the assumption of the fame of mind suitable to that one thought.
A similar operation takes place in the preparation of every instrument, as has been seen in the Chapter devoted to that subject. In the preparation of theplace of working, the same considerations apply. We first remove from that place all objects; and we then put into it those objects, and only those {103} objects, which are necessary. During many days we occupy ourselves in this process of cleansing and consecration; and this again is confirmed in the actual ceremony.
The cleansed and consecrated Magician takes his cleansed and consecrated instruments into that cleansed and consecrated place, and there proceeds to repeat that double ceremony in the ceremony itself, which has these same two main parts. The first part of every ceremony is the banishing; the second, the invoking. The same formula is repeated even in the ceremony of banishing itself, for in the banishing ritual of the pentagram we not only command the demons to depart, but invoke the Archangels and their hosts to act as guardians of the Circle during our pre-occupation with the ceremony proper.
In more elaborate ceremonies it is usual to banish everything by name. Each element, each planet, and each sign, perhaps even the Sephiroth themselves; all are removed, including the very one which we wished to invoke, for that force ... ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,#KEYS
1312:It is natural from the point of view of the Yoga to divide into two categories the activities of the human mind in its pursuit of knowledge. There is the supreme supra-intellectual knowledge which concentrates itself on the discovery of the One and Infinite in its transcendence or tries to penetrate by intuition, contemplation, direct inner contact into the ultimate truths behind the appearances of Nature; there is the lower science which diffuses itself in an outward knowledge of phenomena, the disguises of the One and Infinite as it appears to us in or through the more exterior forms of the world-manifestation around us. These two, an upper and a lower hemisphere, in the form of them constructed or conceived by men within the mind's ignorant limits, have even there separated themselves, as they developed, with some sharpness.... Philosophy, sometimes spiritual or at least intuitive, sometimes abstract and intellectual, sometimes intellectualising spiritual experience or supporting with a logical apparatus the discoveries of the spirit, has claimed always to take the fixation of ultimate Truth as its province. But even when it did not separate itself on rarefied metaphysical heights from the knowledge that belongs to the practical world and the pursuit of ephemeral objects, intellectual Philosophy by its habit of abstraction has seldom been a power for life. It has been sometimes powerful for high speculation, pursuing mental Truth for its own sake without any ulterior utility or object, sometimes for a subtle gymnastic of the mind in a mistily bright cloud-land of words and ideas, but it has walked or acrobatised far from the more tangible realities of existence. Ancient Philosophy in Europe was more dynamic, but only for the few; in India in its more spiritualised forms, it strongly influenced but without transforming the life of the race.... Religion did not attempt, like Philosophy, to live alone on the heights; its aim was rather to take hold of man's parts of life even more than his parts of mind and draw them Godwards; it professed to build a bridge between spiritual Truth and the vital and material human existence; it strove to subordinate and reconcile the lower to the higher, make life serviceable to God, Earth obedient to Heaven. It has to be admitted that too often this necessary effort had the opposite result of making Heaven a sanction for Earth's desires; for, continually, the religious idea has been turned into an excuse for the worship and service of the human ego. Religion, leaving constantly its little shining core of spiritual experience, has lost itself in the obscure mass of its ever extending ambiguous compromises with life: in attempting to satisfy the thinking mind, it more often succeeded in oppressing or fettering it with a mass of theological dogmas; while seeking to net the human heart, it fell itself into pits of pietistic emotionalism and sensationalism; in the act of annexing the vital nature of man to dominate it, it grew itself vitiated and fell a prey to all the fanaticism, homicidal fury, savage or harsh turn for oppression, pullulating falsehood, obstinate attachment to ignorance to which that vital nature is prone; its desire to draw the physical in man towards God betrayed it into chaining itself to ecclesiastic mechanism, hollow ceremony and lifeless ritual. The corruption of the best produced the worst by that strange chemistry of the power of life which generates evil out of good even as it can also generate good out of evil. At the same time in a vain effort at self-defence against this downward gravitation, Religion was driven to cut existence into two by a division of knowledge, works, art, life itself into two opposite categories, the spiritual and the worldly, religious and mundane, sacred and profane; but this defensive distinction itself became conventional and artificial and aggravated rather than healed the disease.... On their side Science and Art and the knowledge of Life, although at first they served or lived in the shadow of Religion, ended by emancipating themselves, became estranged or hostile, or have even recoiled with indifference, contempt or scepticism from what seem to them the cold, barren and distant or unsubstantial and illusory heights of unreality to which metaphysical Philosophy and Religion aspire. For a time the divorce has been as complete as the one-sided intolerance of the human mind could make it and threatened even to end in a complete extinction of all attempt at a higher or a more spiritual knowledge. Yet even in the earthward life a higher knowledge is indeed the one thing that is throughout needful, and without it the lower sciences and pursuits, however fruitful, however rich, free, miraculous in the abundance of their results, become easily a sacrifice offered without due order and to false gods; corrupting, hardening in the end the heart of man, limiting his mind's horizons, they confine in a stony material imprisonment or lead to a final baffling incertitude and disillusionment. A sterile agnosticism awaits us above the brilliant phosphorescence of a half-knowledge that is still the Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1, #KEYS
1313:[the sevenfold ignorance and the integral knowledge:]
We are ignorant of the Absolute which is the source of all being and becoming; we take partial facts of being, temporal relations of the becoming for the whole truth of existence,-that is the first, the original ignorance. We are ignorant of the spaceless, timeless, immobile and immutable Self; we take the constant mobility and mutation of the cosmic becoming in Time and Space for the whole truth of existence, -that is the second, the cosmic ignorance. We are ignorant of our universal self, the cosmic existence, the cosmic consciousness, our infinite unity with all being and becoming; we take our limited egoistic mentality, vitality, corporeality for our true self and regard everything other than that as not-self,-that is the third, the egoistic ignorance. We are ignorant of our eternal becoming in Time; we take this little life in a small span of Time, in a petty field of Space, for our beginning, our middle and our end,-that is the fourth, the temporal ignorance. Even within this brief temporal becoming we are ignorant of our large and complex being, of that in us which is superconscient, subconscient, intraconscient, circumconscient to our surface becoming; we take that surface becoming with its small selection of overtly mentalised experiences for our whole existence,-that is the fifth, the psychological ignorance. We are ignorant of the true constitution of our becoming; we take the mind or life or body or any two of these or all three for our true principle or the whole account of what we are, losing sight of that which constitutes them and determines by its occult presence and is meant to determine sovereignly by its emergence their operations,-that is the sixth, the constitutional ignorance. As a result of all these ignorances, we miss the true knowledge, government and enjoyment of our life in the world; we are ignorant in our thought, will, sensations, actions, return wrong or imperfect responses at every point to the questionings of the world, wander in a maze of errors and desires, strivings and failures, pain and pleasure, sin and stumbling, follow a crooked road, grope blindly for a changing goal,-that is the seventh, the practical ignorance.
Our conception of the Ignorance will necessarily determine our conception of the Knowledge and determine, therefore, since our life is the Ignorance at once denying and seeking after the Knowledge, the goal of human effort and the aim of the cosmic endeavour. Integral knowledge will then mean the cancelling of the sevenfold Ignorance by the discovery of what it misses and ignores, a sevenfold self-revelation within our consciousness:- it will mean [1] the knowledge of the Absolute as the origin of all things; [2] the knowledge of the Self, the Spirit, the Being and of the cosmos as the Self's becoming, the becoming of the Being, a manifestation of the Spirit; [3] the knowledge of the world as one with us in the consciousness of our true self, thus cancelling our division from it by the separative idea and life of ego; [4] the knowledge of our psychic entity and its immortal persistence in Time beyond death and earth-existence; [5] the knowledge of our greater and inner existence behind the surface; [6] the knowledge of our mind, life and body in its true relation to the self within and the superconscient spiritual and supramental being above them; [7] the knowledge, finally, of the true harmony and true use of our thought, will and action and a change of all our nature into a conscious expression of the truth of the Spirit, the Self, the Divinity, the integral spiritual Reality.
But this is not an intellectual knowledge which can be learned and completed in our present mould of consciousness; it must be an experience, a becoming, a change of consciousness, a change of being. This brings in the evolutionary character of the Becoming and the fact that our mental ignorance is only a stage in our evolution. The integral knowledge, then, can only come by an evolution of our being and our nature, and that would seem to signify a slow process in Time such as has accompanied the other evolutionary transformations. But as against that inference there is the fact that the evolution has now become conscious and its method and steps need not be altogether of the same character as when it was subconscious in its process. The integral knowledge, since it must result from a change of consciousness, can be gained by a process in which our will and endeavour have a part, in which they can discover and apply their own steps and method: its growth in us can proceed by a conscious self-transformation. It is necessary then to see what is likely to be the principle of this new process of evolution and what are the movements of the integral knowledge that must necessarily emerge in it,-or, in other words, what is the nature of the consciousness that must be the base of the life divine and how that life may be expected to be formed or to form itself, to materialise or, as one might say, to realise.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, pg 680-683 [T1],#KEYS
1314:Chapter LXXXII: Epistola Penultima: The Two Ways to Reality
Cara Soror,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
How very sensible of you, though I admit somewhat exacting!
You write-Will you tell me exactly why I should devote so much of my valuable time to subjects like Magick and Yoga.
That is all very well. But you ask me to put it in syllogistic form. I have no doubt this can be done, though the task seems somewhat complicated. I think I will leave it to you to construct your series of syllogisms yourself from the arguments of this letter.
In your main question the operative word is "valuable. Why, I ask, in my turn, should you consider your time valuable? It certainly is not valuable unless the universe has a meaning, and what is more, unless you know what that meaning is-at least roughly-it is millions to one that you will find yourself barking up the wrong tree.
First of all let us consider this question of the meaning of the universe. It is its own evidence to design, and that design intelligent design. There is no question of any moral significance-"one man's meat is another man's poison" and so on. But there can be no possible doubt about the existence of some kind of intelligence, and that kind is far superior to anything of which we know as human.
How then are we to explore, and finally to interpret this intelligence?
It seems to me that there are two ways and only two. Imagine for a moment that you are an orphan in charge of a guardian, inconceivably learned from your point of view.
Suppose therefore that you are puzzled by some problem suitable to your childish nature, your obvious and most simple way is to approach your guardian and ask him to enlighten you. It is clearly part of his function as guardian to do his best to help you. Very good, that is the first method, and close parallel with what we understand by the word Magick.
We are bothered by some difficulty about one of the elements-say Fire-it is therefore natural to evoke a Salamander to instruct you on the difficult point. But you must remember that your Holy Guardian Angel is not only far more fully instructed than yourself on every point that you can conceive, but you may go so far as to say that it is definitely his work, or part of his work; remembering always that he inhabits a sphere or plane which is entirely different from anything of which you are normally aware.
To attain to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel is consequently without doubt by far the simplest way by which you can yourself approach that higher order of being.
That, then, is a clearly intelligible method of procedure. We call it Magick.
It is of course possible to strengthen the link between him and yourself so that in course of time you became capable of moving and, generally speaking, operating on that plane which is his natural habitat.
There is however one other way, and one only, as far as I can see, of reaching this state.
It is at least theoretically possible to exalt the whole of your own consciousness until it becomes as free to move on that exalted plane as it is for him. You should note, by the way, that in this case the postulation of another being is not necessary. There is no way of refuting the solipsism if you feel like that. Personally I cannot accede to its axiom. The evidence for an external universe appears to me perfectly adequate.
Still there is no extra charge for thinking on those lines if you so wish.
I have paid a great deal of attention in the course of my life to the method of exalting the human consciousness in this way; and it is really quite legitimate to identify my teaching with that of the Yogis.
I must however point out that in the course of my instruction I have given continual warnings as to the dangers of this line of research. For one thing there is no means of checking your results in the ordinary scientific sense. It is always perfectly easy to find a subjective explanation of any phenomenon; and when one considers that the greatest of all the dangers in any line of research arise from egocentric vanity, I do not think I have exceeded my duty in anything that I have said to deter students from undertaking so dangerous a course as Yoga.
It is, of course, much safer if you are in a position to pursue in the Indian Jungles, provided that your health will stand the climate and also, I must say, unless you have a really sound teacher on whom you can safely rely. But then, if we once introduce a teacher, why not go to the Fountain-head and press towards the Knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel?
In any case your Indian teacher will ultimately direct you to seek guidance from that source, so it seems to me that you have gone to a great deal of extra trouble and incurred a great deal of unnecessary danger by not leaving yourself in the first place in the hands of the Holy Guardian Angel.
In any case there are the two methods which stand as alternatives. I do not know of any third one which can be of any use whatever. Logically, since you have asked me to be logical, there is certainly no third way; there is the external way of Magick, and the internal way of Yoga: there you have your alternatives, and there they cease.
Love is the law, love under will.
Fraternally,
666 ~ Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears,#KEYS
1315:What are these operations? They are not mere psychological self-analysis and self-observation. Such analysis, such observation are, like the process of right thought, of immense value and practically indispensable. They may even, if rightly pursued, lead to a right thought of considerable power and effectivity. Like intellectual discrimination by the process of meditative thought they will have an effect of purification; they will lead to self-knowledge of a certain kind and to the setting right of the disorders of the soul and the heart and even of the disorders of the understanding. Self-knowledge of all kinds is on the straight path to the knowledge of the real Self. The Upanishad tells us that the Self-existent has so set the doors of the soul that they turn outwards and most men look outward into the appearances of things; only the rare soul that is ripe for a calm thought and steady wisdom turns its eye inward, sees the Self and attains to immortality. To this turning of the eye inward psychological self-observation and analysis is a great and effective introduction.We can look into the inward of ourselves more easily than we can look into the inward of things external to us because there, in things outside us, we are in the first place embarrassed by the form and secondly we have no natural previous experience of that in them which is other than their physical substance. A purified or tranquillised mind may reflect or a powerful concentration may discover God in the world, the Self in Nature even before it is realised in ourselves, but this is rare and difficult. (2) And it is only in ourselves that we can observe and know the process of the Self in its becoming and follow the process by which it draws back into self-being. Therefore the ancient counsel, know thyself, will always stand as the first word that directs us towards the knowledge. Still, psychological self-knowledge is only the experience of the modes of the Self, it is not the realisation of the Self in its pure being.
The status of knowledge, then, which Yoga envisages is not merely an intellectual conception or clear discrimination of the truth, nor is it an enlightened psychological experience of the modes of our being. It is a "realisation", in the full sense of the word; it is the making real to ourselves and in ourselves of the Self, the transcendent and universal Divine, and it is the subsequent impossibility of viewing the modes of being except in the light of that Self and in their true aspect as its flux of becoming under the psychical and physical conditions of our world-existence. This realisation consists of three successive movements, internal vision, complete internal experience and identity.
This internal vision, dr.s.t.i, the power so highly valued by the ancient sages, the power which made a man a Rishi or Kavi and no longer a mere thinker, is a sort of light in the soul by which things unseen become as evident and real to it-to the soul and not merely to the intellect-as do things seen to the physical eye. In the physical world there are always two forms of knowledge, the direct and the indirect, pratyaks.a, of that which is present to the eyes, and paroks.a, of that which is remote from and beyond our vision. When the object is beyond our vision, we are necessarily obliged to arrive at an idea of it by inference, imagination, analogy, by hearing the descriptions of others who have seen it or by studying pictorial or other representations of it if these are available. By putting together all these aids we can indeed arrive at a more or less adequate idea or suggestive image of the object, but we do not realise the thing itself; it is not yet to us the grasped reality, but only our conceptual representation of a reality. But once we have seen it with the eyes,-for no other sense is adequate,-we possess, we realise; it is there secure in our satisfied being, part of ourselves in knowledge. Precisely the same rule holds good of psychical things and of he Self. We may hear clear and luminous teachings about the Self from philosophers or teachers or from ancient writings; we may by thought, inference, imagination, analogy or by any other available means attempt to form a mental figure or conception of it; we may hold firmly that conception in our mind and fix it by an entire and exclusive concentration;3 but we have not yet realised it, we have not seen God. It is only when after long and persistent concentration or by other means the veil of the mind is rent or swept aside, only when a flood of light breaks over the awakened mentality, jyotirmaya brahman, and conception gives place to a knowledge-vision in which the Self is as present, real, concrete as a physical object to the physical eye, that we possess in knowledge; for we have seen. After that revelation, whatever fadings of the light, whatever periods of darkness may afflict the soul, it can never irretrievably lose what it has once held. The experience is inevitably renewed and must become more frequent till it is constant; when and how soon depends on the devotion and persistence with which we insist on the path and besiege by our will or our love the hidden Deity.
(2) And it is only in ourselves that we can observe and know the 2 In one respect, however, it is easier, because in external things we are not so much hampered by the sense of the limited ego as in ourselves; one obstacle to the realisation of God is therefore removed.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge,#KEYS
1316:summary of the entire process of psychic awakening :::
You have asked what is the discipline to be followed in order to convert the mental seeking into a living spiritual experience. The first necessity is the practice of concentration of your consciousness within yourself. The ordinary human mind has an activity on the surface which veils the real Self. But there is another, a hidden consciousness within behind the surface one in which we can become aware of the real Self and of a larger deeper truth of nature, can realise the Self and liberate and transform the nature. To quiet the surface mind and begin to live within is the object of this concentration. Of this true consciousness other then the superficial there are two main centres, one in the heart (not the physical heart, but the cardiac centre in the middle of the chest), one in the head. The concentration in the heart opens within and by following this inward opening and going deep one becomes aware of the soul or psychic being, the divine element in the individual. This being unveiled begins to come forward, to govern the nature, to turn it an d all its movements towards the Truth, towards the Divine, and to call down into it all that is above. It brings the consciousness of the Presence, the dedication of the being to the Highest and invites the descent into our nature of a greater Force and Consciousness which is waiting above us. To concentrate in the heart centre with the offering of oneself to the Divine and the aspiration for this inward opening and for the Presence in the heart is the first way and, if it can be done, the natural beginning; for its result once obtained makes the spiritual path far more easy and safe than if one begins the other way.
That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre. This, if it brings about the silence of the surface mind, opens up an inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge. But once concentrated here one must open the silent mental consciousness upward to all that is above mind. After a time one feels the consciousness rising upward and it the end it rises beyond the lid which has so long kept it tied in the body and finds a centre above the head where it is liberated into the Infinite. There it behind to come into contact with the universal Self, the Divine Peace, Light, Power, Knowledge, Bliss, to enter into that and become that, to feel the descent of these things into the nature. To concentrate in the head with the aspiration for quietude in the mind and the realisation of the Self and Divine above is the second way of concentration. It is important, however, to remember that the concentration of the consciousness in the head is only a preparation for its rising to the centre above; otherwise, one may get shut up in one's own mind and its experiences or at best attain only to a reflection of the Truth above instead of rising into the spiritual transcendence to live there. For some the mental consciousness is easier, for some the concentration in the heart centre; some are capable of doing both alternatively - but to begin with the heart centre, if one can do it, is the more desirable.
The other side of the discipline is with regard to the activities of the nature, of the mind, of the life-self or vital, of the physical being. Here the principle is to accord the nature with the inner realisation so that one may not be divided into two discordant parts. There are here several disciplines or processes possible. One is to offer all the activities to the Divine and call for the inner guidance and the taking up of one's nature by a Higher Power. If there is the inward soul-opening, if the psychic being comes forward, then there is no great difficulty - there comes with it a psychic discrimination, a constant intimation, finally a governance which discloses and quietly and patiently removes all imperfections, bring the right mental and vital movements and reshapes the physical consciousness also. Another method is to stand back detached from the movements of the mind, life, physical being, to regard their activities as only a habitual formation of general Nature in the individual imposed on us by past workings, not as any part of our real being; in proportion as one succeeds in this, becomes detached, sees mind and its activities as not oneself, life and its activities as not oneself, the body and its activities as not oneself, one becomes aware of an inner Being within us - inner mental, inner vital, inner physical - silent, calm, unbound, unattached which reflects the true Self above and can be its direct representative; from this inner silent Being proceeds a rejection of all that is to be rejected, an acceptance only of what can be kept and transformed, an inmost Will to perfection or a call to the Divine Power to do at each step what is necessary for the change of the Nature. It can also open mind, life and body to the inmost psychic entity and its guiding influence or its direct guidance. In most cases these two methods emerge and work together and finally fuse into one. But one can being with either, the one that one feels most natural and easy to follow.
Finally, in all difficulties where personal effort is hampered, the help of the Teacher can intervene and bring above what is needed for the realisation or for the immediate step that is necessary.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, 6, {871},#KEYS
1317:For instance, a popular game with California occultists-I do not know its inventor-involves a Magic Room, much like the Pleasure Dome discussed earlier except that this Magic Room contains an Omniscient Computer.
To play this game, you simply "astrally project" into the Magic Room. Do not ask what "astral projection" means, and do not assume it is metaphysical (and therefore either impossible, if you are a materialist, or very difficult, if you are a mystic). Just assume this is a gedankenexperiment, a "mind game." Project yourself, in imagination, into this Magic Room and visualize vividly the Omniscient Computer, using the details you need to make such a super-information-processor real to your fantasy. You do not need any knowledge of programming to handle this astral computer. It exists early in the next century; you are getting to use it by a species of time-travel, if that metaphor is amusing and helpful to you. It is so built that it responds immediately to human brain-waves, "reading" them and decoding their meaning. (Crude prototypes of such computers already exist.) So, when you are in this magic room, you can ask this Computer anything, just by thinking of what you want to know. It will read your thought, and project into your brain, by a laser ray, the correct answer.
There is one slight problem. The computer is very sensitive to all brain-waves. If you have any doubts, it registers them as negative commands, meaning "Do not answer my question." So, the way to use it is to start simply, with "easy" questions. Ask it to dig out of the archives the name of your second-grade teacher. (Almost everybody remembers the name of their first grade teacher-imprint vulnerability again-but that of the second grade teacher tends to get lost.)
When the computer has dug out the name of your second grade teacher, try it on a harder question, but not one that is too hard. It is very easy to sabotage this machine, but you don't want to sabotage it during these experiments. You want to see how well it can be made to perform.
It is wise to ask only one question at a time, since it requires concentration to keep this magic computer real on the field of your perception. Do not exhaust your capacities for imagination and visualization on your first trial runs.
After a few trivial experiments of the second-grade-teacher variety, you can try more interesting programs. Take a person toward whom you have negative feelings, such as anger, disappointment, feeling-of-betrayal, jealousy or whatever interferes with the smooth, tranquil operation of your own bio-computer. Ask the Magic Computer to explain that other person to you; to translate you into their reality-tunnel long enough for you to understand how events seem to them. Especially, ask how you seem to them.
This computer will do that job for you; but be prepared for some shocks which might be disagreeable at first. This super-brain can also perform exegesis on ideas that seem obscure, paradoxical or enigmatic to us. For instance, early experiments with this computer can very profitably turn on asking it to explain some of the propositions in this book which may seem inexplicable or perversely wrong-headed to you, such as "We are all greater artists than we realize" or "What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves" or "mind and its contents are functionally identical."
This computer is much more powerful and scientifically advanced than the rapture-machine in the neurosomatic circuit. It has total access to all the earlier, primitive circuits, and overrules any of them. That is, if you put a meta-programming instruction into this computer; it will relay it downward to the old circuits and cancel contradictory programs left over from the past. For instance, try feeding it on such meta-programming instructions as: 1. I am at cause over my body. 2. I am at cause over my imagination. 3.1 am at cause over my future. 4. My mind abounds with beauty and power. 5.1 like people, and people like me.
Remember that this computer is only a few decades ahead of present technology, so it cannot "understand" your commands if you harbor any doubts about them. Doubts tell it not to perform. Work always from what you can believe in, extending the area of belief only as results encourage you to try for more dramatic transformations of your past reality-tunnels.
This represents cybernetic consciousness; the programmer becoming self-programmer, self-metaprogrammer, meta-metaprogrammer, etc. Just as the emotional compulsions of the second circuit seem primitive, mechanical and, ultimately, silly to the neurosomatic consciousness, so, too, the reality maps of the third circuit become comic, relativistic, game-like to the metaprogrammer. "Whatever you say it is, it isn't, " Korzybski, the semanticist, repeated endlessly in his seminars, trying to make clear that third-circuit semantic maps are not the territories they represent; that we can always make maps of our maps, revisions of our revisions, meta-selves of our selves. "Neti, neti" (not that, not that), Hindu teachers traditionally say when asked what "God" is or what "Reality" is. Yogis, mathematicians and musicians seem more inclined to develop meta-programming consciousness than most of humanity. Korzybski even claimed that the use of mathematical scripts is an aid to developing this circuit, for as soon as you think of your mind as mind 1 , and the mind which contemplates that mind as mind2 and the mind which contemplates mind2 contemplating mind 1 as mind3, you are well on your way to meta-programming awareness. Alice in Wonderland is a masterful guide to the metaprogramming circuit (written by one of the founders of mathematical logic) and Aleister Crowley soberly urged its study upon all students of yoga. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, Prometheus Rising,#KEYS
1318:[an Integral conception of the Divine :::
But on that which as yet we know not how shall we concentrate? And yet we cannot know the Divine unless we have achieved this concentration of our being upon him. A concentration which culminates in a living realisation and the constant sense of the presence of the One in ourselves and in all of which we are aware, is what we mean in Yoga by knowledge and the effort after knowledge. It is not enough to devote ourselves by the reading of Scriptures or by the stress of philosophical reasoning to an intellectual understanding of the Divine; for at the end of our long mental labour we might know all that has been said of the Eternal, possess all that can be thought about the Infinite and yet we might not know him at all. This intellectual preparation can indeed be the first stage in a powerful Yoga, but it is not indispensable : it is not a step which all need or can be called upon to take. Yoga would be impossible, except for a very few, if the intellectual figure of knowledge arrived at by the speculative or meditative Reason were its indispensable condition or a binding preliminary. All that the Light from above asks of us that it may begin its work is a call from the soul and a sufficient point of support in the mind. This support can be reached through an insistent idea of the Divine in the thought, a corresponding will in the dynamic parts, an aspiration, a faith, a need in the heart. Any one of these may lead or predominate, if all cannot move in unison or in an equal rhythm. The idea may be and must in the beginning be inadequate; the aspiration may be narrow and imperfect, the faith poorly illumined or even, as not surely founded on the rock of knowledge, fluctuating, uncertain, easily diminished; often even it may be extinguished and need to be lit again with difficulty like a torch in a windy pass. But if once there is a resolute self-consecration from deep within, if there is an awakening to the soul's call, these inadequate things can be a sufficient instrument for the divine purpose. Therefore the wise have always been unwilling to limit man's avenues towards God; they would not shut against his entry even the narrowest portal, the lowest and darkest postern, the humblest wicket-gate. Any name, any form, any symbol, any offering has been held to be sufficient if there is the consecration along with it; for the Divine knows himself in the heart of the seeker and accepts the sacrifice.
But still the greater and wider the moving idea-force behind the consecration, the better for the seeker; his attainment is likely to be fuller and more ample. If we are to attempt an integral Yoga, it will be as well to start with an idea of the Divine that is itself integral. There should be an aspiration in the heart wide enough for a realisation without any narrow limits. Not only should we avoid a sectarian religious outlook, but also all onesided philosophical conceptions which try to shut up the Ineffable in a restricting mental formula. The dynamic conception or impelling sense with which our Yoga can best set out would be naturally the idea, the sense of a conscious all-embracing but all-exceeding Infinite. Our uplook must be to a free, all-powerful, perfect and blissful One and Oneness in which all beings move and live and through which all can meet and become one. This Eternal will be at once personal and impersonal in his self-revelation and touch upon the soul. He is personal because he is the conscious Divine, the infinite Person who casts some broken reflection of himself in the myriad divine and undivine personalities of the universe. He is impersonal because he appears to us as an infinite Existence, Consciousness and Ananda and because he is the fount, base and constituent of all existences and all energies, -the very material of our being and mind and life and body, our spirit and our matter. The thought, concentrating on him, must not merely understand in an intellectual form that he exists, or conceive of him as an abstraction, a logical necessity; it must become a seeing thought able to meet him here as the Inhabitant in all, realise him in ourselves, watch and take hold on the movement of his forces. He is the one Existence: he is the original and universal Delight that constitutes all things and exceeds them: he is the one infinite Consciousness that composes all consciousnesses and informs all their movements; he is the one illimitable Being who sustains all action and experience; his will guides the evolution of things towards their yet unrealised but inevitable aim and plenitude. To him the heart can consecrate itself, approach him as the supreme Beloved, beat and move in him as in a universal sweetness of Love and a living sea of Delight. For his is the secret Joy that supports the soul in all its experiences and maintains even the errant ego in its ordeals and struggles till all sorrow and suffering shall cease. His is the Love and the Bliss of the infinite divine Lover who is drawing all things by their own path towards his happy oneness. On him the Will can unalterably fix as the invisible Power that guides and fulfils it and as the source of its strength. In the impersonality this actuating Power is a self-illumined Force that contains all results and calmly works until it accomplishes, in the personality an all wise and omnipotent Master of the Yoga whom nothing can prevent from leading it to its goal. This is the faith with which the seeker has to begin his seeking and endeavour; for in all his effort here, but most of all in his effort towards the Unseen, mental man must perforce proceed by faith. When the realisation comes, the faith divinely fulfilled and completed will be transformed into an eternal flame of knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration, 82-83 [T1],#KEYS
1319:To what gods shall the sacrifice be offered? Who shall be invoked to manifest and protect in the human being this increasing godhead?
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.
Indra, the Puissant next, who is the power of pure Existence self-manifested as the Divine Mind. As Agni is one pole of Force instinct with knowledge that sends its current upward from earth to heaven, so Indra is the other pole of Light instinct with force which descends from heaven to earth. He comes down into our world as the Hero with the shining horses and slays darkness and division with his lightnings, pours down the life-giving heavenly waters, finds in the trace of the hound, Intuition, the lost or hidden illuminations, makes the Sun of Truth mount high in the heaven of our mentality.
Surya, the Sun, is the master of that supreme Truth, - truth of being, truth of knowledge, truth of process and act and movement and functioning. He is therefore the creator or rather the manifester of all things - for creation is out-bringing, expression by the Truth and Will - and the father, fosterer, enlightener of our souls. The illuminations we seek are the herds of this Sun who comes to us in the track of the divine Dawn and releases and reveals in us night-hidden world after world up to the highest Beatitude.
Of that beatitude Soma is the representative deity. The wine of his ecstasy is concealed in the growths of earth, in the waters of existence; even here in our physical being are his immortalising juices and they have to be pressed out and offered to all the gods; for in that strength these shall increase and conquer.
Each of these primary deities has others associated with him who fulfil functions that arise from his own. For if the truth of Surya is to be established firmly in our mortal nature, there are previous conditions that are indispensable; a vast purity and clear wideness destructive of all sin and crooked falsehood, - and this is Varuna; a luminous power of love and comprehension leading and forming into harmony all our thoughts, acts and impulses, - this is Mitra; an immortal puissance of clear-discerning aspiration and endeavour, - this is Aryaman; a happy spontaneity of the right enjoyment of all things dispelling the evil dream of sin and error and suffering, - this is Bhaga. These four are powers of the Truth of Surya. For the whole bliss of Soma to be established perfectly in our nature a happy and enlightened and unmaimed condition of mind, vitality and body are necessary. This condition is given to us by the twin Ashwins; wedded to the daughter of Light, drinkers of honey, bringers of perfect satisfactions, healers of maim and malady they occupy our parts of knowledge and parts of action and prepare our mental, vital and physical being for an easy and victorious ascension.
Indra, the Divine Mind, as the shaper of mental forms has for his assistants, his artisans, the Ribhus, human powers who by the work of sacrifice and their brilliant ascension to the high dwelling-place of the Sun have attained to immortality and help mankind to repeat their achievement. They shape by the mind Indra's horses, the chariot of the Ashwins, the weapons of the Gods, all the means of the journey and the battle. But as giver of the Light of Truth and as Vritra-slayer Indra is aided by the Maruts, who are powers of will and nervous or vital Force that have attained to the light of thought and the voice of self-expression. They are behind all thought and speech as its impellers and they battle towards the Light, Truth and Bliss of the supreme Consciousness.
There are also female energies; for the Deva is both Male and Female and the gods also are either activising souls or passively executive and methodising energies. Aditi, infinite Mother of the Gods, comes first; and there are besides five powers of the Truthconsciousness, - Mahi or Bharati, the vast Word that brings us all things out of the divine source; Ila, the strong primal word of the Truth who gives us its active vision; Saraswati, its streaming current and the word of its inspiration; Sarama, the Intuition, hound of heaven who descends into the cavern of the subconscient and finds there the concealed illuminations; Dakshina, whose function is to discern rightly, dispose the action and the offering and distribute in the sacrifice to each godhead its portion. Each god, too, has his female energy.
All this action and struggle and ascension is supported by Heaven our Father and Earth our Mother Parents of the Gods, who sustain respectively the purely mental and psychic and the physical consciousness. Their large and free scope is the condition of our achievement. Vayu, master of life, links them together by the mid-air, the region of vital force. And there are other deities, - Parjanya, giver of the rain of heaven; Dadhikravan, the divine war-horse, a power of Agni; the mystic Dragon of the Foundations; Trita Aptya who on the third plane of existence consummates our triple being; and more besides.
The development of all these godheads is necessary to our perfection. And that perfection must be attained on all our levels, - in the wideness of earth, our physical being and consciousness; in the full force of vital speed and action and enjoyment and nervous vibration, typified as the Horse which must be brought forward to upbear our endeavour; in the perfect gladness of the heart of emotion and a brilliant heat and clarity of the mind throughout our intellectual and psychical being; in the coming of the supramental Light, the Dawn and the Sun and the shining Mother of the herds, to transform all our existence; for so comes to us the possession of the Truth, by the Truth the admirable surge of the Bliss, in the Bliss infinite Consciousness of absolute being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Hymns to the Mystic Fire, The Doctrine of the Mystics,#KEYS
1320:Depression, unless one has a strong will, suggests, "This is not worth while, one may have to wait a lifetime." As for enthusiasm, it expects to see the vital transformed overnight: "I am not going to have any difficulty henceforth, I am going to advance rapidly on the path of yoga, I am going to gain the divine consciousness without any difficulty." There are some other difficulties.... One needs a little time, much perseverance. So the vital, after a few hours - perhaps a few days, perhaps a few months - says to itself: "We haven't gone very far with our enthusiasm, has anything been really done? Doesn't this movement leave us just where we were, perhaps worse than we were, a little troubled, a little disturbed? Things are no longer what they were, they are not yet what they ought to be. It is very tiresome, what I am doing." And then, if one pushes a little more, here's this gentleman saying, "Ah, no! I have had enough of it, leave me alone. I don't want to move, I shall stay in my corner, I won't trouble you, but don't bother me!" And so one has not gone very much farther than before.
This is one of the big obstacles which must be carefully avoided. As soon as there is the least sign of discontentment, of annoyance, the vital must be spoken to in this way, "My friend, you are going to keep calm, you are going to do what you are asked to do, otherwise you will have to deal with me." And to the other, the enthusiast who says, "Everything must be done now, immediately", your reply is, "Calm yourself a little, your energy is excellent, but it must not be spent in five minutes. We shall need it for a long time, keep it carefully and, as it is wanted, I shall call upon your goodwill. You will show that you are full of goodwill, you will obey, you won't grumble, you will not protest, you will not revolt, you will say 'yes, yes', you will make a little sacrifice when asked, you will say 'yes' wholeheartedly."
So we get started on the path. But the road is very long. Many things happen on the way. Suddenly one thinks one has overcome an obstacle; I say "thinks", because though one has overcome it, it is not totally overcome. I am going to take a very obvious instance, of a very simple observation. Someone has found that his vital is uncontrollable and uncontrolled, that it gets furious for nothing and about nothing. He starts working to teach it not to get carried away, not to flare up, to remain calm and bear the shocks of life without reacting violently. If one does this cheerfully, it goes quite quickly. (Note this well, it is very important: when you have to deal with your vital take care to remain cheerful, otherwise you will get into trouble.) One remains cheerful, that is, when one sees the fury rise, one begins to laugh. Instead of being depressed and saying, "Ah! In spite of all my effort it is beginning all over again", one begins to laugh and says, "Well, well! One hasn't yet seen the end of it. Look now, aren't you ridiculous, you know quite well that you are being ridiculous! Is it worthwhile getting angry?" One gives it this lesson cheerfully. And really, after a while it doesn't get angry again, it is quiet - and one relaxes one's attention. One thinks the difficulty has been overcome, one thinks a result has at last been reached: "My vital does not trouble me any longer, it does not get angry now, everything is going fine." And the next day, one loses one's temper. It is then one must be careful, it is then one must not say, "Here we are, it's no use, I shall never achieve anything, all my efforts are futile; all this is an illusion, it is impossible." On the contrary, one must say, "I wasn't vigilant enough." One must wait long, very long, before one can say, "Ah! It is done and finished." Sometimes one must wait for years, many years....
I am not saying this to discourage you, but to give you patience and perseverance - for there is a moment when you do arrive. And note that the vital is a small part of your being - a very important part, we have said that it is the dynamism, the realising energy, it is very important; but it is only a small part. And the mind!... which goes wandering, which must be pulled back by all the strings to be kept quiet! You think this can be done overnight? And your body?... You have a weakness, a difficulty, sometimes a small chronic illness, nothing much, but still it is a nuisance, isn't it? You want to get rid of it. You make efforts, you concentrate; you work upon it, establish harmony, and you think it is finished, and then.... Take, for instance, people who have the habit of coughing; they can't control themselves or almost can't. It is not serious but it is bothersome, and there seems to be no reason why it should ever stop. Well, one tells oneself, "I am going to control this." One makes an effort - a yogic effort, not a material one - one brings down consciousness, force, and stops the cough. And one thinks, "The body has forgotten how to cough." And it is a great thing when the body has forgotten, truly one can say, "I am cured." But unfortunately it is not always true, for this goes down into the subconscient and, one day, when the balance of forces is not so well established, when the strength is not the same, it begins again. And one laments, "I believed that it was over! I had succeeded and told myself, 'It is true that spiritual power has an action upon the body, it is true that something can be done', and there! it is not true. And yet it was a small thing, and I who want to conquer immortality! How will I succeed?... For years I have been free from this small thing and here it is beginning anew!" It is then that you must be careful. You must arm yourself with an endless patience and endurance. You do a thing once, ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times if necessary, but you do it till it gets done. And not done only here and there, but everywhere and everywhere at the same time. This is the great problem one sets oneself. That is why, to those who come to tell me very light-heartedly, "I want to do yoga", I reply, "Think it over, one may do the yoga for a number of years without noticing the least result. But if you want to do it, you must persist and persist with such a will that you should be ready to do it for ten lifetimes, a hundred lifetimes if necessary, in order to succeed." I do not say it will be like that, but the attitude must be like that. Nothing must discourage you; for there are all the difficulties of ignorance of the different states of being, to which are added the endless malice and the unbounded cunning of the hostile forces in the world.... They are there, do you know why? They have been.... ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1950-1951,#KEYS
1321:
Why do we forget our dreams?
Because you do not dream always at the same place. It is not always the same part of your being that dreams and it is not at the same place that you dream. If you were in conscious, direct, continuous communication with all the parts of your being, you would remember all your dreams. But very few parts of the being are in communication.
For example, you have a dream in the subtle physical, that is to say, quite close to the physical. Generally, these dreams occur in the early hours of the morning, that is between four and five o'clock, at the end of the sleep. If you do not make a sudden movement when you wake up, if you remain very quiet, very still and a little attentive - quietly attentive - and concentrated, you will remember them, for the communication between the subtle physical and the physical is established - very rarely is there no communication.
Now, dreams are mostly forgotten because you have a dream while in a certain state and then pass into another. For instance, when you sleep, your body is asleep, your vital is asleep, but your mind is still active. So your mind begins to have dreams, that is, its activity is more or less coordinated, the imagination is very active and you see all kinds of things, take part in extraordinary happenings.... After some time, all that calms down and the mind also begins to doze. The vital that was resting wakes up; it comes out of the body, walks about, goes here and there, does all kinds of things, reacts, sometimes fights, and finally eats. It does all kinds of things. The vital is very adventurous. It watches. When it is heroic it rushes to save people who are in prison or to destroy enemies or it makes wonderful discoveries. But this pushes back the whole mental dream very far behind. It is rubbed off, forgotten: naturally you cannot remember it because the vital dream takes its place. But if you wake up suddenly at that moment, you remember it. There are people who have made the experiment, who have got up at certain fixed hours of the night and when they wake up suddenly, they do remember. You must not move brusquely, but awake in the natural course, then you remember.
After a time, the vital having taken a good stroll, needs to rest also, and so it goes into repose and quietness, quite tired at the end of all kinds of adventures. Then something else wakes up. Let us suppose that it is the subtle physical that goes for a walk. It starts moving and begins wandering, seeing the rooms and... why, this thing that was there, but it has come here and that other thing which was in that room is now in this one, and so on. If you wake up without stirring, you remembeR But this has pushed away far to the back of the consciousness all the stories of the vital. They are forgotten and so you cannot recollect your dreams. But if at the time of waking up you are not in a hurry, you are not obliged to leave your bed, on the contrary you can remain there as long as you wish, you need not even open your eyes; you keep your head exactly where it was and you make yourself like a tranquil mirror within and concentrate there. You catch just a tiny end of the tail of your dream. You catch it and start pulling gently, without stirring in the least. You begin pulling quite gently, and then first one part comes, a little later another. You go backward; the last comes up first. Everything goes backward, slowly, and suddenly the whole dream reappears: "Ah, there! it was like that." Above all, do not jump up, do not stir; you repeat the dream to yourself several times - once, twice - until it becomes clear in all its details. Once that dream is settled, you continue not to stir, you try to go further in, and suddenly you catch the tail of something else. It is more distant, more vague, but you can still seize it. And here also you hang on, get hold of it and pull, and you see that everything changes and you enter another world; all of a sudden you have an extraordinary adventure - it is another dream. You follow the same process. You repeat the dream to yourself once, twice, until you are sure of it. You remain very quiet all the time. Then you begin to penetrate still more deeply into yourself, as though you were going in very far, very far; and again suddenly you see a vague form, you have a feeling, a sensation... like a current of air, a slight breeze, a little breath; and you say, "Well, well...." It takes a form, it becomes clear - and the third category comes. You must have a lot of time, a lot of patience, you must be very quiet in your mind and body, very quiet, and you can tell the story of your whole night from the end right up to the beginning.
Even without doing this exercise which is very long and difficult, in order to recollect a dream, whether it be the last one or the one in the middle that has made a violent impression on your being, you must do what I have said when you wake up: take particular care not even to move your head on the pillow, remain absolutely still and let the dream return.
Some people do not have a passage between one state and another, there is a little gap and so they leap from one to the other; there is no highway passing through all the states of being with no break of the consciousness. A small dark hole, and you do not remember. It is like a precipice across which one has to extend the consciousness. To build a bridge takes a very long time; it takes much longer than building a physical bridge.... Very few people want to and know how to do it. They may have had magnificent activities, they do not remember them or sometimes only the last, the nearest, the most physical activity, with an uncoordinated movement - dreams having no sense.
But there are as many different kinds of nights and sleep as there are different days and activities. There are not many days that are alike, each day is different. The days are not the same, the nights are not the same. You and your friends are doing apparently the same thing, but for each one it is very different. And each one must have his own procedure.
Why are two dreams never alike?
Because all things are different. No two minutes are alike in the universe and it will be so till the end of the universe, no two minutes will ever be alike. And men obstinately want to make rules! One must do this and not that.... Well! we must let people please themselves.
You could have put to me a very interesting question: "Why am I fourteen years old today?" Intelligent people will say: "It is because it is the fourteenth year since you were born." That is the answer of someone who believes himself to be very intelligent. But there is another reason. I shall tell this to you alone.... I have drowned you all sufficiently well! Now you must begin to learn swimming!
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 36?,#KEYS
1322:This, in short, is the demand made on us, that we should turn our whole life into a conscious sacrifice. Every moment and every movement of our being is to be resolved into a continuous and a devoted self-giving to the Eternal. All our actions, not less the smallest and most ordinary and trifling than the greatest and most uncommon and noble, must be performed as consecrated acts. Our individualised nature must live in the single consciousness of an inner and outer movement dedicated to Something that is beyond us and greater than our ego. No matter what the gift or to whom it is presented by us, there must be a consciousness in the act that we are presenting it to the one divine Being in all beings. Our commonest or most grossly material actions must assume this sublimated character; when we eat, we should be conscious that we are giving our food to that Presence in us; it must be a sacred offering in a temple and the sense of a mere physical need or self-gratification must pass away from us. In any great labour, in any high discipline, in any difficult or noble enterprise, whether undertaken for ourselves, for others or for the race, it will no longer be possible to stop short at the idea of the race, of ourselves or of others. The thing we are doing must be consciously offered as a sacrifice of works, not to these, but either through them or directly to the One Godhead; the Divine Inhabitant who was hidden by these figures must be no longer hidden but ever present to our soul, our mind, our sense. The workings and results of our acts must be put in the hands of that One in the feeling that that Presence is the Infinite and Most High by whom alone our labour and our aspiration are possible. For in his being all takes place; for him all labour and aspiration are taken from us by Nature and offered on his altar. Even in those things in which Nature is herself very plainly the worker and we only the witnesses of her working and its containers and supporters, there should be the same constant memory and insistent consciousness of a work and of its divine Master. Our very inspiration and respiration, our very heart-beats can and must be made conscious in us as the living rhythm of the universal sacrifice.
It is clear that a conception of this kind and its effective practice must carry in them three results that are of a central importance for our spiritual ideal. It is evident, to begin with, that, even if such a discipline is begun without devotion, it leads straight and inevitably towards the highest devotion possible; for it must deepen naturally into the completest adoration imaginable, the most profound God-love. There is bound up with it a growing sense of the Divine in all things, a deepening communion with the Divine in all our thought, will and action and at every moment of our lives, a more and more moved consecration to the Divine of the totality of our being. Now these implications of the Yoga of works are also of the very essence of an integral and absolute Bhakti. The seeker who puts them into living practice makes in himself continually a constant, active and effective representation of the very spirit of self-devotion, and it is inevitable that out of it there should emerge the most engrossing worship of the Highest to whom is given this service. An absorbing love for the Divine Presence to whom he feels an always more intimate closeness, grows upon the consecrated worker. And with it is born or in it is contained a universal love too for all these beings, living forms and creatures that are habitations of the Divine - not the brief restless grasping emotions of division, but the settled selfless love that is the deeper vibration of oneness. In all the seeker begins to meet the one Object of his adoration and service. The way of works turns by this road of sacrifice to meet the path of Devotion; it can be itself a devotion as complete, as absorbing, as integral as any the desire of the heart can ask for or the passion of the mind can imagine.
Next, the practice of this Yoga demands a constant inward remembrance of the one central liberating knowledge, and a constant active externalising of it in works comes in too to intensify the remembrance. In all is the one Self, the one Divine is all; all are in the Divine, all are the Divine and there is nothing else in the universe, - this thought or this faith is the whole background until it becomes the whole substance of the consciousness of the worker. A memory, a self-dynamising meditation of this kind, must and does in its end turn into a profound and uninterrupted vision and a vivid and all-embracing consciousness of that which we so powerfully remember or on which we so constantly meditate. For it compels a constant reference at each moment to the Origin of all being and will and action and there is at once an embracing and exceeding of all particular forms and appearances in That which is their cause and upholder. This way cannot go to its end without a seeing vivid and vital, as concrete in its way as physical sight, of the works of the universal Spirit everywhere. On its summits it rises into a constant living and thinking and willing and acting in the presence of the Supramental, the Transcendent. Whatever we see and hear, whatever we touch and sense, all of which we are conscious, has to be known and felt by us as That which we worship and serve; all has to be turned into an image of the Divinity, perceived as a dwelling-place of his Godhead, enveloped with the eternal Omnipresence. In its close, if not long before it, this way of works turns by communion with the Divine Presence, Will and Force into a way of Knowledge more complete and integral than any the mere creature intelligence can construct or the search of the intellect can discover.
Lastly, the practice of this Yoga of sacrifice compels us to renounce all the inner supports of egoism, casting them out of our mind and will and actions, and to eliminate its seed, its presence, its influence out of our nature. All must be done for the Divine; all must be directed towards the Divine. Nothing must be attempted for ourselves as a separate existence; nothing done for others, whether neighbours, friends, family, country or mankind or other creatures merely because they are connected with our personal life and thought and sentiment or because the ego takes a preferential interest in their welfare. In this way of doing and seeing all works and all life become only a daily dynamic worship and service of the Divine in the unbounded temple of his own vast cosmic existence. Life becomes more and more the sacrifice of the eternal in the individual constantly self-offered to the eternal Transcendence. It is offered in the wide sacrificial ground of the field of the eternal cosmic Spirit; and the Force too that offers it is the eternal Force, the omnipresent Mother. Therefore is this way a way of union and communion by acts and by the spirit and knowledge in the act as complete and integral as any our Godward will can hope for or our soul's strength execute.
It has all the power of a way of works integral and absolute, but because of its law of sacrifice and self-giving to the Divine Self and Master, it is accompanied on its one side by the whole power of the path of Love and on the other by the whole power of the path of Knowledge. At its end all these three divine Powers work together, fused, united, completed, perfected by each other.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, The Sacrifice, the Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice [111-114],#KEYS
1323:The Supermind [Supramental consciousness] is in its very essence a truth-consciousness, a consciousness always free from the Ignorance which is the foundation of our present natural or evolutionary existence and from which nature in us is trying to arrive at self-knowledge and world-knowledge and a right consciousness and the right use of our existence in the universe. The Supermind, because it is a truth-consciousness, has this knowledge inherent in it and this power of true existence; its course is straight and can go direct to its aim, its field is wide and can even be made illimitable. This is because its very nature is knowledge: it has not to acquire knowledge but possesses it in its own right; its steps are not from nescience or ignorance into some imperfect light, but from truth to greater truth, from right perception to deeper perception, from intuition to intuition, from illumination to utter and boundless luminousness, from growing widenesses to the utter vasts and to very infinitude. On its summits it possesses the divine omniscience and omnipotence, but even in an evolutionary movement of its own graded self-manifestation by which it would eventually reveal its own highest heights, it must be in its very nature essentially free from ignorance and error: it starts from truth and light and moves always in truth and light. As its knowledge is always true, so too its will is always true; it does not fumble in its handling of things or stumble in its paces. In the Supermind feeling and emotion do not depart from their truth, make no slips or mistakes, do not swerve from the right and the real, cannot misuse beauty and delight or twist away from a divine rectitude. In the Supermind sense cannot mislead or deviate into the grossnesses which are here its natural imperfections and the cause of reproach, distrust and misuse by our ignorance. Even an incomplete statement made by the Supermind is a truth leading to a further truth, its incomplete action a step towards completeness. All the life and action and leading of the Supermind is guarded in its very nature from the falsehoods and uncertainties that are our lot; it moves in safety towards its perfection. Once the truth-consciousness was established here on its own sure foundation, the evolution of divine life would be a progress in felicity, a march through light to Ananda. Supermind is an eternal reality of the divine Being and the divine Nature. In its own plane it already and always exists and possesses its own essential law of being; it has not to be created or to emerge or evolve into existence out of involution in Matter or out of non-existence, as it might seem to the view of mind which itself seems to its own view to have so emerged from life and Matter or to have evolved out of an involution in life and Matter. The nature of Supermind is always the same, a being of knowledge, proceeding from truth to truth, creating or rather manifesting what has to be manifested by the power of a pre-existent knowledge, not by hazard but by a self-existent destiny in the being itself, a necessity of the thing in itself and therefore inevitable. Its -manifestation of the divine life will also be inevitable; its own life on its own plane is divine and, if Supermind descends upon the earth, it will bring necessarily the divine life with it and establish it here. Supermind is the grade of existence beyond mind, life and Matter and, as mind, life and Matter have manifested on the earth, so too must Supermind in the inevitable course of things manifest in this world of Matter. In fact, a supermind is already here but it is involved, concealed behind this manifest mind, life and Matter and not yet acting overtly or in its own power: if it acts, it is through these inferior powers and modified by their characters and so not yet recognisable. It is only by the approach and arrival of the descending Supermind that it can be liberated upon earth and reveal itself in the action of our material, vital and mental parts so that these lower powers can become portions of a total divinised activity of our whole being: it is that that will bring to us a completely realised divinity or the divine life. It is indeed so that life and mind involved in Matter have realised themselves here; for only what is involved can evolve, otherwise there could be no emergence. The manifestation of a supramental truth-consciousness is therefore the capital reality that will make the divine life possible. It is when all the movements of thought, impulse and action are governed and directed by a self-existent and luminously automatic truth-consciousness and our whole nature comes to be constituted by it and made of its stuff that the life divine will be complete and absolute. Even as it is, in reality though not in the appearance of things, it is a secret self-existent knowledge and truth that is working to manifest itself in the creation here. The Divine is already there immanent within us, ourselves are that in our inmost reality and it is this reality that we have to manifest; it is that which constitutes the urge towards the divine living and makes necessary the creation of the life divine even in this material existence. A manifestation of the Supermind and its truth-consciousness is then inevitable; it must happen in this world sooner or lateR But it has two aspects, a descent from above, an ascent from below, a self-revelation of the Spirit, an evolution in Nature. The ascent is necessarily an effort, a working of Nature, an urge or nisus on her side to raise her lower parts by an evolutionary or revolutionary change, conversion or transformation into the divine reality and it may happen by a process and progress or by a rapid miracle. The descent or self-revelation of the Spirit is an act of the supreme Reality from above which makes the realisation possible and it can appear either as the divine aid which brings about the fulfilment of the progress and process or as the sanction of the miracle. Evolution, as we see it in this world, is a slow and difficult process and, indeed, needs usually ages to reach abiding results; but this is because it is in its nature an emergence from inconscient beginnings, a start from nescience and a working in the ignorance of natural beings by what seems to be an unconscious force. There can be, on the contrary, an evolution in the light and no longer in the darkness, in which the evolving being is a conscious participant and cooperator, and this is precisely what must take place here. Even in the effort and progress from the Ignorance to Knowledge this must be in part if not wholly the endeavour to be made on the heights of the nature, and it must be wholly that in the final movement towards the spiritual change, realisation, transformation. It must be still more so when there is a transition across the dividing line between the Ignorance and the Knowledge and the evolution is from knowledge to greater knowledge, from consciousness to greater consciousness, from being to greater being. There is then no longer any necessity for the slow pace of the ordinary evolution; there can be rapid conversion, quick transformation after transformation, what would seem to our normal present mind a succession of miracles. An evolution on the supramental levels could well be of that nature; it could be equally, if the being so chose, a more leisurely passage of one supramental state or condition of things to something beyond but still supramental, from level to divine level, a building up of divine gradations, a free growth to the supreme Supermind or beyond it to yet undreamed levels of being, consciousness and Ananda.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, 558,#KEYS
1324:How to Meditate
Deep meditation is a mental procedure that utilizes the nature of the mind to systematically bring the mind to rest. If the mind is given the opportunity, it will go to rest with no effort. That is how the mind works.
Indeed, effort is opposed to the natural process of deep meditation. The mind always seeks the path of least resistance to express itself. Most of the time this is by making more and more thoughts. But it is also possible to create a situation in the mind that turns the path of least resistance into one leading to fewer and fewer thoughts. And, very soon, no thoughts at all. This is done by using a particular thought in a particular way. The thought is called a mantra.
For our practice of deep meditation, we will use the thought - I AM. This will be our mantra.
It is for the sound that we will use I AM, not for the meaning of it.
The meaning has an obvious significance in English, and I AM has a religious meaning in the English Bible as well. But we will not use I AM for the meaning - only for the sound. We can also spell it AYAM. No meaning there, is there? Only the sound. That is what we want. If your first language is not English, you may spell the sound phonetically in your own language if you wish. No matter how we spell it, it will be the same sound. The power of the sound ...I AM... is great when thought inside. But only if we use a particular procedure. Knowing this procedure is the key to successful meditation. It is very simple. So simple that we will devote many pages here to discussing how to keep it simple, because we all have a tendency to make things more complicated. Maintaining simplicity is the key to right meditation.
Here is the procedure of deep meditation: While sitting comfortably with eyes closed, we'll just relax. We will notice thoughts, streams of thoughts. That is fine. We just let them go by without minding them. After about a minute, we gently introduce the mantra, ...I AM...
We think the mantra in a repetition very easily inside. The speed of repetition may vary, and we do not mind it. We do not intone the mantra out loud. We do not deliberately locate the mantra in any particular part of the body. Whenever we realize we are not thinking the mantra inside anymore, we come back to it easily. This may happen many times in a sitting, or only once or twice. It doesn't matter. We follow this procedure of easily coming back to the mantra when we realize we are off it for the predetermined time of our meditation session. That's it.
Very simple.
Typically, the way we will find ourselves off the mantra will be in a stream of other thoughts. This is normal. The mind is a thought machine, remember? Making thoughts is what it does. But, if we are meditating, as soon as we realize we are off into a stream of thoughts, no matter how mundane or profound, we just easily go back to the mantra.
Like that. We don't make a struggle of it. The idea is not that we have to be on the mantra all the time. That is not the objective. The objective is to easily go back to it when we realize we are off it. We just favor the mantra with our attention when we notice we are not thinking it. If we are back into a stream of other thoughts five seconds later, we don't try and force the thoughts out. Thoughts are a normal part of the deep meditation process. We just ease back to the mantra again. We favor it.
Deep meditation is a going toward, not a pushing away from. We do that every single time with the mantra when we realize we are off it - just easily favoring it. It is a gentle persuasion. No struggle. No fuss. No iron willpower or mental heroics are necessary for this practice. All such efforts are away from the simplicity of deep meditation and will reduce its effectiveness.
As we do this simple process of deep meditation, we will at some point notice a change in the character of our inner experience. The mantra may become very refined and fuzzy. This is normal. It is perfectly all right to think the mantra in a very refined and fuzzy way if this is the easiest. It should always be easy - never a struggle. Other times, we may lose track of where we are for a while, having no mantra, or stream of thoughts either. This is fine too. When we realize we have been off somewhere, we just ease back to the mantra again. If we have been very settled with the mantra being barely recognizable, we can go back to that fuzzy level of it, if it is the easiest. As the mantra refines, we are riding it inward with our attention to progressively deeper levels of inner silence in the mind. So it is normal for the mantra to become very faint and fuzzy. We cannot force this to happen. It will happen naturally as our nervous system goes through its many cycles ofinner purification stimulated by deep meditation. When the mantra refines, we just go with it. And when the mantra does not refine, we just be with it at whatever level is easy. No struggle. There is no objective to attain, except to continue the simple procedure we are describing here.
When and Where to Meditate
How long and how often do we meditate? For most people, twenty minutes is the best duration for a meditation session. It is done twice per day, once before the morning meal and day's activity, and then again before the evening meal and evening's activity.
Try to avoid meditating right after eating or right before bed.
Before meal and activity is the ideal time. It will be most effective and refreshing then. Deep meditation is a preparation for activity, and our results over time will be best if we are active between our meditation sessions. Also, meditation is not a substitute for sleep. The ideal situation is a good balance between meditation, daily activity and normal sleep at night. If we do this, our inner experience will grow naturally over time, and our outer life will become enriched by our growing inner silence.
A word on how to sit in meditation: The first priority is comfort. It is not desirable to sit in a way that distracts us from the easy procedure of meditation. So sitting in a comfortable chair with back support is a good way to meditate. Later on, or if we are already familiar, there can be an advantage to sitting with legs crossed, also with back support. But always with comfort and least distraction being the priority. If, for whatever reason, crossed legs are not feasible for us, we will do just fine meditating in our comfortable chair. There will be no loss of the benefits.
Due to commitments we may have, the ideal routine of meditation sessions will not always be possible. That is okay. Do the best you can and do not stress over it. Due to circumstances beyond our control, sometimes the only time we will have to meditate will be right after a meal, or even later in the evening near bedtime. If meditating at these times causes a little disruption in our system, we will know it soon enough and make the necessary adjustments. The main thing is that we do our best to do two meditations every day, even if it is only a short session between our commitments. Later on, we will look at the options we have to make adjustments to address varying outer circumstances, as well as inner experiences that can come up.
Before we go on, you should try a meditation. Find a comfortable place to sit where you are not likely to be interrupted and do a short meditation, say ten minutes, and see how it goes. It is a toe in the water.
Make sure to take a couple of minutes at the end sitting easily without doing the procedure of meditation. Then open your eyes slowly. Then read on here.
As you will see, the simple procedure of deep meditation and it's resulting experiences will raise some questions. We will cover many of them here.
So, now we will move into the practical aspects of deep meditation - your own experiences and initial symptoms of the growth of your own inner silence. ~ Yogani, Deep Meditation,#KEYS
1325:Chapter 18 - Trapped in a Dream
(A guy is playing a pinball machine, seemingly the same guy who rode with him in the back of the boat car. This part is played by Richard Linklater, aka, the director.)
Hey, man.
Hey.
Weren't you in a boat car? You know, the guy, the guy with the hat? He gave me a ride in his car, or boat thing, and you were in the back seat with me?
I mean, I'm not saying that you don't know what you're talking about, but I don't know what you're talking about.
No, you see, you guys let me off at this really specific spot that you gave him directions to let me off at, I get out, and end up getting hit by a car, but then, I just woke up because I was dreaming, and later than that, I found out that I was still dreaming, dreaming that I'd woken up.
Oh yeah, those are called false awakenings. I used to have those all the time.
Yeah, but I'm still in it now. I, I can't get out of it. It's been going on forever, I keep waking up, but, but I'm just waking up into another dream. I'm starting to get creeped out, too. Like I'm talking to dead people. This woman on TV's telling me about how death is this dreamtime that exists outside of life. I mean, (desperate sigh) I'm starting to think that I'm dead.
I'm gonna tell you about a dream I once had. I know that's, when someone says that, then usually you're in for a very boring next few minutes, and you might be, but it sounds like, you know, what else are you going to do, right? Anyway, I read this essay by Philip K. Dick.
What, you read it in your dream?
No, no. I read it before the dream. It was the preamble to the dream. It was about that book, um Flow My Tears the Policeman Said. You know that one?
Uh, yeah yeah, he won an award for that one.
Right, right. That's the one he wrote really fast. It just like flowed right out of him. He felt he was sort of channeling it, or something. But anyway, about four years after it was published, he was at this party, and he met this woman who had the same name as the woman character in the book. And she had a boyfriend with the same name as the boyfriend character in the book, and she was having an affair with this guy, the chief of police, and he had the same name as the chief of police in his book. So she's telling him all of this stuff from her life, and everything she's saying is right out of his book. So that's totally freaking him out, but, what can he do?
And then shortly after that, he was going to mail a letter, and he saw this kind of, um, you know, dangerous, shady looking guy standing by his car, but instead of avoiding him, which he says he would have usually done, he just walked right up to him and said, "Can I help you?" And the guy said, "Yeah. I, I ran out of gas." So he pulls out his wallet, and he hands him some money, which he says he never would have done, and then he gets home and thinks, wait a second, this guy, you know, he can't get to a gas station, he's out of gas. So he gets back in his car, he goes and finds the guy, takes him to the gas station, and as he's pulling up at the gas station, he realizes, "Hey, this is in my book too. This exact station, this exact guy. Everything."
So this whole episode is kind of creepy, right? And he's telling his priest about it, you know, describing how he wrote this book, and then four years later all these things happened to him. And as he's telling it to him, the priest says, "That's the Book of Acts. You're describing the Book of Acts." And he's like, "I've never read the Book of Acts." So he, you know, goes home and reads the Book of Acts, and it's like uncanny. Even the characters' names are the same as in the Bible. And the Book of Acts takes place in 50 A.D., when it was written, supposedly. So Philip K. Dick had this theory that time was an illusion and that we were all actually in 50 A.D., and the reason he had written this book was that he had somehow momentarily punctured through this illusion, this veil of time, and what he had seen there was what was going on in the Book of Acts.
And he was really into Gnosticism, and this idea that this demiurge, or demon, had created this illusion of time to make us forget that Christ was about to return, and the kingdom of God was about to arrive. And that we're all in 50 A.D., and there's someone trying to make us forget that God is imminent. And that's what time is. That's what all of history is. It's just this kind of continuous, you know, daydream, or distraction.
And so I read that, and I was like, well that's weird. And than that night I had a dream and there was this guy in the dream who was supposed to be a psychic. But I was skeptical. I was like, you know, he's not really a psychic, you know I'm thinking to myself. And then suddenly I start floating, like levitating, up to the ceiling. And as I almost go through the roof, I'm like, "Okay, Mr. Psychic. I believe you. You're a psychic. Put me down please." And I float down, and as my feet touch the ground, the psychic turns into this woman in a green dress. And this woman is Lady Gregory.
Now Lady Gregory was Yeats' patron, this, you know, Irish person. And though I'd never seen her image, I was just sure that this was the face of Lady Gregory. So we're walking along, and Lady Gregory turns to me and says, "Let me explain to you the nature of the universe. Now Philip K. Dick is right about time, but he's wrong that it's 50 A.D. Actually, there's only one instant, and it's right now, and it's eternity. And it's an instant in which God is posing a question, and that question is basically, 'Do you want to, you know, be one with eternity? Do you want to be in heaven?' And we're all saying, 'No thank you. Not just yet.' And so time is actually just this constant saying 'No' to God's invitation. I mean that's what time is. I mean, and it's no more 50 A.D. than it's two thousand and one. And there's just this one instant, and that's what we're always in."
And then she tells me that actually this is the narrative of everyone's life. That, you know, behind the phenomenal difference, there is but one story, and that's the story of moving from the "no" to the "yes." All of life is like, "No thank you. No thank you. No thank you." then ultimately it's, "Yes, I give in. Yes, I accept. Yes, I embrace." I mean, that's the journey. I mean, everyone gets to the "yes" in the end, right?
Right.
So we continue walking, and my dog runs over to me. And so I'm petting him, really happy to see him, you know, he's been dead for years. So I'm petting him and I realize there's this kind of gross oozing stuff coming out of his stomach. And I look over at Lady Gregory, and she sort of coughs. She's like [cough] [cough] "Oh, excuse me." And there's vomit, like dribbling down her chin, and it smells really bad. And I think, "Well, wait a second, that's not just the smell of vomit," which is, doesn't smell very good, "that's the smell of like dead person vomit." You know, so it's like doubly foul. And then I realize I'm actually in the land of the dead, and everyone around me is dead. My dog had been dead for over ten years, Lady Gregory had been dead a lot longer than that. When I finally woke up, I was like, whoa, that wasn't a dream, that was a visitation to this real place, the land of the dead.
So what happened? I mean how did you finally get out of it?
Oh man. It was just like one of those like life altering experiences. I mean I could never really look at the world the same way again, after that.
Yeah, but I mean like how did you, how did you finally get out of the dream? See, that's my problem. I'm like trapped. I keep, I keep thinking that I'm waking up, but I'm still in a dream. It seems like it's going on forever. I can't get out of it, and I want to wake up for real. How do you really wake up?
I don't know, I don't know. I'm not very good at that anymore. But, um, if that's what you're thinking, I mean you, you probably should. I mean, you know if you can wake up, you should, because you know someday, you know, you won't be able to. So just, um ... But it's easy. You know. Just, just wake up. ~ Waking Life,#KEYS
1326:Intuition And The Value Of Concentration :::
Mother, how can the faculty of intuition be developed?
... There are different kinds of intuition, and we carry these capacities within us. They are always active to some extent but we don't notice them because we don't pay enough attention to what is going on in us. Behind the emotions, deep within the being, in a consciousness seated somewhere near the level of the solar plexus, there is a sort of prescience, a kind of capacity for foresight, but not in the form of ideas: rather in the form of feelings, almost a perception of sensations. For instance, when one is going to decide to do something, there is sometimes a kind of uneasiness or inner refusal, and usually, if one listens to this deeper indication, one realises that it was justified. In other cases there is something that urges, indicates, insists - I am not speaking of impulses, you understand, of all the movements which come from the vital and much lower still - indications which are behind the feelings, which come from the affective part of the being; there too one can receive a fairly sure indication of the thing to be done. These are forms of intuition or of a higher instinct which can be cultivated by observation and also by studying the results. Naturally, it must be done very sincerely, objectively, without prejudice. If one wants to see things in a particular way and at the same time practise this observation, it is all useless. One must do it as if one were looking at what is happening from outside oneself, in someone else. It is one form of intuition and perhaps the first one that usually manifests. There is also another form but that one is much more difficult to observe because for those who are accustomed to think, to act by reason - not by impulse but by reason - to reflect before doing anything, there is an extremely swift process from cause to effect in the half-conscious thought which prevents you from seeing the line, the whole line of reasoning and so you don't think that it is a chain of reasoning, and that is quite deceptive. You have the impression of an intuition but it is not an intuition, it is an extremely rapid subconscious reasoning, which takes up a problem and goes straight to the conclusions. This must not be mistaken for intuition. In the ordinary functioning of the brain, intuition is something which suddenly falls like a drop of light. If one has the faculty, the beginning of a faculty of mental vision, it gives the impression of something coming from outside or above, like a little impact of a drop of light in the brain, absolutely independent of all reasoning. This is perceived more easily when one is able to silence one's mind, hold it still and attentive, arresting its usual functioning, as if the mind were changed into a kind of mirror turned towards a higher faculty in a sustained and silent attention. That too one can learn to do. One must learn to do it, it is a necessary discipline.
When you have a question to solve, whatever it may be, usually you concentrate your attention here (pointing between the eyebrows), at the centre just above the eyes, the centre of the conscious will. But then if you do that, you cannot be in contact with intuition. You can be in contact with the source of the will, of effort, even of a certain kind of knowledge, but in the outer, almost material field; whereas, if you want to contact the intuition, you must keep this (Mother indicates the forehead) completely immobile. Active thought must be stopped as far as possible and the entire mental faculty must form - at the top of the head and a little further above if possible - a kind of mirror, very quiet, very still, turned upwards, in silent, very concentrated attention. If you succeed, you can - perhaps not immediately - but you can have the perception of the drops of light falling upon the mirror from a still unknown region and expressing themselves as a conscious thought which has no connection with all the rest of your thought since you have been able to keep it silent. That is the real beginning of the intellectual intuition.
It is a discipline to be followed. For a long time one may try and not succeed, but as soon as one succeeds in making a mirror, still and attentive, one always obtains a result, not necessarily with a precise form of thought but always with the sensations of a light coming from above. And then, if one can receive this light coming from above without entering immediately into a whirl of activity, receive it in calm and silence and let it penetrate deep into the being, then after a while it expresses itself either as a luminous thought or as a very precise indication here (Mother indicates the heart), in this other centre.
Naturally, first these two faculties must be developed; then, as soon as there is any result, one must observe the result, as I said, and see the connection with what is happening, the consequences: see, observe very attentively what has come in, what may have caused a distortion, what one has added by way of more or less conscious reasoning or the intervention of a lower will, also more or less conscious; and it is by a very deep study - indeed, almost of every moment, in any case daily and very frequent - that one succeeds in developing one's intuition. It takes a long time. It takes a long time and there are ambushes: one can deceive oneself, take for intuitions subconscious wills which try to manifest, indications given by impulses one has refused to receive openly, indeed all sorts of difficulties. One must be prepared for that. But if one persists, one is sure to succeed.
And there comes a time when one feels a kind of inner guidance, something which is leading one very perceptibly in all that one does. But then, for the guidance to have its maximum power, one must naturally add to it a conscious surrender: one must be sincerely determined to follow the indication given by the higher force. If one does that, then... one saves years of study, one can seize the result extremely rapidly. If one also does that, the result comes very rapidly. But for that, it must be done with sincerity and... a kind of inner spontaneity. If one wants to try without this surrender, one may succeed - as one can also succeed in developing one's personal will and making it into a very considerable power - but that takes a very long time and one meets many obstacles and the result is very precarious; one must be very persistent, obstinate, persevering, and one is sure to succeed, but only after a great labour.
Make your surrender with a sincere, complete self-giving, and you will go ahead at full speed, you will go much faster - but you must not do this calculatingly, for that spoils everything! (Silence) Moreover, whatever you may want to do in life, one thing is absolutely indispensable and at the basis of everything, the capacity of concentrating the attention. If you are able to gather together the rays of attention and consciousness on one point and can maintain this concentration with a persistent will, nothing can resist it - whatever it may be, from the most material physical development to the highest spiritual one. But this discipline must be followed in a constant and, it may be said, imperturbable way; not that you should always be concentrated on the same thing - that's not what I mean, I mean learning to concentrate.
And materially, for studies, sports, all physical or mental development, it is absolutely indispensable. And the value of an individual is proportionate to the value of his attention.
And from the spiritual point of view it is still more important.
There is no spiritual obstacle which can resist a penetrating power of concentration. For instance, the discovery of the psychic being, union with the inner Divine, opening to the higher spheres, all can be obtained by an intense and obstinate power of concentration - but one must learn how to do it. There is nothing in the human or even in the superhuman field, to which the power of concentration is not the key. You can be the best athlete, you can be the best student, you can be an artistic, literary or scientific genius, you can be the greatest saint with that faculty. And everyone has in himself a tiny little beginning of it - it is given to everybody, but people do not cultivate it.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1957-1958,#KEYS
1327:[The Gods and Their Worlds]
[...] According to traditions and occult schools, all these zones of realities, these planes of realities have got different names; they have been classified in a different way, but there is an essential analogy, and if you go back far enough into the traditions, you see only the words changing according to the country and the language. Even now, the experiences of Western occultists and those of Eastern occultists offer great similarities. All who set out on the discovery of these invisible worlds and make a report of what they saw, give a very similar description, whether they be from here or there; they use different words, but the experience is very similar and the handling of forces is the same.
This knowledge of the occult worlds is based on the existence of subtle bodies and of subtle worlds corresponding to those bodies. They are what the psychological method calls "states of consciousness", but these states of consciousness really correspond to worlds. The occult procedure consists then in being aware of these various inner states of being or subtle bodies and in becoming sufficiently a master of them so as to be able to go out of them successively, one after another. There is indeed a whole scale of subtleties, increasing or decreasing according to the direction in which you go, and the occult procedure consists in going out of a denser body into a subtler body and so on again, up to the most ethereal regions. You go, by successive exteriorisations, into bodies or worlds more and more subtle. It is somewhat as if every time you passed into another dimension. The fourth dimension of the physicists is nothing but the scientific transcription of an occult knowledge. To give another image, one can say that the physical body is at the centre - it is the most material, the densest and also the smallest - and the inner bodies, more subtle, overflow more and more the central physical body; they pass through it, extending themselves farther and farther, like water evaporating from a porous vase and forming a kind of steam all around. And the greater the subtlety, the more the extension tends to unite with that of the universe: one ends by universalising oneself. And it is altogether a concrete process which gives an objective experience of invisible worlds and even enables one to act in these worlds.
There are, then, only a very small number of people in the West who know that these gods are not merely subjective and imaginary - more or less wildly imaginary - but that they correspond to a universal truth.
All these regions, all these domains are filled with beings who exist, each in its own domain, and if you are awake and conscious on a particular plane - for instance, if on going out of a more material body you awake on some higher plane, you have the same relation with the things and people of that plane as you had with the things and people of the material world. That is to say, there exists an entirely objective relation that has nothing to do with the idea you may have of these things. Naturally, the resemblance is greater and greater as you approach the physical world, the material world, and there even comes a time when the one region has a direct action upon the other. In any case, in what Sri Aurobindo calls the overmental worlds, you will find a concrete reality absolutely independent of your personal experience; you go back there and again find the same things, with the differences that have occurred during your absence. And you have relations with those beings that are identical with the relations you have with physical beings, with this difference that the relation is more plastic, supple and direct - for example, there is the capacity to change the external form, the visible form, according to the inner state you are in. But you can make an appointment with someone and be at the appointed place and find the same being again, with certain differences that have come about during your absence; it is entirely concrete with results entirely concrete.
One must have at least a little of this experience in order to understand these things. Otherwise, those who are convinced that all this is mere human imagination and mental formation, who believe that these gods have such and such a form because men have thought them to be like that, and that they have certain defects and certain qualities because men have thought them to be like that - all those who say that God is made in the image of man and that he exists only in human thought, all these will not understand; to them this will appear absolutely ridiculous, madness. One must have lived a little, touched the subject a little, to know how very concrete the thing is.
Naturally, children know a good deal if they have not been spoilt. There are so many children who return every night to the same place and continue to live the life they have begun there. When these faculties are not spoilt with age, you can keep them with you. At a time when I was especially interested in dreams, I could return exactly to a place and continue a work that I had begun: supervise something, for example, set something in order, a work of organisation or of discovery, of exploration. You go until you reach a certain spot, as you would go in life, then you take a rest, then you return and begin again - you begin the work at the place where you left off and you continue it. And you perceive that there are things which are quite independent of you, in the sense that changes of which you are not at all the author, have taken place automatically during your absence.
But for this, you must live these experiences yourself, you must see them yourself, live them with sufficient sincerity and spontaneity in order to see that they are independent of any mental formation. For you can do the opposite also, and deepen the study of the action of mental formation upon events. This is very interesting, but it is another domain. And this study makes you very careful, very prudent, because you become aware of how far you can delude yourself. So you must study both, the dream and the occult reality, in order to see what is the essential difference between the two. The one depends upon us; the other exists in itself; entirely independent of the thought that we have of it.
When you have worked in that domain, you recognise in fact that once a subject has been studied and something has been learnt mentally, it gives a special colour to the experience; the experience may be quite spontaneous and sincere, but the simple fact that the subject was known and studied lends a particular quality. Whereas if you had learnt nothing about the question, if you knew nothing at all, the transcription would be completely spontaneous and sincere when the experience came; it would be more or less adequate, but it would not be the outcome of a previous mental formation.
Naturally, this occult knowledge or this experience is not very frequent in the world, because in those who do not have a developed inner life, there are veritable gaps between the external consciousness and the inmost consciousness; the linking states of being are missing and they have to be constructed. So when people enter there for the first time, they are bewildered, they have the impression they have fallen into the night, into nothingness, into non-being!
I had a Danish friend, a painter, who was like that. He wanted me to teach him how to go out of the body; he used to have interesting dreams and thought that it would be worth the trouble to go there consciously. So I made him "go out" - but it was a frightful thing! When he was dreaming, a part of his mind still remained conscious, active, and a kind of link existed between this active part and his external being; then he remembered some of his dreams, but it was a very partial phenomenon. And to go out of one's body means to pass gradually through all the states of being, if one does the thing systematically. Well, already in the subtle physical, one is almost de-individualised, and when one goes farther, there remains nothing, for nothing is formed or individualised.
Thus, when people are asked to meditate or told to go within, to enter into themselves, they are in agony - naturally! They have the impression that they are vanishing. And with reason: there is nothing, no consciousness!
These things that appear to us quite natural and evident, are, for people who know nothing, wild imagination. If, for example, you transplant these experiences or this knowledge to the West, well, unless you have been frequenting the circles of occultists, they stare at you with open eyes. And when you have turned your back, they hasten to say, "These people are cranks!" Now to come back to the gods and conclude. It must be said that all those beings who have never had an earthly existence - gods or demons, invisible beings and powers - do not possess what the Divine has put into man: the psychic being. And this psychic being gives to man true love, charity, compassion, a deep kindness, which compensate for all his external defects.
In the gods there is no fault because they live according to their own nature, spontaneously and without constraint: as gods, it is their manner of being. But if you take a higher point of view, if you have a higher vision, a vision of the whole, you see that they lack certain qualities that are exclusively human. By his capacity of love and self-giving, man can have as much power as the gods and even more, when he is not egoistic, when he has surmounted his egoism.
If he fulfils the required condition, man is nearer to the Supreme than the gods are. He can be nearer. He is not so automatically, but he has the power to be so, the potentiality.
If human love manifested itself without mixture, it would be all-powerful. Unfortunately, in human love there is as much love of oneself as of the one loved; it is not a love that makes you forget yourself. - 4 November 1958
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother III, 355
,#KEYS
1328:The Science of Living
To know oneself and to control oneself
AN AIMLESS life is always a miserable life.
Every one of you should have an aim. But do not forget that on the quality of your aim will depend the quality of your life.
Your aim should be high and wide, generous and disinterested; this will make your life precious to yourself and to others.
But whatever your ideal, it cannot be perfectly realised unless you have realised perfection in yourself.
To work for your perfection, the first step is to become conscious of yourself, of the different parts of your being and their respective activities. You must learn to distinguish these different parts one from another, so that you may become clearly aware of the origin of the movements that occur in you, the many impulses, reactions and conflicting wills that drive you to action. It is an assiduous study which demands much perseverance and sincerity. For man's nature, especially his mental nature, has a spontaneous tendency to give a favourable explanation for everything he thinks, feels, says and does. It is only by observing these movements with great care, by bringing them, as it were, before the tribunal of our highest ideal, with a sincere will to submit to its judgment, that we can hope to form in ourselves a discernment that never errs. For if we truly want to progress and acquire the capacity of knowing the truth of our being, that is to say, what we are truly created for, what we can call our mission upon earth, then we must, in a very regular and constant manner, reject from us or eliminate in us whatever contradicts the truth of our existence, whatever is opposed to it. In this way, little by little, all the parts, all the elements of our being can be organised into a homogeneous whole around our psychic centre. This work of unification requires much time to be brought to some degree of perfection. Therefore, in order to accomplish it, we must arm ourselves with patience and endurance, with a determination to prolong our life as long as necessary for the success of our endeavour.
As you pursue this labour of purification and unification, you must at the same time take great care to perfect the external and instrumental part of your being. When the higher truth manifests, it must find in you a mind that is supple and rich enough to be able to give the idea that seeks to express itself a form of thought which preserves its force and clarity. This thought, again, when it seeks to clothe itself in words, must find in you a sufficient power of expression so that the words reveal the thought and do not deform it. And the formula in which you embody the truth should be manifested in all your feelings, all your acts of will, all your actions, in all the movements of your being. Finally, these movements themselves should, by constant effort, attain their highest perfection.
All this can be realised by means of a fourfold discipline, the general outline of which is given here. The four aspects of the discipline do not exclude each other, and can be followed at the same time; indeed, this is preferable. The starting-point is what can be called the psychic discipline. We give the name "psychic" to the psychological centre of our being, the seat within us of the highest truth of our existence, that which can know this truth and set it in movement. It is therefore of capital importance to become conscious of its presence in us, to concentrate on this presence until it becomes a living fact for us and we can identify ourselves with it.
In various times and places many methods have been prescribed for attaining this perception and ultimately achieving this identification. Some methods are psychological, some religious, some even mechanical. In reality, everyone has to find the one which suits him best, and if one has an ardent and steadfast aspiration, a persistent and dynamic will, one is sure to meet, in one way or another - outwardly through reading and study, inwardly through concentration, meditation, revelation and experience - the help one needs to reach the goal. Only one thing is absolutely indispensable: the will to discover and to realise. This discovery and realisation should be the primary preoccupation of our being, the pearl of great price which we must acquire at any cost. Whatever you do, whatever your occupations and activities, the will to find the truth of your being and to unite with it must be always living and present behind all that you do, all that you feel, all that you think.
To complement this movement of inner discovery, it would be good not to neglect the development of the mind. For the mental instrument can equally be a great help or a great hindrance. In its natural state the human mind is always limited in its vision, narrow in its understanding, rigid in its conceptions, and a constant effort is therefore needed to widen it, to make it more supple and profound. So it is very necessary to consider everything from as many points of view as possible. Towards this end, there is an exercise which gives great suppleness and elevation to the thought. It is as follows: a clearly formulated thesis is set; against it is opposed its antithesis, formulated with the same precision. Then by careful reflection the problem must be widened or transcended until a synthesis is found which unites the two contraries in a larger, higher and more comprehensive idea.
Many other exercises of the same kind can be undertaken; some have a beneficial effect on the character and so possess a double advantage: that of educating the mind and that of establishing control over the feelings and their consequences. For example, you must never allow your mind to judge things and people, for the mind is not an instrument of knowledge; it is incapable of finding knowledge, but it must be moved by knowledge. Knowledge belongs to a much higher domain than that of the human mind, far above the region of pure ideas. The mind has to be silent and attentive to receive knowledge from above and manifest it. For it is an instrument of formation, of organisation and action, and it is in these functions that it attains its full value and real usefulness.
There is another practice which can be very helpful to the progress of the consciousness. Whenever there is a disagreement on any matter, such as a decision to be taken, or an action to be carried out, one must never remain closed up in one's own conception or point of view. On the contrary, one must make an effort to understand the other's point of view, to put oneself in his place and, instead of quarrelling or even fighting, find the solution which can reasonably satisfy both parties; there always is one for men of goodwill.
Here we must mention the discipline of the vital. The vital being in us is the seat of impulses and desires, of enthusiasm and violence, of dynamic energy and desperate depressions, of passions and revolts. It can set everything in motion, build and realise; but it can also destroy and mar everything. Thus it may be the most difficult part to discipline in the human being. It is a long and exacting labour requiring great patience and perfect sincerity, for without sincerity you will deceive yourself from the very outset, and all endeavour for progress will be in vain. With the collaboration of the vital no realisation seems impossible, no transformation impracticable. But the difficulty lies in securing this constant collaboration. The vital is a good worker, but most often it seeks its own satisfaction. If that is refused, totally or even partially, the vital gets vexed, sulks and goes on strike. Its energy disappears more or less completely and in its place leaves disgust for people and things, discouragement or revolt, depression and dissatisfaction. At such moments it is good to remain quiet and refuse to act; for these are the times when one does stupid things and in a few moments one can destroy or spoil the progress that has been made during months of regular effort. These crises are shorter and less dangerous for those who have established a contact with their psychic being which is sufficient to keep alive in them the flame of aspiration and the consciousness of the ideal to be realised. They can, with the help of this consciousness, deal with their vital as one deals with a rebellious child, with patience and perseverance, showing it the truth and light, endeavouring to convince it and awaken in it the goodwill which has been veiled for a time. By means of such patient intervention each crisis can be turned into a new progress, into one more step towards the goal. Progress may be slow, relapses may be frequent, but if a courageous will is maintained, one is sure to triumph one day and see all difficulties melt and vanish before the radiance of the truth-consciousness.
Lastly, by means of a rational and discerning physical education, we must make our body strong and supple enough to become a fit instrument in the material world for the truth-force which wants to manifest through us.
In fact, the body must not rule, it must obey. By its very nature it is a docile and faithful servant. Unfortunately, it rarely has the capacity of discernment it ought to have with regard to its masters, the mind and the vital. It obeys them blindly, at the cost of its own well-being. The mind with its dogmas, its rigid and arbitrary principles, the vital with its passions, its excesses and dissipations soon destroy the natural balance of the body and create in it fatigue, exhaustion and disease. It must be freed from this tyranny and this can be done only through a constant union with the psychic centre of the being. The body has a wonderful capacity of adaptation and endurance. It is able to do so many more things than one usually imagines. If, instead of the ignorant and despotic masters that now govern it, it is ruled by the central truth of the being, you will be amazed at what it is capable of doing. Calm and quiet, strong and poised, at every minute it will be able to put forth the effort that is demanded of it, for it will have learnt to find rest in action and to recuperate, through contact with the universal forces, the energies it expends consciously and usefully. In this sound and balanced life a new harmony will manifest in the body, reflecting the harmony of the higher regions, which will give it perfect proportions and ideal beauty of form. And this harmony will be progressive, for the truth of the being is never static; it is a perpetual unfolding of a growing perfection that is more and more total and comprehensive. As soon as the body has learnt to follow this movement of progressive harmony, it will be possible for it to escape, through a continuous process of transformation, from the necessity of disintegration and destruction. Thus the irrevocable law of death will no longer have any reason to exist.
When we reach this degree of perfection which is our goal, we shall perceive that the truth we seek is made up of four major aspects: Love, Knowledge, Power and Beauty. These four attributes of the Truth will express themselves spontaneously in our being. The psychic will be the vehicle of true and pure love, the mind will be the vehicle of infallible knowledge, the vital will manifest an invincible power and strength and the body will be the expression of a perfect beauty and harmony.
Bulletin, November 1950
~ The Mother, On Education,#KEYS
1329:Mental Education
OF ALL lines of education, mental education is the most widely known and practised, yet except in a few rare cases there are gaps which make it something very incomplete and in the end quite insufficient.
Generally speaking, schooling is considered to be all the mental education that is necessary. And when a child has been made to undergo, for a number of years, a methodical training which is more like cramming than true schooling, it is considered that whatever is necessary for his mental development has been done. Nothing of the kind. Even conceding that the training is given with due measure and discrimination and does not permanently damage the brain, it cannot impart to the human mind the faculties it needs to become a good and useful instrument. The schooling that is usually given can, at the most, serve as a system of gymnastics to increase the suppleness of the brain. From this standpoint, each branch of human learning represents a special kind of mental gymnastics, and the verbal formulations given to these various branches each constitute a special and well-defined language.
A true mental education, which will prepare man for a higher life, has five principal phases. Normally these phases follow one after another, but in exceptional individuals they may alternate or even proceed simultaneously. These five phases, in brief, are:
(1) Development of the power of concentration, the capacity of attention.
(2) Development of the capacities of expansion, widening, complexity and richness.
(3) Organisation of one's ideas around a central idea, a higher ideal or a supremely luminous idea that will serve as a guide in life.
(4) Thought-control, rejection of undesirable thoughts, to become able to think only what one wants and when one wants.
(5) Development of mental silence, perfect calm and a more and more total receptivity to inspirations coming from the higher regions of the being.
It is not possible to give here all the details concerning the methods to be employed in the application of these five phases of education to different individuals. Still, a few explanations on points of detail can be given.
Undeniably, what most impedes mental progress in children is the constant dispersion of their thoughts. Their thoughts flutter hither and thither like butterflies and they have to make a great effort to fix them. Yet this capacity is latent in them, for when you succeed in arousing their interest, they are capable of a good deal of attention. By his ingenuity, therefore, the educator will gradually help the child to become capable of a sustained effort of attention and a faculty of more and more complete absorption in the work in hand. All methods that can develop this faculty of attention from games to rewards are good and can all be utilised according to the need and the circumstances. But it is the psychological action that is most important and the sovereign method is to arouse in the child an interest in what you want to teach him, a liking for work, a will to progress. To love to learn is the most precious gift that one can give to a child: to love to learn always and everywhere, so that all circumstances, all happenings in life may be constantly renewed opportunities for learning more and always more.
For that, to attention and concentration should be added observation, precise recording and faithfulness of memory. This faculty of observation can be developed by varied and spontaneous exercises, making use of every opportunity that presents itself to keep the child's thought wakeful, alert and prompt. The growth of the understanding should be stressed much more than that of memory. One knows well only what one has understood. Things learnt by heart, mechanically, fade away little by little and finally disappear; what is understood is never forgotten. Moreover, you must never refuse to explain to a child the how and the why of things. If you cannot do it yourself, you must direct the child to those who are qualified to answer or point out to him some books that deal with the question. In this way you will progressively awaken in the child the taste for true study and the habit of making a persistent effort to know.
This will bring us quite naturally to the second phase of development in which the mind should be widened and enriched.
You will gradually show the child that everything can become an interesting subject for study if it is approached in the right way. The life of every day, of every moment, is the best school of all, varied, complex, full of unexpected experiences, problems to be solved, clear and striking examples and obvious consequences. It is so easy to arouse healthy curiosity in children, if you answer with intelligence and clarity the numerous questions they ask. An interesting reply to one readily brings others in its train and so the attentive child learns without effort much more than he usually does in the classroom. By a choice made with care and insight, you should also teach him to enjoy good reading-matter which is both instructive and attractive. Do not be afraid of anything that awakens and pleases his imagination; imagination develops the creative mental faculty and through it study becomes living and the mind develops in joy.
In order to increase the suppleness and comprehensiveness of his mind, one should see not only that he studies many varied topics, but above all that a single subject is approached in various ways, so that the child understands in a practical manner that there are many ways of facing the same intellectual problem, of considering it and solving it. This will remove all rigidity from his brain and at the same time it will make his thinking richer and more supple and prepare it for a more complex and comprehensive synthesis. In this way also the child will be imbued with the sense of the extreme relativity of mental learning and, little by little, an aspiration for a truer source of knowledge will awaken in him.
Indeed, as the child grows older and progresses in his studies, his mind too ripens and becomes more and more capable of forming general ideas, and with them almost always comes a need for certitude, for a knowledge that is stable enough to form the basis of a mental construction which will permit all the diverse and scattered and often contradictory ideas accumulated in his brain to be organised and put in order. This ordering is indeed very necessary if one is to avoid chaos in one's thoughts. All contradictions can be transformed into complements, but for that one must discover the higher idea that will have the power to bring them harmoniously together. It is always good to consider every problem from all possible standpoints so as to avoid partiality and exclusiveness; but if the thought is to be active and creative, it must, in every case, be the natural and logical synthesis of all the points of view adopted. And if you want to make the totality of your thoughts into a dynamic and constructive force, you must also take great care as to the choice of the central idea of your mental synthesis; for upon that will depend the value of this synthesis. The higher and larger the central idea and the more universal it is, rising above time and space, the more numerous and the more complex will be the ideas, notions and thoughts which it will be able to organise and harmonise.
It goes without saying that this work of organisation cannot be done once and for all. The mind, if it is to keep its vigour and youth, must progress constantly, revise its notions in the light of new knowledge, enlarge its frame-work to include fresh notions and constantly reclassify and reorganise its thoughts, so that each of them may find its true place in relation to the others and the whole remain harmonious and orderly.
All that has just been said concerns the speculative mind, the mind that learns. But learning is only one aspect of mental activity; the other, which is at least equally important, is the constructive faculty, the capacity to form and thus prepare action. This very important part of mental activity has rarely been the subject of any special study or discipline. Only those who want, for some reason, to exercise a strict control over their mental activities think of observing and disciplining this faculty of formation; and as soon as they try it, they have to face difficulties so great that they appear almost insurmountable.
And yet control over this formative activity of the mind is one of the most important aspects of self-education; one can say that without it no mental mastery is possible. As far as study is concerned, all ideas are acceptable and should be included in the synthesis, whose very function is to become more and more rich and complex; but where action is concerned, it is just the opposite. The ideas that are accepted for translation into action should be strictly controlled and only those that agree with the general trend of the central idea forming the basis of the mental synthesis should be permitted to express themselves in action. This means that every thought entering the mental consciousness should be set before the central idea; if it finds a logical place among the thoughts already grouped, it will be admitted into the synthesis; if not, it will be rejected so that it can have no influence on the action. This work of mental purification should be done very regularly in order to secure a complete control over one's actions.
For this purpose, it is good to set apart some time every day when one can quietly go over one's thoughts and put one's synthesis in order. Once the habit is acquired, you can maintain control over your thoughts even during work and action, allowing only those which are useful for what you are doing to come to the surface. Particularly, if you have continued to cultivate the power of concentration and attention, only the thoughts that are needed will be allowed to enter the active external consciousness and they then become all the more dynamic and effective. And if, in the intensity of concentration, it becomes necessary not to think at all, all mental vibration can be stilled and an almost total silence secured. In this silence one can gradually open to the higher regions of the mind and learn to record the inspirations that come from there.
But even before reaching this point, silence in itself is supremely useful, because in most people who have a somewhat developed and active mind, the mind is never at rest. During the day, its activity is kept under a certain control, but at night, during the sleep of the body, the control of the waking state is almost completely removed and the mind indulges in activities which are sometimes excessive and often incoherent. This creates a great stress which leads to fatigue and the diminution of the intellectual faculties.
The fact is that like all the other parts of the human being, the mind too needs rest and it will not have this rest unless we know how to provide it. The art of resting one's mind is something to be acquired. Changing one's mental activity is certainly one way of resting; but the greatest possible rest is silence. And as far as the mental faculties are concerned a few minutes passed in the calm of silence are a more effective rest than hours of sleep.
When one has learned to silence the mind at will and to concentrate it in receptive silence, then there will be no problem that cannot be solved, no mental difficulty whose solution cannot be found. When it is agitated, thought becomes confused and impotent; in an attentive tranquillity, the light can manifest itself and open up new horizons to man's capacity. Bulletin, November 1951
~ The Mother, On Education,#KEYS
1330:The Supreme Discovery
IF WE want to progress integrally, we must build within our conscious being a strong and pure mental synthesis which can serve us as a protection against temptations from outside, as a landmark to prevent us from going astray, as a beacon to light our way across the moving ocean of life.
Each individual should build up this mental synthesis according to his own tendencies and affinities and aspirations. But if we want it to be truly living and luminous, it must be centred on the idea that is the intellectual representation symbolising That which is at the centre of our being, That which is our life and our light.
This idea, expressed in sublime words, has been taught in various forms by all the great Instructors in all lands and all ages.
The Self of each one and the great universal Self are one. Since all that is exists from all eternity in its essence and principle, why make a distinction between the being and its origin, between ourselves and what we place at the beginning?
The ancient traditions rightly said:
"Our origin and ourselves, our God and ourselves are one."
And this oneness should not be understood merely as a more or less close and intimate relationship of union, but as a true identity.
Thus, when a man who seeks the Divine attempts to reascend by degrees towards the inaccessible, he forgets that all his knowledge and all his intuition cannot take him one step forward in this infinite; neither does he know that what he wants to attain, what he believes to be so far from him, is within him.
For how could he know anything of the origin until he becomes conscious of this origin in himself?
It is by understanding himself, by learning to know himself, that he can make the supreme discovery and cry out in wonder like the patriarch in the Bible, "The house of God is here and I knew it not."
That is why we must express that sublime thought, creatrix of the material worlds, and make known to all the word that fills the heavens and the earth, "I am in all things and all beings."When all shall know this, the promised day of great transfigurations will be at hand. When in each atom of Matter men shall recognise the indwelling thought of God, when in each living creature they shall perceive some hint of a gesture of God, when each man can see God in his brother, then dawn will break, dispelling the darkness, the falsehood, the ignorance, the error and suffering that weigh upon all Nature. For, "all Nature suffers and laments as she awaits the revelation of the Sons of God."
This indeed is the central thought epitomising all others, the thought which should be ever present to our remembrance as the sun that illumines all life.
That is why I remind you of it today. For if we follow our path bearing this thought in our hearts like the rarest jewel, the most precious treasure, if we allow it to do its work of illumination and transfiguration within us, we shall know that it lives in the centre of all beings and all things, and in it we shall feel the marvellous oneness of the universe.
Then we shall understand the vanity and childishness of our meagre satisfactions, our foolish quarrels, our petty passions, our blind indignations. We shall see the dissolution of our little faults, the crumbling of the last entrenchments of our limited personality and our obtuse egoism. We shall feel ourselves being swept along by this sublime current of true spirituality which will deliver us from our narrow limits and bounds.
The individual Self and the universal Self are one; in every world, in every being, in every thing, in every atom is the Divine Presence, and man's mission is to manifest it.
In order to do that, he must become conscious of this Divine Presence within him. Some individuals must undergo a real apprenticeship in order to achieve this: their egoistic being is too all-absorbing, too rigid, too conservative, and their struggles against it are long and painful. Others, on the contrary, who are more impersonal, more plastic, more spiritualised, come easily into contact with the inexhaustible divine source of their being.But let us not forget that they too should devote themselves daily, constantly, to a methodical effort of adaptation and transformation, so that nothing within them may ever again obscure the radiance of that pure light.
But how greatly the standpoint changes once we attain this deeper consciousness! How understanding widens, how compassion grows!
On this a sage has said:
"I would like each one of us to come to the point where he perceives the inner God who dwells even in the vilest of human beings; instead of condemning him we would say, 'Arise, O resplendent Being, thou who art ever pure, who knowest neither birth nor death; arise, Almighty One, and manifest thy nature.'"
Let us live by this beautiful utterance and we shall see everything around us transformed as if by miracle.
This is the attitude of true, conscious and discerning love, the love which knows how to see behind appearances, understand in spite of words, and which, amid all obstacles, is in constant communion with the depths.
What value have our impulses and our desires, our anguish and our violence, our sufferings and our struggles, all these inner vicissitudes unduly dramatised by our unruly imagination - what value do they have before this great, this sublime and divine love bending over us from the innermost depths of our being, bearing with our weaknesses, rectifying our errors, healing our wounds, bathing our whole being with its regenerating streams?
For the inner Godhead never imposes herself, she neither demands nor threatens; she offers and gives herself, conceals and forgets herself in the heart of all beings and things; she never accuses, she neither judges nor curses nor condemns, but works unceasingly to perfect without constraint, to mend without reproach, to encourage without impatience, to enrich each one with all the wealth he can receive; she is the mother whose love bears fruit and nourishes, guards and protects, counsels and consoles; because she understands everything, she can endure everything, excuse and pardon everything, hope and prepare for everything; bearing everything within herself, she owns nothing that does not belong to all, and because she reigns over all, she is the servant of all; that is why all, great and small, who want to be kings with her and gods in her, become, like her, not despots but servitors among their brethren.
How beautiful is this humble role of servant, the role of all who have been revealers and heralds of the God who is within all, of the Divine Love that animates all things....
And until we can follow their example and become true servants even as they, let us allow ourselves to be penetrated and transformed by this Divine Love; let us offer Him, without reserve, this marvellous instrument, our physical organism. He shall make it yield its utmost on every plane of activity.
To achieve this total self-consecration, all means are good, all methods have their value. The one thing needful is to persevere in our will to attain this goal. For then everything we study, every action we perform, every human being we meet, all come to bring us an indication, a help, a light to guide us on the path.
Before I close, I shall add a few pages for those who have already made apparently fruitless efforts, for those who have encountered the pitfalls on the way and seen the measure of their weakness, for those who are in danger of losing their self-confidence and courage. These pages, intended to rekindle hope in the hearts of those who suffer, were written by a spiritual worker at a time when ordeals of every kind were sweeping down on him like purifying flames.
You who are weary, downcast and bruised, you who fall, who think perhaps that you are defeated, hear the voice of a friend. He knows your sorrows, he has shared them, he has suffered like you from the ills of the earth; like you he has crossed many deserts under the burden of the day, he has known thirst and hunger, solitude and abandonment, and the cruellest of all wants, the destitution of the heart. Alas! he has known too the hours of doubt, the errors, the faults, the failings, every weakness.
But he tells you: Courage! Hearken to the lesson that the rising sun brings to the earth with its first rays each morning. It is a lesson of hope, a message of solace.
You who weep, who suffer and tremble, who dare not expect an end to your ills, an issue to your pangs, behold: there is no night without dawn and the day is about to break when darkness is thickest; there is no mist that the sun does not dispel, no cloud that it does not gild, no tear that it will not dry one day, no storm that is not followed by its shining triumphant bow; there is no snow that it does not melt, nor winter that it does not change into radiant spring.
And for you too, there is no affliction which does not bring its measure of glory, no distress which cannot be transformed into joy, nor defeat into victory, nor downfall into higher ascension, nor solitude into radiating centre of life, nor discord into harmony - sometimes it is a misunderstanding between two minds that compels two hearts to open to mutual communion; lastly, there is no infinite weakness that cannot be changed into strength. And it is even in supreme weakness that almightiness chooses to reveal itself!
Listen, my little child, you who today feel so broken, so fallen perhaps, who have nothing left, nothing to cover your misery and foster your pride: never before have you been so great! How close to the summits is he who awakens in the depths, for the deeper the abyss, the more the heights reveal themselves!
Do you not know this, that the most sublime forces of the vasts seek to array themselves in the most opaque veils of Matter? Oh, the sublime nuptials of sovereign love with the obscurest plasticities, of the shadow's yearning with the most royal light!
If ordeal or fault has cast you down, if you have sunk into the nether depths of suffering, do not grieve - for there indeed the divine love and the supreme blessing can reach you! Because you have passed through the crucible of purifying sorrows, the glorious ascents are yours.
You are in the wilderness: then listen to the voices of the silence. The clamour of flattering words and outer applause has gladdened your ears, but the voices of the silence will gladden your soul and awaken within you the echo of the depths, the chant of divine harmonies!
You are walking in the depths of night: then gather the priceless treasures of the night. In bright sunshine, the ways of intelligence are lit, but in the white luminosities of the night lie the hidden paths of perfection, the secret of spiritual riches.
You are being stripped of everything: that is the way towards plenitude. When you have nothing left, everything will be given to you. Because for those who are sincere and true, from the worst always comes the best.
Every grain that is sown in the earth produces a thousand. Every wing-beat of sorrow can be a soaring towards glory.
And when the adversary pursues man relentlessly, everything he does to destroy him only makes him greater.
Hear the story of the worlds, look: the great enemy seems to triumph. He casts the beings of light into the night, and the night is filled with stars. He rages against the cosmic working, he assails the integrity of the empire of the sphere, shatters its harmony, divides and subdivides it, scatters its dust to the four winds of infinity, and lo! the dust is changed into a golden seed, fertilising the infinite and peopling it with worlds which now gravitate around their eternal centre in the larger orbit of space - so that even division creates a richer and deeper unity, and by multiplying the surfaces of the material universe, enlarges the empire that it set out to destroy.
Beautiful indeed was the song of the primordial sphere cradled in the bosom of immensity, but how much more beautiful and triumphant is the symphony of the constellations, the music of the spheres, the immense choir that fills the heavens with an eternal hymn of victory!
Hear again: no state was ever more precarious than that of man when he was separated on earth from his divine origin. Above him stretched the hostile borders of the usurper, and at his horizon's gates watched jailers armed with flaming swords. Then, since he could climb no more to the source of life, the source arose within him; since he could no more receive the light from above, the light shone forth at the very centre of his being; since he could commune no more with the transcendent love, that love offered itself in a holocaust and chose each terrestrial being, each human self as its dwelling-place and sanctuary.
That is how, in this despised and desolate but fruitful and blessed Matter, each atom contains a divine thought, each being carries within him the Divine Inhabitant. And if no being in all the universe is as frail as man, neither is any as divine as he!
In truth, in truth, in humiliation lies the cradle of glory! 28 April 1912 ~ The Mother, Words Of Long Ago, The Supreme Discovery,#KEYS
1331: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.
You know, before writing Savitri Sri Aurobindo said to me, *I am impelled to launch on a new adventure; I was hesitant in the beginning, but now I am decided. Still, I do not know how far I shall succeed. I pray for help.* And you know what it was? It was - before beginning, I warn you in advance - it was His way of speaking, so full of divine humility and modesty. He never... *asserted Himself*. And the day He actually began it, He told me: *I have launched myself in a rudderless boat upon the vastness of the Infinite.* And once having started, He wrote page after page without intermission, as though it were a thing already complete up there and He had only to transcribe it in ink down here on these pages.
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 breathe 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, 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],#KEYS
1332:One little picture in this book, the Magic Locket, was drawn by 'Miss Alice Havers.' I did not state this on the title-page, since it seemed only due, to the artist of all these (to my mind) wonderful pictures, that his name should stand there alone.
The descriptions, of Sunday as spent by children of the last generation, are quoted verbatim from a speech made to me by a child-friend and a letter written to me by a lady-friend.
The Chapters, headed 'Fairy Sylvie' and 'Bruno's Revenge,' are a reprint, with a few alterations, of a little fairy-tale which I wrote in the year 1867, at the request of the late Mrs. Gatty, for 'Aunt Judy's Magazine,' which she was then editing.
It was in 1874, I believe, that the idea first occurred to me of making it the nucleus of a longer story.
As the years went on, I jotted down, at odd moments, all sorts of odd ideas, and fragments of dialogue, that occurred to me--who knows how?--with a transitory suddenness that left me no choice but either to record them then and there, or to abandon them to oblivion. Sometimes one could trace to their source these random flashes of thought--as being suggested by the book one was reading, or struck out from the 'flint' of one's own mind by the 'steel' of a friend's chance remark but they had also a way of their own, of occurring, a propos of nothing --specimens of that hopelessly illogical phenomenon, 'an effect without a cause.' Such, for example, was the last line of 'The Hunting of the Snark,' which came into my head (as I have already related in 'The Theatre' for April, 1887) quite suddenly, during a solitary walk: and such, again, have been passages which occurred in dreams, and which I cannot trace to any antecedent cause whatever. There are at least two instances of such dream-suggestions in this book--one, my Lady's remark, 'it often runs in families, just as a love for pastry does', the other, Eric Lindon's badinage about having been in domestic service.
And thus it came to pass that I found myself at last in possession of a huge unwieldy mass of litterature--if the reader will kindly excuse the spelling --which only needed stringing together, upon the thread of a consecutive story, to constitute the book I hoped to write. Only! The task, at first, seemed absolutely hopeless, and gave me a far clearer idea, than I ever had before, of the meaning of the word 'chaos': and I think it must have been ten years, or more, before I had succeeded in classifying these odds-and-ends sufficiently to see what sort of a story they indicated: for the story had to grow out of the incidents, not the incidents out of the story I am telling all this, in no spirit of egoism, but because I really believe that some of my readers will be interested in these details of the 'genesis' of a book, which looks so simple and straight-forward a matter, when completed, that they might suppose it to have been written straight off, page by page, as one would write a letter, beginning at the beginning; and ending at the end.
It is, no doubt, possible to write a story in that way: and, if it be not vanity to say so, I believe that I could, myself,--if I were in the unfortunate position (for I do hold it to be a real misfortune) of being obliged to produce a given amount of fiction in a given time,--that I could 'fulfil my task,' and produce my 'tale of bricks,' as other slaves have done. One thing, at any rate, I could guarantee as to the story so produced--that it should be utterly commonplace, should contain no new ideas whatever, and should be very very weary reading!
This species of literature has received the very appropriate name of 'padding' which might fitly be defined as 'that which all can write and none can read.' That the present volume contains no such writing I dare not avow: sometimes, in order to bring a picture into its proper place, it has been necessary to eke out a page with two or three extra lines : but I can honestly say I have put in no more than I was absolutely compelled to do.
My readers may perhaps like to amuse themselves by trying to detect, in a given passage, the one piece of 'padding' it contains. While arranging the 'slips' into pages, I found that the passage was 3 lines too short. I supplied the deficiency, not by interpolating a word here and a word there, but by writing in 3 consecutive lines. Now can my readers guess which they are?
A harder puzzle if a harder be desired would be to determine, as to the Gardener's Song, in which cases (if any) the stanza was adapted to the surrounding text, and in which (if any) the text was adapted to the stanza.
Perhaps the hardest thing in all literature--at least I have found it so: by no voluntary effort can I accomplish it: I have to take it as it come's is to write anything original. And perhaps the easiest is, when once an original line has been struck out, to follow it up, and to write any amount more to the same tune. I do not know if 'Alice in Wonderland' was an original story--I was, at least, no conscious imitator in writing it--but I do know that, since it came out, something like a dozen storybooks have appeared, on identically the same pattern. The path I timidly explored believing myself to be 'the first that ever burst into that silent sea'--is now a beaten high-road: all the way-side flowers have long ago been trampled into the dust: and it would be courting disaster for me to attempt that style again.
Hence it is that, in 'Sylvie and Bruno,' I have striven with I know not what success to strike out yet another new path: be it bad or good, it is the best I can do. It is written, not for money, and not for fame, but in the hope of supplying, for the children whom I love, some thoughts that may suit those hours of innocent merriment which are the very life of Childhood; and also in the hope of suggesting, to them and to others, some thoughts that may prove, I would fain hope, not wholly out of harmony with the graver cadences of Life.
If I have not already exhausted the patience of my readers, I would like to seize this opportunity perhaps the last I shall have of addressing so many friends at once of putting on record some ideas that have occurred to me, as to books desirable to be written--which I should much like to attempt, but may not ever have the time or power to carry through--in the hope that, if I should fail (and the years are gliding away very fast) to finish the task I have set myself, other hands may take it up.
First, a Child's Bible. The only real essentials of this would be, carefully selected passages, suitable for a child's reading, and pictures. One principle of selection, which I would adopt, would be that Religion should be put before a child as a revelation of love--no need to pain and puzzle the young mind with the history of crime and punishment. (On such a principle I should, for example, omit the history of the Flood.) The supplying of the pictures would involve no great difficulty: no new ones would be needed : hundreds of excellent pictures already exist, the copyright of which has long ago expired, and which simply need photo-zincography, or some similar process, for their successful reproduction. The book should be handy in size with a pretty attractive looking cover--in a clear legible type--and, above all, with abundance of pictures, pictures, pictures!
Secondly, a book of pieces selected from the Bible--not single texts, but passages of from 10 to 20 verses each--to be committed to memory. Such passages would be found useful, to repeat to one's self and to ponder over, on many occasions when reading is difficult, if not impossible: for instance, when lying awake at night--on a railway-journey --when taking a solitary walk-in old age, when eyesight is failing or wholly lost--and, best of all, when illness, while incapacitating us for reading or any other occupation, condemns us to lie awake through many weary silent hours: at such a time how keenly one may realise the truth of David's rapturous cry "O how sweet are thy words unto my throat: yea, sweeter than honey unto my mouth!"
I have said 'passages,' rather than single texts, because we have no means of recalling single texts: memory needs links, and here are none: one may have a hundred texts stored in the memory, and not be able to recall, at will, more than half-a-dozen--and those by mere chance: whereas, once get hold of any portion of a chapter that has been committed to memory, and the whole can be recovered: all hangs together.
Thirdly, a collection of passages, both prose and verse, from books other than the Bible. There is not perhaps much, in what is called 'un-inspired' literature (a misnomer, I hold: if Shakespeare was not inspired, one may well doubt if any man ever was), that will bear the process of being pondered over, a hundred times: still there are such passages--enough, I think, to make a goodly store for the memory.
These two books of sacred, and secular, passages for memory--will serve other good purposes besides merely occupying vacant hours: they will help to keep at bay many anxious thoughts, worrying thoughts, uncharitable thoughts, unholy thoughts. Let me say this, in better words than my own, by copying a passage from that most interesting book, Robertson's Lectures on the Epistles to the Corinthians, Lecture XLIX. "If a man finds himself haunted by evil desires and unholy images, which will generally be at periodical hours, let him commit to memory passages of Scripture, or passages from the best writers in verse or prose. Let him store his mind with these, as safeguards to repeat when he lies awake in some restless night, or when despairing imaginations, or gloomy, suicidal thoughts, beset him. Let these be to him the sword, turning everywhere to keep the way of the Garden of Life from the intrusion of profaner footsteps."
Fourthly, a "Shakespeare" for girls: that is, an edition in which everything, not suitable for the perusal of girls of (say) from 10 to 17, should be omitted. Few children under 10 would be likely to understand or enjoy the greatest of poets: and those, who have passed out of girlhood, may safely be left to read Shakespeare, in any edition, 'expurgated' or not, that they may prefer: but it seems a pity that so many children, in the intermediate stage, should be debarred from a great pleasure for want of an edition suitable to them. Neither Bowdler's, Chambers's, Brandram's, nor Cundell's 'Boudoir' Shakespeare, seems to me to meet the want: they are not sufficiently 'expurgated.' Bowdler's is the most extraordinary of all: looking through it, I am filled with a deep sense of wonder, considering what he has left in, that he should have cut anything out! Besides relentlessly erasing all that is unsuitable on the score of reverence or decency, I should be inclined to omit also all that seems too difficult, or not likely to interest young readers. The resulting book might be slightly fragmentary: but it would be a real treasure to all British maidens who have any taste for poetry.
If it be needful to apologize to any one for the new departure I have taken in this story--by introducing, along with what will, I hope, prove to be acceptable nonsense for children, some of the graver thoughts of human life--it must be to one who has learned the Art of keeping such thoughts wholly at a distance in hours of mirth and careless ease. To him such a mixture will seem, no doubt, ill-judged and repulsive. And that such an Art exists I do not dispute: with youth, good health, and sufficient money, it seems quite possible to lead, for years together, a life of unmixed gaiety--with the exception of one solemn fact, with which we are liable to be confronted at any moment, even in the midst of the most brilliant company or the most sparkling entertainment. A man may fix his own times for admitting serious thought, for attending public worship, for prayer, for reading the Bible: all such matters he can defer to that 'convenient season', which is so apt never to occur at all: but he cannot defer, for one single moment, the necessity of attending to a message, which may come before he has finished reading this page,' this night shalt thy soul be required of thee.'
The ever-present sense of this grim possibility has been, in all ages, 1 an incubus that men have striven to shake off. Few more interesting subjects of enquiry could be found, by a student of history, than the various weapons that have been used against this shadowy foe. Saddest of all must have been the thoughts of those who saw indeed an existence beyond the grave, but an existence far more terrible than annihilation--an existence as filmy, impalpable, all but invisible spectres, drifting about, through endless ages, in a world of shadows, with nothing to do, nothing to hope for, nothing to love! In the midst of the gay verses of that genial 'bon vivant' Horace, there stands one dreary word whose utter sadness goes to one's heart. It is the word 'exilium' in the well-known passage
Omnes eodem cogimur, omnium
Versatur urna serius ocius
Sors exitura et nos in aeternum
Exilium impositura cymbae.
Yes, to him this present life--spite of all its weariness and all its sorrow--was the only life worth having: all else was 'exile'! Does it not seem almost incredible that one, holding such a creed, should ever have smiled?
And many in this day, I fear, even though believing in an existence beyond the grave far more real than Horace ever dreamed of, yet regard it as a sort of 'exile' from all the joys of life, and so adopt Horace's theory, and say 'let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'
We go to entertainments, such as the theatre--I say 'we', for I also go to the play, whenever I get a chance of seeing a really good one and keep at arm's length, if possible, the thought that we may not return alive. Yet how do you know--dear friend, whose patience has carried you through this garrulous preface that it may not be your lot, when mirth is fastest and most furious, to feel the sharp pang, or the deadly faintness, which heralds the final crisis--to see, with vague wonder, anxious friends bending over you to hear their troubled whispers perhaps yourself to shape the question, with trembling lips, "Is it serious?", and to be told "Yes: the end is near" (and oh, how different all Life will look when those words are said!)--how do you know, I say, that all this may not happen to you, this night?
And dare you, knowing this, say to yourself "Well, perhaps it is an immoral play: perhaps the situations are a little too 'risky', the dialogue a little too strong, the 'business' a little too suggestive.
I don't say that conscience is quite easy: but the piece is so clever, I must see it this once! I'll begin a stricter life to-morrow." To-morrow, and to-morrow, and tomorrow!
"Who sins in hope, who, sinning, says,
'Sorrow for sin God's judgement stays!'
Against God's Spirit he lies; quite stops Mercy with insult; dares, and drops,
Like a scorch'd fly, that spins in vain
Upon the axis of its pain,
Then takes its doom, to limp and crawl,
Blind and forgot, from fall to fall."
Let me pause for a moment to say that I believe this thought, of the possibility of death--if calmly realised, and steadily faced would be one of the best possible tests as to our going to any scene of amusement being right or wrong. If the thought of sudden death acquires, for you, a special horror when imagined as happening in a theatre, then be very sure the theatre is harmful for you, however harmless it may be for others; and that you are incurring a deadly peril in going. Be sure the safest rule is that we should not dare to live in any scene in which we dare not die.
But, once realise what the true object is in life--that it is not pleasure, not knowledge, not even fame itself, 'that last infirmity of noble minds'--but that it is the development of character, the rising to a higher, nobler, purer standard, the building-up of the perfect Man--and then, so long as we feel that this is going on, and will (we trust) go on for evermore, death has for us no terror; it is not a shadow, but a light; not an end, but a beginning!
One other matter may perhaps seem to call for apology--that I should have treated with such entire want of sympathy the British passion for 'Sport', which no doubt has been in by-gone days, and is still, in some forms of it, an excellent school for hardihood and for coolness in moments of danger.
But I am not entirely without sympathy for genuine 'Sport': I can heartily admire the courage of the man who, with severe bodily toil, and at the risk of his life, hunts down some 'man-eating' tiger: and I can heartily sympathize with him when he exults in the glorious excitement of the chase and the hand-to-hand struggle with the monster brought to bay. But I can but look with deep wonder and sorrow on the hunter who, at his ease and in safety, can find pleasure in what involves, for some defenceless creature, wild terror and a death of agony: deeper, if the hunter be one who has pledged himself to preach to men the Religion of universal Love: deepest of all, if it be one of those 'tender and delicate' beings, whose very name serves as a symbol of Love--'thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women'--whose mission here is surely to help and comfort all that are in pain or sorrow!
'Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.' ~ Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Busy idleness urges us on. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 2:The same night awaits us all. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 3:And plenty makes us poor. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 4:Let us cultivate our garden. ~ voltaire, @wisdomtrove 5:God bless us, every one! ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 6:How easy love makes fools of us. ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 7:While we live, let us live. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 8:Life, for eternal us, is now ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove 9:The turtle couldn't help us. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 10:Love would never leave us alone ~ bob-marley, @wisdomtrove 11:Teach us to care and not to care ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 12:Too great haste leads us to error. ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 13:Joking apart, now let us be serious. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 14:Love, you mock us for your sport. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove 15:No one is as smart as all of us. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 16:Belief traps or frees us. ~ rachel-naomi-remen, @wisdomtrove 17:Every cell in us worships God. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 18:Faith is God's work within us. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 19:Nature is always hinting at us. ~ robert-frost, @wisdomtrove 20:Every cell in us worships God. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 21:Faith is God's work within us. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 22:God loves the world through us. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 23:In our adversity, God shouts to us. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 24:Trials teach us what we are. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 25:We have it in us to be splendid. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 26:Arousal leaves us mind-blind. ~ malcolm-gladwell, @wisdomtrove 27:God always wants us to be growing. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 28:Let us have the luxury of silence. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 29:None of us is smarter than all of us. ~ jim-rohn, @wisdomtrove 30:We have only today. Let us begin ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 31:You have delighted us long enough. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 32:Each friend represents a world in us. ~ anais-nin, @wisdomtrove 33:Fatigue makes cowards of us all. ~ vince-lombardi, @wisdomtrove 34:God wants to bless us where we are. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 35:Let us fight to free the world! ~ charlie-chaplan, @wisdomtrove 36:Our thoughts make us what we are. ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 37:Custom reconciles us to everything. ~ edmund-burke, @wisdomtrove 38:If not us, who? If not now, when? ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 39:In worship, God imparts himself to us. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 40:Wisdom leads us back to childhood. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 41:Every evening brings us nearer God. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 42:Inspiration is what keeps us well. ~ james-redfield, @wisdomtrove 43:Let each of us examine his thoughts ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 44:We often despise what is most useful to us. ~ aesop, @wisdomtrove 45:Custom doth make dotards of us all. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 46:Fear makes us feel our humanity. ~ benjamin-disraeli, @wisdomtrove 47:Money amassed either serves us or rules us. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 48:Our heart always transcends us. ~ rainer-maria-rilke, @wisdomtrove 49:The cancer of time is eating us away, ~ henry-miller, @wisdomtrove 50:Till Human voices wake us, and we drown. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 51:We neither of us perform to strangers. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 52:If not us, who? And if not now, when? ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 53:If we must suffer, let us suffer nobly. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 54:It is finished, is never said of us ~ emily-dickinson, @wisdomtrove 55:Jesus came to save us from our own sins. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 56:Make us your slaves, but feed us. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 57:None of us are as creative as all of us. ~ steve-jobs, @wisdomtrove 58:No one can disgrace us but ourselves. ~ josh-billings, @wisdomtrove 59:True bliss is not in objects, but in us. ~ jean-klein, @wisdomtrove 60:When disposition wins us, the features please. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 61:Feeling tells us what this thing is to us. ~ carl-jung, @wisdomtrove 62:Our disappointment sits between us. ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 63:There's no love lost between us. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 64:The things that hurt us teach us. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 65:The things we love tell us who we are. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 66:Yet it is only love which sets us free. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 67:Fear is the emotion that makes us blind. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 68:God is the poetic genius in each of us. ~ william-blake, @wisdomtrove 69:It is human longing that makes us holy. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 70:Let us not seek the Republican answer. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 71:Practice makes us what we shall be. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 72:The power of imagination makes us infinite. ~ john-muir, @wisdomtrove 73:There is no love lost between us. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 74:The things we love tell us who we are. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 75:We don't take a trip. A trip takes us. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 76:With luck, it might even snow for us. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 77:Curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. ~ walt-disney, @wisdomtrove 78:Even the idiot may have a message for us. ~ henry-miller, @wisdomtrove 79:God never promised us a trouble-free life. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 80:Old age creeps on us ere we think it nigh. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 81:The Bible is God's love letter to us ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 82:Art is a lie that makes us realize truth. ~ pablo-picasso, @wisdomtrove 83:Christ became one of us to redeem all of us. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 84:Every change is being forced upon us. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 85:Let us forget and forgive injuries. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 86:Love conquers all things; let us own her dominion. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 87:Pray for us now and at the hour of our birth. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 88:The mighty hopes that make us men. ~ alfred-lord-tennyson, @wisdomtrove 89:The seed of sin is in us when we are born. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 90:We are what our thoughts have made us ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 91:What makes night within us may leave stars. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 92:When we waste our time, our time wastes us ~ robin-sharma, @wisdomtrove 93:Guys like us got nothing to look ahead to ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 94:Judgment is forced upon us by experience. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 95:Let us not unlearn what we have already learned ~ diogenes, @wisdomtrove 96:Let us then, be up and doing. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove 97:Music causes us to think eloquently. ~ ralph-waldo-emerson, @wisdomtrove 98:My fair one, let us swear an eternal friendship. ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 99:Only God creates. The rest of us just copy. ~ michelangelo, @wisdomtrove 100:Only law can give us freedom. ~ johann-wolfgang-von-goethe, @wisdomtrove 101:Some of us want the crown before the cross. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 102:The US is safest when Congress is in recess. ~ will-rogers, @wisdomtrove 103:Chance encounters are what keep us going. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 104:Curse us and crush us, my precious is lost! ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 105:Do not let us mistake necessary evils for good. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 106:Each one of us has to be what he or she is. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 107:God never sends us more than we can handle. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 108:Let us make hay while the sun shines. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 109:Light sufferings give us leisure to complain. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 110:Oh, give us the man who sings at his work. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 111:There is just one life for each of us: our own. ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove 112:Who amongst us lives without sacrifice? ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 113:Maybe the world, without us, is the real poem. ~ mary-oliver, @wisdomtrove 114:Pass us by, and forgive us our happiness ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 115:There is a God within us and intercourse with heaven. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 116:The things that we love tell us what we are. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 117:The trumpet's loud clangor Excites us to arms. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 118:Whatever good things we build end up building us. ~ jim-rohn, @wisdomtrove 119:All of us need to grow continuously in our lives. ~ les-brown, @wisdomtrove 120:Conscience doth make cowards of us all. ~ william-shakespeare, @wisdomtrove 121:Decisions can be a major challenge for all of us. ~ les-brown, @wisdomtrove 122:Each one of us is part of the soul of the universe ~ plotinus, @wisdomtrove 123:God loves us too much to indulge our every whim. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 124:It is often our best friends who throw us down. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 125:Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 126:Money doesn't make us anyway it just unmasks us. ~ henry-ford, @wisdomtrove 127:No one can degrade us except ourselves. ~ booker-t-washington, @wisdomtrove 128:Space ails us moderns: we are sick with space. ~ robert-frost, @wisdomtrove 129:The map appears to us more real than the land. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 130:The things that we love tell us what we are. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 131:The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 132:Too often, the person who wrecks our work is us. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 133:What have future generations ever done for us? ~ groucho-marx, @wisdomtrove 134:Anything is a blessing which makes us pray. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 135:Even Rome cannot grant us a dispensation from death. ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 136:God heard us. He sent help. He sent you. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 137:God is with us, and His power is around us. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 138:If there is equality it is in His love, not in us. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 139:Inactivity strikes us as intelligent behavior. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 140:Let us be servants in order to be leaders. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 141:Negative feedback can make us bitter or better. ~ robin-sharma, @wisdomtrove 142:Psychological knowledge has made us dull. ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 143:The glow of inspiration warms us; it is a holy rapture. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 144:There is a God within us, and we glow when He stirs us. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 145:We need the books that affect us like a disaster ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 146:What we need is love, to guide and protect us on. ~ bob-marley, @wisdomtrove 147:In each of us there is another whom we do not know. ~ carl-jung, @wisdomtrove 148:Our scars make us know that our past was for real ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 149:The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 150:The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 151:The trumpet's loud clangour / Excites us to arms. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 152:We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us. ~ edmund-burke, @wisdomtrove 153:What defines us is how well we rise after we fall. ~ zig-ziglar, @wisdomtrove 154:All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 155:Courage may be taught as a child us taught to speak. ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove 156:God always punishes us for what we can't imagine. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 157:God is always near us. Always for us. Always in us. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 158:Let us be merciful as well as just. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove 159:Let us be moral. Let us contemplate existence. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 160:Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 161:Love is never outside ourselves; love is within us. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 162:Nobody abuses us more than we abuse ourselves. ~ don-miguel-ruiz, @wisdomtrove 163:The attempt and not the deed confounds us. ~ william-shakespeare, @wisdomtrove 164:The light of faith makes us see what we believe. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 165:There's an infinite amount of hope but not for us. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 166:What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us. ~ hermann-hesse, @wisdomtrove 167:A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 168:A book should serve as an axe to the ice inside us. ~ franz-kafka, @wisdomtrove 169:All god wants us to do is do what he asks us to do. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 170:Before prayer changes others, it first changes us. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 171:Come sit with me! Let us drink the holy wine of happiness. ~ rumi, @wisdomtrove 172:Forbid us something, and that thing we desire. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 173:God gave us sleep to remind us we are not him. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 174:God would rather give up His son..than give up on us ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 175:Grace alone brings about every good work in us. ~ saint-augustine, @wisdomtrove 176:If we are wise, let us prepare for the worst. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 177:Let us not throw the rope after the bucket. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 178:Love creates an "us" without destroying the "me". ~ leo-buscaglia, @wisdomtrove 179:makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 180:None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 181:Photographs are not ideas. They give us ideas. ~ jean-paul-sartre, @wisdomtrove 182:the history of melancholia includes all of us. ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 183:The light of faith makes us see what we believe. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 184:There still might be a place for us somewhere. ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 185:Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 186:He who robs us of our dreams robs us of our life. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 187:Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working. ~ pablo-picasso, @wisdomtrove 188:Let us blame none, let us blame our own Karma. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 189:Let us not depend upon the world for pleasure. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 190:Let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 191:Salvation is God's way of making us real people. ~ saint-augustine, @wisdomtrove 192:Theory helps us to bear our ignorance of facts. ~ george-santayana, @wisdomtrove 193:us, you must "not look too good nor talk too wise. ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 194:Dreams and goals keep us young and interested in life. ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 195:Each one of us was sent here for a special destiny. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 196:Few of us can stand prosperity. Another man's, I mean. ~ mark-twain, @wisdomtrove 197:God doesn't want something from us. He simply wants us. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 198:God has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 199:Let us live in the harness, striving mightily. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 200:Life is given to us, we earn it by giving it. ~ rabindranath-tagore, @wisdomtrove 201:Silence gives us a new way of looking at something. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 202:To not love ourselves can keep what we want from us. ~ rhonda-byrne, @wisdomtrove 203:We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle. ~ marilyn-monroe, @wisdomtrove 204:Without God, we cannot. Without us, God will not. ~ saint-augustine, @wisdomtrove 205:All of us, the great and the little have need of each other. ~ aesop, @wisdomtrove 206:Come, let us sing a psalm, and drive away the devil. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 207:Do not fret, for God did not create us to abandon us. ~ michelangelo, @wisdomtrove 208:fate gives us the hand, and we play the cards. ~ arthur-schopenhauer, @wisdomtrove 209:God will never help us be anyone other than ourselves. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 210:Let us sacrifice one day to gain perhaps a whole life. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 211:Nature has given us two ears but only one mouth. ~ benjamin-disraeli, @wisdomtrove 212:Regardless of what we do, our karma has no hold on us. ~ bodhidharma, @wisdomtrove 213:We first make our habits, and then our habits make us. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 214:We make our own hell out of the people around us. ~ jean-paul-sartre, @wisdomtrove 215:We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 216:All things are lessons that God would have us learn. ~ lyania-vanzant, @wisdomtrove 217:Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove 218:Even the youngest of us may be wrong sometimes. ~ george-bernard-shaw, @wisdomtrove 219:Everything that's innocent to us is crazy to them. ~ ernest-hemingway, @wisdomtrove 220:From the errors of other nations, let us learn wisdom. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 221:If we agree on everything, only one of us is necessary. ~ dan-millman, @wisdomtrove 222:Imperceptibly the hours glide on, and beguile us as they pass. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 223:In every author let us distinguish the man from his works. ~ voltaire, @wisdomtrove 224:Knowledge, if it does not determine action, is dead to us. ~ plotinus, @wisdomtrove 225:Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 226:Secrets are things we give to others to keep for us. ~ elbert-hubbard, @wisdomtrove 227:We did not domesticate wheat. It domesticated us. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 228:We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 229:All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. ~ william-faulkner, @wisdomtrove 230:All of us have special ones who have loved us into being ~ fred-rogers, @wisdomtrove 231:Any of us would kill a cow rather than not have beef. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 232:Death lies dormant in each of us and will bloom in time. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 233:Earth will be safe when we feel in us enough safety. ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove 234:Every sin is the distortion of an energy breathed into us. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 235:God destines us for an end beyond the grasp of reason. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 236:It is no accident that propels people like us to Paris. ~ henry-miller, @wisdomtrove 237:It is the place of feeling that binds us or frees us. ~ jack-kornfield, @wisdomtrove 238:It's not the tragedies that kill us; it's the messes. ~ dorothy-parker, @wisdomtrove 239:Ladies there is no neutral position for us to assume. ~ gertrude-stein, @wisdomtrove 240:Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 241:May God us keep From Single vision and Newton's sleep. ~ william-blake, @wisdomtrove 242:Music wasn't made to make us wise, but better natured. ~ josh-billings, @wisdomtrove 243:There are too many of us and we are all too far apart. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 244:-We are full of things which take us out of ourselves. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 245:What hidden, hoarded longings there are in all of us. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 246:A book should teach us to enjoy life, or to endure it. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 247:Every one of us is the sum total of his own thoughts ~ earl-nightingale, @wisdomtrove 248:God destines us for an end beyond the grasp of reason. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 249:God loves each of us as if there were only one of us. ~ saint-augustine, @wisdomtrove 250:Hard times require furious dancing. Each of us is proof. ~ alice-walker, @wisdomtrove 251:How about we just see where life takes us for awhile? ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 252:If there were no problems, most of us would be unemployed. ~ zig-ziglar, @wisdomtrove 253:Increasingly, the world around us looks as if we hated it. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 254:Let us live in such a way as not to be afraid to die. ~ teresa-of-avila, @wisdomtrove 255:Let us try to recognize the precious nature of each day. ~ dalai-lama, @wisdomtrove 256:Most of us have a "Do Not Disturb" sign around our necks. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 257:Only parts of us will ever touch only parts of others. ~ marilyn-monroe, @wisdomtrove 258:Pleasure is oft a visitant; but pain Clings cruelly to us. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 259:Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite! ~ charlie-chaplan, @wisdomtrove 260:There is no reality except the one contained within us. ~ hermann-hesse, @wisdomtrove 261:The universe takes us as seriously as we take it. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 262:Those who never make mistakes work for those of us who do. ~ henry-ford, @wisdomtrove 263:Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind. ~ nathaniel-hawthorne, @wisdomtrove 264:We must guard against allowing anger to drag us into sin. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 265:Before God can deliver us we must undeceive ourselves. ~ saint-augustine, @wisdomtrove 266:First we make our attitudes. Then our attitudes make us. ~ denis-waitley, @wisdomtrove 267:God wants us to be in joy, God wants us to be happy. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 268:Infinity? It attracts us like a floodlight in the night. ~ frank-herbert, @wisdomtrove 269:In solitude we realize that nothing human is alien to us. ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove 270:It is the contest that delights us, and not the victory. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 271:Let us swim together in the ocean of our being. ~ jonathan-lockwood-huie, @wisdomtrove 272:Malt does more than Hubbard did to help us look into the Id ~ ogden-nash, @wisdomtrove 273:The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray. ~ oscar-wilde, @wisdomtrove 274:There is a sweet joy that comes to us through sorrow. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 275:A thought often makes us hotter than a fire. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove 276:Death smiles at us all, all a man can do is smile back. ~ marcus-aurelius, @wisdomtrove 277:Experience teaches us that silence terrifies people the most. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 278:God bless us every one! said Tiny Tim, the last of all. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 279:God does not call us to be successful, but to be obedient. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 280:God expects of us only what He Himself has supplied. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 281:Guilt can stop us from taking healthy care of ourselves. ~ melody-beattie, @wisdomtrove 282:However softly we speak, God is near enough to hear us. ~ teresa-of-avila, @wisdomtrove 283:How we handle our tough times stays with us for a long time. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 284:Lawyers are men whom we hire to protect us from lawyers. ~ elbert-hubbard, @wisdomtrove 285:Life reveals itself to us only in so far as well live it. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 286:Love is a great master. It teaches us to be what we never were. ~ moliere, @wisdomtrove 287:Nature, like us is sometimes caught without her diadem. ~ emily-dickinson, @wisdomtrove 288:Otherwise we don't run the government the government runs us ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 289:Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control. ~ jack-kornfield, @wisdomtrove 290:The short span of life forbids us to take on far-reaching hopes. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 291:The things we fear the most have already happened to us. ~ robin-williams, @wisdomtrove 292:The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it. ~ plutarch, @wisdomtrove 293:We can't all and some of us don't. That's all there is to it. ~ a-a-milne, @wisdomtrove 294:We create gods and struggle with them, and they bless us. ~ hermann-hesse, @wisdomtrove 295:We like other people to show themselves to us as they really are. ~ aesop, @wisdomtrove 296:We need beauty because it makes us ache to be worthy of it. ~ mary-oliver, @wisdomtrove 297:When fate hands us a lemon, let's try to make lemonade. ~ andrew-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 298:An awareness of death encourages us to live more intensely. ~ paulo-coelho, @wisdomtrove 299:A piece of the miracle process has been reserved for each of us ~ jim-rohn, @wisdomtrove 300:Christ wants us to have a child's heart but a grown-up's head. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 301:God only, who made us rich, can make us poor. ~ elizabeth-barrett-browning, @wisdomtrove 302:Let us forgive each other - only then will we live in peace. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 303:Let us seize, friends, our opportunity from the day as it passes. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 304:Life is not accountable to us. We are accountable to life. ~ denis-waitley, @wisdomtrove 305:Little things console us because little things afflict us. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 306:Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free. ~ dwight-eisenhower, @wisdomtrove 307:Our desires, once realized, haunt us again less readily. ~ margaret-fuller, @wisdomtrove 308:Our trials, our sorrows, and our grieves develop us. ~ orison-swett-marden, @wisdomtrove 309:Prayer gives us a pure heart and a pure heart can do much. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 310:The journey is what brings us happiness not the destination. ~ dan-millman, @wisdomtrove 311:The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. ~ richard-bach, @wisdomtrove 312:The world loves us when we choose to love the world. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 313:Though in midst of life we be Snares of death surround us. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 314:We are all as God made us and frequently much worse. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 315:We must abolish nuclear weapons, or they will abolish us. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 316:We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us. ~ rabindranath-tagore, @wisdomtrove 317:When the lightning strikes one of us, it strikes both ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove 318:Where there is no hope, it is incumbent on us to invent it. ~ albert-camus, @wisdomtrove 319:Wisdom that don't make us happier ain't worth plowing for. ~ josh-billings, @wisdomtrove 320:100 per cent of us die, and the percentage cannot be increased. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 321:A mere trifle consoles us, for a mere trifle distresses us. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 322:Everything that's really worthwhile in life comes to us. ~ earl-nightingale, @wisdomtrove 323:For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 324:God in His wisdom made the fly And then forgot to tell us why. ~ ogden-nash, @wisdomtrove 325:Happiness is liberty from everything that makes us unhappy. ~ vernon-howard, @wisdomtrove 326:How sad it is that we give up on people who are just like us. ~ fred-rogers, @wisdomtrove 327:If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for. ~ alice-walker, @wisdomtrove 328:I'm speaking for all of us. I'm the spokesman for a generation. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 329:I think God wants us to love Him more, not to love others less. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 330:It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 331:Others may try to feed our ego, but it is up to us to constrain it. ~ aesop, @wisdomtrove 332:The great authors share their souls with us- "literally. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 333:The greatest works of art speak to us without knowing us. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 334:There is something in us that is wiser than our head. ~ arthur-schopenhauer, @wisdomtrove 335:They tell me there are many gods, for god is in each of us. ~ brian-l-weiss, @wisdomtrove 336:To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely. ~ edmund-burke, @wisdomtrove 337:We are interested in others when they are interested in us. ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 338:Christ desires nothing more of us than that we speak of him. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 339:Death is the side of life which is turned away from us. ~ rainer-maria-rilke, @wisdomtrove 340:God, guide and protect us. When we're wrong, please correct us. ~ bob-marley, @wisdomtrove 341:Happiness isn’t outside of us, but actually comes from within. ~ leo-babauta, @wisdomtrove 342:Here, Gentlemen, a dog teaches us a lesson in humanity. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 343:If we do not maintain Justice, Justice will not maintain us. ~ francis-bacon, @wisdomtrove 344:In each of us is a seed of understanding. The seed is God. ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove 345:Instinct teaches us to look for happiness outside ourselves. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 346:It is God’s passionate pursuit of us that calls us to prayer. ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove 347:It isn't what we say or think that defines us, but what we do. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 348:Our acts make or mar us, we are the children of our own deeds. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 349:Privacy Policy Terms of Service Contact Us About Us ~ jonathan-lockwood-huie, @wisdomtrove 350:... the plan will happen in spite of us, not because of us. ~ melody-beattie, @wisdomtrove 351:Those in power must spend a lot of their time laughing at us. ~ alice-walker, @wisdomtrove 352:To some of us, the nights are too long. To some, the days. ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 353:Facts bring us to knowledge, but stories lead to wisdom. ~ rachel-naomi-remen, @wisdomtrove 354:Give us courage and gaiety and the quient mind . . . ~ robert-louis-stevenson, @wisdomtrove 355:Giving does not impoverish us nor does withholding enrich us. ~ b-k-s-iyengar, @wisdomtrove 356:If we possess nothing, God will allow us to have plenty. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 357:In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 358:I think... that when it comes to us, anything is possible. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 359:It world be well had we more misers than we have among us. ~ oliver-goldsmith, @wisdomtrove 360:No man is an island, but some of us are long peninsulas. ~ ashleigh-brilliant, @wisdomtrove 361:Nothing forces us to know What we do not want to know Except pain ~ aeschylus, @wisdomtrove 362:Oh, do not ask, & 363:Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 364:That which we call sin in others is experiment for us. ~ ralph-waldo-emerson, @wisdomtrove 365:The praise of a fool is incense to the wisest of us . . . ~ benjamin-disraeli, @wisdomtrove 366:The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 367:Tis not that dieing hurts us so- tis living- hurts us more. ~ emily-dickinson, @wisdomtrove 368:We are all human; therefore, nothing human can be alien to us. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 369:We are, each of us, a multitude. Within us is a little universe. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 370:We must lay before him what is in us; not what ought to be in us. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 371:What seems to us bitter trials are often blessings in disguise. ~ oscar-wilde, @wisdomtrove 372:After all, why be good? How many will actually believe it of us? ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 373:A little thing comforts us because a little thing afflicts us. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 374:All of us our but his instruments who do our part and pass by. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 375:Any day that we don't give up puts us one day closer to success! ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 376:As you've probably discovered, great work makes us uncomfortable. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 377:Everything that happens to us is a reflection of who we are. ~ deepak-chopra, @wisdomtrove 378:Geniuses must never die, the progress of mankind depends on us ~ salvador-dali, @wisdomtrove 379:God speaks to us every day only we don't know how to listen. ~ mahatma-gandhi, @wisdomtrove 380:Grace renders us like God and a partaker of the divine nature. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 381:If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated. ~ voltaire, @wisdomtrove 382:Let us learn to live simply, so that others may simply live. ~ mahatma-gandhi, @wisdomtrove 383:Let us remain as empty as possible so that God can fill us up. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 384:Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 385:Life, as it is called, is for most of us one long postponement. ~ henry-miller, @wisdomtrove 386:Perfection is not to be attained, it is already within us. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 387:Rivers are roads that move and carry us whither we wish to go. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 388:The hopes and fears of all our years are here with us tonight. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 389:The only test of goods things is that they make us strong. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 390:The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 391:Through prayer we speak to God. In meditation, God speaks to us. ~ edgar-cayce, @wisdomtrove 392:We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 393:We must not creep along when our souls cry out for us to soar! ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove 394:We shall all of us die, so why should I grudge a little trouble? ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 395:All of us have life; few of us have an idea of it. ~ johann-wolfgang-von-goethe, @wisdomtrove 396:Grace renders us like God and a partaker of the divine nature. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 397:If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out? ~ will-rogers, @wisdomtrove 398:It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 399:It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 400:Labor rids us of three great evils& 401:Let us ask ourselves; "What kind of people do we think we are?" ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 402:Let us give out of our own bounty, just as God gives to us. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 403:Let us not love by words alone, but let us love until it hurts. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 404:That we may consult concerning others, and not others concerning us. ~ plutarch, @wisdomtrove 405:Violence is not completely fatal until it ceases to disturb us. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 406:We call beauty that which supplies us with a particular pleasure. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 407:And no one will listen to us until we listen to ourselves. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 408:Brethren, who are we that God should have been so good to us? ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 409:Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 410:God's grace, quite simply, is God's mercy and goodness toward us. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 411:Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our deeds. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 412:I don't believe in a government that protects us from ourselves. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 413:It is not beauty that endears, it's love that makes us see beauty. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 414:It is the stars, the stars above us govern our conditions. ~ william-shakespeare, @wisdomtrove 415:I want a storm to come and flood us into a song that no one wrote. ~ frida-kahlo, @wisdomtrove 416:Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove 417:Let us open our leaves like a flower, and be passive and receptive. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 418:Let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 419:Let us sing a new song, not with our lips, but with our lives. ~ saint-augustine, @wisdomtrove 420:Life plays the same lovely and agonizing joke on all of us. ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove 421:Self is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 422:The more pride we have, the more other people‚Äôs pride irritates us ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 423:The vices come as passengers, visit us as guest and stay as masters. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove 424:Too many of us are lonely ministers practicing a lonely ministry. ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove 425:We must never rest until everything inside us worships God. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 426:Words may deeply wound us, but we must run that risk to be free. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 427:Blame it or praise it, there is no denying the wild horse in us. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 428:Duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them beautifully. ~ zig-ziglar, @wisdomtrove 429:Every-time we use a product or service, someone is serving us. ~ earl-nightingale, @wisdomtrove 430:-ev'n with us the breath Of Science dims the mirror of our joy. ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 431:Faith will tell us Christ is present, When our human senses fail. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 432:God doesn't require us to succeed, he only requires that you try. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 433:God gives us things to share, God doesn't give us things to hold. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 434:He (God) loved us not because we are lovable, but because He is love. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 435:Humility makes us ready to be blessed by the God of all grace. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 436:Not seeing people permits us to imagine them with every perfection. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 437:One night is awaiting us all, and the way of death must be trodden once. ~ horace, @wisdomtrove 438:Since we have a good loaf, let us not look for cheesecakes. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 439:Sometimes we don't need words. Rather, it's words that need us. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 440:The Crime, from us, is hidden, [though] he is presumed to know. ~ emily-dickinson, @wisdomtrove 441:The Soul of each one of us is sent, that the universe may be complete. ~ plotinus, @wisdomtrove 442:Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity... ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 443:To be cast down is often the best thing that can happen to us. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 444:We are always striving for things forbidden, and coveting those denied us. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 445:We the people tell the government what to do, it doesn't tell us. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 446:Concealed sorrow bursts the heart, and rages within us as an internal fire. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 447:Each of us creates his or her own life largely by our attitude. ~ earl-nightingale, @wisdomtrove 448:Each one of us must live the life God gives him; it cannot be shirked. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove 449:Faith will tell us Christ is present, When our human senses fail. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 450:God must do everything for us. Our part is to yield and trust ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 451:If Hero means sincere man, why may not every one of us be a Hero? ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 452:If pain could have cured us we should long ago have been saved. ~ george-santayana, @wisdomtrove 453:Jesus Christ opened heaven's door for us by His death on the cross. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 454:Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods. ~ ralph-waldo-emerson, @wisdomtrove 455:Only humility will lead us to unity, and unity will lead to peace. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 456:Prayer is a friendly conversation with the One we know loves us. ~ teresa-of-avila, @wisdomtrove 457:The customs and practices of life in society sweep us along. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove 458:The more we empty ourselves, the more room we give God to fill us. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 459:There is nothing fatherly about time and what it does to us, either. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 460:We always strive after what is forbidden, and desire the things refused us. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 461:We must pray to Jesus to give us that tenderness of the Eucharist. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 462:We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us. ~ winston-churchill, @wisdomtrove 463:We should not let our fears hold us back from pursuing our hopes. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 464:We talk a lot about the importance of physical exercise to wake us ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 465:All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 466:As we write, so we build: to keep a record of what matters to us. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 467:Communion with Christ gives us our strength, our joy, and our love. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 468:Each one of us should lead a life stirring enough to start a movement. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 469:Four thousand volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what the soul is. ~ voltaire, @wisdomtrove 470:If from society we learn to live, solitude should teach us how to die. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 471:I tiger can smile A snake will say it loves you Lies make us evil ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 472:It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath. ~ aeschylus, @wisdomtrove 473:Labels are distancing phenomena. They push us away from each other. ~ leo-buscaglia, @wisdomtrove 474:Laws teach us to know when we commit injury and when we suffer it. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 475:Let us rejoice in the truth, wherever we find its lamp burning. ~ albert-schweitzer, @wisdomtrove 476:Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things. ~ arthur-schopenhauer, @wisdomtrove 477:Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed. ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 478:Our beliefs can move us forward in life – or they can hold us back. ~ oprah-winfrey, @wisdomtrove 479:Passion - and humor will permit all of us to do some marvelous things. ~ zig-ziglar, @wisdomtrove 480:Rivers are highways that move on and bear us whither we wish to go. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 481:The Beatles are a passing phase, symptoms of the confusion about us. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 482:The trouble with most of us is that we stop trying in trying times. ~ denis-waitley, @wisdomtrove 483:The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keeps out the joy. ~ jim-rohn, @wisdomtrove 484:Virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 485:We do not want a religion that deceives us for our own good. ~ sir-arthur-eddington, @wisdomtrove 486:Whatever we try to control does have control over us and our life. ~ melody-beattie, @wisdomtrove 487:What we sincerely believe regarding ourselves is true for us. ~ orison-swett-marden, @wisdomtrove 488:All of us are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 489:God has given us control over one thing in our lives - our thoughts. ~ napoleon-hill, @wisdomtrove 490:God help us - for art is long, and life so short. ~ johann-wolfgang-von-goethe, @wisdomtrove 491:God wants us to know that when we have Him, we have everything. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 492:Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 493:Grant us peace, Almighty Father, so to pray as to deserve to be heard. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 494:If the wind rises it can push us against the flood when it comes. ~ ernest-hemingway, @wisdomtrove 495:I repeat, whether we be Italians or Frenchmen, misery concerns us all. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 496:It is not for us to forecast the future, but to shape it. ~ antoine-de-saint-exupery, @wisdomtrove 497:It is the function of art to carry us beyond speech to experience. ~ joseph-campbell, @wisdomtrove 498:It's strange how pain marks our faces, and makes us look like family. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 499:Jesus didn't die for us so we could pretend to be something we're not. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 500:Judgments prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances. ~ wayne-dyer, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:And I'm sorry for us ~ Thom Yorke, #NFDB
2:Excuse us for the news, ~ Chuck D, #NFDB
3:Let us die trying. ~ Velma Wallis, #NFDB
4:TOYS AREN’T US ~ Anthony Horowitz, #NFDB
5:us has a natural ~ Robin S Sharma, #NFDB
6:Us Ne Kahaa Sun
~ Ahmad Faraz,#NFDB
7:You lied to us ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
8:Art pries us open. ~ Amanda Palmer, #NFDB
9:Give me back to us! ~ Kate Griffin, #NFDB
10:I won't give up on us ~ Jason Mraz, #NFDB
11:Stories can save us. ~ Tim O Brien, #NFDB
12:What is it with us? ~ Jill Shalvis, #NFDB
13:Beer makes us happy. ~ Randy Mosher, #NFDB
14:Busy idleness urges us on. ~ Horace, #NFDB
15:find what drives us ~ Daniel H Pink, #NFDB
16:Solomon smiles with us ~ N D Wilson, #NFDB
17:Death means nothing to us ~ Epicurus, #NFDB
18:Love Made Us Liars ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
19:The dead walk among us. ~ Max Brooks, #NFDB
20:to back us a bit more. ~ Vince Flynn, #NFDB
21:To summer, and to us. ~ Sarah Dessen, #NFDB
22:We'd be a wonderful us. ~ Kiera Cass, #NFDB
23:He convinces us with love, ~ Bob Goff, #NFDB
24:I'm not giving up on us. ~ Katie Reus, #NFDB
25:It’s all about us now. ~ Belle Aurora, #NFDB
26:Let us search the old highways. ~ H D, #NFDB
27:None of us is ever ready, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
28:Prayer changes us. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
29:Trouble's made us kin. ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
30:all have magic inside us ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
31:Brutal perfection. It’s us ~ Ker Dukey, #NFDB
32:Ease crushes us. ~ Michel de Montaigne, #NFDB
33:Good days are upon us. ~ Narendra Modi, #NFDB
34:I always believed in us. ~ A L Jackson, #NFDB
35:Love makes us liars. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
36:Misfortunes make us wise ~ Mary Norton, #NFDB
37:No law's gonna change us ~ Macklemore, #NFDB
38:None of us are normal. ~ Erica Chilson, #NFDB
39:Our dreams make us large. ~ Jack Kirby, #NFDB
40:Them-and-us-attitude ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
41:Then let us go and be terrible. ~ Brom, #NFDB
42:The same night awaits us all. ~ Horace, #NFDB
43:You lie like one of us. ~ Alan Bradley, #NFDB
44:And plenty makes us poor. ~ John Dryden, #NFDB
45:Animals make us Human. ~ Temple Grandin, #NFDB
46:Each of us bears his own Hell. ~ Virgil, #NFDB
47:Fast never saw us go. ~ W Bruce Cameron, #NFDB
48:God didn't miss any of us. ~ Al McGuire, #NFDB
49:God save us from religion. ~ David Icke, #NFDB
50:Greed kills us all. ~ Kentetsu Takamori, #NFDB
51:History teaches us hope. ~ Robert E Lee, #NFDB
52:I'm in love with us Jet ~ Jay Crownover, #NFDB
53:Let us cultivate our garden. ~ Voltaire, #NFDB
54:Misfortunes make us wise. ~ Mary Norton, #NFDB
55:one city too strong for us; ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
56:Sat is within us. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
57:To us, summer was a verb ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
58:Us frogs understand this. ~ Deb Caletti, #NFDB
59:You'll never see us coming. ~ Dan Wells, #NFDB
60:Death walks among us ~ S K N Hammerstone, #NFDB
61:Each of us is an original. ~ Rick Warren, #NFDB
62:I'm frightened. Of us. ~ William Golding, #NFDB
63:Justice is juxtaposition in us ~ Common, #NFDB
64:Knowledge doesn't fail us. ~ Ally Condie, #NFDB
65:Let us do better. ~ Henri Fr d ric Amiel, #NFDB
66:New Jersey gives us glue. ~ Howard Dietz, #NFDB
67:Someone loves us all. ~ Elizabeth Bishop, #NFDB
68:Teach us by your lives. ~ Horatius Bonar, #NFDB
69:The world lies all before us. ~ Ron Rash, #NFDB
70:Us is my favorite people. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
71:We’re done ignoring us. ~ Cristin Harber, #NFDB
72:Ah, love, let us be true ~ Matthew Arnold, #NFDB
73:Coast with us, Emerald Eyes? ~ Jay McLean, #NFDB
74:Darkness reminds us of light. ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB
75:Desire turns us into ghosts ~ Octavio Paz, #NFDB
76:It’s us. And it’s perfect. ~ Sarina Bowen, #NFDB
77:Left behind as a memory for us. ~ Statius, #NFDB
78:Let us all be from somewhere. ~ Bob Hicok, #NFDB
79:Love makes us such fools. ~ Leslye Walton, #NFDB
80:New blood keeps us alive. ~ Monte Pittman, #NFDB
81:Our pussies mean a lot to us. ~ Ker Dukey, #NFDB
82:sustains us, we sustain. ~ Michelle Segar, #NFDB
83:There is no them. There's only us. ~ Bono, #NFDB
84:The sky is weeping for us. ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
85:Time is what disperses us. ~ Ian Caldwell, #NFDB
86:What made us think we were ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
87:A GOD BUYS US CHEESEBURGERS ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
88:All of us begin somewhere. ~ Cameron Dokey, #NFDB
89:a monster lives in us all. ~ Courtney Cole, #NFDB
90:Bring us together again. ~ Richard M Nixon, #NFDB
91:Fashion is for us to have fun. ~ Reem Acra, #NFDB
92:Give us grace to listen well. ~ John Keble, #NFDB
93:God bless us, every one! ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
94:God save us from religion. ~ David Eddings, #NFDB
95:Having much makes us greedy. ~ Erin Hunter, #NFDB
96:How easy love makes fools of us. ~ Moliere, #NFDB
97:Life ,for eternal us,is now ~ e e cummings, #NFDB
98:Love hurts when it changes us. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB
99:Lust makes cowards of us all. ~ James Lear, #NFDB
100:Nature knows not to trust us. ~ Hugh Howey, #NFDB
101:No. Don't you do this to us. ~ Abbi Glines, #NFDB
102:None of us is ever alone, ~ Robert J Crane, #NFDB
103:Only a god can save us. ~ Martin Heidegger, #NFDB
104:Our troubles keep us going. ~ Mason Cooley, #NFDB
105:PowerPoint makes us stupid. ~ James Mattis, #NFDB
106:Sometimes he makes us live. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
107:Sometimes love chooses us ~ Tabitha Suzuma, #NFDB
108:Tears don't become us. ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
109:The ghosts followed us back. ~ Peter Watts, #NFDB
110:They mean to board us,” Mister ~ Ryk Brown, #NFDB
111:Us Kii Nikah Par Hii
~ Abdullah Kamaal,#NFDB
112:While we live, let us live. ~ D H Lawrence, #NFDB
113:Wisdom tells us we are not worthy; ~ Rumi, #NFDB
114:You were put here to protect us. ~ KRS One, #NFDB
115:5 Guide us ona the right path, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
116:6. Guide us to the Straight Way ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
117:Ah, grief makes us precise! ~ Leonard Cohen, #NFDB
118:All of us are beggars here. ~ William James, #NFDB
119:Blessedness is within us all. ~ Patti Smith, #NFDB
120:Colors were dynamite for us. ~ Andre Derain, #NFDB
121:Each of us is indeed alone. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
122:Earth and heaven are in us ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
123:Experience makes us wise. ~ William Hazlitt, #NFDB
124:Find the stories that unite us ~ Ami Vitale, #NFDB
125:God uses us to impact others. ~ Johnny Hunt, #NFDB
126:Greatness exists in all of us. ~ Will Smith, #NFDB
127:It broke me and I broke us. ~ Paula Hawkins, #NFDB
128:It’s love that enslaves us. ~ Justin Cronin, #NFDB
129:Let light hearts remake us. ~ Joni Mitchell, #NFDB
130:Let us see what love can do. ~ William Penn, #NFDB
131:look at what God has done for us. ~ E N Joy, #NFDB
132:Mistakes make us who we are. ~ Lisa De Jong, #NFDB
133:Nothing exists outside of us. ~ Celia Aaron, #NFDB
134:Nothing is ever behind us. ~ Roberto Bolano, #NFDB
135:Nothing is ever behind us. ~ Roberto Bola o, #NFDB
136:The darkness is killing us. ~ Margaret Weis, #NFDB
137:There is someone who looks after us ~ Rumi, #NFDB
138:The turtle couldn't help us. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
139:The world will not wait for us. ~ Bob Hawke, #NFDB
140:Why do you all push us around? ~ Rosa Parks, #NFDB
141:All that rescues us is love. ~ Edward Hirsch, #NFDB
142:And make death proud to take us. ~ Cleopatra, #NFDB
143:But if desire always within us be, ~ Lao Tzu, #NFDB
144:cats choose us; we don't own them ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
145:Death Makes Angels of us all. ~ Jim Morrison, #NFDB
146:Experience teacheth us ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
147:For us there is only the trying. ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB
148:Give her hell from us, Peeves. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
149:God grant us patience! ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
150:Hard grind got us the glory, ~ Jessie Burton, #NFDB
151:Here we are now, entertain us. ~ Kurt Cobain, #NFDB
152:-call us alexandria ~ Amanda Lovelace, #NFDB
153:I could never regret you. Us ~ Susan Mallery, #NFDB
154:I feel like [God]'s hazing us. ~ Jon Stewart, #NFDB
155:Let muggles manage without us! ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
156:Let the gods speak softly of us ~ Ezra Pound, #NFDB
157:Let us be elegant or die ~ Louisa May Alcott, #NFDB
158:Let us find the dam snackbar. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
159:Let us live so we can love. ~ Lisa Schroeder, #NFDB
160:Let us try what love will do. ~ William Penn, #NFDB
161:Love would never leave us alone ~ Bob Marley, #NFDB
162:Nearness to God is common to us all, ~ Rumi, #NFDB
163:Our leaders are killing us. ~ Santosh Kalwar, #NFDB
164:People never cease to amaze us. ~ Frank Iero, #NFDB
165:Remember us better than we are. ~ John Clare, #NFDB
166:Teach us to care and not to care ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB
167:The best of all is God with us ~ John Wesley, #NFDB
168:Tomorrow let us do or die! ~ Thomas Campbell, #NFDB
169:Too great haste leads us to error. ~ Moliere, #NFDB
170:We burn, you burn with us. ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
171:What do you want us to do?” I ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
172:What numbs us imprisons us. ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
173:What we make can survive us. ~ Conn Iggulden, #NFDB
174:Wishing is good for us. ~ Barbara Ann Kipfer, #NFDB
175:All of us write wish fulfillment. ~ Lee Child, #NFDB
176:Away, and bring us napkins! ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
177:But youth makes fools of us all. ~ V E Schwab, #NFDB
178:day: If you’re in the US, tap ~ Bella Forrest, #NFDB
179:Does the body make us human? ~ Tony Bertauski, #NFDB
180:Don't let them tell us stories ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
181:Each of us has an inner troll. ~ Jaron Lanier, #NFDB
182:Flyingor falling, it's up to us ~ Kami Garcia, #NFDB
183:Heaven will smile on us again. ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
184:...how the cold makes us dream! ~ Mary Oliver, #NFDB
185:I can get us a body,” Ivy said ~ Kim Harrison, #NFDB
186:I want this. You and me. Us. ~ Helena Hunting, #NFDB
187:I want us to invest in you. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
188:Joking apart, now let us be serious. ~ Horace, #NFDB
189:Let us be elegant or die! ~ Louisa May Alcott, #NFDB
190:Let us find the Dam snack bar. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
191:Let us find the dam snack bar, ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
192:Let us kill all lawyers ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
193:Love is supposed to make us fools. ~ R S Grey, #NFDB
194:Love lift us up where we belong. ~ Joe Cocker, #NFDB
195:Love makes heroes of us all. ~ Sheila Roberts, #NFDB
196:Love makes liars of us all. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
197:Love, you mock us for your sport. ~ Sophocles, #NFDB
198:Make us eternal truths receive, ~ Charlemagne, #NFDB
199:Men are swine.”“Not all of us ~ Joe Schreiber, #NFDB
200:Nature is telling us: "Change! ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
201:None of us know our real names. ~ Kim Stanley, #NFDB
202:None of us wants any more war. ~ John R Allen, #NFDB
203:No one is as smart as all of us. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
204:Oh great. Yoda captured us. ~ James Patterson, #NFDB
205:Perhaps the earth can teach us ~ Pablo Neruda, #NFDB
206:Secrets interest us all, I think. ~ Dan Brown, #NFDB
207:See the moon? It hates us. ~ Donald Barthelme, #NFDB
208:The gods love to fuck with us. ~ Lauren Groff, #NFDB
209:The rain made hermits of us all. ~ John Green, #NFDB
210:The stars fight against us. ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
211:Those who trust us educate us. ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
212:Time just gets away from us. ~ Charles Portis, #NFDB
213:We love because He first loved us ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
214:What hurts us is what heals us ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
215:What’s going to happen to us? ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
216:You will always be one of us. ~ Leigh Bardugo, #NFDB
217:a changing environment changes us. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
218:Ah the mad hearts of all of us. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
219:A story matrix connects all of us. ~ Joy Harjo, #NFDB
220:Belief traps or frees us. ~ Rachel Naomi Remen, #NFDB
221:Common sense will tell us, that ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
222:Custom makes monsters of us all. ~ Ngaio Marsh, #NFDB
223:Dance brings us all together. ~ Kreesha Turner, #NFDB
224:Death makes cynics of us all ~ Simon Critchley, #NFDB
225:Don't let them tell us stories. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
226:Don't talk to us like we ignint! ~ Al Sharpton, #NFDB
227:Every Mistake Teach Us a Lesson ~ Ashfaq Ahmed, #NFDB
228:Get away from us," Andrew said. ~ Nora Sakavic, #NFDB
229:Hatred makes us all ugly. ~ Laurell K Hamilton, #NFDB
230:If We Burn, You Burn With Us ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
231:If we burn you burn with us! ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
232:It's us that's really amazing. ~ Freeman Dyson, #NFDB
233:Jack Daniels makes us all puke. ~ Graham Coxon, #NFDB
234:Let Us Do Evil That Good May Come! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
235:Let us seek truth everywhere; ~ Romain Rolland, #NFDB
236:Life is not easy for any for us. ~ Marie Curie, #NFDB
237:Love makes cowards of us all. ~ Cornelia Funke, #NFDB
238:Love makes us stupid, sometimes. ~ Rachel Vail, #NFDB
239:Money is life to us wretched mortals. ~ Hesiod, #NFDB
240:Nature is always hinting at us. ~ Robert Frost, #NFDB
241:None of us are good at being real. ~ T L Hines, #NFDB
242:None of Us is as Good as All of Us. ~ Ray Kroc, #NFDB
243:Nothing about us without us. ~ Judi Chamberlin, #NFDB
244:Not the outcome any of us wanted. ~ Jeff Bezos, #NFDB
245:our lives teach us who we are ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
246:Privacy IS freedom. Leave us alone! ~ Ron Paul, #NFDB
247:Stories tell us how we should live. ~ Lisa See, #NFDB
248:The dead are too much with us. ~ Roger Zelazny, #NFDB
249:The great appear great to us. ~ James Connolly, #NFDB
250:The matter with us is you. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides, #NFDB
251:There is nothing for us there. ~ Robert Dugoni, #NFDB
252:the wheel of fate crushes us all ~ Kami Garcia, #NFDB
253:Think Stephen King is one of us? ~ David Moody, #NFDB
254:Time is making fools of us again ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
255:us, not with her,’ she observed. ~ Betty Neels, #NFDB
256:us of his love and steadiness ~ Michelle Obama, #NFDB
257:We belong where love finds us. ~ Anne Michaels, #NFDB
258:We don't make music, it makes us ~ David Byrne, #NFDB
259:we had everything before us, ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
260:We teach people how to treat us. ~ Phil McGraw, #NFDB
261:What hurts us is what heals us. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
262:What numbers us imprisons us. ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
263:words have the power to change us. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
264:A mask tells us more than a face. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
265:Awe is what moves us forward. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
266:Because the heart is the woman in us. ~ Jo Nesb, #NFDB
267:Beloved, let us love one another. ~ I John IV.7, #NFDB
268:Come up here. Tell us your story. ~ Kien Nguyen, #NFDB
269:Disaffection stalks around us. ~ Dolley Madison, #NFDB
270:Don't underestimate us nerds! ~ Katsura Hoshino, #NFDB
271:Everyone of us has a heaven inside. ~ Kate Bush, #NFDB
272:Fate has plans for us all, Kaz. ~ Leigh Bardugo, #NFDB
273:Flying or falling, it's up to us. ~ Kami Garcia, #NFDB
274:Give us this day our daily mask. ~ Tom Stoppard, #NFDB
275:God loves the world through us. ~ Mother Teresa, #NFDB
276:God never tires of forgiving us. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
277:If we burn, you burn with us. ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
278:In our adversity, God shouts to us. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
279:It's choice that makes us human. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
280:Jenna can't hear us, she's blind ~ Sara Shepard, #NFDB
281:Life is given us as a passion. ~ Jacques Barzun, #NFDB
282:Life makes so many choices for us. ~ Sara Alexi, #NFDB
283:Love makes hunters of us all. ~ Gregory Maguire, #NFDB
284:Love makes us do wicked things. ~ Keith Donohue, #NFDB
285:Men use the night to erase us. ~ Andrea Dworkin, #NFDB
286:Monsters, they call us. Demons. ~ Lauren Oliver, #NFDB
287:MOSTLY, they were ashamed of us. ~ Julie Otsuka, #NFDB
288:Neither of us deserves tomorrow. ~ Parke Godwin, #NFDB
289:Our choices make us who we are, ~ Dot Hutchison, #NFDB
290:Our lives teach us who we are. ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
291:Quests are supposed to change us. ~ Holly Black, #NFDB
292:Rationality will not save us. ~ Robert McNamara, #NFDB
293:See! This our fathers did for us. ~ John Ruskin, #NFDB
294:Short-sightedness is killing us. ~ Rose McGowan, #NFDB
295:The choices we make, make us. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
296:The crowd is not us. It never is. ~ Bill Buford, #NFDB
297:The distance between us was him. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
298:The sun shines not on us but in us. ~ John Muir, #NFDB
299:The unseen presence keeps saying to us, ~ Rumi, #NFDB
300:Time is making fools of us again, ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
301:Time is making fools of us again. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
302:Today it’s just us and the wind. ~ Cynthia Hand, #NFDB
303:Trials teach us what we are. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
304:Us bitches have to stick together. ~ Elle Casey, #NFDB
305:We can't all, and some of us don't. ~ A A Milne, #NFDB
306:We have it in us to be splendid. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
307:We must end war before war ends us. ~ H G Wells, #NFDB
308:we teach people how to treat us. ~ Nesly Clerge, #NFDB
309:What is not in us does not move us. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
310:What molds us is what maims us. ~ Dennis Lehane, #NFDB
311:What we don't know can't hurt us. ~ John Scalzi, #NFDB
312:Adversity deprives us of our judgment. ~ Tacitus, #NFDB
313:Arousal leaves us mind-blind. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
314:Barrabas came to us by the sea. ~ Isabel Allende, #NFDB
315:cats choose us; we don't own them ~ Kristin Cast, #NFDB
316:Come, let us be bored together ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
317:Death comes for us all in the end. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
318:Death makes sad stories of us all. ~ Tim Schafer, #NFDB
319:Each of us is ultimately alone. ~ Sheldon B Kopp, #NFDB
320:Every movement reveals us. ~ Michel de Montaigne, #NFDB
321:Faith enables us to move past fear. ~ bell hooks, #NFDB
322:Friendship makes thieves of us all ~ Patti Smith, #NFDB
323:God save us from gloomy saints! ~ Teresa of vila, #NFDB
324:Haha come fight us now Napoleon ~ Vladimir Putin, #NFDB
325:IF WE BURN
YOU BURN WITH US ~ Suzanne Collins,#NFDB
326:I want you back. I want us, Katie, ~ K L Grayson, #NFDB
327:Let us be kinder to one another. ~ Aldous Huxley, #NFDB
328:Let us have the luxury of silence. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
329:Let us save the tomorrows for work. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
330:Look at us being so damn human ~ Sierra DeMulder, #NFDB
331:Necessity makes heroes of us all. ~ Mason Cooley, #NFDB
332:None of us is smarter than all of us. ~ Jim Rohn, #NFDB
333:Old age makes caricatures of us all. ~ P D James, #NFDB
334:Only death rescues us from dying. ~ Mason Cooley, #NFDB
335:Our fathers never leave us. Ever. ~ Brad Meltzer, #NFDB
336:Suppressed pain chokes us; in our breasts ~ Ovid, #NFDB
337:Sweet May hath come to love us, ~ Heinrich Heine, #NFDB
338:There is a god within us, and the heavens ~ Ovid, #NFDB
339:There is a savagery in all of us, ~ Jane Johnson, #NFDB
340:There's a genius in all of us. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
341:the wall is there to teach us. ~ Daniel Gottlieb, #NFDB
342:The whole summer was inside of us. ~ Leah Raeder, #NFDB
343:The world is God's language to us. ~ Simone Weil, #NFDB
344:This is home. The two of us. ~ Stephanie Perkins, #NFDB
345:We carry our childhood with us. ~ Gary D Schmidt, #NFDB
346:We have met the enemy and he is us. ~ Walt Kelly, #NFDB
347:We have only today. Let us begin ~ Mother Teresa, #NFDB
348:We kill time; time buries us. ~ Machado de Assis, #NFDB
349:WHAT CAN ARCHAEOLOGY can tell us ~ Jared Diamond, #NFDB
350:What God does for us, He does in us. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
351:What we pay attention to defines us, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
352:What will survive of us is love. ~ Philip Larkin, #NFDB
353:You have delighted us long enough. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
354:You raise us upright. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #NFDB
355:All of us. All of us. We're doomed. ~ David Mamet, #NFDB
356:A sequel that will exist just for us ~ John Green, #NFDB
357:Better Me + Better You = Better Us ~ Robert Kegan, #NFDB
358:But hopeful dear us, we forget. ~ George Saunders, #NFDB
359:But some of us go around hoping ~ Shirley Jackson, #NFDB
360:Can you get us down there, Noah. ~ D Robert Pease, #NFDB
361:Don’t pray for us. Pray with us. ~ Brother Andrew, #NFDB
362:Each friend represents a world in us. ~ Anais Nin, #NFDB
363:Father, teach us all how to wait. ~ Andrew Murray, #NFDB
364:Fatigue makes cowards of us all. ~ Vince Lombardi, #NFDB
365:God is an idea, the devil is us. ~ Joe R Lansdale, #NFDB
366:God, why didn't you make us all dogs? ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
367:Heaven is always thinking about us. ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB
368:Hip-hop was super-exotic to us in Canada. ~ Nelly, #NFDB
369:If it makes us better, do it forever. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB
370:If we burn... You burn with us! ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
371:If we don't end war, war will end us. ~ H G Wells, #NFDB
372:In God's name let us go on bravely. ~ Joan of Arc, #NFDB
373:It's our scars that define us. ~ Lisa Renee Jones, #NFDB
374:It was about killing us. All of us. ~ Rick Yancey, #NFDB
375:Joy is not a thing, it is in us. ~ Charles Wagner, #NFDB
376:let not God speak to us, lest we die. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
377:Let us be guardians, not gardeners ~ Adolph Murie, #NFDB
378:Let us fight to free the world! ~ Charlie Chaplin, #NFDB
379:Life has been given us to enjoy. ~ Nikolai Leskov, #NFDB
380:Long live all us crazy soldiers ~ Paul McCartney, #NFDB
381:Music conveys to us itself! ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein, #NFDB
382:Nothing aids which may not also injure us. ~ Ovid, #NFDB
383:Only a fool would attack us. ~ Vyacheslav Molotov, #NFDB
384:Our stories are the tellers of us. ~ Chris Cleave, #NFDB
385:Our thoughts make us what we are. ~ Dale Carnegie, #NFDB
386:Pride is the rope God allows us all. ~ Leif Enger, #NFDB
387:Rationality will not save us. ~ Robert S McNamara, #NFDB
388:Riches make cowards of us. ~ Margaret Ayer Barnes, #NFDB
389:Scout, let’s get us a baby.” “Where? ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
390:Sing us a song you're the piano man. ~ Billy Joel, #NFDB
391:Sometimes in order to help He makes us cry ~ Rumi, #NFDB
392:Sometimes our memory betray us. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
393:Stories find their way in each of us. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
394:The best live among us in disguise. ~ Louis Dudek, #NFDB
395:There is no them; there is only us. ~ Brian Zahnd, #NFDB
396:There’s a story in all of us.” Each ~ Brian Keene, #NFDB
397:There’s no end for us, Ashton. ~ Corinne Michaels, #NFDB
398:The sea lives in every one of us. ~ Robert Wyland, #NFDB
399:They can only kill us once. ~ Immacul e Ilibagiza, #NFDB
400:They'll never be able to forget us. ~ John Lennon, #NFDB
401:We always have a choice. All of us. ~ M L Stedman, #NFDB
402:What we will become depends on us ~ P Chidambaram, #NFDB
403:99 percent of us cannot multitask. ~ Daniel H Pink, #NFDB
404:A certain kind of Eden holds us thrall. ~ Kay Ryan, #NFDB
405:A river of words flowed between us. ~ Ernest Cline, #NFDB
406:Beauty brings us back to the now. ~ Allan G Hunter, #NFDB
407:Conscience makes egotists of us all. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
408:Custom reconciles us to everything. ~ Edmund Burke, #NFDB
409:Everyone of us is a potential convict. ~ Ai Weiwei, #NFDB
410:Fill ev'ry glass, for wine inspires us, ~ John Gay, #NFDB
411:GMOs could really land us in trouble ~ Colin Tudge, #NFDB
412:God does awesome things with us. ~ Mother Angelica, #NFDB
413:God loves us more than we love Him. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
414:History is simply what's behind us. ~ Brad Meltzer, #NFDB
415:If not us, who? If not now, when? ~ John F Kennedy, #NFDB
416:If we must die, O let us nobly die. ~ Claude McKay, #NFDB
417:Images contaminate us like viruses. ~ Paul Virilio, #NFDB
418:In worship, God imparts himself to us. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
419:It is up to us to cultivate our garden. ~ Voltaire, #NFDB
420:Joy is not in things; it is in us ~ Richard Wagner, #NFDB
421:Judge us not equally, Abraham ~ Seth Grahame Smith, #NFDB
422:Let us always pray for one another. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
423:Let us drink to pointless heroism. ~ Robert Harris, #NFDB
424:Let us our lives, our souls, ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
425:Love can make us do dreadful things. ~ Ann Aguirre, #NFDB
426:Love, love will tear us apart, again. ~ Ian Curtis, #NFDB
427:Love makes fools of us all, I fear. ~ Candace Camp, #NFDB
428:Most of us can't even fix ourselves. ~ Leah Raeder, #NFDB
429:Nobody dies a virgin...life fucks us ~ Kurt Cobain, #NFDB
430:None of us grew but the business. ~ William Gaddis, #NFDB
431:None of us were huge fans of Obama. We ~ Mark Owen, #NFDB
432:Nothing human is foreign to us ~ Edward G Robinson, #NFDB
433:Not real can tell us about real. ~ Margaret Atwood, #NFDB
434:Now, gentlemen, let us create hell. ~ Kohta Hirano, #NFDB
435:Our fears keep us on our toes. ~ Alastair Reynolds, #NFDB
436:Please ask her to leave us alone. ~ Shalini Boland, #NFDB
437:Pompeii has nothing to teach us, ~ Hilda Doolittle, #NFDB
438:Prick us we bleed, prick him he pops. ~ John Green, #NFDB
439:Stars are better off without us. ~ James S A Corey, #NFDB
440:Teach us to number our days aright. ~ M Scott Peck, #NFDB
441:That which we manifest is before us. ~ Garth Stein, #NFDB
442:The depravities that lie within us all ~ Ker Dukey, #NFDB
443:The life, which others pay, let us bestow, ~ Homer, #NFDB
444:There are more of us than you think. ~ Kami Garcia, #NFDB
445:The universe stops and waits for us. ~ Nicola Yoon, #NFDB
446:The waves of time wash us all clean. ~ Colin Baker, #NFDB
447:The world is not with us enough. ~ Denise Levertov, #NFDB
448:The world, right now, is only us. ~ David Levithan, #NFDB
449:They want us to murder our own fleet, ~ Hugh Howey, #NFDB
450:three guys with RPGs taking aim at us ~ Chris Kyle, #NFDB
451:to himself and gave us m the ministry ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
452:to let us know what we’re thinking. ~ Rhonda Byrne, #NFDB
453:Very few of us are what we seem. ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
454:War makes victims of us all." She ~ Daniel Arenson, #NFDB
455:We all seek for lost things within us. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB
456:We are what circumstances make of us ~ Jim Starlin, #NFDB
457:We do not want what's good for us. ~ Richard Russo, #NFDB
458:We love you. We want you to marry us. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
459:What do any of us ever truly know? ~ David Markson, #NFDB
460:What we desire makes us vulnerable. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
461:When do any of us ever do enough? ~ Barbara Jordan, #NFDB
462:while the world worlds up at us.” I ~ Amy Hempel, #NFDB
463:Who knows where the road may take us ~ Syrie James, #NFDB
464:Wisdom leads us back to childhood. ~ Blaise Pascal, #NFDB
465:Words has the power to change us ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
466:words have the power o change us ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
467:Aiden has gone Rambo on us. ~ Jennifer L Armentrout, #NFDB
468:A job isn’t ‘till death do us part… ~ Debra Holland, #NFDB
469:All around us, Karachi kept moving ~ Kamila Shamsie, #NFDB
470:And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors, #NFDB
471:And if we burn, you burn with us. ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
472:And thus love makes fools of us all. ~ Chris Cleave, #NFDB
473:Arrakis makes us moral and ethical. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
474:Come! Let us lay a lance in rest, ~ John Galsworthy, #NFDB
475:Come let us mock at the good ~ William Butler Yeats, #NFDB
476:Custom reconciles us to every thing. ~ Edmund Burke, #NFDB
477:Death occupied the spaces between us. ~ Yeonmi Park, #NFDB
478:Disasters teach us humility. ~ Anselm of Canterbury, #NFDB
479:Do good. That’s all any of us can do. ~ Emlyn Chand, #NFDB
480:Each of us has a private Austen. ~ Karen Joy Fowler, #NFDB
481:Every evening brings us nearer God. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
482:Experiences shape us all as we grow up. ~ J S Scott, #NFDB
483:Fatigue makes cowards of us all. ~ Shaunti Feldhahn, #NFDB
484:Fear doesn't have to stop us. ~ Frances Moore Lappe, #NFDB
485:For some of us, Halloween is everyday. ~ Tim Burton, #NFDB
486:God did not create us to abandon us. ~ Irving Stone, #NFDB
487:GOD is watching us, from a Distance. ~ Bette Midler, #NFDB
488:Gods given us all strengths and gifts. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
489:God transforms us one area at a time. ~ Judah Smith, #NFDB
490:Go in and get us a shrunken head! ~ Ellen Schreiber, #NFDB
491:Grace is always a punishment for us. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
492:he isn’t distracted by us. You, me and ~ Robyn Carr, #NFDB
493:He walks among us, but is not with us. ~ J J Abrams, #NFDB
494:History has failed us, but no matter. ~ Min Jin Lee, #NFDB
495:I didn't think time could change us. ~ Frank Warren, #NFDB
496:If life is a joke, let us play it. ~ Santosh Kalwar, #NFDB
497:I make us better by competing with you. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB
498:Inspiration is what keeps us well. ~ James Redfield, #NFDB
499:I stroked both of us in my fist. I ~ Megan Erickson, #NFDB
500:It is our desire that binds us. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
501:Joy is not in things; it is in us. ~ Richard Wagner, #NFDB
502:Let each of us examine his thoughts ~ Blaise Pascal, #NFDB
503:Let us be elegant or die! --Amy ~ Louisa May Alcott, #NFDB
504:Let us leave hurry to slaves. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
505:Let us make man [8] in our image, after ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
506:Let us try for once not to be right ~ Tristan Tzara, #NFDB
507:Nobody will save us from us but us. ~ Jesse Jackson, #NFDB
508:No one's a virgin, life screws us all! ~ A J McLean, #NFDB
509:Our lives are before us, not behind. ~ Heidi Heilig, #NFDB
510:Quick!” cried the Scarecrow, “let us ~ L Frank Baum, #NFDB
511:Reading brings us unknown friends ~ Honor de Balzac, #NFDB
512:Reality doesn’t owe us comfort. ~ Lawrence M Krauss, #NFDB
513:She didn’t understand us. No one would. ~ C D Reiss, #NFDB
514:Some of us wake up. Others roll over. ~ Mark Twight, #NFDB
515:Sometimes fate makes choices for us. ~ Heidi Heilig, #NFDB
516:The cancer of time is eating us away ~ Henry Miller, #NFDB
517:There are no monsters. The monster is us. ~ Ken Liu, #NFDB
518:The world exists to set us free. ~ T K V Desikachar, #NFDB
519:They sin who tell us Love can die: ~ Robert Southey, #NFDB
520:True wit never made us laugh. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
521:us killed, Barda McClean, to help a man ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
522:Victory puts us on a level with heaven. ~ Lucretius, #NFDB
523:War makes early risers of us all. ~ Julian Fellowes, #NFDB
524:We all live within time. It rules us. ~ Ned Vizzini, #NFDB
525:We are born with magic inside of us ~ James Victore, #NFDB
526:We have met the Alien and it is us. ~ Judith Merril, #NFDB
527:We often despise what is most useful to us. ~ Aesop, #NFDB
528:We're all wrong, every one of us. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
529:We're in love. You can't hurt us. ~ Steve Brezenoff, #NFDB
530:What need does the earth have of us? ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
531:What surrounds us is what is within us. ~ T F Hodge, #NFDB
532:when He sees us in Christ Jesus He ~ David Limbaugh, #NFDB
533:Who rules our symbols, rules us. ~ Alfred Korzybski, #NFDB
534:Who will guard us against the guardians? ~ Susan Ee, #NFDB
535:Words Have The Power To Change Us ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
536:Work! work! and God will work with us! ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
537:Years teach us more than books. ~ Berthold Auerbach, #NFDB
538:A very little little let us do ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
539:Beauty draws us with a single hair. ~ Alexander Pope, #NFDB
540:Being related doesn't make us family. ~ Nora Sakavic, #NFDB
541:Both heaven and hell are within us. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
542:both of us. “Who can keep track? ~ Patricia Cornwell, #NFDB
543:But the tune ends too soon for us all ~ Ian Anderson, #NFDB
544:But this too is true: stories save us. ~ Tim O Brien, #NFDB
545:Chief Deputy US Marshal Zach McBride. ~ Pamela Clare, #NFDB
546:Come now. let us reason together. ~ Lyndon B Johnson, #NFDB
547:Custom doth make dotards of us all. ~ Thomas Carlyle, #NFDB
548:Data can actually make us more human. ~ Aaron Koblin, #NFDB
549:Dogs bring us joy by living joyfully. ~ Mark J Asher, #NFDB
550:Dogs wait for us faithfully. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, #NFDB
551:Each of us has heaven and hell in him. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
552:Families are the compass that guide us. ~ Brad Henry, #NFDB
553:Fear makes us feel our humanity. ~ Benjamin Disraeli, #NFDB
554:Footsteps crease the grass behind us. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
555:God doesn't want failure to shut us down. ~ Bob Goff, #NFDB
556:God has not given us a spirit of fear. ~ Tyler Perry, #NFDB
557:God save us from people who mean well. ~ Vikram Seth, #NFDB
558:God waits for us to create him. ~ Dominique de Menil, #NFDB
559:God wants us to pursue him first. ~ Jefferson Bethke, #NFDB
560:Happiness is a good that nature sells us. ~ Voltaire, #NFDB
561:Hatred makes monsters of all of us. ~ Kiersten White, #NFDB
562:He that commands us, will enable us. ~ Thomas Watson, #NFDB
563:How deep the Father's love for us, ~ Stuart Townsend, #NFDB
564:I can feel the possibility between us. ~ Carrie Ryan, #NFDB
565:If God be for us, who can be against us? ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
566:If God is for us, who can be against us? ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
567:If we burn, You will burn with us! ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
568:In Thy Presence silence best becomes us. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
569:It is pain that ages us, not years. ~ Bonnie Prudden, #NFDB
570:It is what we fear that happens to us. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
571:I wanted us to laugh forever. ~ Benjamin Alire S enz, #NFDB
572:I woke up and one of us was crying. ~ Elvis Costello, #NFDB
573:Leave us to our free election. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
574:Let us assume you've made your point. ~ Isaac Asimov, #NFDB
575:Let us net give ourselves up to excesses. ~ Chi-king, #NFDB
576:Let us try for once not to be right. ~ Tristan Tzara, #NFDB
577:Life is a perpetual yesterday for us. ~ Alice Sebold, #NFDB
578:Life teaches us through our mistakes. ~ Haemin Sunim, #NFDB
579:Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, ~ Rudyard Kipling, #NFDB
580:Man gave us laws, and God gave us time, ~ ASAP Rocky, #NFDB
581:Money amassed either serves us or rules us. ~ Horace, #NFDB
582:Mutual cowardice keeps us in peace. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
583:None of us can chose where we will love. ~ Susan Kay, #NFDB
584:None of us is as smart as all of us. ~ Ken Blanchard, #NFDB
585:No one controls who we turn into but us. ~ Amy Engel, #NFDB
586:No problem, I'll get a penguin to show us ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
587:Oh would some power the gift give us, ~ Robert Burns, #NFDB
588:Only for us would unweird be weird. ~ Rachel Hawkins, #NFDB
589:Our country is big, let us be big. ~ George Saunders, #NFDB
590:Our heart always transcends us. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
591:Our thoughts make us what we are.” ― ~ Dale Carnegie, #NFDB
592:PEOPLE LIKE US ARE STILL PEOPLE... ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
593:philosophy teaches us to act, not to speak; ~ Seneca, #NFDB
594:Poets sing our human music for us. ~ Carol Ann Duffy, #NFDB
595:Read books. They are good for us. ~ Natalie Goldberg, #NFDB
596:Reading brings us unknown friends. ~ Honor de Balzac, #NFDB
597:Reading brings us unknown friends ~ Honore de Balzac, #NFDB
598:recommended to us because he sees lots of ~ Lisa See, #NFDB
599:say love is what keeps us together. The ~ Mira Grant, #NFDB
600:Say that what happened isn’t it for us. ~ Emily Snow, #NFDB
601:Self-deception helps us deceive. ~ David Livingstone, #NFDB
602:she’s got us all sorts of fucked up. ~ Meagan Brandy, #NFDB
603:Sin makes us moral quadriplegics. ~ Paul David Tripp, #NFDB
604:Sorrow makes us very good or very bad. ~ George Sand, #NFDB
605:Suffering gives us no special rights. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
606:that power gives us the right to rule, ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
607:The Beatles will exist without us. ~ George Harrison, #NFDB
608:The best of it all is, God is with us. ~ John Wesley, #NFDB
609:There are more of us than you think. ~ Lauren Oliver, #NFDB
610:There’s no one out here but us chickens. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
611:The rich are different from us. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
612:The time that we kill keeps us alive. ~ Tim McIlrath, #NFDB
613:The Word of God is like a lamp to guide us. ~ Origen, #NFDB
614:They already looked at us funny anyway. ~ Kiera Cass, #NFDB
615:They arrested us after breakfast. ~ Ernest Hemingway, #NFDB
616:Thy friendship makes us fresh. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
617:Till Human voices wake us, and we drown. ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB
618:To see ourselves as others see us! ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
619:us were glad to see her get married, ~ Jude Deveraux, #NFDB
620:We all hope. It's what keeps us alive. ~ David Mamet, #NFDB
621:We are the women men warned us about. ~ Robin Morgan, #NFDB
622:We neither of us perform to strangers. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
623:What have the Romans ever done for us? ~ John Cleese, #NFDB
624:When they are among us cats are angels ~ George Sand, #NFDB
625:Words have the power to change us. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
626:A good proof is one that makes us wiser. ~ IU I Manin, #NFDB
627:All media work us over completely. ~ Marshall McLuhan, #NFDB
628:Storms come to make us stronger. ~ Bear Grylls, #NFDB
629:...but fear of death gives us strength. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
630:Come, let us weave a plan! ~ Elizabeth Wayland Barber, #NFDB
631:Desire inspires us to be our very best. ~ Lynn Cullen, #NFDB
632:Doubt makes us reaffirm what we believe. ~ James Cook, #NFDB
633:Eternity eludes us, even as a thought. ~ Mason Cooley, #NFDB
634:Every cell in us worships God. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #NFDB
635:Faith is God's work within us. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #NFDB
636:Fatality makes us invisible. ~ Gabriel Garc a M rquez, #NFDB
637:Fatality makes us invisible. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez, #NFDB
638:For none of us are as cruel as all of us. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
639:Freedom is slavery some poets tell us. ~ Robert Frost, #NFDB
640:Friends are the siblings God never gave us. ~ Mencius, #NFDB
641:God comes to us disguised as our life. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
642:Go to the well of deep Love inside each of Us. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
643:Hope allows us to bid farewell to fear. ~ John Milton, #NFDB
644:If not us, who? And if not now, when? ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
645:If we must suffer, let us suffer nobly. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
646:I just want us all to stop lying. ~ Alexandra Bracken, #NFDB
647:is most vital that the Lord breaks us. ~ Watchman Nee, #NFDB
648:It does us all good to unbend sometimes. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
649:It is defeat which educates us. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
650:It is finished, is never said of us ~ Emily Dickinson, #NFDB
651:It is history that teaches us to hope. ~ Robert E Lee, #NFDB
652:It's not God who doesn't care, it's us ~ Frank Warren, #NFDB
653:It's time for both of us to be free. ~ Jessica Khoury, #NFDB
654:Jesus came to save us from our own sins. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
655:Jokes aside, let us turn to serious matters. ~ Horace, #NFDB
656:Joy makes us giddy, dizzy. ~ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, #NFDB
657:Let us begin to understand the argument. ~ Allen Tate, #NFDB
658:Let us change the tense for convenience. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
659:Let us confess it: evil strides the world. ~ Voltaire, #NFDB
660:Let us render the tyrant no aid. ~ Frederick Douglass, #NFDB
661:Love conquers all; let us surrender to Love. ~ Virgil, #NFDB
662:Madness comes to us all. Even you. ~ Laura Lee Guhrke, #NFDB
663:Make us happy and you make us good. ~ Robert Browning, #NFDB
664:Make us your slaves, but feed us. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, #NFDB
665:Memories are doing funny things to us. ~ Milos Forman, #NFDB
666:Memories rob us of the present. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
667:Most of us can't even begin to imagine. ~ Meg Whitman, #NFDB
668:None of us are as creative as all of us. ~ Steve Jobs, #NFDB
669:None of us are equal until all of us are equal. ~ ONE, #NFDB
670:None of us are what we once were. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
671:None of us are what we once were. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon, #NFDB
672:none of us are what we once where ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
673:None of us is a smart as all of us. ~ Philip M Condit, #NFDB
674:Nothing holds us back but our thoughts. ~ Steve Hagen, #NFDB
675:Our lives fade behind us before we die. ~ John Updike, #NFDB
676:Our own heart always exceeds us. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
677:People have done this before, but not us. ~ Ada Limon, #NFDB
678:She’s leading us here. The question ~ Catherine Bybee, #NFDB
679:Sleep demands of us a guilty immunity. ~ Djuna Barnes, #NFDB
680:Sweet sleep be with us, one and all! ~ Joanna Baillie, #NFDB
681:teach us
equality through empathy ~ Michelle Frost,#NFDB
682:that were to drive us to the port to ~ Isabel Allende, #NFDB
683:There are angels walking among us. ~ Jennifer McMahon, #NFDB
684:There are silences made just for us. ~ Roberto Bola o, #NFDB
685:The Rock will always come back to us. ~ Vince McMahon, #NFDB
686:The US condones violence in El Salvador. ~ Dan Quayle, #NFDB
687:The wind came up and changed us all.. ~ Blue Balliett, #NFDB
688:Thought enables us to see Fate coming. ~ Mason Cooley, #NFDB
689:Tomorrow isn't promised to any of us. ~ Kirby Puckett, #NFDB
690:Too much down time makes us miss home. ~ Glenn Tipton, #NFDB
691:Until we are all free, none of us are free. ~ Various, #NFDB
692:us our sins and r to cleanse us from all ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
693:We are, all of us, always being tested, ~ Paul S Kemp, #NFDB
694:We have met the enemy, and it is us. ~ Glenda Gilmore, #NFDB
695:We served the one who served us.’ He ~ Steven Erikson, #NFDB
696:What doesn't kill us makes us funnier. ~ Marian Keyes, #NFDB
697:Whatever limits us,we call Fate ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
698:What we keep sacred, keeps us safe. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
699:When disposition wins us, the features please. ~ Ovid, #NFDB
700:Who knows where the road will lead us ~ Frank Sinatra, #NFDB
701:Wicked companions invite us to hell. ~ Henry Fielding, #NFDB
702:Write it all down,” Bokonon tells us. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
703:And make death proud to take us. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
704:An old Apache storyteller reminds us ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
705:Bleeding isn't optional for most of us. ~ Eileen Wilks, #NFDB
706:dear me, let us be elegant or die. ~ Louisa May Alcott, #NFDB
707:Defeat serves to enlighten us. ~ Johann Kaspar Lavater, #NFDB
708:Dogs choose us, not the other way around. ~ Nick Trout, #NFDB
709:Each of us,
To our own abilities... ~ Jos N Harris,#NFDB
710:Even the most saintly among us can slip. ~ Karen Perry, #NFDB
711:Fear is not an unknown emotion to us. ~ Neil Armstrong, #NFDB
712:For once let’s just . . . do it for us. ~ Abigail Roux, #NFDB
713:For time is the great enslaver of us all. ~ Robin Hobb, #NFDB
714:God doesn’t work for us; we work for God. ~ Beth Moore, #NFDB
715:God holds us in the untamed moments too. ~ Ann Voskamp, #NFDB
716:Heartbreak is life educating us. ~ George Bernard Shaw, #NFDB
717:He created us for adventure, not ease. ~ Mary E DeMuth, #NFDB
718:Help us to make America great again ~ Octavia E Butler, #NFDB
719:If God be for us, who can be against us? ~ Romans 8:31, #NFDB
720:In the end, the Wheel crushes us all. ~ Margaret Stohl, #NFDB
721:It is our scars that make us human. ~ Shayne McClendon, #NFDB
722:It's our flaws who make us who we are. ~ Doug Stanhope, #NFDB
723:Joy is not in things, it is in us. ~ Benjamin Franklin, #NFDB
724:lets us go together. we have a few hours. ~ Kailin Gow, #NFDB
725:Love is the reason God gave us hearts. ~ Milly Johnson, #NFDB
726:Love made us partners in narcissism ~ Jonathan Tropper, #NFDB
727:My husband meant for us to live here. ~ Pam Mu oz Ryan, #NFDB
728:my mane is Kitten and my master us gone. ~ C J Roberts, #NFDB
729:Nobody bother us, we bother nobody. ~ Charles Bukowski, #NFDB
730:None of us know our real names. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson, #NFDB
731:No one will want a piece of us in 2009. ~ Charlie Weis, #NFDB
732:No to write, for many of us, is to die. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
733:Our absence is what remains of us. ~ Catherine O Flynn, #NFDB
734:Our days pass by, and are scored against us. ~ Martial, #NFDB
735:Our disappointment sits between us. ~ Charles Bukowski, #NFDB
736:Please just get us through this alive. ~ Susan Dennard, #NFDB
737:Prayer allows us to wait without worry. ~ John Ortberg, #NFDB
738:remind us where our strength comes ~ Charlotte Hubbard, #NFDB
739:Remorse turns us against ourselves. ~ Nicolas Chamfort, #NFDB
740:Terror was out there. And it chased us. ~ Ruta Sepetys, #NFDB
741:That our affections kill us not, nor dye. ~ John Donne, #NFDB
742:That's it. Love makes us all strong. ~ E A Bucchianeri, #NFDB
743:The ancients stole all our ideas from us. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
744:The blood was shed to unite us to God. ~ Andrew Murray, #NFDB
745:The knowledge may help us to defeat him! ~ Bram Stoker, #NFDB
746:The Lord who gave us Earth and Heaven ~ John Masefield, #NFDB
747:The pain of loss transforms us. ~ Armando Lucas Correa, #NFDB
748:The purse strings tie us to our kind. ~ Walter Bagehot, #NFDB
749:The race to win turns us all into losers. ~ Alfie Kohn, #NFDB
750:There's a little hero inside all of us. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
751:There's no love lost between us. ~ Miguel de Cervantes, #NFDB
752:The stars are filming us for no one. ~ Carol Ann Duffy, #NFDB
753:The things that hurt us teach us. ~ Henry Ward Beecher, #NFDB
754:Things that are unknown attract us. ~ Deborah Ann Woll, #NFDB
755:This book tells us how to return to love. ~ bell hooks, #NFDB
756:Trash has given us an appetite for art. ~ Pauline Kael, #NFDB
757:Travel makes existentialists of us all. ~ Sarah Noffke, #NFDB
758:Us way down to the body. There the bird ~ Andre Norton, #NFDB
759:Watches may disagree, but let us not. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
760:We are all lost...until someone finds us. ~ E S Carter, #NFDB
761:We don't really make friends, they make us. ~ Bob Goff, #NFDB
762:We identify ourselves by what moves us. ~ Dana Spiotta, #NFDB
763:We want someone to bring us the news. ~ William Gaddis, #NFDB
764:What, eBay isn't good enough for us? ~ James Patterson, #NFDB
765:Whatever limits us we call fate. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
766:When he left us, he stole all the words. ~ Alex George, #NFDB
767:When kings fall they fall on top of us. ~ Marlon James, #NFDB
768:Words have the power to change us... ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
769:Yet it is only love which sets us free. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
770:Ah yes, the gods use us mortals as footballs! ~ Plautus, #NFDB
771:an infinite remoteness underlies us all. ~ Richard Ford, #NFDB
772:As we to the brutes, poets are to us. ~ George Meredith, #NFDB
773:A thought will color a world for us. ~ Theodore Dreiser, #NFDB
774:But “no” is the button that keeps us on. ~ Kevin Ashton, #NFDB
775:But nothing in us unlike him, can please him. ~ Various, #NFDB
776:But there is there to carry us past it ~ Dorothea Lasky, #NFDB
777:Capitalism will always come after us. ~ Clementine Ford, #NFDB
778:Comfort makes cowards of us all. And ~ Michael E Gerber, #NFDB
779:CRT teaches us: reflect, inhibit, and edit. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
780:Deliver us, O Allah, from the Sea of Names. ~ Ibn Arabi, #NFDB
781:Each of us will figure out our own way. ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
782:Each one of us can be an oasis of peace. ~ Desmond Tutu, #NFDB
783:Emotional labor is available to all of us, ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
784:Even the idiot may have a message for us ~ Henry Miller, #NFDB
785:Every one of us has the capacity to lead. ~ Simon Sinek, #NFDB
786:Fear is the emotion that makes us blind. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
787:Fear is the glue that holds us together. ~ Nina G Jones, #NFDB
788:God has a way of guiding us sometimes ~ Ekaterina Sedia, #NFDB
789:God is the poetic genius in each of us. ~ William Blake, #NFDB
790:Happiness often makes us rather cruel. ~ Gordon Merrick, #NFDB
791:Health to the ocean means health for us. ~ Sylvia Earle, #NFDB
792:Heaven lies around us in our infancy. ~ William Golding, #NFDB
793:He blesses us so we can be different. ~ Craig Groeschel, #NFDB
794:Help us to make America great again. ~ Octavia E Butler, #NFDB
795:History can only hurt us if we let it. ~ Louise Douglas, #NFDB
796:If you prick us, do we not bleed? ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
797:I'll keep us out of war with Oklahoma! ~ Kinky Friedman, #NFDB
798:I think God always has the best for us. ~ Ernie Harwell, #NFDB
799:It made and preserves us a nation. ~ George Pope Morris, #NFDB
800:It's our choices that make us who we are. ~ Jeff Kinney, #NFDB
801:Knowing heaven is what heals us on earth. ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB
802:Koii Us Shahar Men Kab Thaa Uskaa
~ Abdullah Kamaal,#NFDB
803:Let us all be the leaders we wish we had. ~ Simon Sinek, #NFDB
804:Let us grow together, enjoy together. ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #NFDB
805:Let us help one another to bear our burdens. ~ Voltaire, #NFDB
806:let us not waste love, it is rare enough ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
807:Let us watch over our thoughts. ~ Fo-sho-hing-tsan-king, #NFDB
808:Life connects us, Benjamin, not artifice. ~ Chaim Potok, #NFDB
809:Life is fired at us point blank. ~ Jose Ortega y Gasset, #NFDB
810:Literature helps us transcend ourselves. ~ Mohsin Hamid, #NFDB
811:Loneliness makes us men weak. - Wilhelm Barli ~ Jo Nesb, #NFDB
812:Love is the part of us that is real. ~ Gerald Jampolsky, #NFDB
813:Maybe it is the media that has us divided. ~ Laura Bush, #NFDB
814:Mors irrumat omnia. Death fucks us all. ~ Leigh Bardugo, #NFDB
815:Most of us get our history through story. ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
816:Necessary illusions enable us to live. ~ Ingmar Bergman, #NFDB
817:New earths, new themes expect us. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
818:None of us know who we are any more. ~ Catherine Fisher, #NFDB
819:No one is evil. But evil is within us all. ~ Lizzy Ford, #NFDB
820:No one loves us here, let’s go to Mars. ~ M F Moonzajer, #NFDB
821:Not to write, for many of us, is to die. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
822:O let us still the secret joy partake, ~ Alexander Pope, #NFDB
823:Our flaws are what make us perfect. ~ Machine Gun Kelly, #NFDB
824:Peace is all around us and within us. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
825:Power is the mistress that stalks us all. ~ Tim Sanders, #NFDB
826:Practice makes us what we shall be. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
827:Pray God, keep us simple. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray, #NFDB
828:Rituals help us change modes. ~ Barbara DeMarco Barrett, #NFDB
829:So that's us: processed corn, walking. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
830:Surviving isn't around us, but in us. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
831:That of which we are not aware, owns us. ~ James Hollis, #NFDB
832:The dead do not harm us, only the alive. ~ Rosie Thomas, #NFDB
833:The Lord preserve us from sainthood ~ Nikos Kazantzakis, #NFDB
834:The passage of time makes wizards of us all. ~ Rob Reid, #NFDB
835:The power of imagination makes us infinite. ~ John Muir, #NFDB
836:Therefore the love which us doth bind, ~ Andrew Marvell, #NFDB
837:There is no love lost between us. ~ Miguel de Cervantes, #NFDB
838:The Universe does not owe us meaning. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
839:The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman, ~ Randall Munroe, #NFDB
840:We are deaf to what life brings us. ~ Andrew Sean Greer, #NFDB
841:We don't take a trip. A trip takes us. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
842:We're all of us haunted and haunting. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
843:We've all become god's madmen, all of us. ~ Bram Stoker, #NFDB
844:We women adore failures. They lean on us. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
845:Why does God endow us with compassion? ~ Franz Schubert, #NFDB
846:With luck, it might even snow for us. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
847:You lied to all of us.” “You’re welcome. ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
848:You told me it was us against the world. ~ Lili St Crow, #NFDB
849:10,000 tiny particles shatter between us. ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
850:All parents disappoint us eventually. ~ Michael Robotham, #NFDB
851:And others' follies teach us not, ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson, #NFDB
852:A woman's counsel brought us first to woe, ~ John Dryden, #NFDB
853:Beauty compels us; reason merely cajoles. ~ Mason Cooley, #NFDB
854:Build us a bridge to where you are. ~ Lin Manuel Miranda, #NFDB
855:But…I’m so glad we’re us now. I love you. ~ Kahlen Aymes, #NFDB
856:But this too is true: stories can save us. ~ Tim O Brien, #NFDB
857:Curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. ~ Walt Disney, #NFDB
858:Death is the quiet haven of us all. ~ William Wordsworth, #NFDB
859:Despair makes us serve evil as much as good. ~ Hadewijch, #NFDB
860:Do we choose love, or does it seek us out? ~ Mary Morgan, #NFDB
861:Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
862:Each of us has a measure of criminality. ~ Ahmed Saadawi, #NFDB
863:Fate doesn't guarantee us a happy ending. ~ Claudia Gray, #NFDB
864:Fear drains us, while love empowers us. ~ David Jeremiah, #NFDB
865:For they teach us how truly small we are. ~ Jeff Wheeler, #NFDB
866:For words have the power to change us. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
867:Friends?"
"Till death us do part. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n,#NFDB
868:God ain't finished with any of us yet. ~ Parker J Palmer, #NFDB
869:God does not give us more than we can handle. ~ J R Ward, #NFDB
870:God gave us orifices, God gave us wounds. ~ Paul Russell, #NFDB
871:God lead us past the setting of the sun ~ Vachel Lindsay, #NFDB
872:Godly ambition makes us downwardly mobile. ~ Dave Harvey, #NFDB
873:Happiness eludes us if we run after it. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
874:I always wonder what drives us as Artists. ~ Diana Krall, #NFDB
875:I don't rock chains our ancestors did it for us ~ Phonte, #NFDB
876:I hope God gives us windows in heaven. ~ Karen Kingsbury, #NFDB
877:I'm pretty sure most of us would be more ~ Kevin DeYoung, #NFDB
878:In the United States, numbers impress us. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
879:It has served us well, this myth of Christ. ~ Pope Leo X, #NFDB
880:It is our duty to serve those who serve us. ~ Chris Kyle, #NFDB
881:It was his job now to catch up with us. ~ Michelle Obama, #NFDB
882:I want us to carry our oceans together. ~ Heidi Cullinan, #NFDB
883:I wondered at all the ways abuse invents us ~ Ariel Gore, #NFDB
884:Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. ~ Elton John, #NFDB
885:Knowledge alone can make us perfect. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
886:Laughter brings out the child in all of us. ~ Bill Cosby, #NFDB
887:Let us be patient with one another, ~ Emily Greene Balch, #NFDB
888:Let us go home and cultivate our virtues. ~ Robert E Lee, #NFDB
889:Let Us Remove the
Trees from Our Path ~ Esther Hicks,#NFDB
890:Love makes intellectual pretzels of us all. ~ Sarah Bird, #NFDB
891:Lying can never save us from another lie. ~ Vaclav Havel, #NFDB
892:Memory is what makes us young or old. ~ Alfred de Musset, #NFDB
893:Most of us don't want to be outsiders. ~ Julian Fellowes, #NFDB
894:Moving slowly enables us to learn faster. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
895:Nobody dies a virgin... Life fucks us all. ~ Kurt Cobain, #NFDB
896:None of us can choose where we shall love... ~ Susan Kay, #NFDB
897:no way we could take the girls with us. ~ Shayne Silvers, #NFDB
898:Prayer draws us near to our own souls. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
899:Ritual is necessary for us to know anything. ~ Ken Kesey, #NFDB
900:She had her scars just like the rest of us ~ Gina Holmes, #NFDB
901:Some promises and time disappoint us ~ Leonardo da Vinci, #NFDB
902:Straights don’t compare themselves to us! ~ Larry Kramer, #NFDB
903:The American dream belongs to all of us. ~ Kamala Harris, #NFDB
904:The Bible is God's love letter to us ~ Soren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
905:The letters make words and words make us. ~ David Almond, #NFDB
906:The multitude of books is making us ignorant. ~ Voltaire, #NFDB
907:The real us is pure love, pure light ~ Miguel Angel Ruiz, #NFDB
908:The reptile brain is the dragon within us. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
909:There's a little Spinal Tap in all of us. ~ Alice Cooper, #NFDB
910:Things that go wrong can shape us or scar us. ~ Bob Goff, #NFDB
911:Today, let us swim wildly, joyously in gratitude. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
912:We go where our deepest desires take us. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
913:We grew up with a camera in front of us. ~ Saoirse Ronan, #NFDB
914:We have such an amazing future ahead of us. ~ Nikki Reed, #NFDB
915:We're frightened of what makes us different. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
916:We shape our God, and then our God shapes us. ~ Rob Bell, #NFDB
917:What doesn't kill us will only make us stronger. ~ Jinxx, #NFDB
918:When sin lets us alone we may let sin alone. ~ John Owen, #NFDB
919:Women are an alien race set down among us. ~ John Updike, #NFDB
920:Yes, forgotten by all else, but not by us. ~ Jules Verne, #NFDB
921:You chose us. Now we have to choose you. ~ Veronica Roth, #NFDB
922:A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind. ~ Alexander Pope, #NFDB
923:All of us are better when we're loved. ~ Alistair MacLeod, #NFDB
924:all of us like people who admire us. Take ~ Dale Carnegie, #NFDB
925:A lot of the times, roles are chosen for us. ~ John Noble, #NFDB
926:Art is a lie that makes us realize truth. ~ Pablo Picasso, #NFDB
927:Art is what separates us from the animals. ~ Iimani David, #NFDB
928:At least let us have healthy books. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
929:Christ became one of us to redeem all of us. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
930:Death frees us from even ourselves. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
931:Death is the only thing keeping us in line. ~ Drew Magary, #NFDB
932:Each of us is a universe of our living cells. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB
933:Each one of us is selfish, including me. ~ Santosh Kalwar, #NFDB
934:Every change is being forced upon us. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
935:Everything can be temporary, except us. ~ Kathryn Grayson, #NFDB
936:Everything we own tells too much about us. ~ Judith Moore, #NFDB
937:Every US President has to have a war. ~ Mikhail Gorbachev, #NFDB
938:Exploration by real people inspires us. ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
939:Eye contact is what keeps us civilized. ~ Caroline Kepnes, #NFDB
940:For most of us, there is only the unattended ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB
941:From all wise men, O Lord, protect us. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
942:Give us also the right to our existence! ~ Radclyffe Hall, #NFDB
943:God not only accepts us, he embraces us. ~ Stasi Eldredge, #NFDB
944:God wants us to walk in the miraculous! ~ Michael Pfleger, #NFDB
945:Heaven lies about us in our infancy. ~ William Wordsworth, #NFDB
946:I believe that there is God in all of us ~ Michael Landon, #NFDB
947:I don't think any of us are normal people. ~ Wes Anderson, #NFDB
948:If we are not free, no one will respect us. ~ Abdul Kalam, #NFDB
949:Impatience often makes us patients. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
950:is a balm having your father here with us ~ Julie Klassen, #NFDB
951:I think we all have light and dark inside us. ~ Sean Penn, #NFDB
952:It is not outside us: it is all within. ~ Meister Eckhart, #NFDB
953:It is true that those we meet can change us ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
954:It’s our scars that make us who we are. ~ Andrew Davidson, #NFDB
955:It took Jimmy Carter to give us Ronald Reagan. ~ Ted Cruz, #NFDB
956:Judgment is forced upon us by experience ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
957:Let us absurdify life from east to west ~ Fernando Pessoa, #NFDB
958:Let us dare to read, think, speak and write. ~ John Adams, #NFDB
959:Let us forget and forgive injuries. ~ Miguel de Cervantes, #NFDB
960:Let us not become the evil that we deplore. ~ Barbara Lee, #NFDB
961:Let us work together for unity and love. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
962:Liberty's in every blow! Let us do or die. ~ Robert Burns, #NFDB
963:Life is about things that transcend us. ~ David Livermore, #NFDB
964:Like I said, she's done very well will us. ~ Alanea Alder, #NFDB
965:Love conquers all things; let us own her dominion. ~ Ovid, #NFDB
966:Misfortune does not help us to believe. ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
967:Most of us are dragged toward wholeness. ~ Marion Woodman, #NFDB
968:Mozart's music gives us permission to live. ~ John Updike, #NFDB
969:MRS. BREYDON, TEMPLE Boone has assured us ~ Louis L Amour, #NFDB
970:Mrs. Rondle gave us a pop quiz. So lame. ~ Kristin Hannah, #NFDB
971:None of us are God - just His servants. ~ George Harrison, #NFDB
972:none of us are good enough for Alfred, ~ Adriana Trigiani, #NFDB
973:None of us is as smart as all of us ~ Kenneth H Blanchard, #NFDB
974:No one of us can be free until we are all free. ~ Various, #NFDB
975:Nothing stings us so bitterly as the loss of money ~ Livy, #NFDB
976:Our intuition is always operating for us. ~ Susan Jeffers, #NFDB
977:Pessimism does win us great happy moments. ~ Max Beerbohm, #NFDB
978:Purity of heart is what enables us to see. ~ Benedict XVI, #NFDB
979:Racism is within each and every one of us. ~ Jordan Peele, #NFDB
980:some of us are just too damned stupid to save. ~ Tim Wise, #NFDB
981:Some of us wear the mask prouder than others. ~ Lady Gaga, #NFDB
982:Sorrow makes us all children again. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
983:Tea is the only simple pleasure left to us. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
984:That was what separated us from the zombies. ~ Mira Grant, #NFDB
985:That words have the power to change us. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
986:The days that make us happy make us wise ~ John Masefield, #NFDB
987:The gods are what has failed to become of us ~ W S Merwin, #NFDB
988:The mighty hopes that make us men. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson, #NFDB
989:The one who loves us never really leave us. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
990:The only thing holding us back is ourselves. ~ Brad Henry, #NFDB
991:There is a part of us in everyone else. ~ Lloyd Alexander, #NFDB
992:THERE'S NO JUSTICE, said Mort. JUST US. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
993:THERE’S NO JUSTICE, said Mort. JUST US. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
994:The same facts impress us differently. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
995:The seed of sin is in us when we are born. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
996:The small Hitlers are around us every day. ~ Robert Payne, #NFDB
997:The twisting roads run straight between us. ~ Kami Garcia, #NFDB
998:Time does not change us. It just unfolds us. ~ Max Frisch, #NFDB
999:Time is an illusion that makes us all pant. ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
1000:We all need someone to kiss us goodbye ~ Charles M Schulz, #NFDB
1001:We all want things that aren't good for us. ~ Leila Sales, #NFDB
1002:We are all what our pasts have made us, ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
1003:We are men of action. Lies do not become us. ~ Cary Elwes, #NFDB
1004:We are our dreams, Robert, and they are us. ~ Robyn Young, #NFDB
1005:We are stark naught all, bad's the best of us. ~ Dario Fo, #NFDB
1006:We are what our thoughts have made us ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
1007:We are what we love, not what loves us. ~ Charlie Kaufman, #NFDB
1008:We cannot comprehend what comprehends us. ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
1009:We carry inside us the wonders we seek outside us. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
1010:We forget very easily what gives us pain. ~ Graham Greene, #NFDB
1011:we know: the best of us did not return. ~ Viktor E Frankl, #NFDB
1012:), well then, let us write (sin φ) ~ Carl Friedrich Gauss, #NFDB
1013:What I mean is... maybe it's only us... ~ William Golding, #NFDB
1014:What makes night within us may leave stars. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
1015:What urge will save us now that sex won't? ~ Jenny Holzer, #NFDB
1016:What we don’t understand always scares us. ~ Leylah Attar, #NFDB
1017:When we waste our time, our time wastes us ~ Robin Sharma, #NFDB
1018:Wonder if Stephen King's like us or them..? ~ David Moody, #NFDB
1019:Work at first rescues us, then ravages us. ~ Mason Cooley, #NFDB
1020:A little wolf is present in every one of us. ~ Peter Stamm, #NFDB
1021:All of us are products of our childhood. ~ Michael Jackson, #NFDB
1022:All of us judge by sight and not by knowledge. ~ Euripides, #NFDB
1023:All that we love deeply becomes part of us. ~ Helen Keller, #NFDB
1024:And may our sanctuary always give us peace. ~ Linda Wisdom, #NFDB
1025:And what we think about can consume us if ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
1026:Cats are the tigers of us poor devils. ~ Theophile Gautier, #NFDB
1027:Conscience doth make cowards of us all. ~ Warren W Wiersbe, #NFDB
1028:Even when we are lost, God has not lost us. ~ Lisa Wingate, #NFDB
1029:Evil hiding among us is an ancient theme. ~ John Carpenter, #NFDB
1030:Faith gives us living joy and dying rest. ~ Dwight L Moody, #NFDB
1031:Flowers preach to us if we will hear. ~ Christina Rossetti, #NFDB
1032:Give us a man of God's own mould ~ Edmund Clarence Stedman, #NFDB
1033:God gives us time. And who has time for God? ~ Ann Voskamp, #NFDB
1034:Grief dares us to love once more. ~ Terry Tempest Williams, #NFDB
1035:Grief makes unlikely warriors out of us all. ~ Nikita Gill, #NFDB
1036:Guys like us got nothing to look ahead to ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
1037:Help us to be true, Lord. Help us to stand. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1038:her. “From what you’ve told us, the killer ~ John Sandford, #NFDB
1039:How can we live without the unknown before us? ~ Rene Char, #NFDB
1040:I am not the one of us who has no heart. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
1041:I crossed the invisible barrier between us. ~ Lisa Kleypas, #NFDB
1042:If love is what injures us, how can we heal? ~ Sue Grafton, #NFDB
1043:If not against us, nature is not for us. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
1044:If there is anything, there is us. ~ Jennifer L Armentrout, #NFDB
1045:Italy's siren call lures us more and more. ~ Frances Mayes, #NFDB
1046:I think there is a Paris inside us all. ~ Douglas Coupland, #NFDB
1047:It is always our inabilities that vex us. ~ Joseph Joubert, #NFDB
1048:It is not given to each of us
To be desired. ~ Mina Loy,#NFDB
1049:it's the lies that get us through life, right? ~ Sam Kieth, #NFDB
1050:It's the moments of our life that shape us. ~ Tony Robbins, #NFDB
1051:Join us, Hawke?” Valentine Merton demanded, ~ Cheryl Bolen, #NFDB
1052:Joy is the echo of God's life within us. ~ Columba Marmion, #NFDB
1053:Let us absurdify life from east to west. ~ Fernando Pessoa, #NFDB
1054:Let us advance on Chaos and the Dark ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1055:Let us not unlearn what we have already learned ~ Diogenes, #NFDB
1056:Let us sleep by rivers and purify our ears. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
1057:Let us then, be up and doing. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, #NFDB
1058:Longing, felt fully, carries us to belonging. ~ Tara Brach, #NFDB
1059:Love makes us all do unaccountable things. ~ Cecilia Grant, #NFDB
1060:Magic teaches us how to lie without guilt. ~ Eugene Burger, #NFDB
1061:Memory's one function is to help us regret ~ Emil M Cioran, #NFDB
1062:Most of us want to be strong, but we are not. ~ Jane Fonda, #NFDB
1063:Music causes us to think eloquently. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1064:Music reminds us that the universe loves us ~ James Taylor, #NFDB
1065:My fair one, let us swear an eternal friendship. ~ Moliere, #NFDB
1066:None of us are ever who we were yesterday. ~ William James, #NFDB
1067:None of us are our best selves every day. ~ Robert J Crane, #NFDB
1068:None of us is as smart as all of us. ~ Kenneth H Blanchard, #NFDB
1069:None of us will make it to the end. ~ Carmen Maria Machado, #NFDB
1070:Not all good things are good for us. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
1071:Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets. ~ Paul Tournier, #NFDB
1072:Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day; ~ Robert Frost, #NFDB
1073:O Lord, restore us now, tonight! ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
1074:One sound blow will serve to undo us all. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
1075:Only God creates. The rest of us just copy. ~ Michelangelo, #NFDB
1076:Only law can give us freedom. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
1077:Only the sky above us do we hold in common. ~ Alice Walker, #NFDB
1078:Pain is no evil, unless it conquers us. ~ Charles Kingsley, #NFDB
1079:p If God is for us, who can be [9] against us? ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1080:Satan wants us to sneak things in secret. ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
1081:Self-pity comes so naturally to all of us. ~ Andre Maurois, #NFDB
1082:...So let us welcome peaceful evening in. ~ William Cowper, #NFDB
1083:Some of us are born to a solitary life. ~ Philippa Gregory, #NFDB
1084:Some of us want the crown before the cross. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
1085:Teach us the names of what we have destroyed. ~ Dana Gioia, #NFDB
1086:That least pleases us which is most urged on us. ~ Plautus, #NFDB
1087:The best of us must sometimes eat our words. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
1088:The day that we've been fearing is upon us. ~ Bobby Jindal, #NFDB
1089:The ones that love us never really leave us. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
1090:The past is magnetic. It draws us in. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
1091:There is far more to us than what we live. ~ Rana Dasgupta, #NFDB
1092:There is room for us all to be how we actually are. ~ Sark, #NFDB
1093:The things that make us happy make us wise. ~ John Crowley, #NFDB
1094:The world went mad and used us as an excuse. ~ John Lennon, #NFDB
1095:They don't burn, do they? Not like us. ~ Alexandra Bracken, #NFDB
1096:This is the us you wanted us to be, Gwen. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
1097:Time, as he passes us, has a dove's wing, ~ William Cowper, #NFDB
1098:Time is an illusion that only makes us pant. ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
1099:Tis held that sorrow makes us wise. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson, #NFDB
1100:Today. This bright new day that awaits us ~ David Nicholls, #NFDB
1101:Us Ko Judaa Hue Bhii Zamaanaa Bahut Huaa
~ Ahmad Faraz,#NFDB
1102:We are all of us the worse for too much liberty. ~ Terence, #NFDB
1103:We are who we are because somebody loved us. ~ Cornel West, #NFDB
1104:We carry our past with us everywhere we go. ~ Emily Martin, #NFDB
1105:We need our Arts to teach us how to breathe ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
1106:We ran and the ghost of Graves ran with us. ~ Lili St Crow, #NFDB
1107:We rule the world and our wives rule us. ~ Anthony Everitt, #NFDB
1108:We will find grace to help us when we need it ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
1109:What do any of us really know about love? ~ Raymond Carver, #NFDB
1110:Whatever years be behind us are in death's hands. ~ Seneca, #NFDB
1111:What makes us human is what is delightful ~ Genevieve Bell, #NFDB
1112:Who among us has not sought peace in a song? ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
1113:Without Elvis none of us could have made it. ~ Buddy Holly, #NFDB
1114:You totally just outed us to the criminals, ~ Abigail Roux, #NFDB
1115:19. We love him, because he first loved us. 20. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1116:After 60, all of us belong to the weaker sex. ~ Woody Allen, #NFDB
1117:All our ignorance brings us closer to death. ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
1118:Alone the Divine can give us a perfect safety. ~ The Mother, #NFDB
1119:A lot of movies are made to make us dream. ~ Olga Kurylenko, #NFDB
1120:A man should give us a sense of mass. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1121:Are you taking us to the beach?" - Dan Cahill ~ Jude Watson, #NFDB
1122:Beauty is the oracle that speaks to us all. ~ Luis Barragan, #NFDB
1123:Better times perhaps await us who are now wretched ~ Virgil, #NFDB
1124:but, dear me, let us be elegant or die. ~ Louisa May Alcott, #NFDB
1125:Chance encounters are what keep us going. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1126:Curse us and crush us, my precious is lost! ~ J R R Tolkien, #NFDB
1127:Do not let us mistake necessary evils for good. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1128:Dreams: the place most of us get what we need. ~ Amy Hempel, #NFDB
1129:...each of us is alive only by a small thread. ~ Eowyn Ivey, #NFDB
1130:Each of us suffers with envy/for the forgiven. ~ Marie Howe, #NFDB
1131:Each one of us is not a divine afterthought. ~ Desmond Tutu, #NFDB
1132:Faith is simply whatever is real to us. ~ Elizabeth Kostova, #NFDB
1133:[Falling pound] makes us more competitive. ~ Rupert Murdoch, #NFDB
1134:flat leaves like hands reaching for us. The ~ Lauren Oliver, #NFDB
1135:For without hope what do any of us have? ~ Patrick Rothfuss, #NFDB
1136:God for us, God alongside us, God within us. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
1137:God gave us music, so we play with our words. ~ Talib Kweli, #NFDB
1138:God gives us love. Something to love ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson, #NFDB
1139:God is big enough to meet us anywhere. A ~ Elizabeth Esther, #NFDB
1140:God is nearer to us than our own spirit ~ Julian of Norwich, #NFDB
1141:God never sends us more than we can handle. ~ Mother Teresa, #NFDB
1142:Guys like us got nothing to look ahead to. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
1143:History is a burden. Stories can make us fly. ~ Mark Gatiss, #NFDB
1144:How we survive, is what makes us who we are. ~ Tim McIlrath, #NFDB
1145:Humility enables us to learn from each other. ~ Bill Hybels, #NFDB
1146:If God is for us, who can be against us? ~ Paul the Apostle, #NFDB
1147:I found a way of saving the US millions – at 14 ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1148:if there isn’t a them, there can’t be an us. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
1149:If we don't end war, war will end us. ~ Winston S Churchill, #NFDB
1150:I'm Glad that the Bush years are behind us ~ Jackson Browne, #NFDB
1151:I really thought that love would save us all. ~ John Lennon, #NFDB
1152:Is there a store you go to? Submissives ’R’ Us? ~ E L James, #NFDB
1153:I think all of us create our own miracles. ~ Michael Landon, #NFDB
1154:I think it's the ego in us that screws us up. ~ Alicia Keys, #NFDB
1155:it is the things we have to bear that shape us. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1156:It was you, it was me, it was us, it was we. ~ Ania Ahlborn, #NFDB
1157:Jesus Is Immanuel, The Almighty God With Us ~ Joseph Prince, #NFDB
1158:Language uses us as much as we use language. ~ Robin Lakoff, #NFDB
1159:Let there be truth between us. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
1160:Let us make hay while the sun shines. ~ Miguel de Cervantes, #NFDB
1161:Let us think that we are born for the common good. ~ Seneca, #NFDB
1162:Life is about things that transcend us.16 ~ David Livermore, #NFDB
1163:Light sufferings give us leisure to complain. ~ John Dryden, #NFDB
1164:Literature is greater than any of us, dammit. ~ Romain Gary, #NFDB
1165:Love is the force that makes us fully human. ~ David Suzuki, #NFDB
1166:Make us laugh and you can pick all pockets. ~ Clemence Dane, #NFDB
1167:Maybe it's what we don't say/that saves us. ~ Dorianne Laux, #NFDB
1168:Most of us do not consciously look at movies. ~ Roger Ebert, #NFDB
1169:Nature has inclined us to love men. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, #NFDB
1170:Nobody tells us how to be men. We just are. ~ Robert Jordan, #NFDB
1171:No diety will save us; we must save ourselves. ~ Paul Kurtz, #NFDB
1172:None of us really know where we're going. ~ Harry Treadaway, #NFDB
1173:no one can make us upset without our consent ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
1174:Oh, give us the man who sings at his work. ~ Thomas Carlyle, #NFDB
1175:Only law can give us freedom. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
1176:Prayer gets us in on what God is doing. ~ Eugene H Peterson, #NFDB
1177:Pride became us—heroes were never modest. ~ Madeline Miller, #NFDB
1178:Reading a good book helps us to feel un-alone. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1179:Reading in no way obliges us to understand. ~ Jacques Lacan, #NFDB
1180:Resident mockery, give us an hour for magic. ~ Jim Morrison, #NFDB
1181:Small things start us in new ways of thinking ~ V S Naipaul, #NFDB
1182:So now what? What happens when words fail us? ~ Nick Hornby, #NFDB
1183:Sorrow allows us a freedom happiness does not. ~ Roxane Gay, #NFDB
1184:Sorrow makes us all children again - ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1185:Strike deep, divide us from cheap-got doubt, ~ Marie Ponsot, #NFDB
1186:That God saw him as such gives hope to us all. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
1187:The ape, vilest of beasts, how like to us. ~ Quintus Ennius, #NFDB
1188:The full moon makes us more...energetic. ~ Shayne McClendon, #NFDB
1189:The laws are with us, and God on our side. ~ Robert Southey, #NFDB
1190:The more you try to suppress us, the larger we get. ~ Ice T, #NFDB
1191:The rain pelted us, each drop a tiny bullet. ~ James Morris, #NFDB
1192:There is just one life for each of us: our own. ~ Euripides, #NFDB
1193:There is no Them. There are only facets of Us. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1194:There will be godstars. And they will be us. ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
1195:The scars of others should teach us caution. ~ Jeff Wheeler, #NFDB
1196:The scars of others should teach us caution. ~ Saint Jerome, #NFDB
1197:The things that make us happy make us wise. ~ John Crowley, #NFDB
1198:The US isn’t a perfect model of the world, ~ Randall Munroe, #NFDB
1199:The world used us as an excuse to go mad. ~ George Harrison, #NFDB
1200:They certainly do nothing for the rest of us. ~ Hilari Bell, #NFDB
1201:They [Democrats] don't even want us around. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
1202:Thinking about happiness makes us less happy. ~ Eric Weiner, #NFDB
1203:This madness has come on us for our sins. ~ Alfred Tennyson, #NFDB
1204:Thus conscience does make cowards of us all… ~ Kol Anderson, #NFDB
1205:Time marks us while we are marking time. ~ Theodore Roethke, #NFDB
1206:Tis not a year or two shows us a man: ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1207:Two oceans between us. And still not enough. ~ Gayle Forman, #NFDB
1208:We are, all of us, on our own journeys. ~ Alexandra Bracken, #NFDB
1209:We are as strong as the people who love us. ~ Tessa Gratton, #NFDB
1210:We are, each of us, a little Universe ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
1211:We are in the cosmos and the cosmos is in us. ~ Matthew Fox, #NFDB
1212:We are more than the parts that form us. ~ Patrick Rothfuss, #NFDB
1213:We can never tell what is in store for us. ~ Harry S Truman, #NFDB
1214:We finesse climate, or climate finesses us. ~ Stewart Brand, #NFDB
1215:We have some salt of our youth in us. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1216:We’ll build our own world in the shape of us. ~ Kelly Moran, #NFDB
1217:We'll let time knit these gentle ties between us. ~ Moli re, #NFDB
1218:We need women friends, women who challenge us. ~ Jane Fonda, #NFDB
1219:We should not let negative influences get to us. ~ St Lucia, #NFDB
1220:We were alone together, we were an us. ~ Augusten Burroughs, #NFDB
1221:whatever happens ,there will always be us. ~ Tabitha Suzuma, #NFDB
1222:Who amongst us doesn't want to be a hero? ~ Whoopi Goldberg, #NFDB
1223:Who amongst us lives without sacrifice? ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
1224:Without us, Earth’s geology will grind on. ~ Randall Munroe, #NFDB
1225:You can't keep running away from me. From us. ~ Jaci Burton, #NFDB
1226:You either ride with us, or collide with us. ~ Tupac Shakur, #NFDB
1227:You sacrificed for us - you're the real MVP. ~ Kevin Durant, #NFDB
1228:addresses are given to us to conceal our whereabouts. ~ Saki, #NFDB
1229:A little water clears us of this deed. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1230:All either of us needed was the right dream. ~ Steven Barnes, #NFDB
1231:All of us had a view from somewhere ~ Alexander McCall Smith, #NFDB
1232:All the shades of us, in one brilliant rainbow. ~ A G Howard, #NFDB
1233:- and even if someone told us we'd forget ~ Tatyana Tolstaya, #NFDB
1234:And none of us became children to be orphans. ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
1235:Any definition which limits us is deplorable. ~ Edward Albee, #NFDB
1236:Are we changing as fast as the world around us? ~ Gary Hamel, #NFDB
1237:Battle scars just remind us that we survived. ~ Shelly Crane, #NFDB
1238:Beauty scatters the seeds of hope in us. ~ Joan D Chittister, #NFDB
1239:Being brave alone does not make us smart. ~ Caragh M O Brien, #NFDB
1240:Being brave along does not make us smart. ~ Caragh M O Brien, #NFDB
1241:Books have souls and some of them tear us apart. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1242:But it felt as though someone were watching us. ~ Deon Meyer, #NFDB
1243:By and large my relations with the US were good. ~ Hans Blix, #NFDB
1244:Chance made us sisters. Hearts made us friends. ~ Zig Ziglar, #NFDB
1245:Christianity made us think there's one heaven. ~ Patti Smith, #NFDB
1246:Come give us a taste of your quality. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1247:Death will be late to bring us aid ~ William Carlos Williams, #NFDB
1248:Don't be afraid. There's the two of us now. ~ Diana Gabaldon, #NFDB
1249:Don't go all unicorns pooping rainbows on us. ~ Rachel Caine, #NFDB
1250:Each of us has his own rhythm of suffering. ~ Roland Barthes, #NFDB
1251:Each of us is a masterpiece of God's creation ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
1252:Etiquette requires us to admire the human race. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
1253:Every impulse we strangle will only poison us. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
1254:Every one of us is guilty of something! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
1255:Every single one of us is someone else’s other. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
1256:Everything that we design is designing us back ~ Jason Silva, #NFDB
1257:Everything we do consciously remains for us. ~ P D Ouspensky, #NFDB
1258:For without hope, what do any of us have? ~ Patrick Rothfuss, #NFDB
1259:God always offers us a second chance in life. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
1260:God created a system which gave us freewill. ~ David Gilmour, #NFDB
1261:God gave us our spouses; let us rejoice in them. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1262:God help us we're in the hands of engineers. ~ Jeff Goldblum, #NFDB
1263:God wants to use us as He used His own Son ~ Oswald Chambers, #NFDB
1264:Good befalls us while we sleep, sometimes. ~ Honor de Balzac, #NFDB
1265:Grace changes us and change is painful". ~ Flannery O Connor, #NFDB
1266:He never gave up. And he does that for us ~ Steven Spielberg, #NFDB
1267:How do any of us get out of this life alive? ~ Susan Mallery, #NFDB
1268:I believe there is a champion in all of us. ~ Frank Shamrock, #NFDB
1269:If we are unable to download, remember us. ~ Arthur C Clarke, #NFDB
1270:Ill usage makes the sweetest of us vicious. ~ Winston Graham, #NFDB
1271:I love to engage with people who come to see us. ~ Joan Jett, #NFDB
1272:In knowing God, each of us also knows himself. ~ John Calvin, #NFDB
1273:Inside, each of us has a purple motorcycle. ~ Gloria Steinem, #NFDB
1274:In the end, life makes victims of us all. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
1275:It’s good to learn stuff. It keeps us young. ~ Susan Mallery, #NFDB
1276:It’s time for us to take the war to them.” To ~ D B Reynolds, #NFDB
1277:It was magic, I felt the bond between us. ~ Ghostface Killah, #NFDB
1278:Lets go on a vacation, just the two of us. ~ Bryan Konietzko, #NFDB
1279:Let us be brave in the face of adversity. ~ Seneca the Elder, #NFDB
1280:Let us be protectors of all of Gods Creatures ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
1281:Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write. ~ Jeff Wheeler, #NFDB
1282:Let us follow the truth whither so ever it leads. ~ Socrates, #NFDB
1283:Let us lie down once more by the breathing side ~ Allen Tate, #NFDB
1284:Let us live for the beauty of our own reality. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
1285:Let us not be satisfied with a mediocre life. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
1286:Let us not fear the hidden. Or each other. ~ Muriel Rukeyser, #NFDB
1287:Let us not overlook so great a gain. ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #NFDB
1288:Let us now celebrate the literary allusion. ~ Sherman Alexie, #NFDB
1289:Let us, who are of the day, be sober. ~ I Thessalonians V. 8, #NFDB
1290:Life is simply what out feelings do to us. ~ Honor de Balzac, #NFDB
1291:Lothaire betrayed us! Again.” -Random demon . ~ Kresley Cole, #NFDB
1292:Maybe the world, without us, is the real poem. ~ Mary Oliver, #NFDB
1293:measure up - disillusion us by showing ~ John Howard Griffin, #NFDB
1294:Mountain gorses, do ye teach us ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, #NFDB
1295:One man by delaying saved the state for us. ~ Quintus Ennius, #NFDB
1296:Our destiny is not written for us, but by us. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
1297:Our lies reveal as much about us as our truths ~ J M Coetzee, #NFDB
1298:Our similarities bring us to a common ground; ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
1299:Owning our past allows us to own our future. ~ Alison Gopnik, #NFDB
1300:Pass us by, and forgive us our happiness ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, #NFDB
1301:People believe marriage will make us better. ~ Oprah Winfrey, #NFDB
1302:Poetry surprises us with what we already know. ~ John Fuller, #NFDB
1303:Problems are chances for us to do our best. ~ Duke Ellington, #NFDB
1304:Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. ~ Susan Sontag, #NFDB
1305:Religion taught us to return good for evil. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1306:Remember: what consumes us, controls us. As ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
1307:ROBBING GRAVES! SHES ASKING US TO ROB GRAVES! ~ Brandon Mull, #NFDB
1308:Sameness is what marketers want us to want. ~ Thomas M Disch, #NFDB
1309:she won't wish us to give up everything. ~ Louisa May Alcott, #NFDB
1310:Sin makes us better fighters than lovers. ~ Paul David Tripp, #NFDB
1311:Some of us have already found all we ever want. ~ Megan Hart, #NFDB
1312:Some people inspire us more than others do. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
1313:Sometimes revenge leaves us nowhere but cold. ~ Bethany Kris, #NFDB
1314:Stories make it possible for us to be human. ~ Daniel Taylor, #NFDB
1315:taught us at an early age that love is pain. I ~ Lola St Vil, #NFDB
1316:Taylor Maddox, sir. US Forest Service trash. ~ Jamie McGuire, #NFDB
1317:The age of comparative anarchy is upon us. ~ Robert D Kaplan, #NFDB
1318:The Eucharist is a fire which inflames us ~ John of Damascus, #NFDB
1319:The government endangers us with our own money. ~ James Cook, #NFDB
1320:The more we give away, the more is given to us. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
1321:The murderer is with us—on the train now…. ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
1322:There are children with dreams counting on us. ~ Tom Vilsack, #NFDB
1323:There is a God within us and intercourse with heaven. ~ Ovid, #NFDB
1324:There is a poverty that makes us all cruel. ~ Elena Ferrante, #NFDB
1325:The river is within us, the sea is all about us; ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB
1326:The things that we love tell us what we are. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
1327:The trumpet's loud clangor Excites us to arms. ~ John Dryden, #NFDB
1328:The war has ruined us for everything. ~ Erich Maria Remarque, #NFDB
1329:The War will leave none of us as it found us. ~ May Sinclair, #NFDB
1330:The wealthiest man among us is the best ~ William Wordsworth, #NFDB
1331:The wind doesn't bother me. I'm in the US Senate. ~ Bob Dole, #NFDB
1332:TRADITIONS REASSURE US THAT WE BELONG TOGETHER, ~ Ina Garten, #NFDB
1333:Truth [is] what is better for us to believe. ~ Richard Rorty, #NFDB
1334:We are only blessed with what God gives us. ~ Linda Castillo, #NFDB
1335:We laugh & it pits the world against us. ~ Richard Siken, #NFDB
1336:We learn love from the people who love us. ~ Kerry Greenwood, #NFDB
1337:We learn to treasure words that people call us; ~ Mark Doty, #NFDB
1338:We're sixteen. People expect us to fuck up. ~ Brandy Colbert, #NFDB
1339:We still have hope; it is what keeps us going. ~ Walter Munk, #NFDB
1340:We wouldn't survive if people didn't trust us. ~ Sergey Brin, #NFDB
1341:Whatever good things we build end up building us. ~ Jim Rohn, #NFDB
1342:What happens to other species also happens to us. ~ Bill Nye, #NFDB
1343:What is the point of love? To distract us. ~ Catherine Lacey, #NFDB
1344:A crown, if it hurts us, is not worth wearing. ~ Pearl Bailey, #NFDB
1345:A good song reminds us what we're fighting for. ~ Pete Seeger, #NFDB
1346:All God's angels come to us disguised. ~ James Russell Lowell, #NFDB
1347:All we can ever experience happens from within us. ~ Sadhguru, #NFDB
1348:And all of us, one way or another, are insane. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
1349:And I was stuck here at Warrior Freaks R Us. ~ Jennifer Estep, #NFDB
1350:Animals often strike us as passionate machines. ~ Eric Hoffer, #NFDB
1351:Archer! Let us fetch a spot of tea, old boy! ~ Rachel Hawkins, #NFDB
1352:Art doesn't reflect what we see; it makes us see. ~ Paul Klee, #NFDB
1353:Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth. ~ Ellen Hopkins, #NFDB
1354:Ask us no questions and we’ll tell you no lies, ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
1355:Ask us no questions and we’ll tell you no lies. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
1356:A tip jar read: FEAR CHANGE. LEAVE IT WITH US. ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
1357:Best friends are the people who know us best. ~ Gillian Flynn, #NFDB
1358:Better that you enslave us, but feed us. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1359:Celebrity culture plunges us into a moral void. ~ Bandy X Lee, #NFDB
1360:Competition is good and has served us well. ~ Harold H Greene, #NFDB
1361:conscience does make cowards of us all; ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1362:Conscience doth make cowards of us all. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1363:Death takes us piecemeal, not at a gulp. ~ Seneca the Younger, #NFDB
1364:Devices make us pliant. We want to please them. ~ Don DeLillo, #NFDB
1365:Each of us narrates our life as it suits us. ~ Elena Ferrante, #NFDB
1366:Each one of us is part of the soul of the universe ~ Plotinus, #NFDB
1367:Everyone can forget us—as long as you remember. ~ Ocean Vuong, #NFDB
1368:Expelled Nazis got millions in US Social Security ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1369:Experience is necessary for us to grow. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
1370:Faith lights us through the dark to Deity. ~ William Davenant, #NFDB
1371:Faith reminds us that change is always possible. ~ Jim Wallis, #NFDB
1372:Famous people consume us because we are bored. ~ Lauren Groff, #NFDB
1373:father when I was a boy you left us now I forgive you ~ Ikkyu, #NFDB
1374:... for some of us life always comes C.O.D. ~ Virginia Graham, #NFDB
1375:For us, the best time is always yesterday. ~ Tatyana Tolstaya, #NFDB
1376:Friends are like kisses, blown to us by angels. ~ Emily March, #NFDB
1377:go ahead and kill us,we're already dead... ~ Luis J Rodr guez, #NFDB
1378:God had spared us death but left us memory. ~ Malcolm J Bosse, #NFDB
1379:God loves us too much to indulge our every whim. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
1380:God will bless us if we walk in humility. ~ Gordon B Hinckley, #NFDB
1381:Good befalls us while we sleep, sometimes. ~ Honore de Balzac, #NFDB
1382:guide us in helping other people be the same. ~ Doreen Virtue, #NFDB
1383:Helping animals will make us more human! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
1384:I didn't expect us to be around after 25 years. ~ Martin Gore, #NFDB
1385:I feel like every job teaches us something... ~ Doreen Virtue, #NFDB
1386:If he is not bumped off too soon he can do us a ~ David Grann, #NFDB
1387:If we're honest, most of us are doing okay. ~ Craig Groeschel, #NFDB
1388:Inside each of us is a David and a Goliath. ~ Robert Kiyosaki, #NFDB
1389:I think the universe might be sending us a sign. ~ Laura Kaye, #NFDB
1390:It is not for us to decide the fate of angels. ~ Troy Denning, #NFDB
1391:It is often our best friends who throw us down. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
1392:It is the end that crowns us, not the fight. ~ Robert Herrick, #NFDB
1393:It's raining today. The sky is weeping for us. ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
1394:It's the wanting to know that makes us matter. ~ Tom Stoppard, #NFDB
1395:It was so easy to agree to what did not test us. ~ Ben Marcus, #NFDB
1396:JESUS IS NOT unhealthy. Not codependent with us. ~ Beth Moore, #NFDB
1397:Jesus lets us be real with our life and our faith. ~ Bob Goff, #NFDB
1398:Kahaa Thaa Kis Ne Ke Ahd-E-Vafaa Karo Us Se
~ Ahmad Faraz,#NFDB
1399:Knowing heaven . . . is what heals us on earth. ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB
1400:Let us don our armor of control."-Lady Berwick ~ Lisa Kleypas, #NFDB
1401:Let us keep watch over our thoughts. ~ Fo-shu- hing-tsan-king, #NFDB
1402:Let us live for the beauty of our own reality. ~ Charles Lamb, #NFDB
1403:Let us live, while we are alive! ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
1404:Let us remove God from the equation, shall we? ~ Mitch Cullin, #NFDB
1405:Let us see God before man every day. ~ Robert Murray M Cheyne, #NFDB
1406:Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work. ~ Horace, #NFDB
1407:Life is simply what out feelings do to us. ~ Honore de Balzac, #NFDB
1408:Love can make us fiends as well as angels. ~ Charles Kingsley, #NFDB
1409:Love changes us, but we change how we love too. ~ Holly Black, #NFDB
1410:Love conquers all; therefore, let us submit to love. ~ Virgil, #NFDB
1411:many families like us around the place—out on a ~ M L Stedman, #NFDB
1412:Maybe there is a beast… maybe it's only us. ~ William Golding, #NFDB
1413:May poetry and God's name have mercy on us! ~ Mahmoud Darwish, #NFDB
1414:Men like us, we live to ride, and ride to live ~ Joanna Wylde, #NFDB
1415:Money doesn't make us anyway it just unmasks us. ~ Henry Ford, #NFDB
1416:Most of us are better when things go better. ~ Malcolm Forbes, #NFDB
1417:Negative feelings choke the Lord’s word in us. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
1418:night. “Will you ever teach us magic, Grandma? ~ Chris Colfer, #NFDB
1419:none of us are getting out this world unscathed. ~ Lori Wilde, #NFDB
1420:No one can degrade us except ourselves. ~ Booker T Washington, #NFDB
1421:No one of us is more important than the rest of us ~ Ray Kroc, #NFDB
1422:Nothing can ever prevent us from trying. Ever. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
1423:Nothing haunts us like the things we don't say. ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB
1424:Nothing silences us more effectively than shame. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
1425:One of us or one of them. I felt one of neither. ~ Jay Antani, #NFDB
1426:Our tainted world looms within us, every one. ~ Chang rae Lee, #NFDB
1427:Pass us by, and forgive us our happiness ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1428:Peace for us means the destruction of Israel. ~ Yasser Arafat, #NFDB
1429:Pray tell us, what's your favorite number? ~ Abraham Verghese, #NFDB
1430:Pretending that we live doesn't make us alive. ~ Serj Tankian, #NFDB
1431:Silence has never brought us anything of worth. ~ Audre Lorde, #NFDB
1432:Someone going home was a victory for us all. I ~ Piper Kerman, #NFDB
1433:Sometimes the people we meet change us forever. ~ Ben Affleck, #NFDB
1434:Space ails us moderns: we are sick with space. ~ Robert Frost, #NFDB
1435:. . . still we are none of us perfect . . . ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
1436:Surrealism comes for us all, Thibaut thinks. ~ China Mi ville, #NFDB
1437:The camera relieves us of the burden of memory. ~ John Berger, #NFDB
1438:the history of Denmark has much to teach us all. ~ Lois Lowry, #NFDB
1439:the impossible happens once to each of us ~ Andrew Sean Greer, #NFDB
1440:The law: it has honored us; may we honor it. ~ Daniel Webster, #NFDB
1441:The LORD has raised up prophets for us in Babylon. ~ Jeremiah, #NFDB
1442:The map appears to us more real than the land. ~ D H Lawrence, #NFDB
1443:The planet is finished with us, at this point - ~ Zadie Smith, #NFDB
1444:The promise of a kiss will carry us forward. ~ David Levithan, #NFDB
1445:The real Ozma doesn’t care about us anymore. ~ Danielle Paige, #NFDB
1446:The stories we love best do live in us forever. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
1447:The Sun, Moon and Stars are there to guide us. ~ Dennis Banks, #NFDB
1448:The things that frighten us just want to be held. ~ Mark Nepo, #NFDB
1449:The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB
1450:The wind shows us how close to the edge we are. ~ Joan Didion, #NFDB
1451:Time does us violence; it is the only violence. ~ Simone Weil, #NFDB
1452:Too often, the person who wrecks our work is us. ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
1453:To us and a wonderful evening of love making. ~ Joe Dunthorne, #NFDB
1454:To us — richer and cleverer than everyone else! ~ Scott Lynch, #NFDB
1455:Unthought-of Frailties cheat us in the Wise. ~ Alexander Pope, #NFDB
1456:Until we are all free, we are none of us free. ~ Emma Lazarus, #NFDB
1457:Us and Them There is no them; there is only us. ~ Brian Zahnd, #NFDB
1458:Us Ne Kahaa Ke Ham Bhii Khariidaar Ho Gaye
~ Adeem Hashmi,#NFDB
1459:We all have a Wonder Woman inside us. ~ Diane von Furstenberg, #NFDB
1460:We clasp the hands of those who go before us. ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
1461:We love disasters that have nothing to do with us ~ Mark Doty, #NFDB
1462:We must each of us bear our own misfortunes. ~ Charles Portis, #NFDB
1463:We need a science to save us from science. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
1464:We ordered him peremptorily to sit down with us. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
1465:We're all a work of art for someone who loves us. ~ S E Lynes, #NFDB
1466:We stand in shit but let us not drown in it. ~ Heather Morris, #NFDB
1467:Whatever's between us is that kind of new. ~ Courtney Summers, #NFDB
1468:What have future generations ever done for us? ~ Groucho Marx, #NFDB
1469:What makes us threaten the things we want most? ~ Jim Shepard, #NFDB
1470:What we see is what they're trying to sell us. ~ Rick Moranis, #NFDB
1471:When waters engulf us we reach for a star. ~ Theodore Dreiser, #NFDB
1472:Why do some of us turn menacing?' she whispered. ~ Lois Lowry, #NFDB
1473:Why isn't someone smarter than us doing this? ~ Michael Lewis, #NFDB
1474:You can't split us. You can't split love. ~ Veera Hiranandani, #NFDB
1475:You left us. How do you leave your children?” “I ~ Vi Keeland, #NFDB
1476:All mankind is us, whether we like it or not. ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
1477:Angels and ministers of grace defend us! ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1478:Angels and ministers of grace defend us. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1479:Animales depend on us to take care of them. ~ Angela Cervantes, #NFDB
1480:Anything is a blessing which makes us pray. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
1481:Art always demands of us something new. ~ Ludwig van Beethoven, #NFDB
1482:Both of us. We're the bad ones. Together.” She ~ Stylo Fantome, #NFDB
1483:...but, dear me, let us be elegant or die. ~ Louisa May Alcott, #NFDB
1484:…but let us judge not that we be not judged. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
1485:But yes. Come, faulty dragon people. Follow us. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1486:Cities degrade us by magnifying trifles. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1487:damn this world that just won’t hold still for us! ~ Ken Kesey, #NFDB
1488:Death comes for us all. Even for kings he comes. ~ Robert Bolt, #NFDB
1489:Deep inside us we're not that different at all. ~ Phil Collins, #NFDB
1490:Even Rome cannot grant us a dispensation from death. ~ Moliere, #NFDB
1491:everyone is born unique but most of us die copies. ~ Les Brown, #NFDB
1492:Everything intercepts us from ourselves. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1493:Everything you do matters to all of us forever. ~ Andy Andrews, #NFDB
1494:Fate has a way of finding us even when we hide. ~ Sarah Noffke, #NFDB
1495:Few of us stand prosperity; another man's I mean. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
1496:Forests precede us and deserts dog our heels. ~ Derrick Jensen, #NFDB
1497:Fortune attacks us as often as we attack Fortune. It ~ Seneca, #NFDB
1498:For we carry what we love inside us, always. ~ Michelle Cooper, #NFDB
1499:Four guys from England took us all by the hand. ~ John Fogerty, #NFDB
1500:Gabriel peered out. He mouthed at me, “Fuck us.” I ~ C L Stone, #NFDB
2422 Integral Yoga
946 Poetry
291 Occultism
258 Philosophy
181 Christianity
140 Fiction
131 Yoga
106 Mysticism
87 Psychology
38 Science
28 Hinduism
27 Philsophy
25 Education
19 Sufism
19 Mythology
16 Theosophy
16 Integral Theory
9 Buddhism
8 Cybernetics
7 Kabbalah
6 Baha i Faith
5 Zen
1 Thelema
1 Alchemy
1488 The Mother
989 Sri Aurobindo
874 Satprem
415 Nolini Kanta Gupta
134 Aleister Crowley
112 William Wordsworth
99 H P Lovecraft
88 Carl Jung
78 Walt Whitman
64 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
64 James George Frazer
61 Friedrich Nietzsche
60 Robert Browning
56 William Butler Yeats
56 Sri Ramakrishna
56 Percy Bysshe Shelley
54 Plotinus
45 Rabindranath Tagore
42 John Keats
41 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
41 Friedrich Schiller
40 Jorge Luis Borges
37 Swami Krishnananda
35 Rainer Maria Rilke
34 Swami Vivekananda
34 Saint Augustine of Hippo
34 Anonymous
31 Lucretius
29 Saint Teresa of Avila
29 Saint John of Climacus
29 A B Purani
28 Aldous Huxley
27 Ralph Waldo Emerson
23 Li Bai
23 Franz Bardon
22 Jalaluddin Rumi
21 Rudolf Steiner
17 Vyasa
15 Nirodbaran
13 Ovid
12 Plato
12 Paul Richard
12 Edgar Allan Poe
12 Aristotle
11 Peter J Carroll
11 George Van Vrekhem
8 Sri Ramana Maharshi
8 Norbert Wiener
8 Kabir
7 Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
7 Hsuan Chueh of Yung Chia
7 Henry David Thoreau
7 Hafiz
7 Bulleh Shah
7 Baha u llah
7 Alice Bailey
6 Thubten Chodron
6 Swami Sivananda Saraswati
6 Saint John of the Cross
6 Joseph Campbell
6 Jordan Peterson
6 Ibn Arabi
6 Bokar Rinpoche
5 Saint Francis of Assisi
5 Patanjali
5 Lewis Carroll
5 Al-Ghazali
3 Thomas Merton
3 Taigu Ryokan
3 R Buckminster Fuller
3 Ramprasad
3 Omar Khayyam
3 Ken Wilber
3 Hakim Sanai
3 Alfred Tennyson
2 Symeon the New Theologian
2 Shankara
2 Saint Hildegard von Bingen
2 Ravidas
2 Mansur al-Hallaj
2 Mahendranath Gupta
2 Kuan Han-Ching
2 Kahlil Gibran
2 Jorge Luis Borges
2 Jean Gebser
2 Jayadeva
2 Italo Calvino
2 Genpo Roshi
2 Farid ud-Din Attar
2 Dionysius the Areopagite
2 Dadu Dayal
2 Catherine of Siena
2 Bodhidharma
2 Baba Sheikh Farid
261 Record of Yoga
146 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
144 The Synthesis Of Yoga
122 Prayers And Meditations
112 Wordsworth - Poems
99 Lovecraft - Poems
89 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
88 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
83 Magick Without Tears
81 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
80 Agenda Vol 01
77 Agenda Vol 13
74 Whitman - Poems
73 Agenda Vol 08
69 Agenda Vol 10
69 Agenda Vol 09
67 Agenda Vol 04
65 Agenda Vol 02
64 The Golden Bough
63 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
62 Agenda Vol 12
62 Agenda Vol 06
62 Agenda Vol 03
60 Browning - Poems
58 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
56 Yeats - Poems
56 The Life Divine
56 Shelley - Poems
55 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
55 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
53 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
53 Agenda Vol 11
53 Agenda Vol 07
52 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
50 Questions And Answers 1956
49 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
47 Liber ABA
47 Letters On Yoga IV
46 Agenda Vol 05
45 Letters On Yoga II
43 Tagore - Poems
42 Keats - Poems
41 Schiller - Poems
41 Savitri
41 Letters On Yoga III
40 Questions And Answers 1953
37 The Study and Practice of Yoga
36 Mysterium Coniunctionis
35 Rilke - Poems
35 Questions And Answers 1955
35 Questions And Answers 1954
35 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
34 Words Of Long Ago
32 The Divine Comedy
31 Of The Nature Of Things
30 Essays On The Gita
29 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
29 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
29 Collected Poems
28 The Perennial Philosophy
28 The Bible
27 Essays Divine And Human
27 Emerson - Poems
25 Letters On Yoga I
24 The Practice of Psycho therapy
24 The Human Cycle
24 On Education
24 Labyrinths
23 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
23 Li Bai - Poems
23 Letters On Poetry And Art
22 Words Of The Mother II
22 The Future of Man
22 City of God
21 Faust
21 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
20 Goethe - Poems
19 The Way of Perfection
19 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
19 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
18 Bhakti-Yoga
17 Vishnu Purana
17 On the Way to Supermanhood
16 Let Me Explain
15 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
15 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
15 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
15 Borges - Poems
14 The Secret Of The Veda
14 The Practice of Magical Evocation
14 The Phenomenon of Man
14 Some Answers From The Mother
14 Anonymous - Poems
13 Vedic and Philological Studies
13 Twilight of the Idols
13 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
13 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
13 Metamorphoses
13 Isha Upanishad
13 Aion
12 Talks
12 Rumi - Poems
12 Poetics
12 Hymn of the Universe
11 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
11 Raja-Yoga
11 Preparing for the Miraculous
11 Poe - Poems
11 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
11 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
11 Liber Null
10 The Problems of Philosophy
10 The Interior Castle or The Mansions
10 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
10 Kena and Other Upanishads
10 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
9 Theosophy
9 The Integral Yoga
9 Initiation Into Hermetics
9 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
9 5.1.01 - Ilion
8 Words Of The Mother III
8 Dark Night of the Soul
8 Cybernetics
8 Crowley - Poems
7 Walden
7 The Blue Cliff Records
7 Songs of Kabir
7 General Principles of Kabbalah
7 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
6 Tara - The Feminine Divine
6 Maps of Meaning
6 How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator
6 Arabi - Poems
5 Words Of The Mother I
5 The Red Book Liber Novus
5 The Alchemy of Happiness
5 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
5 Alice in Wonderland
4 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
4 Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin
4 Amrita Gita
3 Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit
3 The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep
3 The Lotus Sutra
3 The Gateless Gate
3 The Book of Certitude
3 Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking
3 Song of Myself
3 Sex Ecology Spirituality
3 Ryokan - Poems
3 Agenda Vol 1
2 The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma
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 God Exists
2 Bodhidharma - Poems
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
00.00 - Publishers Note, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Mother has gracio Usly permitted the Use of her sketch of the author as a frontispiece to the book.
13 January 1971
0 0.01 - Introduction, #Agenda Vol 1, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This AGENDA ... One day, another species among men will pore over this fabulo Us document as over the tumultuo Us drama that m Ust have surrounded the birth of the first man among the hostile hordes of a great, delirio Us Paleozoic. A first man is the dangero Us 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 mysterio Us 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.
--
Th Us had we m Used 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.
--
Yes, She was in the midst of a spiritual 'horde,' for the pioneer of a new species m Ust 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.
--
We landed there, one day in February 1954, having emerged from our Guianese forest and a certain number of dead-end peripl Uses; 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 b Usiness, and this fragile, little silhouette at the center of all these zealo Us 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.
--
Or become one more na Useating little worshipper - which was not on our program. 'We are the enemy of our own conception of the Divine,' She told Us one day with her mischievo Us little smile.
The whole time - or for seven years, in any event - we fought with our conception of God and the
'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 j Ust 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 m Ust 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 glorio Us 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 ill Usion ... When I had the spiritual experience that material life is an ill Usion, personally I found that so marvelo Usly 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 ill Usion! - Not the same ill Usion, but an ill Usion 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.
Perhaps this AGENDA is really an endeavor to solve the mystery in the company of a certain
--
'Are you conscio Us of your ceils?' She asked Us a short time after the little operation of spiritual demolition She had undergone. 'No? Well, become conscio Us of your cells, and you will see that it gives TERRESTRIAL results.' To become conscio Us 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 hum Us 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 hum Us 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, tedio Us habit of being a man. She did not like tedio Us 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. Beca Use 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, beca Use we still know neither one nor the other. It is the hour when Science, like Spirituality, at the end of their roads, m Ust 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 b Usiness 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 REPERC UsSIONS, infinitely more radical than all our political and scientific or spiritualistic panaceas.
--
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 j Ust 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 obvio Us. 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 Ele Usis 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 cr Ushed 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 b Usiness. But they are mistaken. The real b Usiness 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 ill Usory little heavens or barbaro Us 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 m Ust 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.
00.01 - The Mother on Savitri, #Sweet Mother - Harmonies of Light, #unset, #Zen
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 curio Us, that day after day the experiences He read out to me in the morning were those I had had the previo Us 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 miraculo Us poetry. Yes, they were exactly my experiences of the previo Us night which He read out to me the following morning. And it was not j Ust one day by chance, but for days and days together. And every time I Used to compare what He said with my previo Us 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-conscio Usness.
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 conscio Usness 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, miraculo Us 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 conscio Usness; as though it were an offering to Sri Aurobindo. You know it is charged, fully charged with conscio Usness; 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 conscio Usness, 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 conscio Usness. It is incomparable, it is truth in its plenitude, the Truth Sri Aurobindo brought down on the earth. My child, one m Ust 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
The Mystics all over the world and in all ages have clothed their sayings in proverbs and parables, in figures and symbols. To speak in symbols seems to be in their very nature; it is their characteristic manner, their inevitable style. Let Us see what is the reason behind it. But first who are the Mystics? They are those who are in touch with supra-sensual things, whose experiences are of a world different from the common physical world, the world of the mind and the senses.
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 conscio Usness 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. Th Us, 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 m Ust 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. Th Us, 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 r Ushing 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 b Ush 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 conscio Usness 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.
--
Th Us 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 conscio Usness 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 conscio Usness only; they depend on personal peculiarities and idiosyncrasies, on one's environment and upbringing and education.
Man being an embodied soul, his external conscio Usness (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 conscio Usness 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 conscio Us 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
From 1957, Mother received Us twice a week in the office of Pavitra, the most senior of the
French disciples, on the second floor of the main Ashram building, on some pretext of work or other. She listened to our queries, spoke to Us at length of yoga, occultism, her past experiences in
Algeria and in France or of her current experiences; and gradually, She opened the mind of the rebellio Us 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.
--
From 1960, the Agenda took its final shape arid grew for thirteen years, until May 1973, filling thirteen volumes in all (some six tho Usand 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 r Ustling 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, j Ust as we were suddenly alone. Slowly, painfully, we had to discover the why of this rupture. We understood nothing of the jealo Usies 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 j Ust 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
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 conscio Usness, through which the inner experiences have to express themselves, if they are to be expressed at all. These material objects represent vario Us 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 conscio Us 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 Sun is the first and the most immediate source of light that man has and needs. He is the presiding deity of our waking conscio Usness and has his seat in the eyecak Usa 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 conscio Usness. 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 m Ust 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 lumino Us clothinghiramayam ptram When this last veil dissolves and disappears, when utter silence, absolute calm and quietude reign in the entire conscio Usness, 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
--
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 conscio Usness 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 conscio Usly, in order that the soul's empire may be established, the external being too m Ust 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, m Ust 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-conscio Usness, 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 conscio Usness. 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.
--
The Science of the Five Agnis (Fires), as propounded by Pravahan, explains and ill Ustrates 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 tenuo Us 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 conscio Usness. 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 expurgatori Us. But the ancients saw these matters with other eyes and through another conscio Usness.
--
It would be interesting to know what the five ranges or levels or movements of conscio Usness 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 Vas Us, 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 conscio Usness 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 Vas Us 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 Lumino Us 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 stat Us from where comes the descending inflat Us, the creative Maya of Brahma. And when you go beyond, you pass into the ultimate stat Us 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.
--
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 stat Us)? 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 disc Ussed 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 disc Ussing 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 conscio Usness (or unconscio Usness, 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 conscio Usness from the physical and the sensual and even the mental preoccupation and foc Ussing it upon what is certain and permanent. In the midst of the death-ridden conscio Usness 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.
--
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 el Usive 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
Only, to some perhaps the beauty may not appear as evident and apparent. The Spirit of beauty that resides in the Upanishadic conscio Usness 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 a Ustere, simple and sheer. Beauty means Usually the beauty of form, even if it be not always the decorative, ornamental and sumptuo Us 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 rich and sensuo Us 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 prof Usely 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
00.05 - A Vedic Conception of the Poet, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The poet is a trinity in himself. A triune conscio Usness forms his personality. First of all, he is the Knower-the Seer of the Truth, kavaya satyadrara. He has the direct vision, the lumino Us intelligence, the immediate perception.12 A subtle and profound and penetrating conscio Usness 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-Iumino Usness.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 lumino Us 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
0.00a - Introduction, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
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 j Ust 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 tr Ustworthy 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.
--
The Qabalah reveals the nature of certain physical and psychological phenomena. Once these are apprehended, understood and correlated, the student can Use the principles of Magic to exercise control over life's conditions and circumstances not otherwise possible. In short. Magic provides the practical application of the theories supplied by the Qabalah.
It serves yet another vital function. In addition to the advantages to be gained from its philosophical application, the ancients discovered a very practical Use for the literal Qabalah.
Each letter of the Qabalistic alphabet has a number, color, many symbols and a Tarot card attributed to it. The Qabalah not only aids in an understanding of the Tarot, but teaches the student how to classify and organize all such ideas, numbers and symbols. J Ust as a knowledge of Latin will give insight into the meaning of an unfamiliar English word with a Latin root, so the knowledge of the Qabalah with the vario Us attri butions to each character in its alphabet will enable the student to understand and correlate ideas and concepts which otherwise would have no apparent relation.
--
At this juncture let me call attention to one set of attri butions by Rittangeli Us 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 serio Us 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 beca Use 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 Righteo Us." 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 serio Us 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 religio Us coloring of the Egyptian Gods differed from time to time during Egypt's turbulent history, nonetheless a word or two about j Ust 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 religio Us 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.
--
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-conscio Usness 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 unconscio Us 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 conscio Us 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 unconscio Usly 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 m Ust 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 conscio Usly 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.
--
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 j Ust 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 man Uscript 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.
The importance of the book to me was and is five-fold. 1) It provided a yardstick by which to measure my personal progress in the understanding of the Qabalah. 2) Therefore it can have an equivalent value to the modern student. 3) It serves as a theoretical introduction to the Qabalistic foundation of the magical work of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. 4) It throws considerable light on the occasionally obscure writings of Aleister Crowley. 5) It is dedicated to Crowley, who was the Ankh-af-na-Khonsu mentioned in The Book of the Law -a dedication which served both as a token of personal loyalty and devotion to Crowley, but was also a gesture of my spiritual independence from him.
0.00a - Participants in the Evening Talks, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Use ctrl + Y to copy selected text in markdown format.
000 - Humans in Universe, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
guesswork that had previo Usly been Used in naval and land architecture. This
capability in mathematical multiplication and division opened up a whole new field
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they know how to Use the tools and to cultivate the fields-the wealthy are parasites.
This inaugurated the supranational concept of two world-wide political classes and
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United States and the UsSR have for the past 30 years appropriated 200 billion
dollars annually to buy ever more effective weapons of potential destruction. The
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could move Useful loads horizontally; wood made good rafts for transporting
humans but not for floating heavy cargoes. Th Us the high tensile strength of wood,
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of material have gone on to carry ever greater Useful loads in vertical takeoff
vehicles at ever more accelerated rates of ascent.
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developments and profitable commercial Uses. But only vast money investments or
vast governments can afford to exploit the increased technical advantages.
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000.121 During this 10-year period we can also phase out all further Use of fossil
fuels and atomic energy, since the retooled world ind Ustry and individual energy
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language of science. Fortunately, however, nature is not Using the strictly
imaginary, awkward, and unrealistic coordinate system adopted by and taught by
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000.128 Nature is Using this completely conceptual eight-dimensional coordinate
system that can be comprehended by anyone. Fortunately television, is
spontaneo Usly attractive and can be Used to teach all the world's people nature's
coordinating system-and can do so in time to make it possible for all humanity to
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necessary for universal comprehension and individual Use of nature's synergetic
geometrical intertransformings.
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
SRI RAMAKRISHNA, the God-man of modern India, was born at Kamarpukur. This village in the Hooghly District preserved during the last century the idyllic simplicity of the rural areas of Bengal. Situated far from the railway, it was untouched by the glamour of the city. It contained rice-fields, tall palms, royal banyans, a few lakes, and two cremation grounds. South of the village a stream took its leisurely course. A mango orchard dedicated by a neighbouring zemindar to the public Use was frequented by the boys for their noonday sports. A highway passed through the village to the great temple of Jagannath at Puri, and the villagers, most of whom were farmers and craftsmen, entertained many passing holy men and pilgrims. The dull round of the rural life was broken by lively festivals, the observance of sacred days, religio Us singing, and other innocent pleasures.
About his parents Sri Ramakrishna once said: "My mother was the personification of rectitude and gentleness. She did not know much about the ways of the world; innocent of the art of concealment, she would say what was in her mind. People loved her for her open-heartedness. My father, an orthodox brahmin, never accepted gifts from the sudras. He spent much of his time in worship and meditation, and in repeating God's name and chanting His glories. Whenever in his daily prayers he invoked the Goddess Gayatri, his chest fl Ushed and tears rolled down his cheeks. He spent his leisure hours making garlands for the Family Deity, Raghuvir."
--
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 m Ust, as a ho Useholder, 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
--
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 ill Ustrations, 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 l Ust. So he stood firm and Ramkumar had to give way.
--- KALI TEMPLE AT DAKSHINESWAR
--
corners of the temple compound are two nahabats, or m Usic towers, from which m Usic 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, j Ust 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.
--- SIVA
--
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 m Ust Use human symbols. Therefore Hinduism asks the devotees to look on God as the ideal father, the ideal mother, the ideal h Usband, 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 Conscio Usness. 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 m Usic 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 Conscio Usness.
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.
--
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 underbr Ush 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
--
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 l Ust, 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 l Ust. And to root out of his mind the idea of caste superiority, he cleaned a pariahs ho Use 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 previo Usly 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 lumino Us 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 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.
--- TANTRA
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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 lumino Us rays issuing from Krishna's Lot Us 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
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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 vario Us concl Usions 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 Conscio Usness, 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 gracio Us 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 strenuo Us 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.
--
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.
--
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 Jes Us. One day he was seated in the parlour of Jadu Mallick's garden ho Use (This expression is Used throughout to translate the Bengali word denoting a rich man's country ho Use 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 Jes Us, 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. Th Us he experienced the truth that Christianity, too, was a path leading to God-Conscio Usness. 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 Gur Us of Sikhism. But he did not speak of them as Divine Incarnations. He was heard to say that the Gur Us 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 th Us 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 vario Us 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 m Ust try all beliefs and traverse all the different ways once. Wherever I look, I see men quarrelling in the name of religion — Hind Us, 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, Jes Us, and Allah as well — the same Rama with a tho Usand names. A lake has several ghats. At one the Hind Us take water in pitchers and call it 'jal'; at another the M Ussalmans 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 ridiculo Us! 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 a Usterities. 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 h Usband'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
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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 m Usic and other symbols, is Useful. A man of God-realization transcends the idea of worldly duties, but the ordinary mortal m Ust 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 ill Ustrated in his life.
--
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 a Ustere 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-idolatro Us, 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."
The Brahmo leaders received much inspiration from their contact with Sri Ramakrishna. It broadened their religio Us views and kindled in their hearts the yearning for God-realization; it made them understand and appreciate the rituals and symbols of Hindu religion, convinced them of the manifestation of God in diverse forms, and deepened their thoughts about the harmony of religions. The Master, too, was impressed by the sincerity of many of the Brahmo devotees. He told them about his own realizations and explained to them the essence of his teachings, such as the necessity of renunciation, sincerity in the pursuit of one's own course of discipline, faith in God, the performance of one's duties without thought of results, and discrimination between the Real and the unreal.
--
^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 "l Ust 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.
Sri Ramakrishna never taught his disciples to hate any woman, or womankind in general. This can be seen clearly by going through all his teachings under this head and judging them collectively. The Master looked on all women as so many images of the Divine Mother of the Universe. He paid the highest homage to womankind by accepting a woman as his guide while practising the very profound spiritual disciplines of Tantra. His wife, known and revered as the Holy Mother, was his constant companion and first disciple. At the end of his spiritual practice he literally worshipped his wife as the embodiment of the Goddess Kali, the Divine Mother. After his passing away the Holy Mother became the spiritual guide not only of a large number of ho Useholders, but also of many monastic members of the Ramakrishna Order.
--
^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.
--- THE MASTER'S METHOD OF TEACHING
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 religio Us 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 beca Use of the inherent power of the seeds, producing each its appropriate flowers and fruits. He never thr Ust 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 un Usual 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 religio Us 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 religio Us 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 superfluo Us. 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.
--
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 j Ustified 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 circ Us; for the Master, in a semi-conscio Us 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 b Usiness. 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.
--
Mahimacharan and Pratap Hazra were two devotees outstanding for their pretentio Usness 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 religio Us 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 mischievo Us and often tried to upset the minds of the Master's young disciples, criticizing them for their happy and joyo Us 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.
--
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 j Ust 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 pa Use 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 mistr Usted 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 jealo Usy beca Use 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
--
Baburam Ghosh came to Dakshineswar accompanied by Rakhal, his classmate. The Master, as was often his c Ustom, 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 mischievo Us 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
--
With his woman devotees Sri Ramakrishna established a very sweet relationship. He himself embodied the tender traits of a woman: he had dwelt on the highest plane of Truth, where there is not even the slightest trace of sex; and his innate purity evoked only the noblest emotion in men and women alike. His woman devotees often said: "We seldom looked on Sri Ramakrishna as a member of the male sex. We regarded him as one of Us. We never felt any constraint before him. He was our best confidant." They loved him as their child, their friend, and their teacher. In spiritual discipline he advised them to renounce l Ust and greed and especially warned them not to fall into the snares of men.
--- GOPAL MA
--
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 conscio Usness 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, j Ust as the wind carries odour yet remains odourless.' 'Brahman is Infinite Being, Infinite Wisdom, Infinite Bliss. In It there exist no del Usion, 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.
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
UsA
Pages in the original are marked th Us at the bottom: [page number]
--
do so without doing much harm. For it cannot be Used
indiscriminately...I have found in practice that the
secret of the O.T.O. cannot be Used unworthily...."
"It is interesting in this connection to recall how it
--
Bring Us through Temptation!
Deliver Us from Good and Evil!
That Mine as Thine be the Crown of the Kingdom,
--
We ignore what created Us; we adore what we create.
Let Us create nothing but GOD!
That which ca Uses Us to create is our true father and
mother; we create in our own image, which is theirs.
Let Us create therefore without fear; for we can
create nothing that is not GOD.
--
hand, and Rationalists, on the other, would have Us do;
fatal, and without intelligence. Even so, it may be
--
Love, I love you! Night, night, cover Us! Thou art
night, O my love; and there are no stars but thine
--
somehow vital. by Use they become lumino Us.
Unreason becomes Experience.
--
Us to the Truth.
All that we know of Man, Nature, God, is j Ust that
--
It is Useless to enquire into His nature; to do so leads
to certain disaster. Authority from him is exhibited,
--
a thing is true or not: he Uses truth and falsehood in-
discriminately, to serve his ends. Slaves consider him
--
22nd Aethyr, as well as the Usual authorities.
[109]
--
unto Us, O Master!
And I held my peace.
--
Hum! (Keep Us from Evil!)
[116]
--
A dowser is one who practises divination, Usually with
the object of finding water or minerals, by means of the
--
in brackets, "Keep Us from evil", since, although it is the
place of life, the means of grace, it may be ruino Us.
--
the Usual razor, as a more vigoro Us weapon. One
cannot be too severe in checking any faltering in the
--
fatherhood; the shame of sex consists in the Usurpation
of its function by the unworthy. Sex is a sacrament.
--
ill Ustrates the Use of the lower life to feed the
higher life.
--
This chapter means that it is Useless to try to abandon
the Great Work. You may occupy yourself for a time
--
Ay! let Us offer the Obscene Kiss!
Let Us seek the Mystery of the Gnarled Oak, and of
the Glacier Torrent!
To Him let Us offer our babes! Around Him let
Us dance in the mad moonlight!
But FRATER PERDURABO is nothing but AN
--
Intellectual and moral perception of truth often, one might almost say Usually,
precedes spiritual and physical perceptions. One would be foolish to claim
--
Zelator is Used beca Use the Zelator of the A.'.A.'. has to pass an examination
in Asana before he becomes eligible for the grade of Practic Us. The ten days
--
Unt is not only the Hind Ustani for Camel, but the Usual termination of the
third person plural of the present tense of Latin words of the Third and
--
The third person plural m Ust be Used, beca Use he has now perceived himself
to be a bundle of impressions. For this is the point on the Path of Gimel when
--
That this is the true meaning, or rather Use, of this chapter, is evident fro
the poetry.
--
Nature is Useless; but then how beautiful she is!
Nature is cruel; but I too am a Sadist.
--
Paragraph 1 explains that Frater P. sees no Use
in the employment of such feeble implements as bombs.
--
as Father-and-Mother. I-H (Yod and He), Eta ({Eta}) being Used
to express "the Mother" instead of Epsilon ({Epsilon}), to show that She
--
Teach Us Your secret, Master! yap my Yahoos.
Then for the hardness of their hearts, and for the
--
Teach Us Your real secret, Master! how to become
invisible, how to acquire love, and oh! beyond all,
0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
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. Aug Ustine, S Uso 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 enormo Usly 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 prodigio Us 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 religio Us 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, religio Us 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 disc Ussions 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 s Uspense of judgment. We m Ust be grateful to the translator for his excellent version of a book so curio Us and delightful as a biographical document, so precio Us, at the same time, for what it teaches Us of the life of the spirit.
--------------------
--
I have made a literal translation, omitting only a few pages of no particular interest to English-speaking readers. Often literary grace has been sacrificed for the sake of literal translation. No translation can do full j Ustice to the original. This difficulty is all the more felt in the present work, whose contents are of a deep mystical nature and describe the inner experiences of a great seer. Human language is an altogether inadequate vehicle to express supersensuo Us perception. Sri Ramakrishna was almost illiterate. He never clothed his thoughts in formal language. His words sought to convey his direct realization of Truth. His conversation was in a village patois. Therein lies its charm. In order to explain to his listeners an abstr Use philosophy, he, like Christ before him, Used with telling effect homely parables and ill Ustrations, culled from his observation of the daily life around him.
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 s Uspect now as they were half a century ago. The words of Sri Ramakrishna have already exerted a tremendo Us influence in the land of his birth. Savants of Europe have found in his words the ring of universal truth.
--
There are repetitions of teachings and parables in the book. I have kept them purposely. They have their charm and Usefulness, repeated as they were in different settings. Repetition is unavoidable in a work of this kind. In the first place, different seekers come to a religio Us teacher with questions of more or less identical nature; hence the answers will be of more or less identical pattern. Besides, religio Us teachers of all times and climes have tried, by means of repetition, to hammer truths into the stony soil of the recalcitrant human mind. Finally, repetition does not seem tedio Us if the ideas repeated are dear to a man's heart.
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 religio Us 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 un Usual contents of this book. It is particularly important that the Western reader, unacquainted with Hindu religio Us 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 spiritual firmament Sri Ramakrishna is a waxing crescent. Within one hundred years of his birth and fifty years of his death his message has spread across land and sea. Romain Rolland has described him as the fulfilment of the spiritual aspirations of the three hundred millions of Hind Us for the last two tho Usand years. Mahatma Gandhi has written: "His life enables Us to see God face to face. . . . Ramakrishna was a living embodiment of godliness." He is being recognized as a compeer of Krishna, Buddha, and Christ.
The life and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna have redirected the thoughts of the denationalized Hind Us 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 Hind Us. 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.
--
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 ca Uses 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 th Us 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 disc Ussed, 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 pio Us, and he Used to be moved very much by Sdh Us, 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 ho Use 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 gracio Us 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.
--
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.
He was one of the earliest of the disciples to visit Kamarpukur, the birthplace of the Master, in the latter's lifetime itself; for he wished to practise contemplation on the Master's early life in its true original setting. His experience there is described as follows by Swami Nityatmananda: "By the grace of the Master, he saw the entire Kamarpukur as a holy place bathed in an effulgent Light. Trees and creepers, beasts and birds and men all were made of effulgence. So he prostrated to all on the road. He saw a torn cat, which appeared to him lumino Us with the Light of Conscio Usness. Immediately he fell to the ground and saluted it" (M The Apostle and the Evangelist by Swami Nityatmananda vol. I. P. 40.) He had similar experience in Dakshineswar also. At the instance of the Master he also visited Puri, and in the words of Swami Nityatmananda, "with indomitable courage, M. embraced the image of Jagannath out of season."
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 (ho Useholder-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 ho Useholder 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 famo Us 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 famo Us 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 ill Ustrio Us 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 prodigio Us 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."
--
The two pamphlets in English entitled the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna appeared in October and November 1897. They drew the spontaneo Us 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.)
And Swamiji added a post script to the letter: "Socratic dialogues are Plato all over you are entirely hidden. Moreover, the dramatic part is infinitely beautiful. Everybody likes it here or in the West." Indeed, in order to be unknown, Mahendranath had Used the pen-name M., under which the book has been appearing till now. But so great a book cannot remain obscure for long, nor can its author remain unrecognised by the large public in these modern times. M. and his book came to be widely known very soon and to meet the growing demand, a full-sized book, Vol. I of the Gospel, translated by the author himself, was published in 1907 by the Brahmavadin Office, Madras. A second edition of it, revised by the author, was brought out by the Ramakrishna Math, Madras in December 1911, and subsequently a second part, containing new chapters from the original Bengali, was published by the same Math in 1922. The full English translation of the Gospel by Swami Nikhilananda appeared first in 1942.
In Bengali the book is published in five volumes, the first part having appeared in 1902
--
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 miraculo Usly, 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 previo Us 40 years. The night of 3rd June being the Phalahrini Kli Pooja day, M.
had sent his devotees who Used to keep company with him, to attend the special worship at Belur Math at night. After attending the service at the home shrine, he went through the proof of the Kathmrita for an hour. Suddenly he got a severe attack of neuralgic pain, from which he had been suffering now and then, of late. Before 6 a.m. in the early hours of 4th June 1932 he passed away, fully conscio Us and chanting: 'Gurudeva-Ma, Kole tule na-o (Take me in your arms! O Master! O Mother!!)'
SWMI TAPASYNANDA
0.00 - The Wellspring of Reality, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
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 concl Usions. 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.
--
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.
--
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 th Us 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 anonymo Usly 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. Th Us 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 incl Usive 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.
--
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 advantageo Us 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.
0.01f - FOREWARD, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
upon Us, when he is placed fairly and squarely within the frame-
work of phenomenon and appearance.
--
such is the kernel and concl Usion of this book. But let Us empha-
sise the point : union increases only through an increase in con-
--
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.
--
net. A geologist would Use the words metamorphism and
endomorphism. Object and subject marry and mutually trans-
--
as well as Us. But it is peculiar to man to occupy a position in
32
--
that what stares Us in the face is the most difficult to perceive.
The child has to learn to separate out the images which assail
--
the orbits of the objects which press round Us ;
A sense of depth, p Ushing back laborio Usly through endless
--
ness of mind tends continually to condense for Us in a thin layer
of the past ;
--
A sense of quality, or of novelty, enabling Us to distinguish in
nature certain absolute stages of perfection and growth, without
--
remain indefinitely for Us whatever is done to make Us see
what he still represents to so many minds : an erratic object in a
--
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 m Ust appear to an
--
placed Us. It is a safe and modest method and yet, as we shall see,
it suffices, through symmetry, to bring out ahead of Us surprising
visions of the future.
--
action in those of Us who wish, and know how, to plumb the
depths of things, depend on it.
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 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 geni Us, 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 beca Use 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 beca Use 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 ca Use. 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 conscio Usness, but also to take all life and all world activity into the scope of this spiritual conscio Usness 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 conscio Usness, 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 cr Ush all the forces opposed to him and Nazism dominate the world, he began to intervene."[2]
--
The gospel of the Supermind which Sri Aurobindo brought to man envisages a new level of conscio Usness 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 tremendo Us 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' stat Us. 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 th Us 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.
--
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.
--
Greatness is magnetic and in a sense contagio Us. 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-Conscio Usness 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
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
--
It is no Use lamenting, however, saying: Where are you
headed! The final collapse, the general bankruptcy seems obvio Us enough... unless... There is always an "unless" in the history
--
makes Us see all the details. From a distance the details fade and
only the principal lines appear, giving a slightly more logical
--
Let Us hope that it will not be long in coming.
23 Aug Ust 1936
--
and diplomacy were Used, but on the other hand, behind every
human will there are forces at work whose origin is not human
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 vario Us 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 m Ust 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 vario Usly 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
--
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 prof User 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 s Uspended with results that would otherwise be impossible and that seem miraculo Us 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, beca Use 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 conscio Usness 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 spontaneo Us 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 victorio Us 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
0.02 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother is training Us by making Us ask with joy.
It is not quite that. In each case there is, probably, a special
--
grey paint) A stool Used by the Mother has been painted
with "gris entretien". I had informed the stores not to
--
the progress made, but only if it is Used as a lever to encourage
one in the efforts towards the progress still to be made.
--
On the outside cover of a notebook Used by X, there
was a table of Rahukal, giving the ina Uspicio Us hours
--
unknown is before Us."4 What is the remedy?
Be plastic and vigilant, attentive and alert - receptive.
--
The Usual nonsense.
By the way, I don't find that the Hostile Forces have much
--
of wood. A large quantity of old planks were th Us Used
up. But Y expressed his dissatisfaction when he saw the
--
that it is I who gave the order to make all possible Use of the old
pieces of wood.
--
vessels Used for cooking are very large, the top of the fireplaces should not be much higher than ground level. This m Ust
be checked while the kitchen is being repaired. The top of
--
Mother guides Us. She gives Us experiences and revelations.
Mr. Z: You don't say!
--
always better to say: "I don't know. He doesn't tell Us about
these things."
--
have found work should let Us know."
Before displaying the notice you will speak to the workers
--
which is Used to lengthen or shorten the pendulum. I looked
at the clock with my inner sight and told Z, "To make it go
--
for I think it may be Useful to everyone there. I shall probably
ask you to translate it into English, to make sure that you have
--
under a pile of Useless things, beca Use one cannot take
care of them.
--
be Useful.
20 September 1934
--
only solution is to have a will stronger than his and to Use it
with great calm, but also with great determination.
--
Remorse is of no Use; you have to feel the joy of the possibility
of making further progress.
--
other which sees any harmonio Us dealings between Us
as a sure sign of victory - but how can this be done
--
Use me even as You Use Your feet, O Sweet Mother.
I bow to You in joyful gratitude.
--
want them to Use their powers of observation and their technical
knowledge to give me as precise and exact information as they
--
livest in Us and through Us."11
The main door of your being is open, but certain other doors
--
A year of silence and expectation... let Us find, O Lord, our entire
support in Thy Grace alone.
0.02 - The Three Steps of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
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 s Ustained, but the fullest developments of mentality are rendered possible. This equilibrium constitutes the basic stat Us of Nature in man and is termed in the language of Yoga his gross body composed
The Three Steps of Nature
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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 m Ust be a turning away from the completeness of the divine Wisdom and a renunciation of its aim in earthly manifestation. Such a ref Usal 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 m Ust 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 m Ust flee.
Equally, the vital and nervo Us 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.
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of noxio Us activities. Their purification, not their destruction, - their transformation, control and utilisation is the aim in view with which they have been created and developed in Us.
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 exha Ustion 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 nervo Us, the pure intellectual mind which liberates itself from the ill Usions 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 j Ust 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 nervo Us 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 th Us evolving in man is not, indeed, a
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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 geni Us as a form of insanity, a result of degeneration, a pathological morbidity of Nature. The phenomena which are Used to j Ustify this exaggeration, when taken not separately, but in connection with all other relevant data, point to a different truth. Geni Us 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.
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to this concl Usion that mental life, far from being a recent appearance in man, is the swift repetition in him of a previo Us 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 previo Us 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 secl Usion from opportunity and withdrawal of the awakening impulse that creates the savage. Barbarism is an intermediate sleep, not an original darkness.
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The only approximate terms in the English language have other associations and their Use may lead to many and even serio Us inaccuracies. The terminology of Yoga recognises besides the stat Us of our physical and vital being, termed the gross body and doubly composed of the food sheath and the vital vehicle, besides the stat Us of our mental being, termed the subtle body and singly composed of the mind sheath or mental vehicle,5 a third, supreme and divine stat Us of supra-mental being, termed the ca Usal body and composed of a fourth and a fifth vehicle6 which are described as those of knowledge and bliss. But this knowledge is not a systematised result of mental questionings and reasonings, not a temporary arrangement of concl Usions and opinions in the terms of the highest probability, but rather a pure self-existent and self-lumino Us Truth. And this bliss is not a supreme pleasure of the heart and sensations with the experience of pain and sorrow as its background, but a delight also selfexistent and independent of objects and particular experiences, a self-delight which is the very nature, the very stuff, as it were, of a transcendent and infinite existence.
antah.karan.a.
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Do such psychological conceptions correspond to anything real and possible? All Yoga asserts them as its ultimate experience and supreme aim. They form the governing principles of our highest possible state of conscio Usness, our widest possible range of existence. There is, we say, a harmony of supreme faculties, corresponding roughly to the psychological faculties of revelation, inspiration and intuition, yet acting not in the intuitive reason or the divine mind, but on a still higher plane, which see Truth directly face to face, or rather live in the truth of things both universal and transcendent and are its formulation and lumino Us activity. And these faculties are the light of a conscio Us existence superseding the egoistic and itself both cosmic and transcendent, the nature of which is Bliss. These are obvio Usly divine and, as man is at present apparently constituted, superhuman states of conscio Usness and activity. A trinity of transcendent existence, self-awareness and self-delight7 is, indeed, the metaphysical description of the supreme Atman, the self-formulation, to our awakened knowledge, of the Unknowable whether conceived as a pure Impersonality or as a cosmic Personality manifesting the universe. But in Yoga they are regarded also in their psychological aspects as states of subjective existence to which our waking conscio Usness is now alien, but which dwell in Us in a superconscio Us plane and to which, therefore, we may always ascend.
For, as is indicated by the name, ca Usal 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 conscio Usness, our physical being to the pure essence of that Bliss and
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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 ca Use, 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 j Ustification and her evolutions reveal their profound significance.
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Wisdom exists at all, the faculty of Mind also m Ust have some high Use and destiny. That Use m Ust depend on its place in the ascent and in the return and that destiny m Ust 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 ho Use of Raja Subodh Mallick or at the Grey Street ho Use. 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 ref Used 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.
But, over and above newcomers, some local people and the few inmates of the ho Use Used to have informal talks with Sri Aurobindo in the evening. In the beginning the inmates Used to go out for playing football, and during their absence known local individuals would come in and wait for Sri Aurobindo. Afterwards regular meditations began at about 4 p.m. in which practically all the inmates participated. After the meditation all of the members and those who were permitted shared in the evening sitting. This was a very informal gathering depending entirely upon Sri Aurobindo's leisure.
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 beca Use 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 ho Usehold 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 ho Use 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 serio Usness and earnestness in abundance.
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But there were occasions when he did give his independent, personal views on some problems, on events or other subjects. Even then it was never an authoritarian pronouncement. Most often it appeared to be a logically worked out and almost inevitable concl Usion expressed quite impersonally though with firm and sincere conviction. This impersonality was such a prominent trait of his personality! Even in such matters as dispatching a letter or a telegram it would not be a command from him to a disciple to carry out the task. Most often during his Usual passage to the dining room he would stop on the way, drop in on the company of four or five disciples and, holding out the letter or the telegram, would say in the most amiable and yet the most impersonal way: "I suppose this has to be sent." And it would be for someone in the group instantly to volunteer and take it. The expression he very often Used was "It was done" or "It happened", not "I did."
From 1918 to 1922, we gathered at No. 41, Rue Franois Martin, called the Guest Ho Use, 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 Ho Use, 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 Ho Use, 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.
On 8 February 1927, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother moved to No. 28, Rue Franois Martin, a ho Use on the north-east of the same block as No. 9, Rue de la Marine.
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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! Th Us 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 anxio Us 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.
There were no formal evening sittings during these years, but what appeared to me important in our informal talks was recorded and has been incorporated in this book.
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0.03 - Letters to My little smile, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
individual is a battery, a storage cell which runs down after Use.
Consecration is the wire that connects the individual battery to
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right. One should never talk about others - it is always Useless
- and least of all about their difficulties; it is uncharitable beca Use it does not help them to overcome the difficulties. As
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the good and the bad are mixed together. It is very Useful to
see one's faults and weaknesses clearly, but one should not see
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No, my child, I was not "serio Us" and I smiled at you as Usual;
it was you who had such a sad little face and it is probably your
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You don't need to have a strong will - you have only to Use
mine.
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same time will create a further intimacy between Us.
13 January 1933
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about 2:00 she made some lime juice for Us. I worked
from 12:00 to 8:00. I have finished embroidering the
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Then Use Coué's method5 and repeat, "I am not tired, I cannot
be tired beca Use I am protected!"
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dreams and nothing makes Us stronger and happier!
11 June 1933
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I shall tell You how I Usually spend my evenings.
After seeing You go up to the terrace, I go and have
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then I Usually prepare my lesson and go to bed.
But last night after my walk at 9:30, I helped X to
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brought Us.
26 November 1933
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Your collection of saris embroidered by Us.
Before seeing X's blo Use I Used to think that my
bird-of-paradise8 sari was very beautiful; but now that
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Certain conditions in Us (and pride is one of them) automatically
invite blows from the surrounding circumstances. And it is up
to Us to utilise these blows to make further progress.
You are right in wanting all this pettiness and stupidity to
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Today I have nothing to write. As Usual I worked
all day.
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 ho Use 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 m Ust 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 harmonio Us rhythm and so create in himself the whole godhead, the perfect Man.
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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.
The mental life concentrates on the aesthetic, the ethical and the intellectual activities. Essential mentality is idealistic and a seeker after perfection. The subtle self, the brilliant Atman,1 is ever a dreamer. A dream of perfect beauty, perfect conduct, perfect Truth, whether seeking new forms of the Eternal or revitalising the old, is the very soul of pure mentality. But it knows not how to deal with the resistance of Matter. There it is hampered and inefficient, works by bungling experiments and has either to withdraw from the struggle or submit to the grey actuality. Or else, by studying the material life and accepting the conditions of the contest, it may succeed, but only in imposing temporarily some artificial system which infinite Nature either rends and casts aside or disfigures out of recognition or by withdrawing her assent leaves as the corpse of a dead ideal. Few and far between have been those realisations of the dreamer in Man which the world has gladly accepted, looks back to with a fond memory and seeks, in its elements, to cherish.
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But the work in the world of so supreme a power as spiritual force cannot be th Us limited. The spiritual life also can return upon the material and Use it as a means of its own greater fullness. Ref Using 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
Vedantic formula of the Self in all things, all things in the Self and all things as becomings of the Self is the key to this richer and all-embracing Yoga.
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But the spiritual life, like the mental, may th Us 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 m Ust 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.
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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 concl Usion 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.
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But their aim is one in the end. The generalisation of Yoga in humanity m Ust be the last victory of Nature over her own delays and concealments. Even as now by the progressive mind in Science she seeks to make all mankind fit for the full development of the mental life, so by Yoga m Ust she inevitably seek to make all mankind fit for the higher evolution, the second birth, the spiritual existence. And as the mental life Uses and perfects the material, so will the spiritual Use and perfect the material and the mental existence as the instruments of a divine self-expression.
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.
0.04 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
be safer to Use those ropes. As soon as the work is over,
the ropes will be removed. Those ropes are not tight;
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I beg to submit some facts for your gracio Us consideration. The weakest and smallest of the bullocks Used by
X's cart-men are carrying more than 600 Dem of sand.
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What is the Use of being a sadhak if, as soon as we act, we
act like the ignorant ordinary man?
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yield and obey and I found them quite receptive. To Use a quiet,
steady, unwavering conscio Us will, that is the way, the only true
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you for your kind gracio Us permission to Use this kind of
necklace which I am enclosing herewith for our darling
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take out Ra in the street that day as Usually children run after
the calves and frighten them very much; they even hurt them
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any of these things were done by Us it was a great mistake and I
intend that it should never be renewed.
0.04 - The Systems of Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
and the Individual. If the individual and Nature are left to themselves, the one is bound to the other and unable to exceed appreciably her lingering march. Something transcendent is needed, free from her and greater, which will act upon Us and her, attracting Us upward to Itself and securing from her by good grace or by force her consent to the individual ascension.
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 conscio Usness 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 conscio Usness which we call our personality. It may be effected in the physical through the body; in the vital through the action of
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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,
Beatitude and Infinity which are the nature of the spiritual life.
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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.
--
The results of Hathayoga are th Us 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 stupendo Us 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 laborio Us 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 laborio Us 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 m Ust 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 apparat Us of thought and conscio Usness. It fixes its eyes on the citta, that stuff of mental conscio Usness 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 Pur Usha, is subjected to his ministers, the faculties, subjected even to his subjects, the instruments of sensation, emotion, action, enjoyment. Swarajya, self-rule, m Ust be substituted for this subjection.
--
its object which our philosophy asserts as the primary cosmic energy and the method of divine action upon the world. By this capacity the Yogin, already possessed of the highest supracosmic knowledge and experience in the state of trance, is able in the waking state to acquire directly whatever knowledge and exercise whatever mastery may be Useful or necessary to his activities in the objective world. For the ancient system of
Rajayoga aimed not only at Swarajya, self-rule or subjective empire, the entire control by the subjective conscio Usness of all the states and activities proper to its own domain, but included
--
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.
But in Rajayoga it tends to withdraw into a subliminal plane at the back of our normal experiences instead of descending and possessing our whole existence.
--
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.
--
Devotion may be so Used as to lead to the elevation of the whole range of human emotion, sensation and aesthetic perception to the divine level, its spiritualisation and the j Ustification of the cosmic labour towards love and joy in our humanity.
The Path of Works aims at the dedication of every human activity to the supreme Will. It begins by the renunciation of all egoistic aim for our works, all pursuit of action for an interested aim or for the sake of a worldly result. By this renunciation it so
--
Karmayoga is Used, like the other paths, to lead to liberation from phenomenal existence and a departure into the Supreme.
But here too the excl Usive result is not inevitable. The end of the path may be, equally, a perception of the Divine in all energies, in all happenings, in all activities, and a free and unegoistic participation of the soul in the cosmic action. So followed it will lead to the elevation of all human will and activity to the divine level, its spiritualisation and the j Ustification of the cosmic labour towards freedom, power and perfection in the human being.
0.05 - Letters to a Child, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
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
--
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
say, "What is this nonsense? Don't be ridiculo Us. Quick! Off
--
of my presence and receive and Use the force that I am pouring
into you to enable you to overcome all difficulties.
--
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
--
beautiful or Useful have always been persons who have known
how to discipline themselves.
--
are always available to you; you have only to learn to make Use
of them.
--
open yourself to this help and protection and learn to Use them
to conquer the adversary who is trying to draw you towards the
--
(2) You will live here, as all of Us, night and day under the
constant threat of a sudden bombardment.
0.05 - The Synthesis of the Systems, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
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 m Ust therefore be effected by neglecting the forms and outsides of 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 Ill Usion and in the search after the silent inactive Pur Usha as the means of liberation from the deceptions created by the active Energy. But in the integral conception the Conscio Us Soul is the Lord, the Nature-Soul is his executive Energy. Pur Usha is of the nature of Sat, the being of conscio Us self-existence pure and infinite; Shakti or Prakriti is of the nature of Chit, - it is power of the Pur Usha's self-conscio Us existence, pure and infinite. The relation of the two exists between the poles of rest and action. When the Energy is absorbed
--
Nature, that which we know and are and m Ust 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
--
Prakriti and turn them towards the Divine. But the normal action of Nature in Us is an integral movement in which the full complexity of all our elements is affected by and affects all our environments. The whole of life is the Yoga of Nature. The
Yoga that we seek m Ust 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 m Ust be to find out one path out of the tho Usand 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.
--
God Himself, the real Person in Us, becomes the sadhaka of the sadhana1 as well as the Master of the Yoga by whom the lower personality is Used as the centre of a divine transfiguration and the instrument of its own perfection. In effect, the pressure of the
Tapas, the force of conscio Usness 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.
--
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
Yoga. Yet are there certain broad lines of working common to all which enable Us to construct not indeed a routine system, but
The Synthesis of the Systems
--
Everything in Us is seized by the hands of a mighty Artificer and transformed into a clear image of that which it now seeks conf Usedly 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 disastro Us, 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 grievo Us 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 subconscio Us in
Nature, in the other it becomes swift and self-conscio Us and the instrument confesses the hand of the Master. All life is a Yoga of Nature seeking to manifest God within itself. Yoga marks the stage at which this effort becomes capable of self-awareness and therefore of right completion in the individual. It is a gathering up and concentration of the movements dispersed and loosely combined in the lower evolution.
--
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 conscio Usness 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.
--
Truth and Law in Us in the terms of life and through the right
As the Jivanmukta, who is entirely free even without dissolution of the bodily life in a final Samadhi.
0.06 - INTRODUCTION, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
already taught Us how we are to deny and purify ourselves with the ordinary help of
grace, in order to prepare our senses and faculties for union with God through love.
--
darkness of the Active and the Passive Nights; they would tell Us, too, of the soul's
further progress towards the Sun's full brightness. It is true, of course, that some
--
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
0.06 - Letters to a Young Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
in any case this cannot be compared at all with the bloody revolutions which quite Uselessly tear up countries without bringing
any great change after them, beca Use they leave men as false, as
--
To be conscio Us of the Divine Presence in Us is our goal;
I don't see how I can be conscio Us from the beginning.
--
I too do not want any distance between Us. But the relation m Ust
be a true one, that is, based on union in the divine conscio Usness.
--
next birth may not be Useless like this one.
This is all nonsense; we have not to b Usy ourselves with the next
life, but with this one which offers Us, till our very last breath,
all its possibilities. To put off for the next birth what one can do
--
Formerly I Used to repeat to myself: "I am one of the
greatest sadhaks." Now I tell myself: "I am nobody."
--
We m Ust want to be only what the divine Will wants of Us.
All my good intentions, since my childhood, have been
--
conscio Usness, the Power and Capacity in Us. It is to Him that
we m Ust entr Ust ourselves, give ourselves without reserve, and it
is He who will make of Us what He wants in His infinite wisdom.
VI
--
practice, and for this the most important thing to avoid is Useless
talking. It is not work but Useless talk which takes Us away from
the Divine.
--
To be pessimistic has never been of any Use except to attract
towards oneself j Ust the things one fears. One m Ust, on the
--
against the terrestrial evolution without Using a human
being as an intermediary?
--
learn to do so, these contacts with others are Useful.
I do not know of anything more foolish than these quarrels in
--
bath as Usual?
Series Six - To a Young Sadhak
--
knowledge of things can be of any Use whatsoever; it is good for
nothing except making people conceited, for they imagine they
--
It is very difficult to choose games which are Useful and beneficial
for a child. It asks for much consideration and reflection, and all
--
be respectable. X is not the only one to say that you Use violence
to make yourself obeyed; nothing is less respectable. You m Ust
first control yourself and never Use brute force to impose your
will.
0.07 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mystery do you cast this sweet spell on Us?
The only mystery, the only spell is my love - my love which is
--
if you are not merely experimenting with Us? Praying to
be exc Used.
--
the way I Used to feel for the old ideal of liberation. The
path, the ideal you represent, your values still leave me
--
That which the Divine has destined for each of Us - that will be.
My love and blessings to my dear child.
0.08 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
they help Us in our sadhana?
Each region of the being and each activity has its energies. We
--
may classify them generally into vital energies, mental energies, spiritual energies. Modern science tells Us that Matter is
ultimately nothing but energy condensed.
--
Aurobindo has described and explained for Us in The Synthesis
of Yoga.
--
better than we what is good for Us and what we truly need, not
only for our spiritual progress but also for our material wellbeing, the health of our body and the proper functioning of all
--
which we live and the way in which people regard Us are the
expression, the objective projection of what we ourselves are,
--
surrounds Us.
And this is easily verifiable, for in proportion as we improve
--
What do you give Us in the morning at the balcony,1
and what should we try to do in order to receive what
--
body, but of all that surrounds Us as well - all that we perceive
with our senses. It is a sort of apparat Us for recording and transmission which is open to all the contacts and shocks coming
--
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 vario Us
--
links Us to the animal, and the superconscience which is our
hope and assurance of future realisation.
--
This question and the three that follow are based on terms Used by Sri Aurobindo in
The Life Divine, especially in its final chapters.
--
progressive ascension. It is Usually to the gods of the overmind
that the prayers of the vario Us religions are addressed. These religions most often choose, for vario Us reasons, one of these gods
and transform him for their personal Use into the supreme God.
In the individual evolution, one m Ust develop in oneself
--
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
--
Very often the word "Nature" is Used as a synonym for
Prakriti, the executive force of Pur Usha. But to answer your
0.09 - Letters to a Young Teacher, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
want Us? I believe that in truth the Divine has chosen Us
all; but what does this sentence mean, then?
--
visitors come to call on Us; some are tall, others small, some
single, others in groups; all are bright and graceful.
--
to Us. But most often, the picture we succeed in making of our
visitor is more like a caricature than a portrait.
--
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?
--
that the Divine belongs to Us excl Usively (and not that
we belong to Him). Why?
--
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
--
having chosen the method, you m Ust Use your intelligent will
to apply it with an unfailing perseverance that does not shrink
--
voice which distinguishes between good and evil, encourages Us
to do good and forbids Us to do evil. This voice is very Useful
in ordinary life, until one is able to become conscio Us of one's
--
How are the messages that You give Us on Blessings
days chosen? How should we read them and what new
--
The messages are Usually chosen according to the occasion or
the need of the moment, so that each person may be able to find
--
is what opens Us to the divine influence and makes Us capable
of receiving what it brings Us.
26 September 1960
--
Sri Aurobindo tells Us: "First be sure of the call and
of thy soul's answer"6 before following the path of Yoga,
--
knowing that to start out too soon is Useless, to say the least,
and may be harmful.
--
Sri Aurobindo tells Us: "God's grace is more difficult
to have or to keep than the nectar of the Immortals."7
--
pour down on Us, depending only on our receptivity?
The Grace is always there, eternally present and active, but Sri
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
--
Sri Aurobindo tells Us: "God in his perfection embraces everything; we also m Ust become all-embracing."
There is a lot of misunderstanding among the young
--
tolerated were those that were Useful for the practice of sadhana.
But as it would be unreasonable to demand that children
--
finding the psychic being within Us?
In terrestrial man, it is only the psychic being that knows true
--
to Use these precio Us things in such a free and common
way?
--
give them to X who makes good Use of them.
And if you are telling me that the photos are damaged, this
--
things we Use. That is what I mean when I speak of living with
respect.
01.01 - A Yoga of the Art of Life, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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 m Ust 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.
--
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 nucle Us it would be sufficient, at least for the beginning, provided it is the real, the genuine thing
01.01 - The New Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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 j Ust behind the line. It waits for an occasion to throw off the veil and place itself in the forefront. We are living in strenuo Us 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 momento Us day when man appeared on earth, the Higher Man also took his birth. Since the hour the Spirit ref Used 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.
--
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 h Ushed. 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, beca Use 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. Th Us 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.
--
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
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 conscio Usness into the Divine Conscio Usness, 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 m Ust 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 conscio Usness, or as the spiritual Truth of the Divine grows in Us, our life and action m Ust indeed more and more flow from that, be one with that. But to decide beforeh and by our limited mental conceptions what they m Ust 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 conscio Usness, 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 conscio Usness 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.
01.02 - Natures Own Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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 superconscio Us to Us, embodied in a still higher type of created being, that of the superman or god-man. The principle of conscio Usness 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 conscio Usness Mind as developed in man is the highest instrument built up and organised by Nature through which the self-conscio Us 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 conscio Usness 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 stat Us 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.
--
In the Supermind things exist in their perfect spiritual reality; each is conscio Usly the divine reality in its transcendent essence, its cosmic extension, its, spiritual individuality; the diversity of a manifested existence is there, but the mutually excl Usive 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 nex Us 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 conscio Usness 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 conscio Usness that is the beginning of Ignorance. The first shadow of the Ill Usory Conscio Usness, 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 conscio Usness 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 conscio Us 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 Conscio Us 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 Conscio Usness. 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 conscio Usness 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 conscio Us 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 Conscio Usness 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 conscio Usness, as it does even now behind the cosmic play, but in the play itself and in the multiple mode of the terrestrial existence.
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, vo Us avez la croixTie God to the gibbet, you have the cross. Even so, inf Use 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 stupendo Us 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 j Ust now where a philosopher has almost succeeded being a great poet I am referring to Lucreti Us 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 conscio Usly 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 pl Us 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, j Ust 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 lumino Usly forceful.
Take these Vedantic lines that in their limpidity and harmonio Us flow beat anything found in the fine French poet Lamartine:
--
He dawns upon Us and we would pursue,
But who has found Him or what arms possessed ?4
--
He dwells within Us all who dwells not in
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 geni Us 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 lumino Us felicity:
Delight that labours in its opposite,
--
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, beca Use we wish to palliate or hide the rigours of a supreme experience, not beca Use we have no adequate terms for it. The same human or earthly terms could be Used differently if we had a different conscio Usness. Th Us 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 conscio Usness 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, sensuo Usness, sensibility, nervo Us enth Usiasm 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 conscio Usness, 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 conscio Usness, 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 conscio Usness 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 conscio Usness arriving at an absolute f Usion and his poetry is a wonderful example of that f Usion. 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 f Usion, 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 g Usto of sensuo Usness:
01.02 - The Creative Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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 beca Use 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 c Ustom 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 pa Use, pull ourselves out of the Maelstrom and be what we are. We m Ust 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 geni Us of a Shankara it does not mean that you have no geni Us at all. Be and become yourselfma gridhah kasyachit dhanam, says the Upanishad. The fountain-head of creative geni Us 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.
01.02 - The Issue, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Fit for a day's Use by b Usy careless Powers.
4.17
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Restrain the Titan in Us and the God:
Pain with its lash, joy with its silver bribe
01.02 - The Object of the Integral Yoga, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
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 m Ust not be pursued for our own sake, but for the sake of the Divine.
01.03 - Mystic Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In the dead wall closing Us from wider self,
Into a secrecy of apparent sleep,
--
Come, let Us run
And give the world a girdle with the sun!10
--
But first let Us go to the fans et origo, be acquainted with the very genuine article in its purity and perfection, in its essential simplicity. I do not know of any other ideal exemplar than the Upanishad. Th Us,
There the sun shines not and the moon has no
--
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 j Ustice, even at its very best, to the poetic value in question. For apart from the individual geni Us 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 conscio Usness. 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 suff Used with the smell and effluvia of this vale of tears.
Among the ancients, strictly speaking, the later classical Lucreti Us was a remarkable phenomenon. By nature he was a poet, but his mental interest lay in metaphysical speculation, in philosophy, and unpoetical b Usiness. He turned away from arms and heroes, wrath and love and, like Seneca and Aureli Us, 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 dangero Us subject for his poetic inspiration and yet it cannot be said that his attempt was a failure. Lucreti Us was not a religio Us 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 conscio Usness that at its highest pitch had the ring and vibration of something almost spiritual. For the basic principle of Lucreti Us' inspiration is a large thought-force, a tense perception, a taut nervo Us reactionit is not, of course, the identity in being with the inner realities which is the hallmark of a spiritual conscio Usness, yet it is something on the way towards that.
--
This, I say, is something different from the religio Us and even from the mystic. It is away from the merely religio Us, beca Use 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 conscio Usness from the ancient, that is, Upanishadic spiritual conscio Usness. The Upanishad gives expression to the spiritual conscio Usness 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 m Ust needs be a different kind of logic that can satisfy and satisfy wholly the deeper and subtler movements of a modern conscio Usness. 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 ill Ustrate 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 holoca Ust of the Supreme. ||26.15||
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Here we have a pattern of thought-movement that does not seem to follow the lineaments of the normal brain-mind conscio Usness, although it too has a basis there: our c Ustomary 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, j Ustifying or j Ustified 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 conscio Usness 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 conscio Usness. 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 conscio Usness means such a thing, the presentation of a divine name and form. And this distinguishes it from the mystic conscio Usness which is not the supreme solar conscio Usness but the nearest approach to it. Or, perhaps, the mystic dwells in the domain of the Divine, he may even be suff Used 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 conscio Usness gives Us the tatastha lakshana, the nearest approximative attribute of the attri buteless; or otherwise, it is the hiranyagarbha conscio Usness which englobes the multiple play, the cor Uscated 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, suff Used, 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 devio Us waysstrongly negative at timeseven like man's life and conscio Usness 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 conscio Usness, Charles Baudelaire, th Us admonishes his spirit:
--
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 conf Usion. 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 conscio Usness, even so the artistic expression of his creative activity has followed a similar line of transformation. The first and original transformation happened with religio Us poetry. The religio Us, one may say, is the profane inside out; that is to say, the religio Us man has almost the same tone and temper, the same urges and passions, only turned Godward. Religio Us 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. Religio Us 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, religio Us 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 conscio Usness, it does not fit closely or f Use. In the religio Us, however, the first step is taken for a mingling and f Usion. The mystic is the beginning of a real f Usion 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 religio Us mystic or the philosopher mystic, although often the two are welded together and cannot be very well separated. Let Us ill Ustrate a little:
The spacio Us firmament on high,
--
"The World is too much with Us"...
John Hall: "To his Tutor".
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 concl Usions. 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 tr Ustworthy 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 serio Us 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 tr Ust 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 m Ust 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.
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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 Conscio Usness-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 excl Usive 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.
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01.03 - Sri Aurobindo and his School, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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 j Ust 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 th Us 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 l Ustall 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.
01.03 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Souls Release, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In the dead wall closing Us from wider self,
Into a secrecy of apparent sleep,
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Or a dull gravitation drags Us down
To the blind driven inertia of our base.
This too the supreme Diplomat can Use,
He makes our fall a means for greater rise.
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All now suppressed in Us began to emerge.
\t:Th Us came his soul's release from Ignorance,
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 conscio Usness and to live out of the higher conscio Usness alone, not with the ordinary motives. This means a change of life as well as a change of conscio Usness. 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 m Ust 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.
01.04 - Motives for Seeking the Divine, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
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 religio Us approach. For the spiritual life to give and not to demand is the rule. The sadhak however can ask for the
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Let Us first put aside the quite foreign consideration of what we would do if the union with the Divine brought eternal joylessness, Nirananda or torture. Such a thing does not exist and to drag it in only clouds the issue. The Divine is Anandamaya and one can seek him for the Ananda he gives; but he has also in him many other things and one may seek him for any of them, for peace, for liberation, for knowledge, for power, for anything else of which one may feel the pull or the impulse. It is quite possible for someone to say: "Let me have Power from the
Divine and do His work or His will and I am satisfied, even if the Use of Power entails suffering also." It is possible to shun bliss as a thing too tremendo Us or ecstatic and ask only or rather for peace, for liberation, for Nirvana. You speak of self-fulfilment,
- 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.
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The pull of that is indeed a categorical imperative, the self in Us drawn to the Divine beca Use of the imperative call of its greater Self, the soul ineffably drawn towards the object of its adoration, beca Use it cannot be otherwise, beca Use it is it and
He is He. That is all about it.
01.04 - The Intuition of the Age, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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 excl Usively 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 geni Us 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.
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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 continuo Us 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 marvello Usly where Reason can only pa Use 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-conscio Usillumined 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 obvio Us 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 dangero Usly. 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 conscio Us 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", m Ust embody a poise of being in which all the three find a f Usion and harmonya perfect synthesis. Again, to live dangero Usly may be heroic, but it is not divine. To live dangero Usly 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 equanimo Us 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 unconscio Us or semi-conscio Us power, the latter is illumined and self-conscio Us. 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 continuo Us 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 conscio Usness (chit) in a continuo Us 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 conscio Usness 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 stat Us and the transmutation of humanity in the mould of that stat Usnot a Nietzschean Titan nor a Bergsonian Dionys Us but the tranquil vision and delight and dynamism of the Spirit the incarnation of a god-head.
01.04 - The Poetry in the Making, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We take a third view of the matter and say that geni Us is neither unconscio Us or conscio Us but superconscio Us. And when one is superconscio Us, one can be in appearance either conscio Us or unconscio Us. Let Us at the outset try to explain a little this psychological riddle.
When we say one is conscio Us, we Usually mean that one is conscio Us with the mental conscio Usness, with the rational intelligence, with the light of the brain. But this need not be always so. For one can be conscio Us with other forms of conscio Usness or in other planes of conscio Usness. In the average or normal man the conscio Usness 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 conscio Usness. But the fact is otherwise. The experiences of the mystic prove the point. The mystic is conscio Us on a level which we describe as higher than the mind and reason, he has what may be called the overhead conscio Usness. (Apart from the normal conscio Usness, which is named jagrat, waking, the Upanishad speaks of three other increasingly subtler states of conscio Usness, swapna, s Ushupti and turiya.)And then one can be quite unconscio Us, as in samadhi that can be s Ushupti or turiyaorpartially conscio Usin 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 conscio Us and still be in the superconscience. Not only so, the mystic the Yogican be conscio Us on infraconscio Us levels also; that is to say, he can enter into and identify with the conscio Usness 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 conscio Usness and all different from the mode of mind which is normally known as conscio Usness. 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 f Usion and identification of conscio Usness with an infra-conscient existence.
I said that the supreme artist is superconscio Us: his conscio Usness withdraws from the normal mental conscio Usness and becomes awake and alive in another order of conscio Usness. To that superior conscio Usness 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 process Us, for they may be overlapping and practically simultaneo Us. First, there is the withdrawal and the in-gathering of conscio Usness and then its reappearance into expression. The conscio Usness 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 th Us 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 conf Used 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 conscio Usness. In Shakespeare, in Homer, in Valmiki the inflat Us of the secret conscio Usness, the inspiration, as it is Usually termed, bears down, sweeps away all obscurity or contrariety in the recording mentality, suff Uses 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-conscio Us 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 conscio Usness 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 M Uses 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 ill Ustrated in the famo Us 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 m Usical 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 m Ust be noted that Coleridge is a rare example, for the recording apparat Us 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 unconscio Us or half-conscio Us habitual formations are thrown up and they are sufficient to ca Use 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 conscio Usness the higher, deeper, subtler or other modes of experiences pass through and are recorded with the minimum aberration or diffraction.
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Not only so, the future development of the poetic conscio Usness 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 conscio Usness has grown from unconscio Usness to conscio Usness and from conscio Usness to self-conscio Usness; man's creative and artistic geni Us too has moved pari passu in the same direction. The earliest and primitive poets were mostly unconscio Us, that is to say, they wrote or said things as they came to them spontaneo Usly, 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 conscio Us, 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 conscio Us artists, Usually goes by the name of "classicists." Modern creators have gone one step farther in the direction of self-conscio Usness, a return upon oneself, an inlook of full awareness and a free and alert activity of the critical faculties. An unconscio Us artist in the sense of the "primitives" is almost an impossible phenomenon in the modern world. All are scientists: an artist cannot but be conscio Usly 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-conscio Usness 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 nervo Us 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, Ho Usman 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 geni Us 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, conscio Us and deliberate and willed at every step and turn.
The conscio Usly purposive activity of the poetic conscio Usness in fact, of all artistic conscio Usness has shown itself with a clear and unambiguo Us 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 obvio Us 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 obvio Us: 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 Ho Usman'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 c Ustoms, 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 d Ust and d Ustbin, hammer and sicklehe is still a prophet, a violent one, an iconoclast, but one who has his own icon, a terribly jealo Us 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 unconscio Us instrument, but that he is supremely' conscio Us 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 inflat Us. 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 mod Us 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-conscio Us 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-conscio Us age lies in an exceeding and not in a further enhancement or an excl Usive concentration of the self-conscio Usness, nor, of course, in a falling back into the original unconscio Usness. It is this shift in the poise of conscio Usness that has been presaged and prepared by the conscio Us, 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 conscio Usness 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 Unconscio Us, the dark and mysterio Us 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 curio Us 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 conscio Usness demands and prophesies that the future poet has to be a mysticin him will be fulfilled the travail of man's conscio Us working. The self-conscio Us craftsman, the tireless experimenter with his adventuro Us 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 m Ust descend and fulfil. And when one rises into this higher conscio Usness beyond the brain and mind, when one lives there habitually, one knows the why and the how of things, one becomes a perfectly conscio Us 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 spontaneo Us in its movements, even so a seer. Not only so, the higher spontaneity is more spontaneo Us, for the higher conscio Usness means not only awareness but the free and untrammelled activity and expression of the truth and reality it is.
Geni Us had to be generally more or less unconscio Us in the past, beca Use 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 ca Using 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 conscio Us and full participation of a refined and transparent and enriched instrument in the delivery of superconscio Us truth and beauty will surely mean not only a new but the very acme of aesthetic creation. We th Us 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 obvio Usly scriptural and religio Us.
01.04 - The Secret Knowledge, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Deep in Us a forgotten kinship points
And a faint voice of ecstasy and prayer
--
A shapeless memory lingers in Us still
And sometimes, when our sight is turned within,
--
We leave behind meted to Us as life,
Our little walks, our insufficient reach.
--
Possesses Us which yet we know is ours:
Or we adore the Master of our souls.
--
It leaves Us one with Nature and with God.
In moments when the inner lamps are lit
--
That lives within Us by ourselves unseen;
Only sometimes a holier influence comes,
--
It guards for Us our fate in depths within
Where sleeps the eternal seed of transient things.
Always we bear in Us a magic key
Concealed in life's hermetic envelope.
--
Our very being seems to Us questionable,
Our life a vague experiment, the soul
--
Waking in Us the prophet and the seer.
The outward and the immediate are our field,
--
Its signs stare at Us like an unknown script,
As if appeared screened by a foreign tongue
--
The grandeur of a Useless miracle;
Wasting itself that it may last awhile,
--
It is near Us in unnumbered bodies and births;
In its unslackening grasp itkeeps for Us safe
The one inevitable supreme result
--
A mighty Guidance leads Us still through all.
After we have served this great divided world
--
Th Us have they made their play with Us for roles:
Author and actor with himself as scene,
--
For him she was made, lives only for his Use.
But conquering her, then is he most her slave;
--
The master of existence lurks in Us
And plays at hide-and-seek with his own Force;
--
One who is in Us as our secret self,
Our mask of imperfection has assumed,
--
The Maker shall recast Us and impose
A plan of godhead on the mortal's mould
01.05 - Rabindranath Tagore: A Great Poet, a Great Man, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Tagore is no inventor or innovator when he posits Spirit as Beauty, the spiritual conscio Usness 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 glamoro Us 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 ill Usion 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 conscio Usness; 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 b Usiness", calling it a laissez-faire mentality of bygone days. A spiritual reformer would ask for morea dynamic union with the Divine Will and Conscio Usness, not merely a passive enjoyment in the Bliss, so that he may be a lumino Us power or agent for the expression of divine values in things mundane.
--
Th Us, 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 suff Used with a "light that never was, on sea or land."
Another great poet of the spirit says also, almost like Tagore:
01.05 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Spirits Freedom and Greatness, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Cheated by counterfeits sold to Us in life's mart,
Our hearts clutch at a forfeited heavenly bliss.
--
Burst open the narrow dams that keep Us safe
Against the forces of the universe.
--
Herself she gave for rapture and for Use.
Absolved from aberrations in deep ways,
01.06 - On Communism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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 impet Us 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 rigoro Us 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 extraneo Us 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 exha Ust 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, f Uses 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.
01.06 - Vivekananda, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A personal reminiscence. A young man in prison, acc Used of conspiracy and waging war against the British Empire. If convicted he might have to suffer the extreme penalty, at least, transportation to the Andamans. The case is dragging on for long months. And the young man is in a solitary cell. He cannot always keep up his spirits high. Moments of sadness and gloom and despair come and almost overwhelm him. Who was there to console and cheer him up? Vivekananda. Vivekananda's speeches, From Colombo to Almora, came, as a godsend, into the hands of the young man. Invariably, when the period of despondency came he Used to open the book, read a few pages, read them over again, and the cloud was there no longer. Instead there was hope and courage and faith and future and light and air.
Such is Vivekananda, the embodiment of Fearlessnessabh, the Upanishadic word, the mantra, he was so fond of. The life and vision of Vivekananda can be indeed summed up in the mighty phrase of the Upanishads, nyam tm balahnena labhya. 'This soul no weakling can attain.' Strength! More strength! Strength evermore! One remembers the motto of Danton, the famo Us leader in the French Revolution:De l'audance, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace!
--
"First, let Us be Gods, and then help others to be Gods.
'Be and make', let this be our motto."
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 famo Us 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 precocio Us geni Us, 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 calcul Us 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 serio Us 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.
--
"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 Epicur Us in a temple: 'What a feast, what a spectacle for me to see Epicur Us 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 Epicur Us 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 conf Usion 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. Beca Use 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 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 geni Us. It is explained in his famo Us 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. Th Us Pascal concludes that even from the standpoint of mere gain and loss, belief in God is more advantageo Us 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 f Used in him. There was a gap between that was not thoroughly bridged. Pascal did not possess the higher, intuitive, lumino Us mind that mediates successfully between the physical discursive ratiocinative brain-mind and the vision of faith: it is beca Use deep in his conscio Usness 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 conscio Usness. 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 famo Us 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.
01.07 - The Bases of Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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?
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 ho Use divided, against itself, that is to say it is an arena where different and divergent forces continually battle against one another. There m Ust 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 m Ust 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.
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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 conscio Us mind as worthy of human pursuit. Th Us 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 th Us 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 th Us allow its free indulgence. Instances of carnal love sublimated into spiritual union, of passion transmuted into devotion (Bhakti) are common enough to ill Ustrate 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 spontaneo Us process can be organised and conscio Usly regulated and made to serve better the purpose and urge of Nature. And this is the beginning of yoga the conscio Us 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 Conscio Us 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 subconscio Us impulsions. Conscio Us 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 unconscio Us or subconscio Us 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 conscio Us 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.
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Yet even here the process of control and transformation does not end. And we now come to the Fifth Line, the real and intimate path of yoga. Conscio Us control gives Us a natural mastery over the instinctive impulses which are relieved of their dark tamas and attain a purified rhythm. We do not seek to hide or repress or combat them, but surpass them and play with them as the artist does with his material. Something of this katharsis, this aestheticism of the primitive impulses was achieved by the ancient Greeks. Even then the primitive impulses remain primitive all the same; they fulfil, no doubt, a real and healthy function in the scheme of life, but still in their fundamental nature they continue the animal in man. And even when Conscio Us Control means the utter elimination and annihilation of the primal instinctswhich, however, does not seem to be a probable eventualityeven then, we say, the basic problem remains unsolved; for the urge of nature towards the release and a transformation of the instincts does not find satisfaction, the question is merely put aside.
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 conscio Us 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.
01.08 - Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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 conscio Usness. 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 marvello Us, no doubt. The mystic offers the spectacle of a still more marvello Us march to another kind of infinity.
Here is the Aug Ustinian 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 Jer Usalem, the Ho Use 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, ref Uses to be drawn out, the turmoil settles down and the darkness begins to thin and wear away. One m Ust not lose heart, one m Ust 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 travaillo Us, 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 Jes Us whose tabernacle is your soul, still there is bound to remain a shadow of the sinful prison-ho Use; 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 m Ust 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 Jes Us, our beloved and our soul rests in him in utmost bliss. We are aware neither of Jes Us nor of his spo Use, our soul, beca Use 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 conscio Us 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-Conscio Usness in the true Christian.
Indeed, the kernel of the mystic discipline and its whole bearingconsists in one and only one principle: to love Jhesu. All roads lead to Rome: all preparations, all trials lead to one realisation, love of God, God as a living person close to Us, our friend and lover and master. The Christian mystic speaks almost in the terms of the Gita: Rise above your senses, give up your ego-hood, be meek and humble, it is Jes Us within you, who embraces your soul: it is he who does everything for you and in you, give yourself up wholly into his hands. He will deliver you.
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 rigoro Us excl Usion, 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 excl Usive concentration of the whole of the being upon one point, the divine core, the manifest Grace of God, j Ustifies 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 conscio Usness 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 Jes Us 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 stat Us 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 extraneo Us, but a resolution of the external into its inner and inmost substance, of the effect into its original ca Use. 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, ca Use 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, beca Use of affinity of nature and quality: it does not dissolve the two into an integral unity and absolute identity, where we love beca Use we are one, beca Use 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 m Ust separate from sin the sinner and love him. Why? Beca Use the sinner too can change and become his brother in spirit, one loves the sinner beca Use 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 j Ustified. 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? Beca Use, 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 conscio Usness purifies it and suff Uses it with the spiritual and divine conscio Usness, 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.
01.09 - The Parting of the Way, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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 conscio Usness, since it is conscio Usness that forms the substance and determines the mode of being. Now, the inorganic is characterised by un-conscio Usness, the vegetable by sub-conscio Usness, the animal by conscio Usness and man by self-conscio Usness. 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.
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The inflat Us 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. Th Us 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 foc Us of conscio Usness. The transmutation of conscio Usness 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 conscio Usness to self-conscio Usness meant all the difference between an animal and a man, so the lift again from self-conscio Usness to super-conscio Usness will mean the difference of a whole world between man and the divine creature that is to be.
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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 unconscio Us to the sub-conscio Us, from the sub-conscio Us to the conscio Us and from the conscio Us to the self-conscio Us; she has to rise yet again from the self-conscio Us to the super-conscio Us. 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
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 G Ustave Thibon, a Frenchman-not a priest or even a religio Us 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 religio Us people, especially the Catholics, beca Use 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. Th Us, 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 conscio Us 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 m Ust come from the higher, but on condition that the higher completely adopts and protects the lower." Here is a vision lumino Us 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, m Ust begin with the individual and within the individual. Man m Ust "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 m Ust learn to subordinate having to being. Each individual m Ust be himself, a free and spontaneo Us 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 m Ust go to the very roots of life and nature, m Ust seize God in his highest and sovereign stat Us. No prejudice of the past, no notion of our mental habits m Ust seek to impose its law. Th Us, 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 dangero Us 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 m Ust come down wholly and inhabit in the Lowest, the Lowest m Ust 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 momento Us 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 conscio Usness, the slimy visco Us 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 m Ust 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.
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The dream is indeed very interesting. Snakes Usually signify bad
thoughts or bad will from people around you - or an adverse
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far from what You ask of Us, at least I am. It is a most
arduo Us task and it will take time, a long time, but what
--
You told Us: "All of you here are taking life very
lightly, you are am Using yourselves all the time, you are
--
gave Us this morning was really j Ust right. I feel very
happy.
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Elsewhere he says explicitly that it is Useless to try to satisfy
desire, for desire is insatiable and can never be satisfied.
--
It is not absolutely Useless. You probably had a great deal of
tamas in your mind, and the mental acrobatics of the author
--
I have noticed something which applies to all of Us;
it is that we take part in as many items as possible in the
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not, I see no need for Us to worship the gods, great or small. Our
adoration ought to go only to the Supreme Lord, who is one in
--
You have often told Us that our activities should be
an offering to the Divine. What does this mean exactly,
--
Sweet Mother, take our actions and guide Us. You told
Us You would be there - if only I had eyes to see You!
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very far, from the Ideal You have given Us. This does not
discourage me, for I have full confidence in You.
--
how they educate Us!
When one has the true attitude, everything can be an opportunity
--
X told Us the favourite story of Dr. Y, the mathematics teacher: "A sculptor was working on a block of
stone near a village. One by one the villagers gathered
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What does "Yoga" mean and how many among Us
are practising it?
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Our teacher Y gave Us a talk in a grave and significant tone: "Be prepared to go through hard tests, we are
on the eve of something very difficult and dangero Us."
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can, instead of passing one's time in Useless analysis.
12 September 1963
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in order to Uselessly bewail the fault, but to cure it by calling to
one's aid the all-powerful force of the Divine.
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I return it to you, you do not study it and try to Use it as a means
to make progress.
--
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
--
words, self-deception. Now, if you have a fan and wish to Use
Series Ten - To a Young Captain
--
ways of disguising itself in Us. How can one discover it
and get rid of it?
--
be to Use your mutual attachment to unite your efforts in a
common and combined aspiration to attain the Divine, and in
--
and control your body methodically, make yourself Useful by
working at the Playground and your place of work, and try to
--
When a stranger asks Us what the Sri Aurobindo
Ashram is, how can we give him a reply that is both
--
What is the Use of Japa?15 Is it a good method to
repeat words like "Silence" and "Peace" in order to establish silence and peace in oneself when one sits down
--
They are Useful only for those who want to do an intensive yoga
and spend five or six hours a day in yogic practices.
--
People often ask Us this question: "What are you doing for society or even for the people of Pondicherry? You
are preoccupied with your own community, your own
--
To this rather silly kind of question, Sri Aurobindo always Used
to reply:
--
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?
--
there is not much Use in prolonging this state.
To obtain mental silence, one m Ust learn to relax, to let
--
How can one make Use of every moment of this
unique privilege of living here in the Ashram?
--
way you will make the best Use of your existence.
Happy New Year for 1965.
--
does not believe in salvation; for Us salvation is a meaningless
word. We are here to prepare the transformation of the earth
--
prancings of self-approbatory egoism.... What is aimed at by Us
is a spiritual truth as the basis of life, the first words of which
--
and cooperation here among Us and among the vario Us departments. This results in a great waste of money
and energy. Where does this disharmony come from and
--
There is a tendency among most of Us here to conduct our lives and programmes according to the c Ustoms
of society. We say: "We m Ust also think of the opinion of
--
There was a time when I Used to see You often in my
dreams and sometimes I even saw Sri Aurobindo too. But
--
The best way of seeing Us in your dreams is to concentrate on Us
before going to sleep. Do you do this now as you Used to before?
This is also the way to avoid going to undesirable places during
your sleep, for in those places you are sure not to meet Us. Try,
and you will see the result.
--
for those of Us who are not yet awake, who are still unconscio Us? What is the explanation for this opportunity,
this good fortune we have been granted?
--
of Us has surely felt and enjoyed - at least once in his
life, in a blessed moment - the infinite Splendour which
is within our reach and awaits Us. Yet there are so few
of Us who take the yoga serio Usly. Why?
It is quite simply unconscio Usness, incoercible TAMAS.
--
so Her protection was with Us. Then how is it possible?
The protection is over the group - and if the action of the group
--
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
inner being. Could you explain these two sentences a
--
What is Usually called "conscience" is a mental formation based
on the idea of good and evil, a moral entity or rather an element of goodwill which tries to keep the individual on what is
--
You are with Us always and at every moment, only
we are not conscio Us of it. Only danger makes Us recall
Your Presence so that we may have Your protection. But
--
It is beca Use men still imagine that to do something Useful, they
have to form groups.
--
the last chance given to Us. For me, all Usions to other
lives are intangible and academic rather than a help and
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 ruino Us for our ca Use, 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 unconscio Us or oblivio Us 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 beca Use we have clear reasons for it, beca Use we are not unconscio Us or oblivio Us either of the evils that beset the system of preaching the principle alone.
Religio Us 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-conscio Us 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.
--
Love and admiration for a mahapur Usha is not enough, even faith in his gospel is of little avail, nor can actual participation, consecrated work and labour in his ca Use save the situation; it is only when the principles, the bare realities for which the mahapur Usha stands are in the open forum and men have the full and free opportunity of testing and assimilating them, it is only when individuals th Us 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 j Ustice 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 m Ust also have an integral method. We shall have to curb many of our s Usceptibilities, diminish many of our apprehensions and soberly strike a balance between opposite extremes.
--
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 ill Ustrate 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 th Us 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 beca Use 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 tho Usand-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 conscio Usly accept herfreedom lies in a knowing affirmation. So we too have accepted and affirmed an icon, but we have done it conscio Usly 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 Philola Us, "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:
--
"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 excl Usively 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 beca Use the heights within reveal themselves to those who are ready to exclude from their purview all that lies without. And though this excl Usion may be a painful and mortificatory process, the fact remains that it is less arduo Us than the process of incl Usion, by which we come to know the fullness as well as the heights of spiritual life. Where there is excl Usive 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 incl Usivelyto realise the divine Ground in the world as well as in the soul, temptations and distractions m Ust not be avoided, but submitted to and Used as opportunities for advance; there m Ust 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 j Ust 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.
--
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-conscio Usness and have to be utilised to pass on into the unitive knowledge that is Tao. This explanation or amplification seems to Us somewhat conf Used 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 m Ust 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 tho Usand 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 ill Ustrates the well-known Biblical phrase, 'the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life'. The monkey is symbolical of the ignorant, arrogant, f Ussy 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 stat Us. 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.
01.11 - The Basis of Unity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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, beca Use the religio Us spirit is closest to India's soul and is its most direct expression and cannot be uprooted so easily; needed, beca Use India's and the world's future demands it and depends upon it.
Only, the religio Us spirit has to be bathed and purified and enlightened by the spirit of the renascence: that is to say, one m Ust 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 religio Us 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 lumino Us 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 conscio Usness. 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
--
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 heterogeneo Us 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-religio Us sense. For a catholic religio Us 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 geni Us of India and hence Hinduism and Indianism came to be looked upon as synonymo Us 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 serio Us, 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 conscio Usness 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 geni Us 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 famo Us lines about the character of the Ragh Us:
01.12 - Goethe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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 stat Us to the two. Satan is there, an eternal reality: it is anti-God, it seeks to oppose God, fr Ustrate 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).
01.12 - Three Degrees of Social Organisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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 m Ust 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 spontaneo Us working out of our truth-conscio Us nature.
--
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, spontaneo Us, 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 m Ust, in order to act, find out his truth of being, his true soul and inmost conscio Usness: one m Ust 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 outerspontaneo Usly 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.
01.13 - T. S. Eliot: Four Quartets, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In these latest poems of his, Eliot has become outright a poet of the Dark Night of the Soul. The beginnings of the new avatar were already there certainly at the very beginning. The Waste Land is a good preparation and passage into the Night. Only, the negative element in it was stronger the cynicism, the bleakness, the sereness of it all was almost overwhelming. The next stage was "The Hollow Men": it took Us right up to the threshold, into the very entrance. It was gloomy and fore-boding enough, grim and serio Usno glint or hint of the silver lining yet within reach. Now as we find ourselves into the very heart of the Night, things appear somewhat changed: we look at the past indeed, but can often turn to the future, feel the pressure of the Night yet sense the Light beyond overarching and embracing Us. This is how the poet begins:
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
--
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 disg Ust 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 conscio Usness that spells danger and ruin for the soul. Hence the poet exclaims:
. . . . Not here
--
Will the sunflower turn to Us, will the clematis
Stray down, bend to Us; tendril and spray Clutch and cling?
Chill
--
Down on Us? After the kingfisher's wing
Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
--
Our poet is too self-conscio Us, 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 religio Us urge, needs the injunction not to be b Usy 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 f Used 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 perilo Us 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 j Ustification. Still even if we have here doldrums like
That the past has another pattern, and ceases to be a mere sequence
01.14 - Nicholas Roerich, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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 conscio Usness: 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 conscio Usness 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:
--
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 R Ussian 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 conscio Usness immured in an ivory tower; but man is something more. A curio Us paradox. Man can reach the highest, realise the integral truth when he takes his leap, not from the relatively higher levels of his conscio Usness his intellectual and aesthetic and even moral stat Us 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.
0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This difficulty Usually comes from a lack of unification of the
being. Certain parts are recalcitrant and ref Use to receive. They
--
carry this division within Us.
The Mother, Prayers and Meditations, 17 May 1914.
--
The hands of painters, sculptors, m Usicians (especially pianists) are Usually very conscio Us and always are skilful. It is a
question of training.
--
that in Us which is unaware that it is divine.
13 July 1967
--
among Us. Why is that, Mother?
If I did say this (probably not quite in these words), it could only
--
How can one Use shadow to realise the Light?
Painters Use shadow to bring out the light.
Shadow is the symbol of the inconscient. This is where men
--
and glory. Not only are they unnecessary, they are Useless and
an obstacle to realisation.
--
You put something into Your words which enables Us to
see the Truth that words cannot convey. What is it that
--
should be Used for the progress of the earth, this person will
be developed enough inwardly to receive the knowledge of how
best to make Use of the money.
8 January 1968
--
conscio Us of this relation. It is Usually the result of Yoga.
8 April 1968
--
speaks of "the Truth that seeks to descend upon Us" and
"is already there within Us". Please explain this paradox
which, as I can feel, is only apparent.
--
the greater the Truth that seeks to descend upon Us, beca Use it is already there within Us
and calls for its release from the covering that conceals it in manifested Nature."
--
It is what is Usually called conscience, but in fact it is the psychic
being. And one can hear it only if one is very attentive, beca Use
--
our food to that Presence in Us.... "21
When I try to take this attitude, the food tastes better
--
In its essential truth, but one Usually keeps the perception of the
ill Usory appearance at the same time.
--
The Usefulness of seeing clearly instead of being blind.
The Usefulness of no longer being deceived by outward
appearances.
The Usefulness of knowing the true purpose of life instead
of living in ignorance and falsehood.
0.12 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I Used to have the habit of reading Savitri or one of
Your books before going to bed at night. But now I have
--
Love of Nature is Usually the sign of a pure and healthy being uncorrupted by modern civilisation. It is in the silence of a
peaceful mind that one can best commune with Nature.
--
Energy, strength, enth Usiasm, artistic taste, boldness, forcefulness are there too, if we know how to Use them in the true way.
A vital converted and consecrated to the Divine Will becomes a bold and forceful instrument that can overcome all
--
beings? Does He expect something of Us?
This world is Himself. He wants everything - ourselves and the
0.13 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
it that He takes so much time and Uses such roundabout
ways? What joy does He get in creating unconscio Us
--
when it is someone close to Us?
Say to the Supreme Lord: "Let Thy Will be done", and remain
0.14 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
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
ourselves for it.
--
Grant that nothing in Us may be an obstacle to the fulfilment
of Thy Will.
--
We have to open them wide and allow the Infinite to enter Us
freely in order to transform Us.
Two conditions are necessary to open the windows:
--
Let Us learn to be silent so that the Lord may make Use of
Us.
--
but truly to be Useful to others without calculation and without
expecting any personal gain from their work.
--
force and gave Us the example of what we m Ust do to prepare
ourselves for this manifestation. The best thing we can do is to
study all he has told Us, strive to follow his example and prepare
ourselves for the new manifestation.
This gives life its true meaning and will help Us to overcome
all obstacles.
Let Us live for the new creation and we shall grow stronger
and stronger while remaining young and progressive.
--
The energies that human beings Use for reproduction and that
occupy such a predominant place in their lives, should on the
contrary be sublimated and Used for progress and higher development so as to prepare the coming of the new race. But first, the
vital and the physical have to be free of all desire - otherwise
--
The Divine alone can liberate Us from the mechanism of
universal Nature. And this liberation is indispensable for the
--
Supreme Lord, teach Us to be silent, that in the silence we may
receive Your force and understand Your will.
--
to be capable and worthy of serving You as we would. Make Us
conscio Us of our possibilities, but also of our difficulties so that
--
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.
12 March 1972
Lord, give Us the silence of Your contemplation, the silence rich
with Your effective Presence.
--
Let Us do our best to prepare the coming of the New Being. The mind m Ust fall silent and be replaced by the TruthConscio Usness - the conscio Usness of details harmonised with
the conscio Usness of the whole.
0 1954-08-25 - what is this personality? and when will she come?, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
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, beca Use you told Us so many things at that time.
Right.
--
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 j Ust beca Use her h Usb and happened to be here, we told her, You have no b Usiness coming here!
In the beginning, it was very, very strict for a long time.
--
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 conscio Usness: 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 Conscio Usness 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.
--
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 beca Use that is not their purpose. But it is more than obvio Us that if the people around me were receptive, She could permanently manifest since they could receive Herand this would help my body enormo Usly beca Use 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.
--
Well, I am only telling you all this beca Use 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.
0 1955-03-26, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Such was our old, meaningless name (except for its Germanic root: 'hard bear') until a certain March 3, 1957, when Mother named Us Sat-prem ('the one who loves truly').
***
0 1956-05-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Well, its the same thing. People take the train to come herethere were about a hundred and fifty more people than Usual1simply beca Use they want to benefit. But this may be exactly why they have not benefited from it! Beca Use This [the supramental conscio Usness] has not come to make people benefit in any way whatsoever!
They ask if their inner difficulties will be easier to overcome.
--
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 j Ust a little bit of common sense, they would understand that I cannot have the same relationship with people now (j Ust 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.
--
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.
--
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 insidio Us 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.
0 1956-09-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
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.
0 1956-10-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
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 conscio Usness.
A conscio Usness that sees and makes you see.
0 1956-10-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
One should beware of the charm of memories. What remains of past experiences is the effect they have had in the development of the conscio Usness. But when one attempts to relive a memory by placing oneself again in similar circumstances, one realizes quite rapidly how devoid they are of their power and charm, beca Use they have lost their Usefulness for progress.
You are now beyond the stage when the virgin forest and the desert can be Useful for your growth. They had put you in contact with a life vaster than your own and they widened the limits of your conscio Usness. But now you need something else.
So far, your whole life has revolved around yourself; all you have done, even the apparently most disinterested or least egoistic act, has been done with a view to your own personal growth or illumination. It is time to live for something other than yourself, something other than your own individuality.
0 1957-01-18, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But I would like to know whether it is really Useful for me to write this book, or whether it is not j Ust 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 ref Use.
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 1957-07-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It went something like this: somewhere, in the center of this enormo Us 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 j Ust 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, th Us giving the building an appearance of frightful conf Usion. 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 conf Usion 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 j Ust 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 conscio Usness as Nature has developed it th Us 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.
--
The symbolism is quite clear in that all the possibilities are there, all the activities are there, but in disorder and conf Usion. They are neither coordinated nor centralized nor unified around the central and unique truth and conscio Usness 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 ill Usory ties. Here, these ties were symbolized by the hotels walls, while actually in ordinary human constructions (if we take a religio Us 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 conscio Usnesses, 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 ill Usory.
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 conscio Usness, by an inner realization.
(silence)
--
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!
So, the best way to Use these meditations (and they are going to increase, since we are now also going to replace the distributions with short meditations) is to go deep within yourselves, as far as you can, and find the place where you can feel, perceive and perhaps even create an atmosphere of oneness wherein a force of order and organization can put each element in its true place, and out of the chaos existing at this hour, make a new, harmonio Us world surge forth.
The Supramental Manifestation, (Cent. Ed. XVI, pp. 33-36.)
0 1957-12-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
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 ca Use 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 ref Used 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, spontaneo Us 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.
***
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 conscio Usness 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 conscio Usness 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 beca Use of Us. We are a constant enigma to them Only a very tiny part of their conscio Usness 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 conscio Usness 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 conscio Usness went there and conscio Usly remained there between two and three oclock in the afternoon: I now know that for the two worlds to join in a constant and conscio Us 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 conscio Usness 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 conscio Usness 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 beca Use 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 lumino Us 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.
--
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 conscio Usness 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.
--
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 conscio Usness 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 obvio Us 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 th Us 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 j Ust how ridiculo Us we are.
(Then Mother speaks to the children)
--
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 beca Use it is the spontaneo Us, natural and sincere expression of your way of being and of your inner need, but beca Use 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 marvelo Us 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.
0 1958-03-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
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 m Ust 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 m Ust be made to toe the line once and for all.
0 1958-04-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
P.S. My system is not in perfect condition due to this absurdly spiced food, and the river water that is Used for everything.
***
0 1958-05-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
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.
--
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 beca Use 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 m Ust 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 serio Us obstacles is that the ignorant and falsifying outer conscio Usness, the ordinary conscio Usness legitimizes all the so-called physical laws, ca Uses, effects and consequences, all that science has discovered physically and materially. All this is an unquestionable reality to the conscio Usness, a reality that remains independent and absolute even in the face of the eternal divine Reality.
0 1958-05-11 - the ship that said OM, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And these things act upon my body. It is strange, but it coagulates something: all the cellular life becomes one solid, compact mass, in a tremendo Us concentrationwith a single vibration. Instead of all the Usual vibrations of the body, there is now only one single vibration. It becomes as hard as a diamond, a single massive concentration, as if all the cells of the body had
I became stiff from it. When the forest scene5 was over, I was so stiff that I was like that (gesture): one single mass.
0 1958-06-06 - Supramental Ship, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
When you had this experience of February 3, 1958 [the supramental ship], the vision of your Usual conscio Usness, which is nevertheless a Truth Conscio Usness, no longer seemed true to you at all. Did you see things you had never before seen, or did you see things in another way?
Yes, one enters into another world.
--
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 conscio Usness 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 conscio Usness, 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 zealo Usly will certainly vanish with them. And this is what was expressed in this concept of the Last Judgment.
May 1, 1958.
0 1958-07-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
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 conf Usion as we see it.
When the Grace acts on the individual, it gives to each the maximum position according to what he is and what he has realized.
0 1958-07-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
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 lumino Us, 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.
--
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 conscio Usness (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 concl Usion 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 beca Use 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!
0 1958-07-19, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I say that every fruit should be eaten in its own way. The being who lives according to his own nature, his own truth, m Ust spontaneo Usly 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 spontaneo Usly, according to the inner law. When you sincerely follow your nature, spontaneo Usly 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 conscio Usness 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!
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 m Ust be Used for that; if energy is given to restore something that has been disrupted in the body, it m Ust 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 r Ushes 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 1958-07-25a, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
What you want Us to know, we shall know, what you want Us to do, we shall do, what you want Us to be, we shall beforever.
Om - namo - bhagavateh
0 1958-08-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Last night, I had many dreams (not really dreams, but ); I Used to find them very interesting beca Use 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 conscio Usness 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 subconscio Us in Matter, all this, it all has to change! Theres no choice, it has to be seen to.
Once you set to this work, it is such a formidable task! But what can I do?
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, beca Use 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 beca Use, personally, individually, each aspiration for personal development had its own form, its own spontaneo Us 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 spontaneo Usly.
J Ust recently one day, the contact became entirely physical, the whole body was in great exaltation, and I noticed that other lines were spontaneo Usly being added to this Dieu de bont et de misricorde, and I noted them down. It was a springing forth of states of conscio Usness not words.
--
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 numero Us and spontaneo Us repetitionsone or two words, three at most. Beca Use you m Ust 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 spontaneo Usly, like a reflex, exactly like a reflex. Then the mantra has its full force.
For me, on the days when I have no special preoccupations or difficulties (days I could call normal, when I am normal), everything I do, all the movements of this body, all, all the words I utter, all the gestures I make, are accompanied and upheld by or lined, as it were, with this mantra:
0 1958-10-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It m Ust 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 beca Use l had initially made a formation to follow you.
--
You said that our way of receiving your work or becoming conscio Us of it does not excl Usively depend upon Us. What do you mean?
It depends upon the progress in the conscio Usness. The more the action is supramentalized, the more its reception is IMPOSED upon the conscio Usness of each one. The actions progress makes it more and more perceptible IN SPITE OF each ones condition. The milieu obvio Usly 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 imperio Us way.
--
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 conscio Usness. This is its true Use. What I call an improvement in conscio Usness, a progress in conscio Usness, 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 inexha Ustible 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 m Ust know the practical exercise for replenishing the energy constantly. And these are not j Ust 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 m Ust be Used to enrich the earth: to enrich the earth, to make the earth richer and richer, more active, genero Us, 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.
--
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
Difficulties are sent to Us excl Usively to make the realization more perfect.
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 excl Usively, absolutely, to make the realization more perfect.
--
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
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.
0 1958-10-17, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
'If mankind only caught a glimpse of what infinite enjoyments, what perfect forces, what lumino Us reaches of spontaneo Us 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, distr Ust and scepticism are there, sentinels of Nature to forbid the turning away of our feet from less ordinary pastures.'
Cent. Ed. Vol. XVII, p. 79
0 1958-11-04 - Myths are True and Gods exist - mental formation and occult faculties - exteriorization - work in dreams, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The story narrated in the film went like this: Narada, as Usual, was having fun. (Narada is a demigod with a divine position that is, he can communicate with man and with the gods as he pleases, and he serves as an intermediary, but then he likes to have fun!) So he was quarrelling with one of the goddesses, I no longer recall which one, and he told her (Ah, yes! The quarrel was with Saraswati.) Saraswati was telling him that knowledge is much greater than love (much greater in that it is much more powerful than love), and he replied to her, You dont know what youre talking about! (Mother laughs) Love is much more powerful than knowledge. So she challenged him, saying, Well then, prove it to me.I shall prove it to you, he replied. And the whole story starts there. He began creating a whole imbroglio on earth j Ust to prove his point.
It was only a film story, but anyway, the goddesses, the three wives of the Trimurti that is, the consort of Brahma, the consort of Vishnu and the consort of Shivajoined forces (!) and tried all kinds of things to foil Narada. I no longer recall the details of the story Oh yes, the story begins like this: one of the three I believe it was Shivas consort, Parvati (she was the worst one, by the way!)was doing her puja. Shiva was in meditation, and she began doing her puja in front of him; she was Using an oil lamp for the puja, and the lamp fell down and burned her foot. She cried out beca Use she had burned her foot. So Shiva at once came out of his meditation and said to her, What is it, Devi? (laughter) She answered, I burned my foot! Then Narada said, Arent you ashamed of what you have done?to make Shiva come out of his meditation simply beca Use you have a little burn on your foot, which cannot even hurt you since you are immortal! She became furio Us and snapped at him, Show me that it can be otherwise! Narada replied, I am going to show you what it is to really love ones h Usbandyou dont know anything about it!
Then comes the story of An Usuya and her h Usb and (who is truly a h Usb and a very good man, but well, not a god, after all!), who was sleeping with his head resting upon An Usuyas knees. They had finished their puja (both of them were worshippers of Shiva), and after their puja he was resting, sleeping, with his head on An Usuyas knees. Meanwhile, the gods had descended upon earth, particularly this Parvati, and they saw An Usuya like that. Then Parvati exclaimed, This is a good occasion! Not very far away a cooking fire was burning. With her power, she sent the fire rolling down onto An Usuyas feetwhich startled her beca Use it hurt. It began to burn; not one cry, not one movement, nothing beca Use she didnt want to awaken her h Usband. But she began invoking Shiva (Shiva was there). And beca Use she invoked Shiva (it is lovely in the story), beca Use she invoked Shiva, Shivas foot began burning! (Mother laughs) Then Narada showed Shiva to Parvati: Look what you are doing; you are burning your h Usbands foot! So Parvati made the opposite gesture and the fire was put out.
0 1958-11-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
At the time, I wondered what it meant. Later, of course, I found out, and finally this morning, I said to myself, Ah, so thats it! It came to give me my message for the new year! Then I transcribed the experienceit cant be described, of course, for it was indescribable; it was a psychological phenomenon and the form it took was only a way of describing the psychological state to oneself. Here is what I wrote down, obvio Usly in a mental way, and I am thinking of Using it as my message.
There was a hesitation in the expression, so I brought the paper and I want Us to decide upon the final text together.
I have not described anything. I have only stated a fact (Mother reads):
--
Yes, it was not a willed experience, for I had not decided I would do this. It did not correspond to an inner attitude. In a meditation, one can decide, I will meditate on this or on that or on something else I will do this or that. For meditations, I Usually have a kind of inner (or higher) perception of what has to be done, and I do it. But it was not that way. I had decided: nothing, to decide nothing, to be like that (gesture of turning upwards).
And then it happened.
--
And so, physically, the body followed. My body has been taught to express the inner experience to a certain extent. In the body there is the body-force or the body-form or the body-spirit (according to the different schools, it bears a different name), and this is what leaves the body last when one dies, Usually taking a period of seven days to leave.2 With special training, it can acquire a conscio Us lifeindependent and conscio Usto such a degree that not only in a state of trance (in trance, it frequently happens that one can speak and move if one is slightly trained or educated), but even in a cataleptic state it can produce sounds and even make the body move. Th Us, through training, the body begins to have somnambulistic capacitiesnot an ordinary somnambulism, but it can live an autonomo Us life.3 This is what took place, yesterday evening it was like that I had gone out of my body, but my body was participating. And then I was pulled downwards: my hand, which had been on the arm of the chair, slipped down, then the other hand, then my head was almost touching my knees! (The conscio Usness was elsewhere, I saw it from outsideit was not that I didnt know what I was doing, I saw it from outside.) So I said, In any case, this has to stop somewhere beca Use if it continues, my head (laughing) is going to be on the ground! And I thought, But what is there at the bottom of this hole?
Scarcely had these words been formulated when there I was, at the bottom of the hole! And it was absolutely as if a tremendo Us, almighty spring were there, and then (Mother hits the table) vrrrm! I was cast out of the abyss into a vastness. My body immediately sat straight up, head on high, following the movement. If someone had been watching, this is what he would have seen: in a single bound, vrrrm! Straight up, to the maximum, my head on high.
0 1958-11-11, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The spring? It means exactly this: in the deepest depths of the Inconscient is the supreme spring that makes Us touch the Supreme. It is like the Supreme making Us touch the Supreme: that is the almighty spring. When you arrive at the very bottom of the Inconscient, you touch the Supreme.
So that is the shortest path!
0 1958-11-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The quality or the kind of relationship I had with the Supreme at that moment was entirely different from the one we have hereeven the identification had a different quality. One can very well understand that all the lower movements are different but this identification by which the Supreme governs and lives in Us was the summit of our experience herewell, the way He governs and lives is different depending on whether we are in this hemisphere here or in the supramental life. And at that moment (the experience of November 13), what made the experience so intense was that I came to perceive vaguely both these states of conscio Usness at once. It was almost as if the Supreme Himself were different, or our experience of Him. And yet, in both cases, it was a contact with the Supreme. It is probably how we perceive Him or the way in which we translate it that differs, but the fact is that the quality of the experience is different.
In the other hemisphere, there is an intensity and a plenitude which are translated by a power different from the one here. How can I formulate it?I cannot.
The quality of the conscio Usness itself seems to change. It is not something higher than the summit we can attain here, it is not one MORE rung, not that. Here, we have reached the end, the summit, but its the quality that is different. The quality, in the sense that a fullness, a richness, a power is there (this is a translation, you see, in our way), but there is a something that that eludes Us. It is truly a new reversal of conscio Usness.
When we begin living the spiritual life, a reversal of conscio Usness takes place which for Us is the proof that we have entered the spiritual life; well, yet another occurs when we enter the supramental world.
And probably each time a new world opens up, there will again be a new reversal. This is why even our spiritual life, which is such a total reversal compared to ordinary life, seems something still so so totally different when compared to this supramental conscio Usness that the values are almost opposite.
--
I can explain the phenomenon like this: successive reversals such that an EVER NEW richness of creation will take place from stage to stage, making whatever came before seem so poor in comparison. What to Us seems supremely rich compared to our ordinary life, appears so poor compared to this new reversal of conscio Usness. Such was my experience.
Last night, my effort to understand what was missing in order to help you completely and truly come out of the difficulty reminded me of what I said the other day about Power, the transforming power, the true realizing power, the supramental power. When you enter that, when you suddenly surge into that Thing, then you seeyou see that it is truly almighty in comparison to what we are here. So once again, I touched it, I experienced both states simultaneo Usly.
0 1958-11-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And I saw that with the new Power, the supramental power That is something absolutely new It Used to be thought that nothing had the power to eliminate the consequences of karma and that only by exha Usting it through a series of actions could its consequences be transformed exha Usted, eliminated. But I KNOW that with the supramental power it can be done without following all the steps of the process.
In any event, one point is clear: it is something that happened in India, and the origin of the karma and the remedy of the karma go together. And it has to do with this initiation you received in Rameswaram.2
0 1958-11-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But beca Use it is karma, one m Ust, one m Ust DO something oneself. Karma is the construction of the ego; the ego M UsT DO something, everything cannot be done for it. This is it, THIS is the thing: karma is the result of the egos actions, and only when the ego abdicates is the karma dissolved. One can help it along, one can assist it, give it strength, bestow courage upon it, but the ego m Ust then make Use of it.
(silence)
--
As soon as you had left, and since I was following you, I saw that nothing of the kind was going to happen, but rather something very superficial which would not be of much Use. And when I received your letters and saw that you were in difficulty, I did something. There are places that are favorable for occult experiences. Benares is one of these places, the atmosphere there is filled with vibrations of occult forces, and if one has the slightest capacity, it spontaneo Usly develops there, in the same way that a spiritual aspiration develops very strongly and spontaneo Usly as soon as one lands in India. These are Graces. Graces, beca Use it is the destiny of the country, it has been so throughout its history, and beca Use India has always been turned much more towards the heights and the inner depths than towards the outer world. Now, it is in the process of losing all that and wallowing in the mud, but thats another story it was like that and it is still like that. And in fact, when you returned from Rameswaram with your robes, I saw with much satisfaction that there was still a GREAT dignity and a GREAT sincerity in this endeavor of the Sannyasis towards the higher life and in the self-giving of a certain number of people to realize this higher life. When you returned, it had become a very concrete and a very real thing that immediately commanded respect. Before, I had seen only a copy, an imitation, an hypocrisy, a pretentionnothing that was really lived. But then, I saw that it was true, that it was lived, that it was real and that it was still Indias great heritage. I dont believe it is very prevalent now, but in any case, it is still there, and as I told you, it commands respect. And then, as I felt you in difficulty and as the outer conditions were not only veiling but spoiling the inner, well, on that day I wrote you a short note I no longer recall when it was exactly, but I wrote you j Ust a word or two, which I put in an envelope and sent you I concentrated very strongly upon those few words and sent you something. I didnt note the date, I dont remember when it was, but its likely that it happened as I wished when you were in Benares; and then you had this experience.
But when you returned the second time, from the Himalayas, you didnt have the same flame as when you returned the first time. And I understood that this kind of difficult karma still clung to you, that it had not been dissolved. I had hoped that your contact with the mountains but in a true solitude (I dont mean that your body had to be all alone, but there should not have been all kinds of outer, superficial things) Anyway, it didnt happen. So it means that the time had not come.
0 1958-11-26, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Basically, the vast majority of men are like prisoners with all the doors and all the windows shut, so they suffocate (which is quite natural), but they have with them the key that opens the doors and the windows, and they dont Use it Certainly, there is a period when they dont know that they have the key, but even long after they do know it, long after they have been told, they hesitate to Use it and doubt that it has the power to open the doors and windows, or even that it may be advisable to open them. And even once they feel that After all, it might be a good thing, a fear pursues them: What is going to happen once all these doors and these windows open? They become afraidafraid of losing themselves in this light and in this freedom. They want to remain what they call themselves. They love their falsehood and their slavery. Something in them loves it and remains clinging to it. They feel that without their limits, they would no longer exist.
That is why the journey is so long, so difficult. For if one would truly consent no longer to be, everything would become so easy, so swift, so lumino Us, so joyo Usthough perhaps not in the way men conceive of joy and ease. At heart, there are very few beings who are not enamored of struggle. There are very few who would consent to having no darkness or who can conceive of light as anything other than the opposite of obscurity: Without shadow, there would be no painting. Without struggle, there would be no victory. Without suffering, there would be no joy. That is what they think, and as long as they think like that, they are not yet born to the spirit.
0 1958-11-27 - Intermediaries and Immediacy, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I am Used to seeing the process or the working of things more from a spiritual point of view, something more universal, whereas this needs to be seen from a detailed, occult point of view.
For example, one thing had always appeared unimportant to me in actionintermediaries between the spiritualized individual being, the conscio Us soul, and the Supreme. According to my personal experience, it had always seemed to me that if one is excl Usively turned towards the Supreme in all ones actions and expresses Him directly, whatever is to be done is done automatically. For example, if you are always open and if at each second you conscio Usly want to express only what the Supreme Lord wants to be expressed, it is done automatically. But with all that I have learned about pujas, about certain scriptures and certain rituals as well, the necessity for a process has become very clear to me. Its the same as in physical life; in physical life, everything needs a process, as we know, and it is the knowledge of processes that constitutes physical science. Similarly, in a more occult working, the knowledge and especially the RESPECT for the process seem to be much more important than I had first thought.
And when I studied this, when I looked at this science of processes, of intermediaries, suddenly I clearly understood the working of karma, which I had not understood before. I had worked and intervened quite often to change someones karma, but sometimes I had to wait, without exactly knowing why the result was not immediate. I simply Used to wait without worrying about the reasons for this slowness or delay. Thats how it was. And generally it ended, as I said, with the exact vision of the karmas source, its initial ca Use; and scarcely would I have this vision when the Power would come, and the thing would be dissolved. But I didnt bother about finding out why it was like that.
One day I had mentioned this to X1 when he was showing me or describing to me the different movements of the pujas, the procedure, the process of the puja. I said to him, Oh, I see! For the action to be immediate, for the result to be immediate, one m Ust acknowledge, for example, the role or the participation of certain spirits or certain forces and enter into a friendly relationship or collaboration with these forces in order to obtain an immediate result, is it not so? Then he told me, Yes, otherwise it leaves an indefinite time to the play of the forces, and you dont know when you will get the result of your puja.
--
What interested me is that in their case (those who follow tantric or other initiations), what is doubtful is whether or not they can succeed in receiving the response of the true Power, the divine power, the supreme power; they do everything they can, but this question still remains. Whereas for me, it is the opposite situation: the Power is there, I have it, but how can I make it act here in matter? The process for making it act immediately was missingthough not totally; I know from the psychological standpoint, but there is something other than the psychological power, there is the whole play of conscio Us, individualized forces that are everywhere in Nature and that have the right to exist. Since it was created this way, it m Ust express something of the supreme Will, otherwise He wouldnt have made Use of intermediaries but in His plan, it is obvio Us that the intermediary has a legitimate place.
It is like the story X told me of his guru2 who could comm and the coming of Kali (something which seems quite natural to me when one is sufficiently developed); well, not only could he commend the coming of Kali, but Kali with I dont know how many crores of her warriors! For me, Kali was Kali, after all, and she did her work; but in the universal organization, her action, the innumerable multiplicity of her action, is expressed by an innumerable multitude of conscio Us entities at work. It is this individualization, as it were, that gives to these forces a conscio Usness and a certain play of freedom, and this is what makes all the difference in action. It is in this respect that the occult system is an absolutely indispensable complement to spiritual action.
0 1958-12-24, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I have received your letter of the 24th. You did well to write, not beca Use I was worried, but I like to receive news for it fixes my work by giving me Useful material details. I am glad that X is doing something for you. I like this man and I was counting upon him. I hope he will succeed. Perhaps his work will be Useful here, too for I have serio Us reasons to believe that this time occult and even definite magic practices aimed directly against my body have been mixed in with the attacks. This has complicated things somewhat, so as yet I have not resumed any of my Usual activities I am still upstairs resting, but in reality fighting. Yesterday, the Christmas distribution took place without me, and it is likely that it will be the same for January 1st. The work, too, has been completely interrupted. And I do not yet know how long this will last.
Keep me posted on the result of Xs action; it interests me very much
0 1958-12-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
One sentence in your letter prompted much reflection; you write that Xs action might be Useful here, too. After hesitating, I told Swami of the magic attack aimed directly against you.
If you wish, two things can be done to help your action: either X can undertake certain mantric operations upon you here in Rameswaram, or better still, he can immediately come to Pondicherry with Swami and do what is needed in front of you.
Sweet Mother, I indeed s Uspect that you want to endure, to bear this struggle all alone. Oh, I think I understand a number of things about the mechanism of these attacks and their connection with me, about the Divine Love that embraces all and takes into itself the suffering and the evil of menall this overwhelms me with a sudden understanding. It seems to me that I am seeing and feeling all that you are facing, all that you are taking upon yourself for Us. The suffering of the Divine in Matter has been an overwhelming revelation to meAh! I see, I want to fight, I want to be totally on your side; I am now and forever determined.
But you have enough to do with the higher beasts of prey without still having to fight the little scorpions. I beg of you, Sweet Mother, accept the help that is being offered to you, preserve your strength for the higher struggle. I quite understand that your Love can even go to the scorpions that are attacking you, but it is not forbidden to protect yourself from their venom. You have enough to do on other planes.
--
I have j Ust now received your letter of the 28th. On that day I definitely felt that there was a decisive change in the situation and I understood right away that you had spoken to Swami and also that what I had written to you gave you the opportunity to take a great step. I am very happy and can say with certitude that the worst is over. However, from several points of view, I infinitely appreciate Xs offer. And although I do not think it necessary, or even desirable, that they both come here (it would create a veritable revolution and perhaps even a panic among the ashramites), I am sure that their intervention in Rameswaram itself would not only be Useful but most effective
Yes, everything has changed since you now understand that your battle is not only a personal battle and that by winning it, it is a real service you are rendering to the Divine Work.
Happy New Year, my dear child! I am sure it will bring Us a decisive victory.
I am near you with all my love.
0 1958 12 - Floor 1, young girl, we shall kill the young princess - black tent, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Two or three days after I retired to my room upstairs,1 early in the night I fell into a very heavy sleep and found myself out of the body much more materially than I do Usually. This degree of density in which you can see the material surroundings exactly as they are. The part that was out seemed to be under a spell and only half conscio Us. When I found myself at the first floor where everything was absolutely black, I wanted to go up again, but then I discovered that my hand was held by a young girl whom I could not see in the darkness but whose contact was very familiar. She pulled me by the hand telling me laughingly, No, come, come down with me, we shall kill the young princess. I could not understand what she meant by this young princess and, rather unwillingly, I followed her to see what it was. Arriving in the anteroom which is at the top of the staircase leading to the ground floor, my attention was drawn in the midst of all this total obscurity to the white figure of Kamala2 standing in the middle of the passage between the hall and Sri Aurobindos room. She was as it were in full light while everything else was black. Then I saw on her face such an expression of intense anxiety that to comfort her I said, I am coming back. The sound of my voice shook off from me the semi-trance in which I was before and suddenly I thought, Where am I going? and I p Ushed away from me the dark figure who was pulling me and in whom, while she was running down the steps, I recognized a young girl who lived with Sri Aurobindo and me for many years and died five years back. This girl during her life was under the most diabolical influence. And then I saw very distinctly (as through the walls of the staircase) down below a small black tent which could scarcely be perceived in the surrounding darkness and standing in the middle of the tent the figure of a man, head and face shaved (like the sannyasin or the Buddhist monks) covered from head to foot with a knitted outfit following tightly the form of his body which was tall and slim. No other cloth or garment could give an indication as to who he could be. He was standing in front of a black pot placed on a dark red fire which was throwing its reddish glow on him. He had his right arm stretched over the pot, holding between two fingers a thin gold chain which looked like one of mine and was unnaturally visible and bright. Shaking gently the chain he was chanting some words which translated in my mind, She m Ust die the young princess, she m Ust pay for all she has done, she m Ust die the young princess.
Then I suddenly realized that it was I the young Princess and as I burst into laughter, I found myself awake in my bed.
0 1959-01-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Your last letter gave Us great pleasure, knowing that you have finally recovered physically. But we deeply hope that you will not again take up the countless activities that formerly consumed all your timeso many people come to you egoistically, for prestige, to be able to say that they are on familiar terms with you. You know this, of course
As for myself, a step has definitely been taken, and I am no longer swept away by this painful torrent. Depressions and attacks still come, but no longer with the same violence as before. X told me that 2/3 of the work has been done and that everything would be purged in twelve days or so, then the thing will be enclosed in a jar and buried somewhere or thrown into the sea, and he will explain it all to me. I will write and tell you about it.
0 1959-01-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I was waiting to answer your letter of the 21st until the Friday and Saturday you mentioned had gone by. And then I felt that you were returning the Aphorisms, so I waited a bit more. I have j Ust received them along with your letter of the 23rd, but I have not yet looked at them. Besides, if you intend returning for the February darshan, I think it would be preferable for Us to revise the whole book together. There will not be very much work on my side since the Wednesday and Friday classes were discontinued in the beginning of December, and I still do not know when they will resume.3 Right now, I am translating the Aphorisms all alone and it seems to go quickly and well. This could also be revised and the book on the Dhammapada prepared for publication.
For the time being, I am going downstairs only in the mornings at 6 for the balcony darshan and I immediately come back up without seeing anyone then in the afternoons, I go down once more at about 3 to take my bath and at 4:30 I come back up again. I do not yet know what will happen next month. I shall have to find some way to meet you so that we can work together I am going to think it over.
0 1959-01-31, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Your letter, Sweet Mother, has filled me with strength and resolution. I want to be victorio Us and I want to serve you. I see very well that gradually I can be taught many Useful things by X. The essential thing is first of all to lose this ego which falsifies everything. Finally, through your grace, I believe that I have passed a decisive turning point and that there is a beginning of real consecration and I feel your Love, your Presence. Things are opening a little.
Sweet Mother, I love you and I want to serve you truly.
0 1959-03-26 - Lord of Death, Lord of Falsehood, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Behind the Titan attacking Us particularly now, there is something else. This Titan has been delegated by someone else. He has been there since my birth, was born with me. I felt him when I was very young, but only gradually, as I became conscio Us of myself, did I understand WHO he was and what was behind him.
This Titan has been specially sent to attack this body, but he cant do it directly, so he Uses people in my entourage. It is something fated: all those around me, who are close to me, and especially those capable of love, have been attacked by him; a few have succumbed, such as that girl in my entourage who was absorbed by him. He follows me like a shadow, and each time there is the least little opening in someone near me, he is there.
The power of this Titan comes from an Asura. There are four Asuras. Two have already been converted, and the other two, the Lord of Death and the Lord of Falsehood, made an attempt at conversion by taking on a physical bodythey have been intimately associated with my life. The story of these Asuras would be very interesting to recount The Lord of Death disappeared; he lost his physical body, and I dont know what has become of him.1 As for the other, the Lord of Falsehood, the one who now rules over this earth, he tried hard to be converted, but he found it disg Usting!
0 1959-04-24, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The divine perfection is always there above Us; but for man to become divine in conscio Usness and act and to live inwardly and outwardly the divine life is what is meant by spirituality; all lesser meanings given to the word are inadequate fumblings or impostures.1
This text by Sri Aurobindo (The Human Cycle, Cent. Ed. Vol. XV p. 247) was translated into French by Mother on the occasion of writing to Satprem.
0 1959-05-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
There is someone here who could have saved me, whom I could have loved. Oh, it has nothing to do with all those things you might imagine! My soul loves her soul. It is something very serene. We have known each other for five years, and I had never even dreamed of calling it love. But all the outer circumstances are against Us. And I do not want to turn anyone away from you. Anyway, if I sink into the depths of the pit, or so I tell myself, it is no reason to drag someone else along with me. So this too is one more reason for me to leave. I cannot continue suffocating all alone in my corner. (It is Useless to ask her name, I will say nothing.)
You are imposing a new ordeal on me by asking me to go to Rameswaram. For you, I have accepted. But I shall go there sheathed in my sturdiest armor and I will not yield, beca Use I know that it is always to be begun again. I do not want to become a great Tantric or whatever else it may be. I want only to love. And since I cannot love, I am leaving. I will arrive in Rameswaram at 2 in the morning, and will leave again by the 11 oclock train.
0 1959-06-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Regarding Xs predictions which I mentioned in yesterdays letter, X said something untranslatable which meant, Let Us see Mothers reactions for I told him that I had written it all to you. Then he said, There are several other secret matters which I shall tell you. And he added, by way of example, I shall tell WHERE the atomic bombs will be cropped. So if these things interest you, or if you see or feel anything, perhaps it would be good to express your interest in a letter to me which I would translate for X. Spontaneo Usly, I emphasized to X that it would undoubtedly facilitate your work to have details. But it is better that these things come from you, should you see any Use in it.
As for me, X said, Something will happen.
0 1959-06-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
As I appeared to be doubting, X told me, There is no s Uspicion [doubt], the war will take place in November (in fact, it is to occur some time between September and November), and for the rest of the talk, he had a tone of absolute certitude: The first atom bomb will fall in China. R Ussia will be cr Ushed. It will be a victory for America. Not more than 2 or 3 atom bombs will be Used. It will be very quick. And he repeated that the starting-point of the conflict would be situated in India due to the aggression of Pakistan, then of China.
The earthquake he mentioned promises to be a kind of pralaya (as X put it), for not only Bombay will be touched. This is what he said: America supports Pakistan, but the gods do not support Pakistan, and Pakistan will be punished by the gods. HALF of western Pakistan, including Karachi, will go into the sea. The sea will enter into Rajasthan and touch India also
0 1959-07-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Mother, I need Sujata like my very soul. It seems to me that she is a part of me, that she alone can help me break with this horrible past, that she alone can help me to love truly at last. I need peace so much, a quiet, PEACEFUL happinessa base of happiness upon which I could Use my strength to build, instead of always fighting, always destroying. Mother, I am not at all sure of what m Ust be, but I know that Sujata is part of this realization.
Thats all, Mother. Forgive me, but I am so afraid. For how is this possible in the Ashram? What would people say?
0 1959-10-06 - Sri Aurobindos abode, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And Sri Aurobindo was there, with a majesty, a magnificent beauty. He had all his beautiful hair as before. It was all so concrete, so substantialhe was even being served some kind of food. I remained there for one hour (I had looked at my watch before and I looked at it afterwards). I spoke to Sri Aurobindo, for I had some important questions to ask him about the way certain things are to be realized. He said nothing. He listened to me quietly and looked at me as if all my words were Useless: he understood everything at once. And he answered me with a gesture and two expressions on his face, an unexpected gesture that did not at all correspond to any thought of mine; for example, he picked up three combs that were lying near the mirror (combs similar to those I Use here, but larger) and he put them in his hair. He planted one comb in the middle of his head and the two others on each side, as if to gather all his hair over his temples. He was literally COIFFED with these three combs, which gave him a kind of crown. And I immediately understood that by this he meant that he was adopting my conception: You see, I embrace your conception of things, and I coif myself with it; it is my will. Anyway, I remained there for one hour.
And when I awoke, I didnt have this feeling of returning from afar and of having to re-enter my body, as I Usually do. No, it was simply as though I were in this other world, then I took a step backwards and found myself here again. It took me a good half an hour to understand that this world here existed as much as the other and that I was no longer on the other side but here, in the world of falsehood. I had forgotten everythingpeople, things, what I had to do; everything had gone, as if it had no reality at all.
You see, its not as if this world of Truth had to be created from nothing: it is fully ready, it is there, like a lining of our own present world. Everything is there, EVERYTHING is there.
--
It is similar with this japa: an imperceptible little change, and one can pass from a more or less mechanical, more or less efficient and real japa, to the true japa full of power and light. I even wondered if this difference is what the tantrics call the power of the japa. For example, the other day I was down with a cold. Each time I opened my mouth, there was a spasm in the throat and I coughed and coughed. Then a fever came. So I looked, I saw where it was coming from, and I decided that it had to stop. I got up to do my japa as Usual, and I started walking back and forth in my room. I had to apply a certain will. Of course, I could do my japa in trance, I could walk in trance while repeating the japa, beca Use then you feel nothing, none of all the bodys drawbacks. But the work has to be done in the body! So I got up and started doing my japa. Then, with each word pronounced the Light, the full Power. A power that heals everything. I began the japa tired, ill, and I came out of it refreshed, rested, cured. So those who tell me they come out of it exha Usted, contracted, emptied, it means that they are not doing it in the true way.
I understand why certain tantrics advise saying the japa in the heart center. When one applies a certain enth Usiasm, when each word is said with a warmth of aspiration, then everything changes. I could feel this difference in myself, in my own japa.
0 1959-10-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
7) X wants to send me back to Pondicherry this Sunday (Sunday the 18th, arriving Monday the 19th morning). He says it is Useless for me now to remain here any longer since his ho Use is not ready and he can do nothing. But, he said, I will have you come to my ho Use for 3 months and I shall give you a training by which you can know Past, Present and Future, and have the same qualifications as me!
8) He gave me certain methods to follow, about which I shall speak to you in person.
0 1959-11-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
What Usually happens is that when the body reaches its maximum intensity of aspiration or of ecstasy of Love, it is unable to contain it. It becomes flat, motionless. It falls back. Things settle downyou are enriched with a new vibration, but then everything resumes its course. So you m Ust widen yourself in order to learn to bear unflinchingly the intensities of the supramental force, to go forward always, always with the ascending movement of the divine Truth, without falling backwards into the decrepitude of the body.
That is what Sri Aurobindo means when he speaks of an intolerable ecstasy1; it is not an intolerable ecstasy: it is an unflinching ecstasy.
0 1960-01-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
When I started my japa one year ago, I had to struggle with every possible difficulty, every contradiction, prejudice and opposition that fills the air. And even when this poor body began walking back and forth for japa, it Used to knock against things, it would start breathing all wrong, coughing; it was attacked from all sides until the day I caught the Enemy and said, Listen carefully. You can do whatever you want, but Im going right to the end and nothing will stop me, even if I have to repeat this mantra ten crore1 times. The result was really miraculo Us, like a cloud of bats flying up into the light all at once. From that moment on, things started going better.
You have no idea what an irresistible effect a well-determined will can have.
0 1960-03-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Experiences are coming at a furio Us pacefabulo Us experiences. If I were to speak now, its certain that I would not at all speak as I Used to. Thats why we m Ust date all these Questions and Answers, at least all which come before the [Supramental] Manifestation of February 1956, so that there will be a clear cut between those before and those after.
Only a few days ago, on the morning of the 29th, I had one of those experiences that mark ones life. It happened upstairs in my room. I was doing my japa, walking up and down with my eyes wide open, when suddenly Krishna camea gold Krishna, all golden, in a golden light that filled the whole room. I was walking, but I could not even see the windows or the rug any longer, for this golden light was everywhere with Krishna at its center. And it m Ust have lasted at least fifteen minutes. He was dressed in those same clothes in which he is normally portrayed when he dances. He was all light, all dancing: You see, I will be there this evening during the Darshan.1 And suddenly, the chair I Use for darshan came into the room! Krishna climbed up onto it, and his eyes twinkled mischievo Usly, as if to say, I will be there, you see, and therell be no room for you.
When I came down that evening for distribution,2 at first I was annoyed. I had said that I didnt want anybody in the hall, precisely beca Use I wanted to establish an atmosphere of concentration, the immobility of the Spirit but there were at least thirty people in there, those who had decorated the hall, thirty of them stirring, stirring about, a mass of little vibrations. And before I could even say scat I had hardly taken my seatsomeone put the tray of medals on my lap and they started filing past.
0 1960-05-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo speaks of this Secret almost everywhere, especially in his Essays on the Gita. He tells Us that in the Gita itself one gets glimpses of this thing which is beyond the Impersonal, beyond even the Personal behind the Impersonal, beyond the Transcendent.
Well, I saw this Secret I saw that the Supreme only becomes perfect in terrestrial matter, on earth.
0 1960-05-16, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
In the early part of the century, I wrote Prayers and Meditations, and I too spoke of Him; but I wrote that with all my aspiration, all my sincerity (at least with all the sincerity of the conscio Us parts of my being) and I locked it up in a drawer so that no one would see it. It was Sri Aurobindo who later asked me to publish it, for it could be Useful If I knew then, fifty years ago, what I know now, I would have been cr Ushed! All this shame, all this unworthiness
After all, its good to know gradually, good to have some ill Usionsnot for the sake of ill Usions but as a necessary step along the way.
--
I was sick two days ago with a cold and fever. I know whya point to be transformed. The body may have put too much zeal into it, so it teetered a little. But thanks to that, I had an interesting experience. X 1 had put his force on me to speed up the healing. And of course, according to each ones nature, the force gets colored, so to speakit clothes itself in a different color. In me, this was translated by a new physical experience which lasted from 4 in the morning till 6:30, when I had to start speaking with people and deal with outer things. It was a kind of eternity, a kind of absolute PHYSICAL immobility which contained no possibility of illness within itas a matter of fact, nothing remained in this immobility, it was a sort of nirvana. But it did not keep me from going through all my Usual motions of getting dressed.
I spent the whole day yesterday trying to understand this experience.
0 1960-05-28 - death of K - the death process- the subtle physical, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But as he was acc Ustomed to going out of his body, he didnt know! He even Used to make experimentshe would go out, circle around in his room, see his body from outside, observe the difference between the subtle physical and the material physical, etc. So he didnt know. And its only when they burned his body
I tried to delay the moment, but he was in the hospital, so it was difficult. I was in my room when they burned his body, and then suddenly I saw him arrivesobbingsaying, But But I m dead. I DIDNT WANT to die! Why am I dead, I DIDNT WANT to die! It was dreadful. So I kept him and held him against me to quiet him down.
--
And whenever we Used to have meetings to decide on the construction of something or on repairs to be made, for example, I always felt him there and he influenced those who were present.
He wanted to live again; I managed to give him the opportunity. He was very conscio Us; the child isnt yet so.
0 1960-06-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Once Im relaxed, I have developed the habit of repeating my mantra. But its very strange with these mantras I dont know how it is for others; Im speaking of my own mantra, the one I myself foundit came spontaneo Usly. Depending on the occasion, the time, depending on what I might call the purpose for repeating it, it has quite different results. For example, I Use it to establish the contact while walking back and forth in my roommy mantra is a mantra of evocation; I evoke the Supreme and establish the contact with the body.
This is the main reason for my japa. Theres a power in the sound itself, and by forcing the body to repeat the sound, you force it to receive the vibration at the same time. But Ive noticed that if something in the bodys working gets disturbed (a pain or disorder, the onset of some illness) and I repeat my mantra in a certain waystill the same words, the same mantra, but said with a certain purpose and above all in a movement of surrender, surrender of the pain, the disorder, and a call, like an openingit has a marvelo Us effect. The mantra acts in j Ust the right way, in this way and in no other. And after a while everything is put back in order. And simultaneo Usly, of course, the precise knowledge of what lies behind the disorder and what I m Ust do to set it right comes to me. But quite apart from this, the mantra acts directly upon the pain itself.
I also Use my mantra to go into trance. After relaxing on the bed and making as total a self-offering as possible of everything, from top to bottom, and after removing as fully as possible all resistance of the ego, I start repeating the mantra.1 After repeating it two or three times, I am in trance (at the beginning it took longer). And from this trance I pass into sleep; the trance lasts as long as necessary and, quite naturally, spontaneo Usly, I pass into sleep. And when I come back, I remember everything. The sleep was like a continuation of the trance. And essentially, the only reason for sleep is to allow the body to assimilate the results of the trance, then to allow these results to be accepted throughout and to let the body do its natural nights work of eliminating toxins. My periods of sleep practically dont exist sometimes they are as short as half an hour or 15 minutes. But in the beginning, I had long periods of sleep, one or even two hours in succession. And when I woke up, I did not feel this residue of heaviness which comes from sleep the effects of the trance continued.
It is even good for people whove never been in trance to repeat a mantra (or a word, a prayer) before going to sleep. But the words m Ust have a life of their ownby this I dont mean an intellectual meaning, nothing of the kind, but rather a vibration. And this has an extraordinary effect on the body, it starts vibrating, vibrating, vibrating and so calm, you let yourself go, like falling off to sleep. And the body vibrates more and more, more and more, more and more, and you drift off.
--
Its tamas that gives you a bad sleep. There are two kinds of bad sleep that which makes you heavy and leaden, as if the result of all your effort the day before were wasted, and that which exha Usts you, as if you had spent the whole time fighting. And Ive observed that if you cut your sleep up into sections (it becomes a habit), the nights get better. In other words, you m Ust be able to come back to your normal conscio Usness and your normal aspiration at certain intervals, come back to the call of your conscio Usness But you m Ust not Use an alarm clock. When in trance, its not good to be jolted.
J Ust as you are drifting off, you can make a formation and say, I shall wake up at such-and-such time (children do it very easily).
You should count on at least three hours for the first part of your sleep; for the last part, one hour is enough. But the first should be a minimum of three hours. In fact, it is best to remain in bed for at least seven hours; with six, you dont have the time to do much (of course, Im speaking from the standpoint of sadhana, to make the nights Useful).
But for years together I only slept 2 hours a night in all. I mean that my night consisted of 2 hours. And I went straight to Sat-Chit-Ananda and then came back: 2 hours were spent like that. But the body was tired. That lasted more than five or six years while Sri Aurobindo was still in his body. And during the day, I was all the time going into trance for the least thing (it was trance, not sleep I was conscio Us). But I clearly saw that the body was affected, for it had no time to burn its toxins.2
--
Sri Aurobindo said that the true or yogic reason for sleep is to put the conscio Usness back into contact with Sat-Chit-Ananda (I Used to do this without knowing it). For some people the contact is established immediately, while for others it takes eight, nine, ten hours to do it. But really, normally you should not wake up till the contact has been established, and thats why its very bad to wake up in an artificial way (with an alarm clock, for example), beca Use then the night is wasted.
As for me, my night is now organized. I go to bed at 8 oclock and get up at 4, which makes for a very long night, and its sliced into three parts. And I get up punctually at 4 in the morning. But Im always awake ten or fifteen minutes beforehand, and I review all that has happened during the night, the dreams, the vario Us activities, etc., so that when I get up, I am fully active.
To make Use of your nights is an excellent thing, for it has a double effect: a negative effect, in that it keeps you from falling backwards, from losing what youve gained (that is really painful); and a positive effect, in that you progress, you continue progressing. You make Use of your nights, so theres no more residue of fatigue.
There are two things to avoid: falling into a stupor of unconscio Usness, with all those things coming up from the subconscio Us and the unconscio Us that invade and penetrate you, and a vital and mental hyperactivity in which you pass your time literally fightingterrible battles. People come out of that black and blue, as if they had been beaten and they have been, it is not as if! And I see only one way outto change the nature of sleep.
--
Unfortunately, Mother had Us cut many things from this text. We regret the fact.
***
0 1960-06-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Something changes, of course, but its so phew! I mean, at the speed its going, it will take Us millions of years to make any perceptible progress. We might j Ust as well say its not moving.
These days Ive been feeling very clearly this thing that doesnt move.
--
But my little one, its Useless to see me physically!
Its rather something which has no image that I call Mother.
--
The disciple means in meditationto imagine Mother in her physical form or to Use her physical form as an 'object' of meditation. In fact, he was very afraid of getting caught.
***
0 1960-06-11, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
When a question is put to me, the answer does not come from a will; what happens is that materials come which I then Use to give shape to the answer, but its only a shape. The thing itself is there, but it needs to be shaped. The difference between one and the other is rather like the difference between a picture and an apparition.
Sometimes the Force comes direct. And it picks up words, any words at all, that makes no difference; the nature of the words changes, and they become expressive BECA UsE of the power entering into them. This happens when I look directly at the thing.
0 1960-07-12 - Mothers Vision - the Voice, the ashram a tiny part of myself, the Mothers Force, sparkling white light compressed - enormous formation of negative vibrations - light in evil, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
What was me was up above, and the Ashram was It began j Ust here (the navel) and went that way (downwards), and it was encircled, to show that it was a special formationencircled in the inconscience of the terrestrial creation. And I was everything else, with the Usual vibrations of power and light. And then one current and another current and another were passing into it, into this formation, and they kept going in and in and in, accumulating. They kept going in, and yet they did not come out, they did not leave. It was not an undulatory movement, but rather a pulsating movementit had no beginning, it didnt go out, and yet it kept moving. Its very difficult to describe.
The formation represented by the Ashram was located approximately here, at the height of the navel in relation to what I was but although the body was not delimited, it had certain attributes or undefined forms, each one of which was situated in relation to the other as though each represented one part of the body; each was symbolic of either an activity or a part of the world or a mode of manifestation. So the formation started from about here, near the navel, and went down towards the appendix Here, Ill draw you a sketch:
--
It reminded me of tantric things. I have seen tantric formations and how forces are systematically separated by themeach vibration, each color. Its very interesting. They are all one, and yet each is distinct. That is, they are separated in order to be distinguished and for each one to be Used individually. Each one represents a particular action for obtaining something in particular. This is the special knowledge the tantrics have, I believe. Or its the reflection of their knowledge. And my impression is that when they do their pujas or say their mantras, what they are trying to do is recombine all that into the white light. Im not sure. I know they Use each one separately for a separate purpose, but when they speak of their puja succeeding, it may mean that they have been able to recombine the light. But I say this very guardedly. For I would have to see X do his puja one day to really knowfrom afar Im not so sure. Its merely an impression.
This is what I am constantly seeing now, but along with this Divine Force or this Divine Conscio Usness that Sri Aurobindo speaks of when he says, Mothers Force is with you. When it comes, it is sparkling white, perfectly white and perfectly lumino Us. And as it accumulates inside, it makes living vibrations of every color. And it goes on and on and on. Sometimes it lasts half an hour, three-quarters of an hour, an hournothing goes out. And it keeps constantly entering. And it piles up. Its as if it is all being accumulated or compressed together.
0 1960-07-26 - Mothers vision - looking up words in the subconscient, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Oh, it depends. When I dont pay attention, its all right. I Usually dont make mistakesnot too many!
Yes, yes; its quite automatic, a kind of convention somewhere. But if you have the misfortune to step out of that and to look at it, its finished, you dont know anything any more.
0 1960-08-10 - questions from center of Education - reading Sri Aurobindo, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
that we no longer know what to believe nor on what to base ourselves. So what should be our foundation upon which to work in the absence of a true and certain knowledge? Please enlighten Us, Mother.
I answered. The letters m Ust have left. I wrote (in English) that its not so much a question of organization as of attitudeto begin with. Then I said, It seems to me that unless the teachers themselves get out of this ordinary intellectuality (!), they will never be able to fulfill their duty.
--
It is not a question of preparing students to read these or some other works. It is a question of drawing all those who are capable of it out of the Usual human routine of thought, feelings, action; of giving those who are here every opportunity to reject the slavery of the human way of thinking and acting; of teaching all those who want to listen that there is another, truer way of living, and that Sri Aurobindo taught Us to become and to live the true being and that the purpose of education here is to prepare the children for this life and to make them capable of it.
As for all the others, all those who want the human way of thinking and living, the world is vast and there is place there for everyone.
0 1960-08-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Its at the lake. The property belonged to the mission and at that time its manager was a very good friend of ours, even though he was a missionary. He said that he would arrange for Us to have it. Everything was arranged, and I was to receive the money to buy it (they asked for more than fifty or sixty tho Usand rupees1). But then the money didnt come and our missionary friend left. Hes no longer there; hes been replaced by someone else.
(Mother looks at a piece of paper) Calling Antonin Raymond2. The architect for the construction.
--
But L has enlarged the program. (Mother indicates the plan) This is only a small part of his extensive total program. He is planning to have a school of agriculture, a modern dairy with grazing landtheres a lot of agriculture, really a lotfruit orchards, large rice fields, many things. And then a ceramics factory. My ceramics factory will be at the far end of the lake, so as to utilize the clay the government has agreed; as they have to dig out the lake one day, we shall Use the top soil for the fields. First well remove all the pebbles (you know, there are hills over there), which can be Used for constructionits a mine of pebbles. After removing the pebbles, there will be holes which then well fill with earth from the lake. And below this earth is a thick and compact layer of clay which is so hard it cant be Used for farmingits impossible but its wonderful for making ceramics. So right at the very end, in Indian territory,4 well have a large ceramics ind Ustry. On the other side, well have a little factory for firing clay.
All this is huge. A tremendo Us program.5
--
And naturally, they make Use of all those around me!Its the only way of getting at my body.
Im Used to it.
***
--
YOU people may have this opinion, but its not mine. Ill tell you exactly the effect it has on me: whenever someone has wanted to arrange things, Ive always thought, Yes, it will be quite Useful to arrange these things after my death!
But then Id rather not die if possible. And if I dont die, it will be perfectly Useless, beca Use that would then be the obvio Us proof of an uninterrupted ascent; consequently, what there will be at the very end will be much more interesting.
You alone have convinced me that the history of the way might be of some interest, so Im letting you do it Ive taken a very, very handsome file upstairs with all your notes in it.8 Its filling up; its going to be formidable! (Mother laughs) a frightful documentation.
0 1960-08-27, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
We should not allow all this to upset Us. There is but one thing to doremain in a state of constant peace, constant equanimity, for things are not they are not very pleasant. Oh, if you only knew all the letters they write me if you knew, first of all, the tremendo Us pile of stupidities that need never be written at all; then, added to that, such a display of ignorance, egoism, bad will, total incomprehension and unequalled ingratitude, and all this so candid, my child! They heap all this on me daily, you know, and it comes from the most unexpected quarters.
If this were to affect me (Mother laughs), I would long ago have been who knows where. I dont care at all, not at all, really not at allit doesnt bother me, it makes me smile.
--
So dont let yourself be upset I often think of you, for I know how very sensitive you are to all this. It is it is really ugly. A whole realm of human intelligence (its too great a compliment to call that intelligence), of the human mind, that is very, very repugnant. We m Ust come out of that. It doesnt touch Us. WE are elsewhereelsewhere. We are NOT in that rut! We are elsewhere, automatically.
Our head is above.
0 1960-09-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
When Sri Aurobindo was here, I never bothered about all this; I was constantly up above and I did what the Gita and the traditional writings advise I left it to Natures care. In fact I left it to Sri Aurobindos care. He is making the best Use of it, I would say. He will manage it, he will do with it what he wants. And I was constantly up above. And from up there I worked, leaving the instrument as it was beca Use I knew that he would see to it.
Actually, it was very different at that time beca Use I was not even aware of any resistance or any difficulty in the outer being; it was automatic, the work was done automatically. Later on, when I had to do both thingswhat he had been doing as well as what I was doingit became rather complicated and I realized there were many what we could call gapsthings which had to be worked out, transformed, set right before the total work could be done without hindrance. So then I began. And several times I thought how unfortunate it was that I had never studied or pursued certain ancient Indian disciplines. Beca Use, for example, when Sri Aurobindo and I were working to bring down the supramental forces, a descent from the mental plane to the vital plane, he was always telling me that everything I did (when we meditated together, when we worked)all my movements, all my gestures, all my postures, all my reactionswas absolutely tantric, as if I had pursued a tantric discipline. But it was spontaneo Us, it did not correspond to any knowledge, any idea, any will, nothing, and I thought it was like that simply beca Use, as He knew, naturally I followed.
--
And he isnt aware of this, actually, he isnt aware at all. If he were told, he would absolutely deny it for him, its an opening onto Infinity! But in fact, its always like that, we are always shut in, each of Useach one is enclosed inside certain limits which he doesnt feel, for should he feel it, he would get out! Oh, I know this feeling very well, for when I was with Sri Aurobindo I was open in this way (gesture towards the heights), and I always had this feeling of Yes, my child He tolerated me the way I was and waited for it to change. Thats truly how things are, you know. And now I feel my limits, which are the limits of the world as it is at present, but beyond that theres an unmanifested immensity, eternity and infinityto which we are closed. It merely seeps init is not the great opening. What I am trying to bring about is the great opening. Only when it has opened wide will there really be the (how should I put it?) the irreducible thing, and all the worlds resistance, all its inertia, even its obscurity will be unable to swallow it up the determining and transforming thing I dont know when it will come.
But this experience with X was really interesting. I learned many things that day, many things If you concentrate long enough on any one point, you discover the Infinite (and in his own experience he found the infinite), what could be called your own Infinite. But this is not what WE want, not this; what we want is the direct and integral contact between the manifested universe and the Infinite out of which this universe has emerged. So then it is no longer an individual or personal contact with the Infinite, its a total contact. And Sri Aurobindo insists on this, he says that its absolutely impossible to have the transformation (not the contact, but the supramental transformation) without becoming universalized that is the first condition. You cannot become supramental before being universal. And to be universal means to accept everything, be everything, become everythingreally to accept everything. And as for all those who are shut up in a system, even if it belongs to the highest regions of thought, it is not THAT.
--
But for Us who want an integral realization, are all these mantras and this daily japa really a help, or do they also shut Us in?
It gives discipline. Its an almost subconscio Us discipline of the character more than of thought.
Especially at the beginning, Sri Aurobindo Used to shatter to pieces all moral ideas (you know, as in the Aphorisms, for example). He shattered all those things, he shattered them, really shattered them to pieces. So theres a whole group of youngsters7 here who were brought up with this idea that we can do whatever we want, it doesnt matter in the least!that they need not bother about all those concepts of ordinary morality. Ive had a hard time making them understand that this morality can be abandoned only for a higher one So, one has to be careful not to give them the Power too soon.
Its an almost physical discipline. Moreover, I have seen that the japa has an organizing effect on the subconscient, on the inconscient, on matter, on the bodys cellsit takes time, but by persistently repeating it, in the long run it has an effect. It is the same principle as doing daily exercises on the piano, for example. You keep mechanically repeating them, and in the end your hands are filled with conscio Usness it fills the body with conscio Usness.
--
Of course not! A disciplined work, which to Us seems important, is to him basically an ignorance. What is true to such a person is a contemplative, ecstatic lifealong with a sentiment of compassion and charity, so that nonetheless you spend a bit of your time helping out the poor brutes! But the true thing is ecstatic contemplation. As for those who are advanced and yet still attach some importance to workits irrational!
The only way I can make him understand that I have work to do is to tell him, Mother asked me to do it; then he keeps quiet.
--
And its true, I know it, I knew it then. In other words, all this work that Usually has to be done to become free was done beforehand, long agoquite convenient!
He saw me the next day for half an hour. I sat downit was on the verandah of the Guest Ho Use, I was sitting there on the verandah. There was a table in front of him, and Richard was on the other side facing him. They began talking. Myself, I was seated at his feet, very small, with the table j Ust in front of meit came to my forehead, which gave me a little protection I didnt say anything, I didnt think anything, try anything, want anything I merely sat near him. When I stood up half an hour later, he had put silence in my head, thats all, without my even having asked himperhaps even without his trying.
--
I didnt speak of it to anyone, but it ca Used me some concern. And j Ust the next day the machine broke down! When I was informed, immediately I thought It was then repaired, and again it broke downthree times. Then the following night, j Ust before ten oclock I should mention that during the day I had thought, But why not attract these forces to our side, take them and satisfy them, give them some peace and joy and Use them? I thought about it, concentrated a little, but then I didnt bother any further. At ten oclock that evening, they came upon mein a flood! They kept coming and coming. And I was b Usy with them the whole time. They were not ugly (not so lumino Us either! ), they were wholesome, straightforwardhonest forces. So I worked on them. This began exactly at 9:30, and for one hour I was b Usy working. After an hour, Id had enough: Listen, this is quite fine, youre very nice, but I cant spend all my time like this! We shall see what to do later for it absorbed my whole conscio Usness. They kept coming and coming (you understand what that means to a body?!). So at 10:30 I told them, Listen, my little ones, be quiet now, thats enough for today At 10:30, the machine broke down!
I found out, of course, beca Use they log everything at the factory, so when they came to inform me of the breakdown the next morning, I asked them what time it had happenedexactly 10:30.
0 1960-10-02a, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
This world of Delight above Us is waitingnot for Us to be ready but for Us to accept, for Us to condescend to receive it!
This is what I am looking at in this photograph.2
--
Of course, I much prefer being in my great currents of forcefrom a personal standpoint, such immensity of action is much more interesting. But these documentary things are also valuable. It is so tremendo Usly different from the dreams and even the vi. signs you have when you enter certain representative realms of the mind (which is what I Used to do). It is so different, it has another content, another life altogether: it carries its light, its understanding, its explanation within itselfyou look, and everything is explained.
It always gives me the feeling that I am shrinking a little, but its interesting. And its Useful, for I am constantly moving about and doing things with people; it indicates to me what I have to say and do with each one. Its Useful. But all the same, I miss the fullness and joy of the more impersonal Movement of forces.
Before going to bed, sometimes I say to myself, I will do what is necessary to spend my night in these great currents of force(beca Use there is a way to do it). And then I think, Oh, what an egotist you are, my girl! So sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesntwhen theres something important to do, it doesnt happen. But all I have to do is concentrate in a certain way before going to sleep to spend my whole night in these very far from here, very far I cant say very far from the earth, for surely its in an intermediate zone between the forces from above and the earths atmosphere. Thats what it mainly is, in any case. Its a great universal current as well, but mainly its what descends and comes onto the earth, and it is permeating the earths atmosphere all the time, all the time, and it comes with this wide, overall visionit makes for wonderful nights I no longer bother about people at allat least not as such, but in a more impersonal way.
--
This, too, Sri Aurobindo had explained to me. I Used to tell him, Yes, you always speak of lifes delight, life for the sake of its delight. But as soon as I had the notion, as soon as I was put in the presence of the Supreme, it was: For Youexcl Usively what You want. You are the sole, the unique and excl Usive reason for being. And that has remained, and this movement is so strong that even when you see, now I have ecstasy and ananda in abundanceeverything comes, everything. But even then, even when that is there, something in me always turns towards the Supreme and says, Does this TRULY serve You? Is it what You expect of me, what You want from me?
This has protected me from all seeking for pleasure in life. It was a wonderful protection, beca Use pleasure always seemed so futile to meyes, futile; for the sake of your personal satisfaction. Later, I even understood how foolish it is, for you can never be satisfiedthough when youre small you dont yet know that. I never liked it: But is it really Useful, does it serve some purpose? And I still have this attitude in regard to my nights. I have this widening of the conscio Usness, this impersonalization, this wonderful joy of being above all that. But at the same time I also have, Im here in this body, on earth, to do something I m Ustnt forget it. And this is what I have to do. But probably Im wrong!
Im waiting for the Lord to tell me clearly.
0 1960-10-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
For the placement of words is not the same in English and in French. In English, for example, the place an adverb occupies is of major importance for the precise meaning. In French also, but generally its not the same! If at least it were exactly the opposite of English it would be easier, but its not exactly the opposite. Its the same thing for the word order in a series of modifiers or any string of words; Usually in English, for example, the most important word comes first and the least important last. In French, its Usually the opposite but it doesnt always work!
The spirit of the two languages is not the same. Something always escapes. This m Ust surely be why revelations (as Sri Aurobindo calls them) sometimes come to me in one language and sometimes in the other. And it does not depend on the state of conscio Usness Im in, it depends on what has to be said.
0 1960-10-11, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And thats how the world isthings which now seem totally unacceptable to Us, things we CANNOT tolerate, were quite all right in the past.
The day before yesterday, I spent the whole night looking on. I had read the passage by Sri Aurobindo in The Synthesis on supramental time (wherein past, present and future coexist in a global conscio Usness). While youre in it, its marvelo Us! You understand things perfectly. But when youre not in it Above all, theres this problem of how to keep the force of ones aspiration, the power of progress, this power which seems so inevitableso inevitable if existence (lets simply take terrestrial existence) is to mean anything and its presence to be j Ustified. (This ascending movement towards a progressive better that will be eternally better)How is this to be kept when you have the total vision this vision in which everything coexists. At that moment, the other becomes something like a game, an am Usement, if you will. (Not everyone finds it am Using!) And when you contain all that, why allow yourself the pleasure of succession? Is this pleasure of succession, of seeing things one after the other, equal to this intensity of the will for progress? Words are foolish!
--
I myself Use it for a very special reason, beca Use You see, I invoke (the words are a bit strange) the Lord of Tomorrow. Not the unmanifest Lord, but the Lord as he will manifest tomorrow, or in Sri Aurobindos words, the divine manifestation in its supramental form.
So the first sound of my mantra is the call to that, the evocation. With the second sound, the bodys cells make their surrender, they give themselves. And with the third sound comes the identification of this [the body] with That, which produces the divine life. These are my three sounds.
--
A few days ago, I recall, I wanted to know something that was going to happen. I thought that with the conscio Usness of supramental time, I could find out I M UsT find out whats going to happen. Whats going to happen?No answer. So I concentrated on it, which is what I Usually do, I stopped everything and looked from abovetotal silence. Nothing. No answer. And I felt a slight impatience: But why cant I know?! And what came was the equivalent of (Im translating it in words), Its none of your b Usiness!!
So I understand more and more. Everythingthis whole organization, this whole aggregate, all these cells and nerves and sensorsare all meant uniquely for the work, they have no other purpose than the work; every foolish act that is done is for the work; every stupidity that is thought is for the work; you are made the way you are beca Use only in that way can you do the work and its none of your b Usiness to seek to be somewhere else. Thats my concl Usion. Very well, as You wish, may Your will be done!No, not be done; it IS done. As You wish, exactly as You wish!
--
Basically, I see more and more that the Supreme Conscio Usness makes Use of ANYTHING AT ALL when the time comes.
In these Questions and Answers, for example, you had wanted to edit out the words Sweet Mother since people from the West might not understand. But then, we have j Ust now received a letter from someone who suddenly had a very beautiful experience when he came across those words, Sweet Mother. He saw, he suddenly felt this maternal presence of love and compassion watching over the world. The moment had come and, precisely, it did its work. Its very interesting.
Mentally we say, Oh, that cant go. And even I am often inclined to say, Dont publish this, dont speak of something or other. Then I realize how silly it is! There is something that Uses everything. Even what may seem Useless to Usor perhaps worse than Useless, harmfulmight be j Ust the thing to give someone the right shock.
Original English.
0 1960-10-19, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Its very well to say, If you live in the Spirit, its not the same. Thats quite true, but MUCH later. For the last two years, I myself have been learning this, and I see how difficult it isone m Ustnt boast. And to say, Oh, its all the same to me, is a way of boasting. It SHOULD NOT be all the same to you. This body is not meant for Usit wasnt for Us that it was given, its for the Work, so consequently it m Ust be in working order.
Thats what annoys me sometimes. Why not have this mastery? We SHOULD be masters of it. With conscio Usness, we should be able to be the masters of our bodies.
Yes, this was precisely the extraordinary thing Sri Aurobindo had. He made no effort But then he didnt Use it on himself!
But for humans, this is something UNTHINKABLE.
--
He came to tell Us this fifteen years later, as a matter of fact, while we were writing The Divine Materialism.
Mother stopped all her activities for twelve days from December 5, 1950, the day Sri Aurobindo departed.
0 1960-10-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Here, this is the kitchen; here is the living room, this is the studio. And then behind the kitchen there was a small room that I Used as the dining room, and it opened onto a courtyard. Between the dining room and the kitchen there was a bathroom and a small hallway. The kitchen is here; you went up three steps and then there was this small hallway with the stairs leading up to the bedroom. Next to the bedroom was a bathroom about as big as a thimble.
It is part of a huge ho Use. Theres a seven-story apartment building on each side, and the street is here.
--
Theons wife dictated it in English while she was in trance. Another English lady who was there claimed to know French like a Frenchman. Myself, I never Use a dictionary, she would say, I dont need a dictionary. But then she would turn out such translations! She made all the classic mistakes of English words that m Ustnt be translated like that. Then it was sent to me in Paris for correcting. It was literally impossible.
There was this Themanlys, my brothers schoolmate; he wrote books, but he was lazy-minded and didnt want to work! So he had passed that job on to me. But it was impossible, you couldnt do a thing with it. And what words! Theon would invent words for the subtle organs, the inner senses; he had found a word for each thinga frightful barbarism! And I took care of everything: I found the printer, corrected the proofsall the work for a long time.
--
She was a small woman, fat, almost flabbyshe gave you the feeling that if you leaned against her, it would melt! Once, I remember I was there in Tlemcen with Andres father, who had come to join Usa painter, an artist. Theon was wearing a dark purple robe. Theon said to him, This robe is purple. No, its not purple, the other answered, its violet. Theon went rigid: When I say purple, its purple! And they started arguing over this foolishness. Suddenly there flashed from my head, No, this is too ridiculo Us!I didnt say a word, but it went out from my head (I even saw the flash), and then Madame Theon got up and came over to me, stood behind me (neither of Us uttered a word the other two were staring at each other like two angry cocks), then she laid my head against her breastabsolutely the feeling of sinking into eiderdown!
And never in my life, never, had I felt such peaceit was absolutely lumino Us and soft a peace, such a soft, tender, lumino Us peace. After a moment, she bent down and whispered in my ear, One m Ust never question ones master! It wasnt I who was questioning!
--
For some time now Ive been experiencing a precise moment during my japa when something takes hold of me and I have all the difficulty in the world to keep from entering into trance. Yet I remain standing. Usually Im walking, but some things I say while leaning up against the windownot a very good place to go into trance! And it grabs me exactly at the same place each time.
Yesterday, I suddenly saw a huge living head of blue lightthis blue light which is the force, the powerful force in material Nature (this is the light the tantrics Use). The head was made entirely of this light, and it wore a sort of tiaraa big head, so big (Mother indicates the length of her forearm); its eyes werent closed, but rather lowered, like this. The immobility of eternity, absolutely the repose, the immobility of eternity. A magnificent head, quite similar to the way the gods here are represented, but even better; something between certain heads of the Buddha and (these heads most probably come to the artists). Everything else was lost in a kind of cloud.
I felt that this kind of yes, immobility came from there: everything stops, absolutely everything stops. Silence, immobility truly, you enter into eternity.I told him it wasnt time!
--
The experience I havewhat I mean by I is this aggregate here (Mother indicates her body), this particular individualityis that the more quiet and calm it is, the more work it can do and the faster the work can be done. What is most disturbing and time consuming are all these agitated vibrations that fall on me (truly speaking, each person who comes throws them on me). And this is what makes the work difficultit stirs up a whirlwind. And you cant do anything in this whirlwind, its impossible. If you try to do something material, your fingers stumble; if you try to do something intellectual, your thoughts get all entangled and you no longer see clearly. Ive had the experience, for example, of wanting to look up a word in the dictionary while this agitation was in the atmosphere, and everything jumps up and down (yet the lighting is the same and Im Using the same magnifying glass), I no longer see a thing, its all jumping! I go page by page, but the word simply doesnt exist in the dictionary! Then I remain quiet, I do this (Mother makes a gesture of bringing down the Peace) and after half a minute I open the dictionary: the very spot, and the word leaps out at me! And I see clearly and distinctly. Consequently I have now the indisputable proof that if you want to do anything properly, you m Ust FIRST be calm but not only be calm yourself; you m Ust either isolate yourself or be capable of imposing a calm on this whirlwind of forces that comes upon you all the time from all around.
All the teachers are wanting to quit the schoolweary! Which means theyll begin the year with half the teachers gone. They live in constant tension, they dont know how to relax thats really what it is. They dont know how to act without agitation.
--
I didnt notice you being bothered by these things of the physical mind you had mentioned. However, I had first done this (gesture of cleansing the atmosphere), right at the beginning, so that nothing would come to disturb Us Did you feel anything?
I felt that you were there. I felt your Force.
0 1960-10-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But then there came a frightful reaction. For one day I was nearly as sicknot quiteas two years ago5 (they m Ust have Used the same mantra). And, you see, I who never vomit terrible vomitingeverything inside came out! Only now Im a bit more experienced than two years ago (!), so I set it right It happened here, downstairs, in the afternoon. I went right back up to my room (I didnt see anyone that afternoon), and I remained concentrated to try to find out what had happened. I saw that it came from therea backlash of those people trying to defend themselves.
I did what had to be done.
--
The boys story is fantastic! Its fantastic. He was thin, gray, empty-headed. I no longer recall all the details, but ultimately it was the same story: abducted from a railway station in the same way; he saw some people, an hypnotic state, and then no more recollection of what had happened to him, nothing at all. I dont know if they Used a handkerchief on him as well, but he was hypnotized. They punched him also when he asked to eat. And after that, no more appetite! As if they removed all interest in eatingeven when there was food, he didnt touch it. And absolutely empty-headed.
However, he recalls them repeatedly telling him this: You have no family; that name is not yours; you are called by such-and-such-a-name (they gave him another name); you are all alone and depend excl Usively upon Us. But then, probably this boy had a slightly deeper conscio Usness, for although his brain did not seem to be working outwardly, something deep down was able to observe and remember.
Finally, they had him work as a waiter in a small caf in Ahmedabad, near the station. One day it even happened that his brother and his brothers friend stopped by (he vaguely recalls having seen them) but he was incapable of speaking to them or of getting them to recognize him. Another time, he tried to leave and headed towards the station, but after awhile he could no longer walk, he was suddenly stopped by something (he doesnt know what), and he had to go back. Thats how it wasquite a unique state. But one day, a friend of the brother stopped at this caf to drink something, and this same boy served him. He had changed a lot, but the other fellow recognized him all the same and asked, Whats your name? He saw that the boy seemed dazed and couldnt answer. So he didnt say anything but ran immediately to where the elder brother lived; they came back, took the boy into a corner and do Used his face with seltzer water. It seems that then he started becoming more alive. Then they led him away and informed the police.
--
But I was mainly interested by the fact that I felt the danger these people representednot beca Use they were brigands, but beca Use they had some powerbrigands with a power and from what I saw, it was not merely an hypnotic power. There m Ust have been a tantric force in it, otherwise they would not have been so powerful, and especially so powerful from a distance. I had said to myself, They M UsT be caught. Which was why (the Force kept on working, you see). And yesterday, the newspaper said that a gang of five men, eight women and half a dozen children had been arrested by the police in Allahabad for Using what the newspaper called mesmeric means to rob people, attack them, etc. (They were operating in Poona, Bombay and Ahmedabad, but they were caught in Allahabad). Probably when they realized that the boy was gone, they got frightened and fled to the North. And they were arrested in Allahabad I had made a very strong formation and had said, They M UsT be caught.
As of now, I have no other news Theyve been caught, so they cant do any wrong OUTWARDLY, but still their power is there. Were going to have to be And everyone here says the same thinglike a black veil of unconscio Usness that has fallen upon Us. Even those who arent acc Ustomed to such things have felt it. Im presently cleaning the whole placeits not easy. Everything is upside down.
I had X informed. But I didnt tell him my difficulty (this mantra they threw on me to kill me), I didnt speak of that at all. For he had insisted, from the beginning he had said, Mother m Ust see to it, only Mothers grace can save them. And I understood their attack came j Ust at the time of Durga Puja, so I understood that Durga had to intervene. So thats the story.
--
This is why I tell people (not that I expect them to do it, at least not now, but its good they know) that its NOT a matter of fate, NOT something that completely escapes our control, NOT some sort of Law of Nature over which we have no powerit is not so. We are truly the masters of everything which has been brought together to create our transitory individuality; we have been given the power of control, if only we knew how to Use it.
Its a discipline, a tremendo Us tapasya.9
But its good to know in order to avoid this feeling of being cr Ushed when things are still completely outside your control, this sense of fatality people havetheyre born, they live, they die: Nature is cr Ushing and we are the playthings of something much bigger, much stronger than Us that is the Falsehood.
In any case, for myself, in my yoga, only after I KNEW that I AM the Master of everything (provided I know how to BE this Master and LET myself be this Masterprovided, that is, that the outer stupidity accepts to stay in its place), did I know that one could be the Master of Nature.
--
During the last two years, Ive been accumulating experiences IN THEIR MINUTEST DETAILS, things that might seem most Useless. You have to consent to that and not have a mania for greatness; you m Ust know that where the key is found is in the tiniest effort to create a true attitude in a few cells.
The problem is that when you enter into the ordinary conscio Usness, these things become so subtle and require such a scrupulo Us observance that people are j Ustified (they FEEL j Ustified) in having the attitude, Oh, its Nature, its Fate, its the Divine Will! But with that conviction, the Yoga of Perfection is impossible and appears as a mere utopian fantasy but this is FALSE. The truth is something else entirely.
0 1960-10-30, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The physical vibration is important. The circumstances relating to the work of transformation make the physical vibration important. I feel it, for as soon as I want to do something with someone on the physical plane (physical, mind you), it all comes into the body. And the body is simply seized I see that absolutely physical vibrations are being Used all the time. Its really so different. All the work which is done at a distance (gesture indicating action stemming from the mind)it acts, of course, but
You know, even now, all this (Mother touches her body, her hands) feels so vibrant and alive that its difficult to sense its limits as if it extends beyond the body in all directions. It no longer has any limits.
But its still not lumino Us in the dark. What is normally lumino Us in the dark is something else I had that when I was working with Theon (after returning to France, we had group meditationsthough he didnt call it meditation, he called it repose, and we Used to do this in a darkened room), and there was it was like phosphorescence, exactly the color of phosphorescent light, like certain fish in the water at night. It would come out [of the body], spread forth, move about. But that is the vital, it originates in the vital. It is a force from above, but what manifests is vital. Whereas now it is absolutely, clearly the golden supramental light in an extraordinary pulsation, vibrant in intensity But probably it still lacks a what Theon Used to call density, an agent that enables it to be seen in the dark and then it would be visibly gold, not phosphorescent.
But it is very, very concrete, very material.
--
And the experience j Ust now (during meditation) was somehow mixed with what I Usually see at night (it was not a combinationor maybe it was a combination ), for it had that same light It was a kind of powdering, even finer than tiny dotsa powdering like an atomic d Ust, but with an EXTREMELY intense vibration but without any shifting of place. And yet its in constant motion Something shifting about within something that vibrates on the same spot without moving (something does move, but its subtler, like a current of tremendo Us power which passes through a milieu that doesnt move at all: rather, it vibrates on the same spot with an extreme intensity). But I dont exactly know how it is different from the present experience It becomes less golden at night, the gold is less visible, whereas the other colorswhite, blue and a sort of pinkare much more visible.
Oh, now I remember! It was PINK during the second phase, j Ust afterwards, after Egypt! Oh, it was like like at the end of a sunrise when it gets very clear and lumino Us. A magnificent color. And it kept coming down and down, in a flood that part was new. Its something I see very rarely. It was not there at all the last time we meditated together. And it came filled with such a joy! Oh! It was absolutely ecstatic. It lasted quite a long time. And from there I went into this trance where I saw (laughing) that man congratulating you! I heard him say (his voice is what ro Used me from my trance, and then I saw him), Congratulations, its a great success! (Mother laughs)
0 1960-11-05, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I am convinced that at heart Karma is simply all the things we havent Used in the true way that we drag along behind Us If totally and clearly we have learned the lesson which each event or each circumstance ought to have brought, then its finished, its utility is gone and it dissolves.
Its an interesting experience to follow and observe.
--
And we carry that within Us! We arent aware of it, its almost subconscio Us for you see, the conscio Usness is there to prevent Us from yielding to thatits cowardly, and it can make you fall sick IN A MINUTE. I saw it, I saw things that had been cured and overcome in myself (cured in the true manner, not in an outer way), and then they return! Its cured, but then it begins again.
So then I went in search of its origin. Its something in the subconscientin the cells subconscient. Its roots are there, and on the least occasion And its so very, very ingrained that For example, you can be feeling very good, the body can be perfectly harmonio Us (and when the body is perfectly harmonio Us, its motions are harmonio Us, things are in their true places, everything works exactly as it should without needing the least attentiona general harmony), when suddenly the clock strikes, for example, or someone utters a word, and you have j Ust the faint impression Oh, its late, Im not going to be on timea second, a split second, and the whole working of the body falls apart. You suddenly feel feeble, drained, uneasy. And you have to intervene. Its terrible. And were at the mercy of such things!
0 1960-11-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
He lives in a region which is largely a kind of vital vibration which penetrates the mind and makes Use of the imagination (essentially its the same region most so-called cultured men live in). I dont mean to be severe or critical, but its a world that likes to play to itself. Its not really what we could call histrionics, not thatits rather a need to dramatize to oneself. So it can be an heroic drama, it can be a m Usical drama, it can be a tragic drama, or quite simply a poetic drama and ninety-nine times out of a hundred, its a romantic drama. And then, these soul states (!) come replete with certain spoken expressions (laughing) Im holding myself back from saying certain things!You know, its like a theatricals store where you rent scenery and costumes. Its all ready and waitinga little call, and there it comes, ready-made. For a particular occasion, they say, Youre the woman of my life (to be repeated as often as necessary), and for another they say Its a whole world, a whole mode of human life which I suddenly felt I was holding in my arms. Yes, like a decoration, an ornament, a nicetyan ornament of existence, to keep it from being flat and dull and the best means the human mind has found to get out of its tamas. Its a kind of artifice.
So for persons who are severe and grave (there are two such examples here, but its not necessary to name them) There are beings who are grave, so serio Us, so sincere, who find it hypocritical; and when it borders on certain (how shall I put it?) vital excesses, they call it vice. There are others who have lived their entire lives in a yogic or religio Us discipline, and they see this as an obstacle, ill Usion, dirtyness (Mother makes a gesture of rejecting with disg Ust), but above all, its this terrible ill Usion that prevents you from nearing the Divine. And when I saw the way these two people here reacted, in fact, I said to myself, but you see, I FELT So strongly that this too is the Divine, it too is a way of getting out of something that has had its place in evolution, and still has a place, individually, for certain individuals. Naturally, if you remain there, you keep turning in circles; it will always be (not eternally, but indefinitely) the woman of my life, to take that as a symbol. But once youre out of it, you see that this had its place, its utilityit made you emerge from a kind of very animal-like wisdom and quietude that of the herd or of the being who sees no further than his daily round. It was necessary. We m Ustnt condemn it, we m Ustnt Use harsh words.
The mistake we make is to remain there too long, for if you spend your whole life in that, well, youll probably need many more lifetimes. But once the chance to get out of it comes, you can look at it with a smile and say, Yes, its really a sort of love for fiction!people love fiction, they want fiction, they need fiction! Otherwise its boring and all much too flat.
All this came to me yesterday. I kept Z with me for more than half an hour, nearly 45 minutes. He told me some very interesting things. What he said was quite good and I encouraged him a great dealsome action on the right lines which will be quite Useful, and then a book unfortunately mixed with an influence from that artificial world (but actually, even that can be Used as a link to attract people). He m Ust have spoken to you about this. He wants to write a kind of dialogue to introduce Sri Aurobindos ideasits a good idealike the conversations in Les Hommes de Bonne Volont by Jules Romain. He wants to do it, and I told him it was an excellent idea. And not only one typehe should take all types of people who for the moment are closed to this vision of life, from the Catholic, the fervent believer, right to the utmost materialist, men of science, etc. It could be very interesting.
This is what you see in life, its all like thateach thing has its place and its necessity. This has made me see a whole current of life I was very, very involved with people from this milieu during a whole period of my existence and in fact, its the first approach to Beauty. But it gets mixed.
--
I have experienced all kinds of things in life, but I have always felt a sort of lightso INTANGIBLE, So perfectly pure (not in the moral sense, but pure light!)and it could go anywhere, mix everywhere without ever really getting mixed with anything. I felt this flame as a young childa white flame. And NEVER have I felt disg Ust, contempt, recoil, the sense of being dirtiedby anything or anyone. There was always this flamewhite, white, so white that nothing could make it other than white. And I started feeling it long ago in the past (now my approach is entirely differentit comes straight from above, and I have other reasons for seeing the Purity in everything). But it came back when I met Z (beca Use of the contact with him)and I felt nothing negative, absolutely nothing. Afterwards, people said, Oh, how he Used to be this, how he Used to be that! And now look at him! See what hes become! Someone even Used the word rotten that made me smile. Beca Use, you see, that doesnt exist for me.
What I saw is this world, this realm where people are like that, they live that, for its necessary to get out from below and this is a wayits a way, the only way. It was the only way for the vital formation and the vital creation to enter into the material world, into inert matter. An intellectualized vital, a vital of ideas, an artist; it even fringes upon or has the first drops of Poetrythis Poetry which upon its peaks goes beyond the mind and becomes an expression of the Spirit. Well, when these first drops fall on earth, it stirs up mud.
--
And, even with Sri Aurobindo, even with him I didnt speak of these things for I wouldnt waste his time, and I found it quite Useless to burden him with all this. I would tell him I always described my visions and experiences at night I always recounted that to him. And he would remember (I myself would forget; the next day, the whole thing would be gone), he would remember; then sometimes, long afterwards, even years afterwards, he would say, Ah, yes! You had seen that back then. He had a wonderful memory. While myself, I would already have forgotten. But those were the only things I told him, and even then only when I saw that it had a very sure, very superior quality. I didnt bother him with a whole jumble of words. But otherwise . even Nolini,4 who understands well I never, never felt even the (its not the need) not even the POSSIBILITY.
I dont want to tell you this too precisely, to expand on it, for these things cannot be explained. I want you tonot know nor think it, but feel it suddenly, like a little electric shock within that leaps forth.
--
But effort is not of much Use, my child, its (long silence) its you can call it grace, or you can call it a knacktwo very different things, yet it has something of each.
If I could only make my head quiet!
0 1960-11-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
You see, it am Uses them; its the way these beings am Use themselvesonly its on another scale, thats all. They look at Us like ants, so whats it matter to them! If they dont like it, too bad for them. Only, ants cant protest, or at least we dont understand their protests! Whereas when we ourselves protest, we can make ourselves heard. We have the means to make ourselves heard.
We can be heard?
--
Actually, if communications are interrupted, it can be troublesome Let Us see.
(After a moment of silence) We dont have time now to work, its too late. And anyway, we cant see properly. Did you bring anything?
--
Its a lack of plasticity in the mind, and they are bound by the expression of things; for them, words are rigid. Sri Aurobindo explained it so well in The Secret of the Veda; he shows how language evolves and how, before, it was very supple and evocative. For example, one could at once think of a river and of inspiration. Sri Aurobindo also gives the example of a sailboat and the forward march of life. And he says that for those of the Vedic age it was quite natural, the two could go together, superimposed; it was merely a way of looking at the same thing from two sides, whereas now, when a word is said, we think only of this word all by itself, and to get a clear picture we need a whole literary or poetic imagery (with explanations to boot!). Thats exactly the case with these children; theyre at a stage where everything is rigid. Such is the product of modern education. It even extracts the subtlest nuance between two words and FIXES it: And above all, dont make any mistake, dont Use this word for that word, for otherwise your writings no good. But its j Ust the opposite.
(silence)
--
You asked me j Ust now if we have a say in the matter. Well, last year I didnt go out; I had no intention of going to the Sportsground or to the theater for the December 2 program, but I was often asked to see that the weather be good. So while I was doing my japa upstairs, I started saying that it shouldnt rain. But they werent in a very good mood! (When I Used to go out myself, it had an effect, for it kept the thing in check, and even if it had been raining earlier, that day it would stop.) So they said, But you arent going out, so what does it matter. I said I wascounting on it. Then they answered, Are you prepared to have it rain the next time you go out?Do what you like, I replied. And when I went out on November 24 for the prize distribution, there was a deluge. It came pouring down and we had to run for shelter in the gymnasiumeveryone was splashing around, the band playing on the verandah was half-drenched, it was dreadful!the day before it hadnt rained, the day after it didnt rain. But on that day they had their revenge!
I dont want that to happen this time. Once is enough. So Im going to see about it.
--
A while ago You know that I have TREMENDO Us financial difficulties. In fact, I have handed the whole matter over to the Lord, telling Him, Its your affair; if you want Us to continue this experience, well, you m Ust provide the means. But this upsets some of them, so they come along with all kinds of suggestions to keep me from having to to resort to something so drastic. They suggest all kinds of things; some time ago they said, What about a good cyclone, or a good earthquake? A lot of damage to the Ashram, a public appeal that would bring in some funds! (Mother laughs) Yes, its of this order! And its all quite clear and definitewe have veritable conversations!
I listen, I answer. Its not satisfactory! I told them. But theyve kept to their idea, they like it. When that first storm came some time back (you remember, with those terrible bolts of lightning and that asuric being P.K. saw and sketched): Dont you want Us to destroy something? I got angry. But it was This influence was so close and acute that it gave you goose bumps! The whole time the storm lasted, I had to hold on tight in my bed, like this (Mother closes her fists tight as in a trance or deep concentration), and I didnt movedidnt movelike a a rock during the entire storm, until he consented to go a bit further away. Then I moved. And even now, it comesfrom others (theres not j Ust one, you see, there are many): How about a good flood? A roof collapsed the other day with someone underneath, but he was able to escape. So roofs are collapsing, ho Uses Aro Use public sympathy, we m Ust help the Ashram! Its no good, I said. But maybe thats whats responsible for this interminable rain. And they offer so many other things oh, what they parade past me! You could write books on all this!
But generally and this is something Theon had told me (Theon was very qualified on the subject of hostile forces and the workings of all that resists the divine influence, and he was a great fighteras you might imagine! He himself was an incarnation of an asura, so he knew how to tackle these things!); he was always saying, If you make a VERY SMALL concession or suffer a minor defeat, it gives you the right to a very great victory. Its a very good trick. And I have observed, in practice, that for all things, even for the very little things of everyday life, its trueif you yield on one point (if, even though you see what should be, you yield on a very secondary and unimportant point), it immediately gives you the power to impose your will for something much more important. I mentioned this to Sri Aurobindo and he said that it was true. It is true in the world as it is today, but its not what we want; we want it to change, really change.
0 1960-11-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I dont know if its due to Zs visit1 or simply if the time had come and things converged (beca Use thats what generally happens), but a whole period of the past is coming up again and its not a purely personal past, for it includes all the acquaintances I Used to have, a whole collection of things that represents not only my individual life but something rather collective (as it always is; each of Us is always a collectivity but we arent aware of it, and if anything were taken away, it would unbalance the whole). A whole set of things that were absolutely wiped clean from the memory (it m Ust have been buried somewhere in the subconscient or the semi-conscientin any case, something more unconscio Us than the subconscient), and it has all come back up. Oh, things such things If j Ust two weeks ago someone had asked me, Do you remember that? I would have replied, No, not at all! And its coming from every side. Oh, such mediocrity! (mediocre in the way of conscio Usness, experiences and activities) and so gray, so dull, so flat! Only this morning, while getting ready for the balcony, I thought, Is it possible to live like that?!
And then it became so clear that behind all this there was always the same lumino Us Presence, this Presence that is everywhere, always, watching over everything.
--
How well I understand all those who dont know or to whom it hasnt been shown or revealed that we are GOING towards something else, that it WILL BE something else! Such a feeling of futility, stupidity, Uselessness, and absolutely devoid of any any intensity, any life, any reality, any ardor, any soulbah! Its disg Usting.
While it was all coming up, I thought, How is this possible? For during those years of my life (Im now outside things; I do them but Im entirely outside, so they dont involve mewhether its like this or like that makes no difference to me; Im only doing my work, thats all), I was already conscio Us, but nevertheless I was IN what I was doing to a certain extent; I was this web of social life (but thank God it wasnt here in India, for had it been here I could not have withstood it! I think that even as a child I would have smashed everything, beca Use here its even worse than over there). You see, there its its a bit less constricting, a bit looser, you can slip through the mesh from time to time to brea the some air. But here, according to what Ive learned from people and what Sri Aurobindo told me, its absolutely unbearable (its the same in Japan, absolutely unbearable). In other words, you cant help but smash everything. Over there, you sometimes get a breath of air, but still its quite relative. And this morning I wondered (you see, for years I lived in that way for years and years) j Ust as I was wondering, How was I ABLE to live that and not kick out in every direction?, j Ust as I was looking at it, I saw up above, above this (it is worse than horrible, it is a kind of Oh, not despair, for there isnt even any sense of feeling there is NOTHING! It is dull, dull, dull gray, gray, gray, clenched tight, a closed web that lets through neither air nor life nor lightthere is nothing) and j Ust then I saw a splendor of such sweet light above itso sweet, so full of true love, true compassion something so warm, so warm the relief, the solace of an eternity of sweetness, light, beauty, in an eternity of patience which feels neither the past nor the inanity and imbecility of thingsit was so wonderful! That was entirely the feeling it gave, and I said to myself, THAT is what made you live, without THAT it would not have been possible. Oh, it would not have been possible I would not have lived even three days! THAT is there, ALWAYS there, awaiting its hour, if we would only let it in.
--
It all began the day I received the news of Zs arrival. All right, I thought, heres a chunk of life sent back to me for clarifying. I m Ust work on it. But it didnt stop there Its strange how all this past had been swept clean I could no longer remember dates, I couldnt even remember when Z had been here before, I no longer knew what had happened, it had all been wiped cleanwhich means that it had all been p Ushed down into the subconscient. I didnt even know how I Used to speak to him when I saw him, nothing, it was all gone. All that had remained alive were one or two movements or facts which were clearly connected to the psychic life, the psychic conscio Usness but j Ust one or two or three such memories; all the rest was gone.
So a whole slice of my life came back, but it didnt stop there! It keeps extending back further and further, and memories keep on coming, things that go back sixty years now, even beyond, seventy, seventy-five yearsthey are all coming back. And so it all has to be put in order.
--
Formerly, that was my first stepa long time ago. Now its so very different I wonder how it was possible to have been so totally blind as to call that oneself at any moment in ones life! Its a collection of things. And what was the link by which that could be called oneself? Thats more difficult to find out. Only when you climb above do you come to realize that THAT is at work here, but it could work there as well, or as well here, or here, or here At times there is suddenly a drop of something (Oh, I saw that this morningit was like a drop, a little drop, but with SUCH an intense and perfect light ), and where THAT falls it makes its center and begins radiating out and acting. THAT is what can be called oneselfnothing else. And THAT precisely is what enabled me to live in such dreadfully uninteresting, such nonexistent circumstances. And at the moment when you ARE that, you see how that has lived and how that has Used everything, not only in this body but in all bodies and through all time.
At the core, this is the experience; it is no longer knowledge. I now understand quite clearly the difference between the knowledge of the eternal soul, of life eternal through all its changes, and this CONCRETE experience of the thing.
0 1960-11-26, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
That was the wonderful thing when we were together and all these hostile forces were fighting (they tried to kill me any number of times. He always saved me in an absolutely miraculo Us and marvelo Us way). But you see, this seemed to create very great BODILY difficulties for him. We disc Ussed this a great deal, and I told him, If one of Us m Ust go, I want that it should be me.
It cant be you, he replied, beca Use you alone can do the material thing.3
--
I havent told this to anyone until now, especially not to those who take care and watch over me, for I dont want to terrify them. Besides, Im not so sure of their reactionsyou understand, if they started getting frightened, it would be terrible. So I dont tell them. But it has happened at least five or six times, Usually in the morning before going down to the balcony, j Ust when I dont have the time And it has to be done quickly, for I have to be ready on time!
Its very, very interesting. But then, you see, at such moments the concreteness of the Presence6concrete to the touch, really to the material touchis extraordinary!
--
This interests me, for these things do not at all enter through the mind (he doesnt receive a thing there, hes closed there). So in his letter he says that this thing or that is necessary (he describes it in his own words), and he adds, This is why we m Ust be so grateful to have among Us the the great Mother7 (as he puts it), the great Mother who knows these things.Good! I said to myself. (It had to do with something specific concerning the capacity for discrimination in the outside world, the different qualities and different functions of different beings, all of which depends on ones inner construction, as it were.) So I see that even this, even these physical experiences, is received (and yet I hadnt tried, I had never tried to make him receive it); it merely works like this, you see (gesture of a widespread diff Usion), and the experience is veryhow should I say?drastic, with a kind of (power of radiation). Imperative.
Original English.
--- Overview of noun us
The noun us has 1 sense (first 1 from tagged texts)
1. (1) United States, United States of America, America, the States, US, U.S., USA, U.S.A. ::: (North American republic containing 50 states - 48 conterminous states in North America plus Alaska in northwest North America and the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean; achieved independence in 1776)
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun us
1 sense of us
Sense 1
United States, United States of America, America, the States, US, U.S., USA, U.S.A.
INSTANCE OF=> North American country, North American nation
=> country, state, land
=> administrative district, administrative division, territorial division
=> district, territory, territorial dominion, dominion
=> region
=> location
=> object, physical object
=> physical entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun us
1 sense of us
Sense 1
United States, United States of America, America, the States, US, U.S., USA, U.S.A.
HAS INSTANCE=> Union, North
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun us
1 sense of us
Sense 1
United States, United States of America, America, the States, US, U.S., USA, U.S.A.
INSTANCE OF=> North American country, North American nation
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun us
1 sense of us
Sense 1
United States, United States of America, America, the States, US, U.S., USA, U.S.A.
-> North American country, North American nation
=> Central American country, Central American nation
HAS INSTANCE=> Mexico, United Mexican States
HAS INSTANCE=> Canada
HAS INSTANCE=> United States, United States of America, America, the States, US, U.S., USA, U.S.A.
--- Grep of noun us
11-plus
a. testudineus
aarhus
abacus
abdominal nerve plexus
abecedarius
abelmoschus
abelmoschus esculentus
abelmoschus moschatus
aberdeen angus
abortus
acanthocereus
acanthocereus pentagonus
acanthocereus tetragonus
acanthophis antarcticus
acanthoscelides obtectus
acanthurus
acanthurus chirurgus
acanthus
acarus
accipiter nisus
acer pseudoplatanus
acervulus
achoerodus
acidophilus
acinonyx jubatus
acinus
acipenser transmontanus
aconitum napellus
acorus
acorus calamus
acoustic meatus
acris gryllus
acrocarpus
acrocarpus fraxinifolius
acrocephalus
acrocephalus schoenobaenus
acromphalus
actus reus
aculeus
addax nasomaculatus
adenovirus
adolf windaus
adult-onset diabetes mellitus
aedes albopictus
aegiceras majus
aegisthus
aegypius
aegypius monachus
aegyptopithecus
aelius donatus
aeneas silvius
aengus
aeolus
aepyceros melampus
aeschylus
aeschynanthus
aesculapius
aesculus
aetobatus
afflatus
afrocarpus
agapanthus
agapanthus africanus
agaricus
agelaius
agelaius phoeniceus
aggeus
agkistrodon piscivorus
agonus
agonus cataphractus
aidoneus
ailanthus
ailurus
airbus
albatrellus
albatrellus dispansus
albatrellus ovinus
albert camus
alcaeus
alcelaphus
alcoholics anonymous
alepisaurus
alfred dreyfus
algeripithecus
algeripithecus minutus
allosaurus
alnus
alopecurus
alopex lagopus
alopius
alopius vulpinus
alosa pseudoharengus
alphavirus
altocumulus
altostratus
alumnus
alveolus
amaranthus
amaranthus albus
amaranthus caudatus
amaranthus cruentus
amaranthus hybridus hypochondriacus
amaranthus hypochondriacus
amaranthus spinosus
amblyrhynchus
amblyrhynchus cristatus
ameiurus
american lotus
americus vespucius
ammotragus
amorphophallus
amorphophallus campanulatus
amorphophallus paeonifolius
amphibian genus
amphioxus
amygdaloid nucleus
amygdalus
anabas testudineus
anabrus
anacyclus
analysis situs
ananas comosus
anastomus
ancylus
anders celsius
andreas vesalius
andricus
andropogon furcatus
andropogon scoparius
andropogon virginicus
anestrus
angelus
angus
anicius manlius severinus boethius
anigozanthus
animal virus
animus
anisotremus
anisotremus virginicus
ankus
ankylosaurus
annulus
anoectochilus
anoestrus
antheraea polyphemus
anthonomus
anthrax bacillus
anthriscus
anthropophagus
anthus
antigonus
antirrhinum majus
antoninus
antonius
antonius pius
antonius stradivarius
antrozous
antrozous pallidus
anus
aortic plexus
aotus
aotus trivirgatus
apatosaurus
apatosaurus excelsus
apodemus
apodemus sylvaticus
apogon maculatus
aporocactus
apparatus
apus
apus apus
apyretic tetanus
aquarius
aramus
aramus pictus
araneus
araneus cavaticus
arborvirus
arbovirus
arbutus
archilochus
archosargus
archosargus probatocephalus
arctium minus
arctocebus
arctocephalus
arcturus
arcus
arcus zygomaticus
ardea herodius
arenavirus
areopagus
argus
argusianus
arhus
arilus
arilus cristatus
ariocarpus
ariocarpus fissuratus
aristarchus
arius
arminius
army of the righteous
arquebus
arrhenatherum elatius
arrhenius
artamus
artemisia dracunculus
artemision at ephesus
arthropod genus
articulatio genus
artocarpus
artocarpus heterophyllus
arvicola amphibius
ascaphus
asclepius
ascomycetous fungus
ascus
asio otus
aspalathus
asparagus
asparagus plumosus
asparagus setaceous
aspergillus
aspergillus fumigatus
asphodelus
aspidelaps lubricus
aspidiotus
aspidiotus perniciosus
aspidophoroides monopterygius
asplenium nidus
astacus
aster acuminatus
aster arenosus
aster cordifolius
aster divaricatus
aster dumosus
aster falcatus
aster linarifolius
aster macrophyllus
asterid dicot genus
astragalus
astragalus alpinus
astragalus danicus
astreus
astreus hygrometricus
astropogon stellatus
athanasius
atherurus
atlantic walrus
atreus
atticus
auditory apparatus
auditory meatus
august f. mobius
august ferdinand mobius
augustus
aulacorhyncus
aulostomus
aulostomus maculatus
aurelius
auriparus
australopithecus
australopithecus africanus
australopithecus robustus
austrocedrus
austrotaxus
autobus
autofocus
autonomic plexus
autumn crocus
aversive stimulus
bacchus
bacillus
bacteria genus
balaena mysticetus
balaenoptera musculus
balaenoptera physalus
balanus
barosaurus
barrel cactus
basileus
basiliscus
bassariscus
bassariscus astutus
bath asparagus
bathyergus
battle of ipsus
battle of issus
battle of lake trasimenus
battle of pharsalus
bauhaus
beefsteak fungus
belarus
belisarius
benzene nucleus
berzelius
bibos gaurus
bird's-nest fungus
bird genus
bison bonasus
blaberus
black angus
black root rot fungus
bladder fucus
blennius
blissus
blissus leucopterus
blue lotus
blue mold fungus
bmus
boethius
boletellus
boletus
boletus luridus
boletus pallidus
boletus pulcherrimus
boletus pulverulentus
bolus
bombus
bombycilla garrulus
bonasa umbellus
bonus
boocercus eurycerus
book of exodus
book of leviticus
borassus
bos indicus
bos primigenius
bos taurus
boselaphus
boselaphus tragocamelus
bosporus
botaurus
botaurus lentiginosus
bottom rot fungus
botulinus
brachial plexus
brachinus
brachychiton acerifolius
brachychiton populneus
bracket fungus
bradypus
bradypus tridactylus
brassica napus
breathing apparatus
broca's gyrus
bromus
bromus japonicus
bromus secalinus
bronchus
brontosaurus
brosmius
brown root rot fungus
bruchus
brutus
brya ebenus
bryanthus
bryanthus taxifolius
bubalus
bubo virginianus
bubulcus
bufo americanus
bufo canorus
bufo marinus
bufo microscaphus
bufo speciosus
bulk modulus
bungarus
bungarus fasciatus
bunyavirus
bureau of the census
burhinus
burhinus oedicnemus
burnous
bus
bush hibiscus
buteo lagopus
buteo lineatus
buxus
byelarus
byssus
cabassous
cabassous unicinctus
cacicus
cactus
cadmus
caduceus
cajanus
calamus
calcaneus
calcarine sulcus
calceus
calculus
caliculus
calidris canutus
callicebus
callinectes sapidus
callisaurus
callistephus
callorhinus
callorhinus ursinus
callus
calocedrus
calochortus
calochortus albus
calochortus amoenus
calochortus luteus
calochortus macrocarpus
calycanthus
calycanthus floridus
calyculus
cambarus
camelus
camelus bactrianus
camelus dromedarius
campanula rapunculus
campephilus
camping bus
camponotus
camptosorus
camptosorus rhizophyllus
campus
campylorhynchus
camus
canaliculus
cancer irroratus
canis aureus
canis lupus
canis rufus
canopus
cantharellus
cantharellus cibarius
cantharellus cinnabarinus
cantharellus clavatus
cantharellus floccosus
canthus
cantus firmus
capital of belarus
capital of cyprus
capra aegagrus
capra hircus
capreolus
capreolus capreolus
capricornus
caprimulgus
caprimulgus europaeus
caprimulgus vociferus
carassius
carassius auratus
carassius carassius
carboniferous
carcharhinus
carcharhinus limbatus
carcharhinus obscurus
carcharhinus plumbeus
carcharias taurus
carcharinus longimanus
cardiac plexus
carduelis spinus
carduus
carduus crispus
carex pseudocyperus
carolus
carolus linnaeus
carotid plexus
carphophis amoenus
carpinus
carpinus betulus
carpobrotus
carpodacus
carpodacus mexicanus
carpodacus purpureus
carpus
carrion fungus
carthamus
carthamus tinctorius
caryophylloid dicot genus
casmerodius
casmerodius albus
cassius
cassius longinus
casuarius
catharanthus
catharanthus roseus
catoptrophorus
catoptrophorus semipalmatus
catostomus
catullus
caucasus
caucus
caudate nucleus
cautious
cavernous sinus
cavia porcellus
cebus
cebus capucinus
cedrus
celastric articulatus
celastrus
celastrus orbiculatus
cell nucleus
celsius
cenchrus
census
centaurea cyanus
centaurium minus
centaurus
central gyrus
central sulcus
centranthus
centrocercus
centrocercus urophasianus
centropomus
centropus
centropus phasianinus
centunculus
cephalopterus
cephalopterus ornatus
cephalotaxus
cephalotus
cepheus
cepphus
cerastes cornutus
ceratodus
ceratosaurus
cerberus
cercocebus
cercopithecus
cercopithecus aethiops pygerythrus
cercopithecus aethiops sabaeus
cereus
cervical glands of the uterus
cervical plexus
cervus
cervus elaphus
cetorhinus
cetorhinus maximus
cetus
chaetodipterus
chamaecytisus
chambered nautilus
charadrius
charadrius melodus
charadrius morinellus
charadrius vociferus
cheiranthus
cheiranthus asperus
chelidonium majus
chenopodium bonus-henricus
chiasmus
chilomeniscus
chilomeniscus cinctus
chilomycterus
chimonanthus
chinese hibiscus
chionanthus
chionanthus virginicus
chirocephalus
chironomus
chlamydosaurus
chlamyphorus
chlamyphorus truncatus
chloranthus
chlorophoneus
cholera morbus
choloepus
choloepus didactylus
chondrus
chondrus crispus
choragus
chordate genus
chorionic villus
choroid plexus
chorus
christmas cactus
christopher columbus
chronoperates paradoxus
chrysobalanus
chrysolophus
chrysolophus pictus
chrysophrys auratus
chrysothamnus
chrysothamnus nauseosus
cichorium intybus
cimex lectularius
cincinnatus
cinclus
cinclus aquaticus
cinclus mexicanus
cingulate gyrus
circaetus
circinus
circus
circus aeruginosus
circus cyaneus
circus pygargus
cirrhus
cirrocumulus
cirrostratus
cirrus
cistothorus
cistus
cistus albidus
citellus
citellus citellus
citellus leucurus
citellus variegatus
citharichthys cornutus
citroncirus
citrullus
citrus
cladorhyncus
clathrus
claudius
claudius ptolemaeus
clavus
clianthus
clianthus formosus
clianthus puniceus
clianthus speciosus
clonus
club fungus
clubroot fungus
clupea harangus
clupea harengus harengus
clupea sprattus
clypeus
cnemidophorus
cnemidophorus sexlineatus
cnemidophorus tesselatus
cnicus
cnicus benedictus
cnidoscolus
cnossus
coccobacillus
cocculus
cocculus carolinus
coccus
coccygeal plexus
coccyzus
coccyzus erythropthalmus
cochlearius
cochlearius cochlearius
cocus
cocytus
codariocalyx motorius
coelenterate genus
coeliac plexus
coffee fungus
coitus
coitus interruptus
colaptes auratus
coleus
coleus amboinicus
coleus aromaticus
colinus
colinus virginianus
colobus
colossus
columba palumbus
columbus
comenius
comma bacillus
common gum cistus
compsognathus
computer virus
conceptus
conditioned stimulus
conepatus
conepatus leuconotus
confucius
congius
conilurus
connarus
conocarpus
conocarpus erectus
consensus
conspectus
contopus
contopus sordidulus
convergent strabismus
convolvulus
copernicus
coprinus
coprinus atramentarius
coprinus comatus
coracias garrulus
coragyps atratus
coral fungus
corchorus
cordia gerascanthus
cordylus
coregonus
cornelius jansenius
cornus
coronary sinus
corpus
cortinarius
cortinarius armillatus
cortinarius atkinsonianus
cortinarius corrugatus
cortinarius semisanguineus
cortinarius subfoetidus
cortinarius violaceus
corvus
corvus frugilegus
corydalus
corydalus cornutus
corylus
coryphaena hippurus
corythosaurus
cosmocampus
cosmocampus profundus
cotinus
cotinus americanus
cotinus obovatus
cottus
council of ephesus
court of assize and nisi prius
couscous
coxsackie virus
coxsackievirus
crab cactus
cracticus
crataegus
cretaceous
cricetus
cricetus cricetus
crius
crocodilus
crocodylus
crocodylus niloticus
crocodylus porosus
crocus
crocus sativus
croesus
cronus
crotalus
crotalus adamanteus
crotalus horridus atricaudatus
crotalus horridus horridus
crotalus lepidus
crotalus scutulatus
crotaphytus
crus
crustose thallus
cryptacanthodes maculatus
cryptobranchus
cryptocercus
ctenocephalus
ctenophore genus
cubitus
cuculus
cuculus canorus
cucumis melo inodorus
cucumis melo reticulatus
cucumis sativus
culex quinquefasciatus
cultus
cumulonimbus
cumulus
cuneus
cuniculus
cunnilinctus
cunnilingus
cuon alpinus
cup fungus
cupressus
cursorius
cuscus
cyamopsis tetragonolobus
cyamus
cyclopes didactylus
cyclophorus
cyclopterus
cyclopterus lumpus
cyclosorus
cygnus
cygnus atratus
cygnus columbianus
cygnus columbianus columbianus
cygnus cygnus
cynara cardunculus
cynara scolymus
cynocephalus
cynocephalus variegatus
cynomys ludovicianus
cynopterus
cynoscion nebulosus
cyperus
cyperus alternifolius
cyperus esculentus
cyperus longus
cyperus papyrus
cyperus rotundus
cyprinus
cypripedium calceolus
cyprus
cyrus
cytesis proliferus
cytisus
cytisus albus
cytisus multiflorus
cytisus ramentaceus
cytisus scoparius
cytomegalovirus
dacridium laxifolius
dacrycarpus
dactylopius
dactylopius coccus
dactylopterus
daedalus
damaliscus
damaliscus lunatus
damascus
damping off fungus
danaus
danaus plexippus
dardanus
dasypus
dasypus novemcinctus
dasyurus
dasyurus viverrinus
daucus
decapterus
decapterus macarellus
decapterus punctatus
decius
decubitus
degree celsius
deinocheirus
deinonychus
delicious
delius
delphinapterus
delphinus
demetrius
democritus
dendrocalamus
dendrocalamus giganteus
dendroctonus
dendrolagus
dentate nucleus
descensus
desiderius erasmus
desmanthus
desmodus
desmodus rotundus
desmograthus
detritus
diabetes insipidus
diabetes mellitus
diangus gratianopolitanus
dianthus
dianthus barbatus
dianthus caryophyllus
dianthus latifolius
dianthus plumarius
dianthus supurbus
dicamptodon ensatus
diceros simus
dicot genus
dicrostonyx hudsonius
dictamnus
diestrus
differential calculus
dilleniid dicot genus
dimocarpus
dinornis giganteus
diodon holocanthus
dionysius
dionysus
diophantus
diospyros lotus
diplococcus
diplodocus
dipogon lignosus
dipsacus
dipsacus sativus
dipsosaurus
dipus
discoid lupus erythematosus
discriminative stimulus
discus
disseminated lupus erythematosus
divergent strabismus
dmus
dolichonyx oryzivorus
dolichos biflorus
dolichos lignosus
dominicus
dominus
donatus
doofus
dorotheanthus
dracunculus
dreyfus
dromaius
dryopithecus
dryopithecus rudapithecus hungaricus
duck-billed platypus
duckbilled platypus
ductulus
ductus arteriosus
duns scotus
durio zibethinus
dusicyon cancrivorus
dutch elm fungus
dyaus
dysdercus
ear fungus
easter cactus
ebola virus
ecclesiasticus
echinocactus
echinocereus
echinococcus
echinoderm genus
echinus
echinus esculentus
echovirus
ectopistes migratorius
edaphosaurus
edible asparagus
edmontosaurus
egretta albus
elaeagnus
elaeocarpus
elanoides forficatus
elanus
elanus leucurus
elaphurus
elaphurus davidianus
elastic modulus
electronic stylus
electrophorus
elephantopus
elephas maximus
eleutherodactylus
eleven-plus
elia kazanjoglous
elops saurus
elymus
elymus arenarius
elymus condensatus
elymus hispidus
emberiza schoeniclus
embolus
emeritus
endemic typhus
engraulis encrasicholus
entellus
enterobius
enterovirus
eohippus
ephesus
ephippiorhynchus
epicanthus
epictetus
epicurus
epimetheus
epinephelus
epinephelus fulvus
epirus
epistle of paul the apostle to titus
epistle to titus
epstein-barr virus
eptatretus
eptesicus
eptesicus fuscus
eptesicus serotinus
equetus
equetus lanceolatus
equus
equus asinus
equus caballus
equus hemionus
equus hemionus hemionus
erasmus
erebus
erianthus
eridanus
erigeron annuus
erigeron aurantiacus
erigeron glaucous
erigeron philadelphicus
erigeron pulchellus
erigeron speciosus
erignathus
erignathus barbatus
erinaceus
erinaceus europaeus
erinaceus europeaeus
erithacus
erithacus svecicus
erythrocebus
eschrichtius
eschrichtius gibbosus
eschrichtius robustus
esophagus
esox americanus
esox lucius
estrus
ethmoid sinus
ethmoidal sinus
etropus
etropus rimosus
euarctos americanus
eucalyptus
eucalyptus globulus
eucinostomus
eudromias morinellus
eumeces callicephalus
eumeces skiltonianus
eumetopias jubatus
eunectes murinus
euonymous alatus
euonymus
euonymus americanus
euonymus atropurpureus
euonymus europaeus
euonymus radicans vegetus
euphagus
euphagus carilonus
euphorbia peplus
euphractus
euphractus sexcinctus
eusebius
eusebius hieronymus
eusebius sophronius hieronymus
eutamius asiaticus
eutamius sibiricus
euthynnus
excursus
exodus
face fungus
fagus
falco columbarius
falco peregrinus
falco rusticolus
falco sparverius
falco tinnunculus
fallopius
famulus
fasciculus
faunus
faustus
faustus socinus
favus
felis catus
felis chaus
felis domesticus
felt fungus
fern genus
ferocactus
fetus
ficus
ficus sycomorus
field scabious
filovirus
fish genus
fissure of sylvius
flag smut fungus
flaminius
flatus
flavius claudius julianus
flavius josephus
flavius theodosius
flavius valerius constantinus
flavivirus
flax rust fungus
focus
foetus
fomes igniarius
form genus
formicarius
francis peyton rous
fraxinus
fraxinus ornus
frederick delius
fringed grass of parnassus
frontal gyrus
frontal sinus
fucus
fucus serratus
fucus vesiculosus
fulmarus
functional calculus
fundulus
fundulus heteroclitus
fundus
fungus
fungus genus
funiculus
furnarius
fusanus
fusanus acuminatus
fuscoboletinus
fuscoboletinus serotinus
gabriele fallopius
gadus
gadus macrocephalus
gadus merlangus
gaius
gaius cassius longinus
gaius cornelius tacitus
gaius flaminius
gaius julius caesar octavianus
gaius octavianus
gaius petronius
gaius plinius caecilius secundus
gaius plinius secundus
gaius valerius catullus
galbulus
galeorhinus
galeorhinus zyopterus
galictis vittatus
gallinula chloropus
gallirallus
gallous
gallus
gallus gallus
garambulla cactus
garrulus
gartner's bacillus
garullus garullus
gasterophilus
gasterosteus
gasterosteus aculeatus
gasterosteus pungitius
gastroboletus
gastroboletus scabrosus
gastroboletus turbinatus
gastrocnemius
gavialis gangeticus
gempylus
genitourinary apparatus
genius
genus
genus-megapodius
genus-milvus
genus abelmoschus
genus acanthocereus
genus acanthurus
genus acanthus
genus acarus
genus achoerodus
genus acorus
genus acrocarpus
genus acrocephalus
genus aegypius
genus aegyptopithecus
genus aeschynanthus
genus aesculus
genus aetobatus
genus afrocarpus
genus agapanthus
genus agaricus
genus agelaius
genus agonus
genus ailanthus
genus ailurus
genus albatrellus
genus alcelaphus
genus alepisaurus
genus algeripithecus
genus allosaurus
genus alnus
genus alopecurus
genus alopius
genus amaranthus
genus amblyrhynchus
genus ameiurus
genus ammotragus
genus amorphophallus
genus amphioxus
genus amygdalus
genus anabrus
genus anacyclus
genus anastomus
genus ancylus
genus andricus
genus anigozanthus
genus anisotremus
genus ankylosaurus
genus anoectochilus
genus anthonomus
genus anthriscus
genus anthus
genus antrodemus
genus antrozous
genus aotus
genus apatosaurus
genus apodemus
genus aporocactus
genus apus
genus aramus
genus araneus
genus arbutus
genus archilochus
genus archosargus
genus arctocebus
genus arctocephalus
genus argentinosaurus
genus argusianus
genus arilus
genus ariocarpus
genus arius
genus artamus
genus artocarpus
genus ascaphus
genus aspalathus
genus asparagus
genus aspergillus
genus asphodelus
genus aspidiotus
genus astacus
genus astragalus
genus astreus
genus atherurus
genus atticus
genus aulacorhyncus
genus aulostomus
genus auriparus
genus australopithecus
genus austrocedrus
genus austrotaxus
genus bacillus
genus balanus
genus barosaurus
genus basiliscus
genus bassariscus
genus bathyergus
genus blaberus
genus blennius
genus blissus
genus boletellus
genus boletus
genus bombus
genus borassus
genus boselaphus
genus botaurus
genus brachinus
genus bradypus
genus bromus
genus brontosaurus
genus browmius
genus bruchus
genus bryanthus
genus bubalus
genus bubulcus
genus bungarus
genus burhinus
genus buxus
genus cabassous
genus cacicus
genus cajanus
genus calamus
genus callicebus
genus callisaurus
genus callistephus
genus callorhinus
genus calocedrus
genus calochortus
genus calycanthus
genus cambarus
genus camelus
genus campephilus
genus camponotus
genus camptosorus
genus campylorhynchus
genus cantharellus
genus capreolus
genus caprimulgus
genus carassius
genus carcharhinus
genus carduus
genus carpinus
genus carpobrotus
genus carpodacus
genus carthamus
genus casmerodius
genus casuarius
genus catharanthus
genus catoptrophorus
genus catostomus
genus cebus
genus cedrus
genus celastrus
genus cenchrus
genus centranthus
genus centrocercus
genus centropomus
genus centropus
genus centunculus
genus cephalopterus
genus cephalotaxus
genus cephalotus
genus cepphus
genus ceratodus
genus ceratosaurus
genus cercocebus
genus cercopithecus
genus cereus
genus cervus
genus cetorhinus
genus chaetodipterus
genus chamaecytisus
genus charadrius
genus cheiranthus
genus chilomeniscus
genus chilomycterus
genus chimonanthus
genus chionanthus
genus chirocephalus
genus chironomus
genus chlamydosaurus
genus chlamyphorus
genus chloranthus
genus chlorophoneus
genus choloepus
genus chondrus
genus chrysobalanus
genus chrysolophus
genus chrysothamnus
genus cinclus
genus circaetus
genus circus
genus cistothorus
genus cistus
genus citellus
genus citroncirus
genus citrullus
genus citrus
genus cladorhyncus
genus clathrus
genus clianthus
genus cnemidophorus
genus cnicus
genus cnidoscolus
genus cocculus
genus coccus
genus coccyzus
genus cochlearius
genus coleus
genus colinus
genus colobus
genus compsognathus
genus conepatus
genus conilurus
genus connarus
genus conocarpus
genus contopus
genus convolvulus
genus coprinus
genus corchorus
genus cordylus
genus coregonus
genus cornus
genus cortinarius
genus corvus
genus corydalus
genus corylus
genus corythosaurus
genus cosmocampus
genus cotinus
genus cottus
genus cracticus
genus crataegus
genus cricetus
genus crocodilus
genus crocodylus
genus crocus
genus crotalus
genus crotaphytus
genus cryptobranchus
genus cryptocercus
genus ctenocephalus
genus cuculus
genus cuniculus
genus cupressus
genus cursorius
genus cyamus
genus cyclophorus
genus cyclopterus
genus cyclosorus
genus cygnus
genus cynocephalus
genus cynopterus
genus cyperus
genus cyprinus
genus cytisus
genus dacrycarpus
genus dactylopius
genus dactylopterus
genus damaliscus
genus danaus
genus dasypus
genus dasyurus
genus daucus
genus decapterus
genus deinocheirus
genus deinonychus
genus delphinapterus
genus delphinus
genus dendrocalamus
genus dendroctonus
genus dendrolagus
genus desmanthus
genus desmodus
genus desmograthus
genus dianthus
genus dictamnus
genus dimocarpus
genus diplococcus
genus diplodocus
genus dipsacus
genus dipsosaurus
genus dipus
genus dorotheanthus
genus dracunculus
genus dromaius
genus dryopithecus
genus dysdercus
genus echinocactus
genus echinocereus
genus echinococcus
genus edaphosaurus
genus edmontosaurus
genus elaeagnus
genus elaeocarpus
genus elanus
genus elaphurus
genus electrophorus
genus elephantopus
genus eleutherodactylus
genus elymus
genus enterobius
genus ephippiorhynchus
genus epinephelus
genus eptatretus
genus eptesicus
genus equetus
genus equus
genus erianthus
genus erignathus
genus erinaceus
genus erithacus
genus erythrocebus
genus eschrichtius
genus etropus
genus eucalyptus
genus eucinostomus
genus euonymus
genus euphagus
genus euphractus
genus euthynnus
genus fagus
genus ferocactus
genus ficus
genus formicarius
genus fraxinus
genus fucus
genus fulmarus
genus fundulus
genus furnarius
genus fusanus
genus fuscoboletinus
genus gadus
genus galeorhinus
genus gallirallus
genus gallus
genus garrulus
genus gasterophilus
genus gasterosteus
genus gastroboletus
genus gempylus
genus genyonemus
genus geophilus
genus gerbillus
genus gerrhonotus
genus gladiolus
genus gonorhynchus
genus gopherus
genus gorgonocephalus
genus grampus
genus grus
genus gymnocladus
genus gymnopilus
genus gypaetus
genus haemanthus
genus haematopus
genus haemoproteus
genus haliaeetus
genus halocarpus
genus haplopappus
genus helianthus
genus helleborus
genus hemachatus
genus hemigalus
genus hemigrammus
genus hemipteronatus
genus hemitripterus
genus herrerasaurus
genus heterocephalus
genus heteroscelus
genus hexanchus
genus hibiscus
genus himantopus
genus hippocampus
genus hippoglossus
genus hippopotamus
genus hippotragus
genus hipsurus
genus holcus
genus holocentrus
genus homarus
genus humulus
genus hyacinthus
genus hybanthus
genus hydnocarpus
genus hydrochoerus
genus hyemoschus
genus hygrophorus
genus hylocereus
genus hyoscyamus
genus hypopachus
genus hyssopus
genus ichthyosaurus
genus ictalurus
genus icterus
genus ictiobus
genus istiophorus
genus isurus
genus ixobrychus
genus jaculus
genus javanthropus
genus juncus
genus juniperus
genus katsuwonus
genus kenyapithecus
genus kobus
genus kyphosus
genus lachnolaimus
genus lactarius
genus lactobacillus
genus lagarostrobus
genus lagopus
genus lagostomus
genus lanius
genus lanthanotus
genus larus
genus lasiurus
genus lathyrus
genus latrodectus
genus laurus
genus lemaireocereus
genus lemmus
genus lentinus
genus leontideus
genus leontocebus
genus leonurus
genus lepidothamnus
genus lepisosteus
genus leptodactylus
genus leptoglossus
genus leptoptilus
genus lepus
genus leuciscus
genus leymus
genus libocedrus
genus limnodromus
genus limulus
genus linanthus
genus lithocarpus
genus litocranius
genus lonchocarpus
genus lophius
genus lopholatilus
genus lophophorus
genus loranthus
genus lotus
genus lufengpithecus
genus lumpenus
genus lupinus
genus lutjanus
genus luvarus
genus lycopus
genus lygus
genus lyrurus
genus macrodactylus
genus macropus
genus macrotus
genus malacothamnus
genus mallotus
genus malopterurus
genus malus
genus malvaviscus
genus mammuthus
genus mandrillus
genus marasmius
genus mastigoproctus
genus megalobatrachus
genus megalosaurus
genus melanogrammus
genus melanoplus
genus melicoccus
genus melicytus
genus melilotus
genus melocactus
genus melophagus
genus melopsittacus
genus melursus
genus menticirrhus
genus mergus
genus merlangus
genus merluccius
genus mesocricetus
genus mesohippus
genus mespilus
genus micrococcus
genus micropterus
genus microstomus
genus microtus
genus micrurus
genus mimus
genus molothrus
genus momotus
genus monocanthus
genus monochamus
genus mononychus
genus morus
genus moschus
genus mullus
genus muntiacus
genus mus
genus muscardinus
genus mustelus
genus mutinus
genus myopus
genus myrmecobius
genus myrtillocactus
genus myrtus
genus mytilus
genus myxocephalus
genus nabalus
genus naemorhedus
genus narcissus
genus nautilus
genus necturus
genus neoceratodus
genus neohygrophorus
genus neolentinus
genus neurotrichus
genus nigroporus
genus nimravus
genus notemigonus
genus nothofagus
genus nothosaurus
genus notophthalmus
genus notoryctus
genus numenius
genus nycticebus
genus nymphicus
genus octopus
genus ocyurus
genus odobenus
genus odocoileus
genus odontophorus
genus oecanthus
genus oestrus
genus oligoporus
genus omphalotus
genus oncorhynchus
genus oniscus
genus ophiophagus
genus ophisaurus
genus opisthocomus
genus orcinus
genus orectolobus
genus oriolus
genus ornithorhynchus
genus orthotomus
genus orycteropus
genus oryctolagus
genus osmanthus
genus osmerus
genus otus
genus ouranopithecus
genus oxylebius
genus oxyuranus
genus ozothamnus
genus pachyrhizus
genus pagellus
genus pagophilus
genus pagrus
genus pagurus
genus palinurus
genus paliurus
genus pandanus
genus panonychus
genus paprilus
genus paradoxurus
genus paranthropus
genus parasitaxus
genus parochetus
genus parthenocissus
genus parus
genus pediculus
genus pedilanthus
genus pediocactus
genus pedionomus
genus pelecanus
genus peneus
genus periophthalmus
genus peripatus
genus perisoreus
genus perodicticus
genus perognathus
genus peromyscus
genus petaurus
genus phacochoerus
genus phaius
genus phalaenoptilus
genus phalaropus
genus phallus
genus pharomacrus
genus phaseolus
genus phasianus
genus philadelphus
genus philaenus
genus philomachus
genus phlebotomus
genus phoeniculus
genus phoenicurus
genus phoxinus
genus phthirius
genus phthirus
genus phyllocladus
genus phylloporus
genus phyllorhynchus
genus phylloscopus
genus phyllostomus
genus picumnus
genus picus
genus pineus
genus pinguinus
genus pinus
genus pipistrellus
genus pipturus
genus pisanosaurus
genus pithecanthropus
genus plagianthus
genus planococcus
genus platanus
genus platypoecilus
genus plautus
genus plecotus
genus plectranthus
genus plesianthropus
genus plesiosaurus
genus pleurosorus
genus pleurotus
genus plicatoperipatus
genus ploceus
genus pluteus
genus pluvianus
genus podargus
genus podilymbus
genus podocarpus
genus poecilocapsus
genus pollachius
genus polyborus
genus polycirrus
genus polydactylus
genus polyergus
genus polyporus
genus pomacanthus
genus pomacentrus
genus pomatomus
genus pomolobus
genus poncirus
genus populus
genus poronotus
genus portunus
genus potorous
genus praunus
genus priacanthus
genus prionotus
genus prociphilus
genus proteus
genus protohippus
genus prunus
genus psaltriparus
genus psephurus
genus pseudococcus
genus pseudocolus
genus pseudotaxus
genus psithyrus
genus psittacosaurus
genus psittacus
genus psophocarpus
genus pterocarpus
genus pterodactylus
genus pteropus
genus ptilocercus
genus ptilocrinus
genus ptilonorhynchus
genus puffinus
genus pygopus
genus pylodictus
genus pyrocephalus
genus pyrophorus
genus pyrus
genus quercus
genus quiscalus
genus ranunculus
genus raphanus
genus raphicerus
genus raphus
genus rattus
genus regalecus
genus regulus
genus rhamnus
genus rhizopus
genus rhus
genus ricinus
genus rivulus
genus roccus
genus rosmarinus
genus rubus
genus ruscus
genus rutilus
genus rypticus
genus sagittarius
genus salvelinus
genus sambucus
genus samolus
genus sapindus
genus sarcobatus
genus sarcocephalus
genus sarcochilus
genus sarcophilus
genus sarcorhamphus
genus sauromalus
genus saurosuchus
genus saururus
genus scaphiopus
genus scarabaeus
genus scardinius
genus sceloporus
genus schinus
genus schizanthus
genus scincus
genus scindapsus
genus scirpus
genus sciurus
genus scleranthus
genus scolymus
genus scolytus
genus scomberomorus
genus scophthalmus
genus seismosaurus
genus seiurus
genus selenicereus
genus sericocarpus
genus serinus
genus seriphus
genus serranus
genus serrasalmus
genus silurus
genus sinanthropus
genus sistrurus
genus sitophylus
genus sivapithecus
genus sonchus
genus sorbus
genus spermophilus
genus sphaerocarpus
genus sphecius
genus spheniscus
genus sphyrapicus
genus spinus
genus sporobolus
genus squalus
genus staphylococcus
genus staurikosaurus
genus steganopus
genus stegosaurus
genus stenocarpus
genus stenopelmatus
genus stenopterygius
genus stenotomus
genus stenotus
genus stercorarius
genus sternotherus
genus sticherus
genus streptocarpus
genus streptococcus
genus strombus
genus strophanthus
genus struthiomimus
genus sturnus
genus styracosaurus
genus suillus
genus sundacarpus
genus sus
genus sylvilagus
genus symphalangus
genus symplocarpus
genus symplocus
genus synercus
genus syngnathus
genus tachyglossus
genus tachypleus
genus tamarindus
genus tamiasciurus
genus tamus
genus tapirus
genus tarsius
genus taurotragus
genus tautogolabrus
genus taxus
genus tethus
genus tetragonurus
genus tetrapturus
genus thamnophilus
genus thiobacillus
genus thryothorus
genus thunnus
genus thylacinus
genus thymus
genus thysanocarpus
genus titanosaurus
genus todus
genus trachinotus
genus trachipterus
genus trachurus
genus tragelaphus
genus tragulus
genus tribulus
genus trichecus
genus trichoglossus
genus trichosurus
genus triturus
genus trollius
genus turdus
genus tylenchus
genus tympanuchus
genus tyrannosaurus
genus tyrannus
genus ulmus
genus uropsilus
genus urosaurus
genus ursus
genus vanellus
genus varanus
genus venus
genus xenicus
genus xenopus
genus xenorhyncus
genus xenosaurus
genus xyphophorus
genus zaglossus
genus zalophus
genus zapus
genus zeus
genus zigadenus
genus zinjanthropus
genus ziziphus
genus zygocactus
genyonemus
genyonemus lineatus
geococcyx californianus
geomys bursarius
geophilus
gerbillus
gerres cinereus
gerrhonotus
gill fungus
ginglymus
gladiolus
glaucomys sabrinus
globus pallidus
glomerulus
gloomy gus
gluteus
gluteus maximus
gluteus medius
gluteus minimus
gnaeus pompeius magnus
gobiesox strumosus
golden barrel cactus
golden delicious
golgi apparatus
gonococcus
gonorhynchus
gonorhynchus gonorhynchus
gopherus
gopherus polypemus
gordius
gorgonocephalus
grampus
grampus griseus
granicus
grass-of-parnassus
grass bacillus
greek chorus
green smut fungus
gregory goodwin pincus
gregory pincus
grison vittatus
gropius
grotius
grus
guarnerius
gulo luscus
gustavus
gustavus adolphus
gymnastic apparatus
gymnocladus
gymnogyps californianus
gymnopilus
gymnopilus ventricosus
gymnosperm genus
gypaetus
gypaetus barbatus
gyps fulvus
gyrus
habeas corpus
habitus
hadrosaurus
haemanthus
haemanthus coccineus
haematopus
haemoproteus
haliaeetus
haliaeetus leucocephalus
haliaeetus leucorhyphus
haliaeetus pelagicus
halicarnassus
halicoeres bivittatus
halicoeres radiatus
halitus
halocarpus
halogeton glomeratus
hamamelid dicot genus
haplopappus
haplopappus phyllocephalus
haplopappus spinulosus
harquebus
hay bacillus
hedgehog cactus
hedgehog cereus
helianthus
helianthus angustifolius
helianthus annuus
helianthus giganteus
helianthus laetiflorus
helianthus tuberosus
helleborus
helleborus foetidus
hemachatus
hemachatus haemachatus
hemerocallis lilio-asphodelus
hemigalus
hemigrammus
hemipteronatus
hemitripterus
hemitripterus americanus
hepadnavirus
hepatitis a virus
hephaestus
heraclitus
herculius
hermaphroditus
herodotus
herpes simplex virus
herpes varicella zoster virus
herpes virus
herpes zoster virus
herrerasaurus
hesperus
heterocephalus
heteroscelus
heteroscelus incanus
hexagrammos decagrammus
hexanchus
hexanchus griseus
hiatus
hibiscus
hibiscus cannabinus
hibiscus elatus
hibiscus esculentus
hibiscus heterophyllus
hibiscus moschatus
hibiscus syriacus
hibiscus tiliaceus
hieronymus
high status
higher status
hilus
himantopus
himantopus himantopus
himantopus himantopus leucocephalus
himantopus mexicanus
hipparchus
hippo regius
hippocampus
hippoglossus
hippoglossus hippoglossus
hippopotamus
hippopotamus amphibius
hippotragus
hipsurus
hocus-pocus
holcus
holcus lanatus
holocentrus
holocentrus coruscus
homarus
homarus americanus
homo erectus
homunculus
honey fungus
horus
hugo grotius
human immunodeficiency virus
human papilloma virus
humerus
hummus
humous
humulus
humulus americanus
humulus japonicus
humulus lupulus
humus
hus
hyacinthus orientalis albulus
hybanthus
hydnocarpus
hydrobates pelagicus
hydrocephalus
hydrochoerus
hydromantes brunus
hydrus
hyemoschus
hyemoschus aquaticus
hygrophorus
hygrophorus caeruleus
hygrophorus marzuolus
hygrophorus sordidus
hygrophorus turundus
hylobates syndactylus
hylocereus
hyoscyamus
hyoscyamus muticus
hyperoodon ampullatus
hypertonus
hypogastric plexus
hypopachus
hypothalamus
hypotonus
hypsiprymnodon moschatus
hyssopus
iambus
iapetus
icarus
ichthyosaurus
ictalurus
ictalurus punctatus
icterus
icterus spurius
ictiobus
ictus
ignatius
ignis fatuus
ignoramus
ileus
imperforate anus
impetus
incubus
incus
indian crocus
indian lotus
indri brevicaudatus
indus
inferior colliculus
inferior rectus
infinitesimal calculus
insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus
integral calculus
intermittent tetanus
introitus
ipsus
irenaeus
iridoncus
iris pseudacorus
issus
isthmus
istiophorus
isurus
isurus glaucus
isurus oxyrhincus
isurus paucus
ixobrychus
ixodes dentatus
ixodes pacificus
ixodes persulcatus
ixodes ricinus
jack-o-lantern fungus
jack nicklaus
jack william nicklaus
jacobus arminius
jaculus
jaculus jaculus
jan hus
janus
jatropha curcus
jatropha stimulosus
javanthropus
jean sibelius
jelly fungus
jesus
johan julius christian sibelius
john amos comenius
john duns scotus
jons jakob berzelius
josephus
judas maccabaeus
juncus
juncus articulatus
juncus bufonius
juncus effusus
juncus inflexus
junin virus
junior status
juniperus
jupiter fidius
jupiter optimus maximus
jupiter pluvius
karelian isthmus
katsuwonus
kenyapithecus
keratoconus
keratonosus
kernicterus
ketoacidosis-resistant diabetes mellitus
ketosis-resistant diabetes mellitus
king oedipus
kipp's apparatus
klebs-loeffler bacillus
knowlton's cactus
kobus
kogia simus
kurus
kyphosus
lablab purpureus
lachnolaimus
lachnolaimus maximus
lacrimal apparatus
lactarius
lactobacillus
lactobacillus acidophilus
lagarostrobus
lagopus
lagopus scoticus
lagostomus
lagostomus maximus
laius
lake trasimenus
lalthyrus tingitanus
lamna nasus
lampris guttatus
lampris regius
lampropeltis getulus
lanius
lanius lucovicianus
lanthanotus
larcenous
larus
larus argentatus
larus canus
larus marinus
larus ridibundus
laryngismus
lasiurus
lassa virus
lateral cerebral sulcus
lateral rectus
lathyrus
lathyrus hirsutus
lathyrus japonicus
lathyrus latifolius
lathyrus maritimus
lathyrus odoratus
lathyrus sativus
lathyrus tuberosus
lathyrus vernus
latrodectus
laurentius
laurus
lazarus
leak fungus
lebistes reticulatus
legal status
lemaireocereus
lemmus
lemmus lemmus
lemmus trimucronatus
lemniscus
lens nucleus
lenticular nucleus
lentiform nucleus
lentinus
lentinus lepideus
leonotis leonurus
leontocebus
leontocebus oedipus
leonurus
lepidothamnus
lepidothamnus laxifolius
lepisosteus
lepisosteus osseus
lepomis gibbosus
lepomis macrochirus
lepomis punctatus
leprosy bacillus
leptocephalus
leptodactylus
leptodactylus pentadactylus
leptoglossus
leptoptilus
leptoptilus crumeniferus
leptoptilus dubius
lepus
lepus americanus
lepus arcticus
lepus californicus
lepus europaeus
leuciscus
leuciscus cephalus
leuciscus leuciscus
leviticus
leymus
leymus condensatus
libocedrus
lichen planus
lichen ruber planus
licinius lucullus
liliid monocot genus
liliopsid genus
limbus
limenitis archippus
limnodromus
limnodromus griseus
limnodromus scolopaceus
limulus
limulus polyphemus
linanthus
linanthus dianthiflorus
linanthus dichotomus
linnaeus
liomys irroratus
liposcelis divinatorius
lithocarpus
lithocarpus densiflorus
litmus
litocranius
lobipes lobatus
lobotes pacificus
loculus
locus
locus classicus
lofortyx californicus
lonchocarpus
lophius
lophius americanus
lophodytes cucullatus
lopholatilus
lophophorus
loranthus
loranthus europaeus
lotus
lotus americanus
lotus corniculatus
lotus tetragonolobus
louis the pious
low status
lower carboniferous
lower status
lucius domitius ahenobarbus
lucius licinius lucullus
lucius licinius luculus
lucius quinctius cincinnatus
lucius tarquinius superbus
lucretius
lucullus
luculus
lufengpithecus
lumbar plexus
lumbosacral plexus
lumbus
lumpenus
lupinus
lupinus albus
lupinus arboreus
lupinus luteus
lupinus subcarnosus
lupus
lupus erythematosus
lutjanus
lutjanus apodus
lutjanus griseus
luvarus
lycaon pictus
lycopus
lycopus americanus
lycopus europaeus
lycopus virginicus
lygus
lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus
lynx rufus
lyrurus
lysimachus
lysippus
lyssavirus
macaca irus
machupo virus
macowanites americanus
macrodactylus
macrodactylus subspinosus
macronectes giganteus
macropus
macropus giganteus
macrotus
macrotus californicus
macrozoarces americanus
magnoliid dicot genus
magnoliopsid genus
magnum opus
magus
malacothamnus
malacothamnus fasciculatus
malleus
mallotus
malopterurus
malopterurus electricus
malthus
malus
malvaviscus
mammal genus
mammal semnopithecus
mammuthus
mammuthus primigenius
mandamus
mandrillus
mandrillus leucophaeus
manus
marasmius
marasmus
marburg virus
marcus annius verus
marcus antonius
marcus aurelius
marcus aurelius antoninus
marcus aurelius valerius maximianus
marcus junius brutus
marcus ulpius traianus
marital status
masticophis bilineatus
mastigoproctus
mastigoproctus giganteus
mastotermes electrodominicus
mastotermes electromexicus
maturity-onset diabetes mellitus
mauritius
mausoleum at halicarnasus
maxillary sinus
meatus
medial rectus
medicago echinus
megalobatrachus
megalobatrachus maximus
megalosaurus
megapodius
melanerpes erythrocephalus
melanogrammus
melanogrammus aeglefinus
melanoplus
melicocca bijugatus
melicoccus
melicytus
melilotus
melocactus
melophagus
melophagus ovinus
melopsittacus
melopsittacus undulatus
melursus
melursus ursinus
menelaus
meniscus
menticirrhus
menticirrhus americanus
menticirrhus undulatus
mergus
mergus albellus
mergus merganser americanus
meriones unguiculatus
merlangus
merlangus merlangus
merluccius
mesenteric plexus
mesocricetus
mesocricetus auratus
mesohippus
mespilus
metacarpus
metatarsus
microcephalus
micrococcus
micromyx minutus
microphallus
micropogonias undulatus
micropterus
microstomus
microstrobos niphophilus
microtus
microtus pennsylvaticus
micruroides euryxanthus
micrurus
micrurus fulvius
miles gloriosus
milvus
mimus
minibus
minimus
minus
missus
mistletoe cactus
mobius
modiolus
modulus
mollusk genus
moloch horridus
molothrus
momotus
momus
monocanthus
monochamus
monocot genus
mononychus olecranus
morelia spilotes variegatus
morpheus
morus
moschus
moschus moschiferus
moss genus
motorbus
mount olympus
mount parnassus
mount vesuvius
mt. olympus
mt. vesuvius
mucus
mugil cephalus
mulloidichthys martinicus
mullus
mullus auratus
mullus surmuletus
mumpsimus
muntiacus
murine typhus
mus
mus musculus
muscardinus
muscardinus avellanarius
muscular tonus
musculus
musculus abductor digiti minimi manus
musculus adductor longus
musculus adductor magnus
musculus anconeus
musculus articularis genus
musculus deltoideus
musculus sartorius
musculus scalenus
musculus sphincter ani externus
musculus sphincter ani internus
musculus sternocleidomastoideus
musculus trapezius
mustela putorius
mustelus
mustelus mustelus
mutinus
mutinus caninus
myenteric plexus
myocastor coypus
myoclonus
myopus
myotis leucifugus
myrmecobius
myrmecobius fasciatus
myrtillocactus
myrtus
mytilus
myxocephalus
myxocephalus aenaeus
myxoma virus
myxovirus
nabalus
nabalus serpentarius
nablus
naemorhedus
nanus
narcissus
narcissus papyraceus
narcissus pseudonarcissus
nasal canthus
nasal meatus
nasal sinus
nasalis larvatus
nautilus
necturus
necturus maculosus
negative reinforcing stimulus
negative stimulus
negus
neoceratodus
neohygrophorus
neohygrophorus angelesianus
neolentinus
neolentinus ponderosus
neomys anomalus
neophron percnopterus
nephrogenic diabetes insipidus
nephrops norvegicus
nereus
nero claudius caesar drusus germanicus
nerthus
nerve plexus
nervus
nervus accessorius
nervus coccygeus
nervus glossopharyngeus
nervus hypoglosus
nervus ischiadicus
nervus oculomotorius
nervus opticus
nervus phrenicus
nervus saphenus
nervus trigeminus
nervus vagus
nestorius
neurotrichus
nevus
nevus flammeus
nexus
nicklaus
nicolaus copernicus
nidus
night-blooming cereus
nigroporus
nigroporus vinosus
nimbus
nimravus
nisus
non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus
nostradamus
notechis scutatus
notemigonus
nothofagus
notophthalmus
notoryctus
notropis cornutus
nous
nucellus
nucleolus
nucleus
numenius
nycticebus
nycticebus pygmaeus
nymphaea lotus
nymphicus
nymphicus hollandicus
nystagmus
obolus
occipital gyrus
oceanites oceanicus
oceanus
ocellus
ochroma lagopus
octopus
oculus
ocyurus
ocyurus chrysurus
odobenus
odobenus rosmarus
odocoileus
odocoileus hemionus
odocoileus hemionus columbianus
odocoileus virginianus
odontaspis taurus
odontophorus
odysseus
oecanthus
oedipus
oengus
oesophagus
oestrus
oligoporus
olympian zeus
olympus
omnibus
omphalotus
omphalus
oncorhynchus
onion yellow-dwarf virus
oniscus
onus
opheodrys aestivus
ophiodon elongatus
ophiophagus
ophisaurus
ophiuchus
opisthocomus
opus
orange peel fungus
orchid cactus
orcinus
orcus
oreamnos americanus
orectolobus
orectolobus barbatus
origanum dictamnus
oriolus
oriolus oriolus
ornithorhynchus
ornithorhynchus anatinus
orpheus
orthomyxovirus
orthopristis chrysopterus
orthotomus
orthotomus sutorius
orycteropus
oryctolagus
oryctolagus cuniculus
osmanthus
osmanthus americanus
osmerus
osmerus eperlanus
ostiarius
otus
ouranopithecus
ovalipes ocellatus
overplus
ovibos moschatus
oxylebius
oxylebius pictus
oxyuranus
oxyuranus scutellatus
oyster fungus
ozothamnus
ozothamnus secundiflorus
pachycephalosaurus
pachyrhizus
pachyrhizus erosus
pachyrhizus tuberosus
pacific walrus
pagellus
pagellus centrodontus
pagophilus
pagophilus groenlandicus
pagrus
pagrus pagrus
pagurus
palinurus
paliurus
pan paniscus
pan troglodytes verus
panax quinquefolius
pandanus
pandanus tectorius
pandion haliaetus
panonychus
panthera pardus
paper nautilus
papio ursinus
papovavirus
pappus
paprilus
paprilus alepidotus
papyrus
paracelsus
paradoxurus
parainfluenza virus
paralichthys dentatus
paralichthys lethostigmus
paramyxovirus
paranasal sinus
paranthropus
parasitaxus
parasitaxus ustus
parietal gyrus
parieto-occipital sulcus
parnassus
parochetus
parophrys vitulus
parthenium hysterophorus
parthenocissus
parus
parus atricapillus
parus caeruleus
parvovirus
passer domesticus
passer montanus
pastor roseus
pastor sturnus
patent ductus arteriosus
patroclus
pavo cristatus
pavo muticus
pavor nocturnus
pearly nautilus
peccari angulatus
pecten magellanicus
pectus
pediculus
pediculus humanus
pedilanthus
pedilanthus bracteatus
pediocactus
pedioecetes phasianellus
pedionomus
pedionomus torquatus
pegasus
pelagius
pelecanus
pelecanus onocrotalus
peleus
pellaea ornithopus
peloponnesus
pemphigus
peneus
penstemon barbatus
penstemon centranthifolius
penstemon cyananthus
penstemon deustus
penstemon dolius
penstemon fruticosus
penstemon serrulatus
penstemon whippleanus
peplus
periarterial plexus
periophthalmus
peripatus
perisoreus
pernis apivorus
perodicticus
perognathus
perognathus flavus
perognathus hispidus
peromyscus
peromyscus eremicus
peromyscus gossypinus
peromyscus leucopus
peromyscus maniculatus
peroneus
perseus
pes cavus
pes planus
petasites hybridus
petasites sagitattus
petaurus
petromyzon marinus
petronius
peyton rous
phacochoerus
phaius
phalaenoptilus
phalaropus
phalaropus fulicarius
phallus
phallus impudicus
pharomacrus
pharsalus
phascolarctos cinereus
phaseolus
phaseolus aconitifolius
phaseolus acutifolius latifolius
phaseolus aureus
phaseolus coccineus
phaseolus lunatus
phaseolus multiflorus
phasianus
phasianus colchicus
philadelphus
philadelphus coronarius
philaenus
philaenus spumarius
philip augustus
philippus aureolus paracelsus
philomachus
phlebotomus
phocoena sinus
phoebus
phoeniculus
phoenicurus
pholis gunnellus
phosphorus
photius
photoblepharon palpebratus
phoxinus
phoxinus phoxinus
phthirius
phthirus
phyllocladus
phyllocladus alpinus
phyllocladus asplenifolius
phylloporus
phyllorhynchus
phylloscopus
phyllostomus
phyllostomus hastatus
physiological nystagmus
picornavirus
picumnus
picus
pileus
pilus
pincus
pineus
pinguinus
pink disease fungus
pinus
pinus strobus
pipilo erythrophthalmus
pipistrellus
pipistrellus pipistrellus
pipistrellus subflavus
pipturus
pipturus albidus
pipturus argenteus
pisanosaurus
pistacia lentiscus
pistacia terebinthus
pitahaya cactus
pithecanthropus
pithecanthropus erectus
pituophis melanoleucus
plagianthus
plagianthus betulinus
plagianthus regius
planococcus
plant genus
plant virus
platanus
platichthys flesus
platypoecilus
platypoecilus maculatus
platypus
platystemon californicus
plautus
plecotus
plectranthus
plectranthus amboinicus
plesianthropus
plesiosaurus
plethodon cinereus
pleurosorus
pleurotus
pleurotus ostreatus
pleurotus phosphoreus
plexus
plexus cardiacus
plexus caroticus
plexus celiacus
plexus choroideus
plexus coccygeus
plexus hypogastricus
plexus mesentericus
plexus myentericus
plicatoperipatus
ploceus
ploceus philippinus
plotinus
plus
pluteus
pluteus aurantiorugosus
pluteus cervinus
pluteus magnus
pluvianus
pluvianus aegyptius
pneumococcus
podargus
podiceps cristatus
podilymbus
podocarpus
podocarpus coriaceus
podocarpus elatus
podocarpus elongatus
podocarpus latifolius
poecilocapsus
poecilocapsus lineatus
poliovirus
pollachius
pollachius pollachius
polyanthus
polyborus
polyborus plancus
polycirrus
polydactylus
polydactylus virginicus
polyergus
polyoma virus
polyporus
polyporus frondosus
polyporus squamosus
polyporus tenuiculus
polyprion americanus
polypus
pomacanthus
pomacentrus
pomacentrus leucostictus
pomatomus
pomolobus
pomolobus pseudoharengus
pomoxis nigromaculatus
poncirus
pongo pygmaeus
pontus
pooecetes gramineus
populus
pore fungus
poronotus
poronotus triacanthus
portunus
positive reinforcing stimulus
positive stimulus
posse comitatus
post-rotational nystagmus
postcentral gyrus
potamogeton americanus
potamogeton crispus
potamogeton gramineous
potamogeton nodosus
potato fungus
potato wart fungus
potato yellow-dwarf virus
potorous
potos caudivolvulus
potos flavus
poxvirus
prairie lotus
praunus
precentral gyrus
predicate calculus
preliminary prospectus
presbytes entellus
priacanthus
priacanthus arenatus
priapus
prickly pear cactus
primus
priodontes giganteus
prionotus
prionotus carolinus
pristis pectinatus
processus coronoideus
prociphilus
prociphilus tessellatus
procyon cancrivorus
prolapsus
prometheus
pronucleus
propositional calculus
propositus
prospectus
proteus
proteus anguinus
protoctist genus
protohippus
provirus
prunus
prunus amygdalus
prunus cerasus
prunus laurocerasus
prunus padus
pruritus
prussian asparagus
psaltriparus
psephurus
psettichthys melanostichus
pseudechis porphyriacus
pseudococcus
pseudocolus
pseudopleuronectes americanus
pseudotaxus
psithyrus
psittacosaurus
psittacus
psittacus erithacus
psophocarpus
psophocarpus tetragonolobus
pterocarpus
pterocarpus indicus
pterocarpus macrocarpus
pterocarpus santalinus
pterocles indicus
pterodactylus
pteropus
pteropus capestratus
pteropus hypomelanus
pterygoid plexus
ptilocercus
ptilocrinus
ptilonorhynchus
ptilonorhynchus violaceus
ptyas mucosus
publius aelius hadrianus
publius cornelius tacitus
puffinus
puffinus puffinus
purple-staining cortinarius
purus
pus
pygopus
pylodictus
pylorus
pyrocephalus
pyrocephalus rubinus mexicanus
pyrophorus
pyrrhus
pyrus
pythius
python molurus
python reticulatus
python variegatus
quercus
quercus prinus
quietus
quintus septimius florens tertullianus
quiscalus
radius
rainbow cactus
ramus
rangifer arcticus
rangifer tarandus
ranunculus
ranunculus bulbosus
ranunculus glaberrimus
ranunculus sceleratus
raphanus
raphanus sativus
raphanus sativus longipinnatus
raphicerus
raphus
raphus cucullatus
raptus
raptus hemorrhagicus
rat's-tail cactus
rat typhus
rattail cactus
rattus
rattus norvegicus
rattus rattus
rebus
rectus
red delicious
redbird cactus
regiomontanus
reglaecus
regulus
regulus regulus
reinforcing stimulus
religious
remus
renal calculus
rendezvous
reovirus
reptile genus
republic of belarus
republic of cyprus
republic of mauritius
respiratory syncytial virus
reticulitermes lucifugus
retrovirus
revolutionary proletarian nucleus
rhabdovirus
rhadamanthus
rhamnus
rhamnus californicus
rhamnus carolinianus
rhamnus croceus
rhamnus purshianus
rhesus
rhibhus
rhincodon typus
rhinonicteris aurantius
rhinoptera bonasus
rhinovirus
rhizopus
rhombus
rhonchus
rhus
rhyacotriton olympicus
ribhus
ricinus
rictus
ring-stalked fungus
ring rot fungus
river cocytus
rivulus
road to damascus
roccus
roland de lassus
romulus
rosid dicot genus
rosmarinus
rotational nystagmus
rotavirus
round ligament of the uterus
rous
rubus
rubus caesius
rubus chamaemorus
rubus cuneifolius
rubus fruticosus
rubus hispidus
rubus idaeus
rubus idaeus strigosus
rubus loganobaccus
rubus odoratus
rubus parviflorus
rubus phoenicolasius
rubus strigosus
rubus ursinus
rubus ursinus loganobaccus
ruckus
rudapithecus
rumex obtusifolius
rumex scutatus
rumpus
rus
ruscus
ruscus aculeatus
russian cactus
rust fungus
rutilus
rutilus rutilus
ruvettus pretiosus
rypticus
sac fungus
sacculus
sacral plexus
sacred lotus
saffron crocus
sagittarius
sagittarius serpentarius
saimiri sciureus
saint athanasius
saint eustatius
saint ignatius
saint irenaeus
saleratus
salivary calculus
salpinctes obsoletus
salvelinus
salvelinus alpinus
sambucus
sambucus ebulus
samolus
samolus floribundus
samolus parviflorus
santa claus
santolina chamaecyparissus
sapindus
sapindus marginatus
sarcobatus
sarcobatus vermiculatus
sarcocephalus
sarcocephalus esculentus
sarcocephalus latifolius
sarcochilus
sarcochilus falcatus
sarcophagus
sarcophilus
sarcorhamphus
sardina pilchardus
sardius
sartorius
saul of tarsus
sauromalus
sauromalus obesus
saurosuchus
saururus
saururus cernuus
saussurea costus
saxo grammaticus
scabious
scalenus
scaly lentinus
scaphiopus
scaphiopus multiplicatus
scarabaeus
scardinius
scardinius erythrophthalmus
sceloporus
sceloporus graciosus
sceloporus undulatus
schinus
schinus terebinthifolius
schizanthus
schlumbergera truncatus
school bus
sciaenops ocellatus
scincus
scindapsus
scindapsus aureus
scipio africanus
scirpus
scirpus acutus
scirpus cyperinus
sciurus
sciurus griseus
sciurus hudsonicus
scleranthus
scleranthus annuus
scolymus
scolymus hispanicus
scolytus
scolytus multistriatus
scomber japonicus
scomber scombrus
scomberesox saurus
scomberomorus
scomberomorus maculatus
scophthalmus
scophthalmus aquosus
scophthalmus rhombus
scorbutus
scorpius
scrub typhus
scyphus
sebastodes caurinus
sebastodes marinus
sebastodes miniatus
sebastodes ruberrimus
seismosaurus
seiurus
seiurus aurocapillus
selar crumenophthalmus
selenarctos thibetanus
selenicereus
selenicereus grandiflorus
seleucus
semnopithecus entellus
senecio aureus
senecio cruentus
senecio glabellus
senior status
sericocarpus
serinus
seriphus
seriphus politus
serranus
serranus subligarius
serrasalmus
serratus
serratus magnus
shamus
shavous
shelf fungus
shiga bacillus
shoestring fungus
shuttle bus
sibelius
siege perilous
sigmodon hispidus
sigmoid sinus
silenus
silurus
silvanus
sinanthropus
singultus
sinus
sinus cavernosus
sinus coronarius
sinus rectus
sinus sigmoideus
sinus transversus
sirius
sistrurus
sistrurus catenatus
sisyphus
sitophylus
sivapithecus
sleeping hibiscus
slow virus
smallpox virus
smiledon californicus
smut fungus
social status
society of jesus
socinus
solar plexus
soleus
solidus
sonchus
sonchus oleraceus
sorbus
sorex araneus
sorex cinereus
sorus
spermophilus
sphacelus
sphaerocarpus
sphecius
spheniscus
spheniscus demersus
sphyrapicus
sphyrapicus varius
spider nevus
spilogale putorius
spinus
spinus pinus
spipistrellus hesperus
spirillum minus
splenius
sponge genus
sporobolus
sporobolus cryptandrus
squalus
st. athanasius
st. eustatius
st. ignatius
st. irenaeus
st. vitus
stagirus
staphylococcus
status
status asthmaticus
status epilepticus
staurikosaurus
steganopus
stegosaurus
stenocarpus
stenocarpus salignus
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stenopelmatus
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stenopterygius
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subthalamic nucleus
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sulcus
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sundacarpus
superior colliculus
superior rectus
supraorbital torus
surplus
sus
susurrus
svante august arrhenius
sweet calamus
sweet scabious
syllabus
sylvanus
sylvilagus
sylvilagus aquaticus
sylvilagus floridanus
symphalangus
symphalangus syndactylus
symphoricarpos orbiculatus
symplocarpus
symplocarpus foetidus
symplocus
synagrops bellus
synercus
syngnathus
syrrhaptes paradoxus
systemic lupus erythematosus
tachyglossus
tachypleus
tacitus
tagus
talipes calcaneus
talipes equinus
talipes valgus
talus
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tamias striatus
tamiasciurus
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tapirus
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tarpon atlanticus
tarquinius
tarquinius superbus
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taurotragus derbianus
taurus
tautogolabrus
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tayassu angulatus
tellus
temporal canthus
temporal gyrus
tenesmus
tenrec ecaudatus
tentorial sinus
terminus
tetanus
tetragonurus
tetrao urogallus
tetrapturus
thaddaeus
thalamus
thalarctos maritimus
thales of miletus
thallus
thamnophilus
thamnophis proximus
thamnophis sauritus
thanksgiving cactus
theodosius
theophrastus
thesaurus
theseus
thiobacillus
thomas malthus
thomas robert malthus
three-ring circus
thrombus
thryothorus
thryothorus ludovicianus
thunnus
thunnus thynnus
thus
thylacinus
thylacinus cynocephalus
thymus
thyrsus
thysanocarpus
tiberius
tiberius claudius drusus nero germanicus
tiberius claudius nero caesar augustus
tibialis anticus
tibialis posticus
tinnitus
titanosaurus
titus
titus flavius domitianus
titus flavius sabinus vespasianus
titus flavius vespasianus
titus livius
titus lucretius carus
titus maccius plautus
titus vespasianus augustus
tobacco mosaic virus
todus
tolypeutes tricinctus
tonus
tooth fungus
tophus
torus
trablous
trachinotus
trachinotus carolinus
trachinotus falcatus
trachipterus
trachipterus arcticus
trachurus
trachurus symmetricus
trachurus trachurus
tragelaphus
tragelaphus eurycerus
tragelaphus scriptus
tragopogon dubius
tragopogon porrifolius
tragulus
tragulus javanicus
tragus
trailing arbutus
transfiguration of jesus
transverse sinus
trapezius
triaenodon obseus
tribe bubalus
tribe synercus
tribulus
trichechus
trichechus manatus
trichoglossus
trichoglossus moluccanus
trichosurus
trigeminus
trinectes maculatus
tringa totanus
trionyx muticus
trionyx spiniferus
trismus
triturus
trolleybus
trollius
tropaeolum majus
tropaeolum minus
true fungus
truncus celiacus
tubercle bacillus
tumor virus
tumulus
tungus
turdus
turdus iliacus
turdus migratorius
turdus torquatus
turdus viscivorus
tursiops truncatus
tylenchus
tympanuchus
tympanuchus pallidicinctus
type genus
typhoeus
typhoid bacillus
typhus
tyrannosaurus
tyrannus
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ulex europaeus
ulmus
umbilicus
uncle remus
unconscious
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upper carboniferous
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urban typhus
urinary apparatus
urinary calculus
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us air force
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usa
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usableness
usacil
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usage
usama bin laden
usance
usbeg
usbek
uscb
usda
use
use immunity
use of goods and services
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used-car
used-car lot
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uselessness
user
user interface
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ushering in
using
using up
uskub
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varicella zoster virus
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vesiculovirus
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writ of habeas corpus
writ of mandamus
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yellow delicious
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young's modulus
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